John and Sara's Blog

Haircut

2009-09-21T15:52:00.002-04:00

I decided back in January 2008, that I wanted to grow my hair out and donate it to Locks of Love. June 2009 it was finally long enough and I was thrilled to have it short again for summer. I enjoyed having it long but it will be awhile before I do that again.

Pictures can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23674&id=1450361928&l=cb7f796582

John's 40th Birthday Party

2009-09-21T15:42:00.003-04:00

In celebration of John's 40th, we threw a birthday fiesta. I was expecting between 60-75 people and end up with well over 100 people showing up. It was a little crazy but a lot of fun. Very grateful for all the help we got from my parents and my friend Marci and her husband Jeff. Never would have pulled it off with them.

We had a beautiful day so we had everything set up in the garage and down the driveway. At one point we had people eating on the grass and on the sidewalk. We also had yard games scattered around the yard.

Menu was of course fiesta themed. We did tacos and chicken fajitas. John decided that no party was complete without meatballs so we also had those. My mom also did fruit salad that went over very well as well. We had a small birthday cake but our main dessert was sugar cookies in the shape of donkies, sombreros and cactuses that I had made and Karen and I decorated.

Me and the birthday boy.

Petoskey

2009-09-21T15:24:00.003-04:00

In the middle of August we took a quick 3 day, 2 night trip up to Petoskey to work some more on the family tree. We spent 2 days going through cemeteries looking for relatives and then the third day we went to the family history center up there. After spending several hours going through microfiche, we were more confused than we were when we started. It seems that no one knew there own last name or their wivess maiden names. Kuberski, Kuberskey, Kubersky, Koboski, Kobsokie...and that's that's just some of the variations of the same last name. It's a mess let me tell 'ya but we are getting there.

A few pictures:

This one was taken at Greenwood where we were trying to find one of the female relatives. We had a list that told us where she should of been but we never did locate her. Thinking it must be unmarked. John is consulting our binder in this pic.

We did a tiny bit of sightseeing at the end of day 2 when we went to a lakeside park. We met a very nice older couple from Ohio that we talked to for awhile. The gentelman very nicely agreed to take our picture, however apparently didn't understand the zoom concept. This is the first heavily cropped version of the picture:

Thankfully, we had my good camera so I was able to crop it enough that you can actually see our faces. :-)

Poor Bear

2009-05-11T16:50:00.005-04:00

It all started with a small sore spot I found on Teddy on a Monday evening. John took Teddy to the vet the next day and this was the msg that I got:

What John was telling me, was that the spot was another dermoid cyst that had presented itself. A dermoid cyst is skin cells that didn't come to the surface in utero and thus the fur grows wherever they end up. Two years ago, Teddy had a really nasty one that was very infected, required two surgeries and a cone for about 3 weeks. This time the vet didn't think it was as bad but it still required surgery. Surgery took place on a Friday and while we were thrilled that this time the cyst was only pea sized, there was almost no infection and no drain was required, he still had to wear the dreaded cone for 10 days.

Poor boy...he was miserable. He kept his cone nice and clean though.

And after a few days, he was able to get in his favorite hammock, seen below, as well as sit in the window in the green room.

9 days later, I was able to convince John to take the cone off and Teddy immediately started cleaning himself...for hours.

Callie got too close and he cleaned her as well.

He now is completely clean and a much happier boy. Still a little bit of time needed for the incision to heal, but we should be good in a few days, as long as he doesn't mess with it too much.

Cute Pocket

2009-05-11T16:43:00.002-04:00

Made this cute pocket for my brother's girlfriend's birthday. I used a template that I bought at the Mega Meet in Novi. It's made but a company called Darcie's and I was really impressed how easily this went together. I filled the pocket with some M&M's, gum, chocolate, Andes Mints and a gift card for DQ. I forgot to take a picture of the back of the pocket, but it has a cute little stand that allows it to stand all on it's own/.

Tile Choices

2009-03-09T19:13:00.005-04:00

Trying to decide between a lighter and darker tile. We are very happy with the wood laminate but are having a hard time between the tiles. The tile will be in the kitchen, laundry room, 1/2 bath and the entry hall.

Option 1 (Click on picture to see bigger image):

Option 2 (Click on picture to see bigger image):

Same options, just next to stainless appliances (Option 1 is first):

Let us know your thoughts!

Enough already!!!

2009-02-23T17:12:00.003-05:00

This was the view Saturday from our front door:

What you don't see in this picture is the driveway, the sidewalk, the street and the neighbors driveway, all covered by snow. This was taken at one of the more clear moments. Most of the day there was LOTS of blowing snow that really effected visibilities By Sunday morning, John and I shoveled out about a foot of snow from the top and bottom of the driveway. The middle and sidewalks probably only had 4-6 inches due to the blowing. We are definitely ready for the snow to be gone and spring to begin!

Azalea Tree

2009-02-23T17:05:00.003-05:00

John gave me this beautiful Azalea tree for Valentine's Day. It started like this:

And currently is in full blom:

And a cute one of Callie sniffing at the flowers while I was taking the above pictures:

She was really more interested in the dirt but I thought these turned out cute. Probably wasn't the smartest thing to let her do though, as John warned me. Now she keeps trying to get on the table to sniff it some more...silly kitty!

Week in Review

2009-02-02T21:43:00.006-05:00

Not much new in this Kuberski Household this week. We had a very nice Superbowl party at John's parents as they had the best TV. We had lots of snacks and munchies and then did tacos and meatballs for the main course. John's mom had to work but was able to join us for the second half of the game. And my parents and my brother and his girlfriend joined us for the first half. Was a very nice way to spend an evening. I took pictures but they are nothing spectactular and I haven't editted any of them yet.

I must say though that I'm VERY happy with my new 50mm lens that John gave me for Christmas. It is quickly becoming my go-to lens. I took some flower pictures for a friend at work and was so happy with the way they turned out. And I think this has to be in my top 5 favorite shots of Teddy Bear. He doesn't look at the camera too often and usually when he does he looks scared, so I was very happy with this one:

So that's about all! Weatherman is predicting 40 by the weekend and we are keeping our fingers crossed. Spring might be in the air...or at least my allergies thing it is. :-)

Random Things

2009-01-26T21:10:00.005-05:00

Okay, so I've been a very bad blogger again. Seriously going to try harder to get at least one new post up a week.

A couple weeks ago, we celebrated Dad's Birthday with the annual pizza party.

Finished a four week cake decorating class this past Sunday. I took the class with our nieces Karen & Rochelle. This was the second level and followed the class that we took almost a year ago. We had a great instructor and really learned alot. Here is my final cake. Please excuse the line of bad basket weave. My rows didn't quite line up and this was supposed to be the back of the cake, however when I put the flowers on I forgot to rotate the cake. :-(

I've been busy doing some paper crafting. I've started the Unity Tour Book - Part 2. I'm working with 686 pictures so this has become quite the project. So far I have 8 pages pretty much done...and many more to go.

Some projects that I have finished:

Thank You Card for a February Swap:

Mother's Day Cards to send to the Troops:

Coupon Book:

Half open:

All the way open with six dividers for coupons:

And two of my favorite pictures from this month:

Teddy Bear Cleaning John's Hair

John Cooking Bacon for BLT's. He makes two piles - one for him(soft) and one for me(crispy).

Christmas Pictures

2008-12-26T17:19:00.002-05:00

I'm busy uploading Christmas Photos to my facebook account and supposedly the link below will let anyone look at the pictures. So let's see if this works.

Christmas pictures from John's family are posted at the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=9727&l=45280&id=1450361928

They are yellow because they were taken by the light of the Christmas tree and I like the effect it gives. Also taken with my new camera lens. I'm really happy with how they turned out.

Enjoy.

October Happenings

2008-12-02T20:42:00.011-05:00

I was just looking through my pictures and realized how far behind I am on postings. So for this entry, I'll cover our busy October.

In early October we took a trip to the East side of the state to use up some gift certificates that we had that were close to expiring. We had a free dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe where we had a great dinner and saw this guy:

Then we headed to our hotel, on the other side of Detroit. Have a few detours due to construction and got a little lost even with our GPS. Saw some seedier areas of Detroit but also got to see this:

It's the old Tiger's stadium. Picture is a little blurry as I wasn't expecting it so it was a really quick picture while moving.

We had a free stay at the hotel as well, from a previous bad stay a year ago for a wedding we were attending. This time was much better and we enjoyed two free drinks in the lounge while we listened to a great local band that I can't remember the name of and then had free breakfast the next morning. We went to Ikea and didn't get anything except a ticket for an illegal left turn. A major downer to our weekend. Thankfully, the officer wrote it so that while we still had to pay the penalty it won't show up on our insurance. After that we headed to Jackson to a cemetary that had some grave sites that John wanted to photograph for the Genealogy he is working on. The cemetary was HUGE which we didn't expect so we weren't as successful as we had hoped but still managed to find a couple that he was looking for. It really was a nice weekend get-away overall.

The weekend after was my birthday. I had a carseat check in the morning and then in the afternoon I was able to open the present John had been teasing me with all week. He had the wrapped box sitting on the kitchen table all week. He kept telling me I could open it if I wanted, knowing full well how tempting that was for me but that I like to open things the day of, so I waited. And the wait was worth it. John gave me a new camera!!! And not just any camera, a Canon Rebel xSI dSLR!! I've been considering one of these for a long time but was having trouble making a final decision and spending the mone. I was thrilled to see this one, plus a memory card, an extra zoom lens (which is wonderful), a carry case and probably most important for clumsy me, an extended warranty.

I've had lots of fun learning how to use it and taking pictures of everything...

The cats:

The plants outside (practicing aperture here..note the blurred background :-)):

My sweetest day flowers from John:

The cookies I made:

And even the kitchen sink! Actually I was trying an online photography challenge on the speed of the shutter. This was on a higher speed where you can see individual drops but you also need a lot more light. John, of course, thought I was more than a little crazy with this one.

Then at the end of October my mom, sister and I took our annual trip to Frankenmuth. We had a great time and found some wonderful deals at Birch Run. This picture is us at dinner at the Bavarian Inn, enjoying an AMAZING chicken dinner.

And at some point during the month, I knitted my very first pair of socks:

Phew! I think that is everything for October. November update coming soon! :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2008-12-01T21:34:00.003-05:00

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Ours went very well. John was very excited to break out his new hat, that he bought in Petoskey back in September. He saw this hat at a little store downtown Petoskey and immediately decided he had to have it. He wore it to work the day before Thanksgiving and the day of, and then to both of our holiday dinners.

Here he is at Lisa's house with the hat on, having dinner. He never sits down to eat...always stands in the kitchen, close to the food. As Mark said on Thursday, it's a tradition now. :-)

I was hoping to get more of an update done today but it just hasn't happen. Watch for more updates coming soon. John bought me a new camera back in October for my birthday and I've been having fun playing around with it so I have a whole bunch of fun pictures to share.

Memories of Warmer Days

2008-11-14T22:32:00.006-05:00

Some fun pictures of a Whitecaps game where the San Diego Chicken was there. We had a great time and definitely go back again if the chicken was there.

John and I at the game:

The chicken playing follow the leader with little chicks:

Trying to distract the pitcher:

Helping the base runner:

And John delivered me a pretzel with a bite missing. Wonder how that happened??

Treat Wrapper Tutorial

2008-11-07T09:21:00.019-05:00

I found this tutorial on splitcoaststampers.com in their resource section. I’ve modified it a little as I found their example to be a bit narrow for my tastes. If you’d like to see the original tutorial it can be found here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/pull_treats/

Here is the finished result:

First a little math and a few measurements

Might be a good idea to write these down as you figure them out:

1. Measure how tall your candy bar is and add 1.75 inches
My Hershey bar was about 6.5 inches tall + 1.75 = 8.25
This will be the height of the main piece of cardstock

2. Measure how wide your candy bar is and add 1 inch
My bar was 2.5 inches + 1 inch = 3.5 inches
This will be the width of your final product

Everyone still with me?

3. This is were it gets smidge more complicated. Take the number you just figured out for the width of your front panel and double it. Have that number? Now add a 1/2 inch.
My example: 3.5 x 2 = 7 7+1/2 = 7.5 inches
This will be the width of your main piece of cardstock.

So to make the pocket I need a piece of cardstock that is 7.5 inches wide by 8.25 inches tall. If you are using a thicker candy bar, you may need to adjust the width of your paper to accommodate.

For the decorative band going around the wrapper, cut a piece of patterned paper or another piece of cardstock at about 2.5 inches tall and about a ½ inch wider than your main piece. So again for my example I made it 8 inches wide.

Alright, the worst is over!! Smooth sailing from here on out.

Step 1
We need to score the bigger piece of paper so we can create the pocket. On your shorter side (7.5 inches in my example), score your paper at the number you came up with in step 2 above (3.5) and then at double that (or the number in 3a). Turn your paper and score it a ½ inch from the bottom. When you are done your paper should look something like this (without the black lines of course):

Score the decorative piece of paper at the same numbers. It should look like this:

Step 2
To create the bottom flap on the larger piece, cut out the parts indicated below. You can corner round the edges of this flap if you would like. If you want to stamp or embellish your cardstock for the pocket at all, this would be a good time to do so.

Step 3
With the front of your paper facing you, add adhesive to the long ½ inch flap

Step 4
Flip your paper over, fold over the ½ inch flap you just added adhesive to and then fold other side over, thus creating an open bottomed-pocket

Step 5
Add adhesive to the small ½ inch flap and fold up, thus closing the bottom of your pocket.

Please excuse how crocked this looks. It's really not...just a bad angle:

Step 6
Create a slot at the top of your pocket for the ribbon to go through. You can either use a punch or I just punched two holes about an inch a part and then just cut a straight line across to connect the top and bottom of the holes. If you are using smaller ribbon, you might want to make your holes closer together.

Step 7
Now we move to the smaller piece of cardstock. Decorate your band however you please. I kept mine really simple. Add adhesive to the back of the 1 inch flap and wrap it around the pocket. While this is already scored, I’ve found I have to kinda play with it, to get it to fit to my satisfaction.

Step 8
Thread your ribbon through the slot you created on the pocket as shown:

Step 9
Place your candy bar between the ribbon and into the pocket. The ribbon will slide down with the bar.

Tie decortive knot or bow:

When the recipient of the pocket pulls the ribbon up the candy bar will come right out.

Petoskey

2008-09-17T19:34:00.006-04:00

John and I took a short trip up to Petoskey this weekend in hopes of having a little mini vacation and also to do some geneological research for the Kuberski family tree. John booked us a very nice room at the Terrace Inn which is an historic bed and breakfast. While the building is definitely old, the stay there was very nice. John and I would definitely go back. John wants to stay in the haunted room next time though. We'll see. A few pictures of the outside of the inn, one of John and I together and a picture of part of our room.

So, we headed up to Petoskey in the rain on Saturday afternoon. It rained all the way up there, sometimes harder than others but we made pretty good time. We checked into our room and then went to a very nice restaurant called the City Park Grille for dinner. After that it was already after 9 so we just went back to our room and crashed.

The next morning we went to church at St. Francis. The church is beautiful and has amazing architectural details. Father Denny was very nice as well and let me take whatever pictures I wanted from pretty much wherever I wanted. The service was a alright. The parishoner's children were all over the place. Father Ed would have had a fit! It's a much more laid back atmosphere than what we are used to.

After church we went back to our room and then for a quick walk to a nearby beach before it started to rain some more.

We stayed in our room for awhile and then finally around 3 we went and had lunch and just decided to brave the rain and did some shopping while we were downtown. John found a very cool hat for Thanksgiving but I'll save the details of that until the holiday. We scoped out St. Francis cemetery just to see what we would be workign with and we were glad we did. It gave us a better idea of what we needed so that we could get a lot accomplished on Monday. We also made a quick stop at Greenwood Cemetery, which is HUGE. It's over a 100 acres and a beautiful setting. We actually found a few stones we were looking for and then headed back to the Inn. We spend most of the rest of the night making lists of people to look for the next day at St. Francis.

This is a view from the front of St. Francis Cemetery

Monday morning we woke up to a gorgeous day. After breakfast we headed over to St. Francis and began to work our way through the entire cemetary, taking pictures of every stone that was related to John's family in some way. This also meant cleaning a lot of them and some of these stones have not been cared for in some time. We were prepared for this and had brought a bucket, gloves and scrup brush. We took over 150 pictures in just that cemetary alone. We made really good time though and were done by around 1:30. After that we head back to Greenwood to talk to their office staff about the best way about going about finding names at that location. The staff there were VERY helpful and even gave us a printed out list of everyone in their cemetery!! So with that list in hand we spent about another hour there before heading into down for a little more shopping before heading home. We left Petoskey around 4 and made it home by 8, which included a spot in Cadillac to have Ponderosa for dinner. We so miss having one in our area so this was a very nice treat for us. I'm sure the waitress thought we were crazy when I asked her to take our picture but it was special for John and I.

Overall a very nice mini vacation. We now have to sort through all the photos and attach them to the person's record in our family tree software but that won't be too bad and we were able to get quite a bit of information we didn't have so it was very successful as well.

Cards and Layouts

2008-07-31T12:13:00.002-04:00

It's been awhile since I've posted some of my cards and layouts. Here's a little of what I've been up to this past month.

Welcome card for our new neighbors

For a swap I'm in. The center part is stamped and then filled in with colored pencils

For our local PD after helping at our neighborhood block party. I did a similiar one for the fire department

Baby card with a unique fold technique

A few Layouts of the cats:

And one I finally finished of some older pictures

A New Home for Olivia

2008-07-28T21:03:00.005-04:00

After a month with little Olivia, we hope we found her furever home today. One of my mom's co-workers was looking for a kitten and this seemed like a purr-fect match. So even though it was sad to let her go, we know that this is what was best for her and we are very excited for her. She has a great new family with kids to give her tons of attention as well as an older feline sibling. First reports from her new momma are very positive. She had seen the other cat and hadn't hissed (something she did every time she saw Callie and Teddy), found her litter box and was avidly exploring her new house and stopping by the kids to get lots of love and attention. We are so happy for her and hope to get updates (and maybe even the occassional picture) on her every now and then!!

Olivia's last moments at our house.
Sitting on her cardboard box on top of all her toys:

Olivia meeting her new momma:

Emily's Home!!!

2008-07-28T00:46:00.002-04:00

In answer to many, many prayers, Emily has been re-united with Nathan tonight. He caught her in one of the live traps he's been setting. She looks pretty good besides one bump on her head and she's lost quite a bit of weight but right now it seems all should be well. Thanks to everyone who said a prayer for this little one.

New Toy for John

2008-07-23T21:08:00.004-04:00

For a summer and a half, John's dad has been carting his lawn mower between our house and theirs because someone forgot to put oil in ours and blew all the seals. John kept saying he would repair it, but I was determined he was getting a new riding mower. With him working as many hours as he does and cutting two yards, I decided he definitely needed one, so after a little research, I bought him one.

Say good-bye to the old one:

And hello to the new John Deere LA 135 LE:

The 135 was this year's limited edition and has a dual cylinder engine and a few extra features and more horse power than the others in the LA line. I was looking at the 115 but after taking John to look at them there really was no comparision and it was definitely worth the extra money. The Fillmore John Deere Dealer that we went to only had 2 of the 135's left so we put a hold one on Tuesday. Thank goodness we did because when we went back to pick it up on Saturday, they had sold out of the 135's.

John didn't get any time to play with it on Saturday so on Sunday he drove it over to his sister-in-law's to try it out on their grass. He was very impressed on how well it did and I was happy to see how quickly he could get it cut. Here he is on the tractor for his first cutting:

So here's to much happy lawn mowing in the future!!

Prayers Please

2008-07-19T21:20:00.003-04:00

Today, my brother's cat, while sitting outside on my dad's lap, just suddenly took off. She's always been really good before and we have no idea what got into her. They almost caught her twice before she disappeared into a wooded area full of weeds. My brother is completely devasted and wondering why all he ever has is bad luck and why he has to fight and struggle for everything. The whole family is pretty upset by this incident. If you could please pray that little Emily finds her way home, very soon, we'd be very appreciative!!!

You know you are a grown-up...

2008-07-07T11:22:00.004-04:00

...when you get excited about a new household appliance.

This beauty is the GE® Energy Star® 25.8 Cu. Ft. French Door Refrigerator with Icemaker and is arriving at the Kuberski house on Thursday. Our current one is on it's last leg and currently has an awful smell that we can't figure out where it's orginating from. Saturday John and I went out to Home Depot and after an hour of looking at different options decided on this one. I'm excited about the deli tray spot and John likes the Clean Steel finish. It's significantly larger than our old one so hopefully won't dwarf the kitchen too much. And on top of all that, John is looking at new matching microwaves now as he wants to get rid fo the one we have and the cart it's sitting on.

Meet Olivia

2008-07-02T12:05:00.004-04:00

Olivia Mae to be exact. She's the kitten John and I rescued last week. We brought her to the humane society on Monday and found out Friday that because she had an upper respiratory infection they would have put her to sleep. We couldn't have that, so John went back and got her and I took her to the vet on Saturday. Dr. Henn said it was a pretty mild cold so she didn't want to put her on any medicine, just to let the virus run it's course. She's been living in our basement since then. She's having some tummy troubles that we are hoping will correct themselves soo but she is the sweetest little thing. The vet thought she was about 6-8 months old and she's already been spayed. So someone took care of her at one point, however we can't locate who. She loves to explore everything, including the vets office, which was a first for me. And she absolutely loves to sit on your lap. She purrs almost non stop. I'm definitely getting attached but realize we just can not have three cats. John and I are really hoping to find her a good home. Here's a few more pics:
This one is a little blurry but shows her size. At the vets office she was 7lbs 10oz.

Sitting on Daddy's lap:

Getting sleepy in the chair:

And a nice close-up:

So if you know anyone who would love to adopt this little girl, please let us know.

ETA - Sorry this pictures are a little pixelated. Not sure why. Could be because I didn't upload directly. I'll try to get them clearer at a later date.

Car Seat News Clip

2008-06-30T09:23:00.000-04:00

With Michigan's new booster seat law going into effect, channel 8 did a nice piece on getting your seats checked and I'm in it several times. If you'd like to take a peak you can see the video here:

http://video.woodtv.com/?video_id=12741

I'm the one in brown with navy blue capri's. :-)

Hi California Cousins & a foster kitty

2008-06-22T21:45:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to say hi to all our relatives in California. From all the phone calls it sounds like everyone is having a great time. So here's a picture of John and Randy saying hi to Mom and Dad, Uncle Frank and Aunt Sharon, Sandy, Lori and families. And of course I say hi as well but someone had to take the picture. :-)

And who is John holding? No that's not our cat Teddy. About a month ago, our neighbors came over because they found a cat playing in there bushes. It was an adorable orange tiger who was really friendly. Seemed well cared for so we left it being hoping it would find it's way back to where it belonged. Today John calls me from Lisa's house down the street and said he had a really friendly orange tiger come up to him while working in the yard. I go over and sure enough it's the same cat. So, John and I decided to house it in the garage over night with food water and a safe place to sleep and tomorrow John will take it to our vet to see if it has a microchip and if it doesn't, we'll then bring it to the humane society. This little one is super sweet, purrs almost nonstop and really wants to be in the house. Would make anyone a wonderful pet.

Hopefully we'll have a happy ending to this story very soon!

Storms

2008-06-09T22:20:00.003-04:00

The last couple days we've had some pretty severe weather. Lots of rain, wind, thunder and lightning. I got caught driving in some downpours Friday afternoon that created horrible visibilities. I've driven in winter storms where I could see better than on Friday with the sheets of rain coming down.

Saturday evening we got another set that came through and we could see the storms moving in from our front porch. John went and sat outside to watch them, and while I'm not a storm person I ventured out with the camera to get a few pictures. We did get quite a show with the clouds moving and large bolts of lightening. With my little Kodak camera it was hard to get any really good shots. Most of them turned out pretty dark like this one, which has been lightened significantly in Photoshop so you can see a little detail:

However as I was taking a few pictures, several huge bolts of lightning struck and made this picture look like it was broad daylight, when it really was quite dark out. This picture was seriously taken just moments after the one above.

And then this picture was my crowning moment, I actually captured a lightning bolt. It's the only one out of probably 30 that I took that showed the actual lightning.

And then finally one of us storm watchers. John took this and he looks very serious but I love how the picture turned out.

Stay safe everyone!!

Helicopter Crash

2008-05-29T22:25:00.004-04:00

Today at just after 11am one of the AeroMed helicopters crashed while doing training excerises. Story details can be found here:

http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8395273

I was in the building at the time of the crash and help in the Incident Command center so I spent the entire day there, scribing for the team. It was a very long and stressful day but everyone survived the crash and the hospital staff all did an AMAZING job. All the training and drills really paid off.

Just wanted to let everyone know that all is okay and I'm fine.

A few more pictures of Ludington

2008-05-19T09:24:00.002-04:00

I'm Home

2008-05-17T11:32:00.005-04:00

It was a fun week in Ludington, but I'm glad to be home. We had a great time and I will never think of the phrases "Call me" and "10 feet" the same way. :-)

Here are some of the photos from the class:
Class Photo:

Instructor Team:

Random shots:

The top left and bottom right are two of the students with their little ones at the carseat check. Aren't they adorable?

And the best news? The entire class passed and we now have 12 new technicians and one new instructor in the state of Michigan!

Ludington

2008-05-13T22:23:00.002-04:00

First day of CPS class here in Ludington. Everything went well and I finally feel I'm getting the feel of the new curriculum. This due in large part because the team I'm teaching with is great and really has things in order. We were even out a little early today! We've already found some great restaurants. Had some amazing ribs tonight for dinner. We also took a quick walk on the pier here along the beach. Was really windy but was a great photo op.

Two quick pictures before I head off to bed for a busy day tomorrow:

Me with most of the instructor team. Diane is behind the camera in this one:

A cool picture of the lighthouse at the end of the pier:

It is FINISHED!!

2008-05-05T17:04:00.003-04:00

I started working on this blanket for our niece Rochelle, back in January, when I thought her due date was in May. Her due date was actually April and then little Alana decided to arrive 2 weeks early, so I needless to say I did not have this done on time. I finished it a week ago and I think Alana is already a month old so I'm excited to give it to Rochelle and Andy tomorrow.

The stitch is a fan and feather pattern and was a lot of fun to knit.

Cake Decorating

2008-04-26T15:06:00.006-04:00

So I've decided to take on another hobby. This is something I've wanted to do for awhile but never got around to it. Then a few weeks ago, Karen (our niece) called and asked if I wanted to take a class at Hobby Lobby with her and Rochelle. It meets once a week for 4 weeks on Wednesdays. This worked out perfectly for me so I said yes. It's a lot of work, because we have to bring frosted cakes to class so there is some homework but it's worth it. I've been very happy with the results from the first 3 classes. Next week is our final one and I definitely feel like I've learned a lot.

Here's my cake from class 2:

And my cupcakes from class 3:

We learned how to do these cute little clowns in class3:

Callie loved the one I let her have for her 5th birthday:
No, she didn't eat the whole thing. Just licked a bunch of frosting off. She has a huge sweet tooth, just like her mommy. :-)

7 Random Facts

2008-04-13T20:13:00.003-04:00

I was tagged by Lan to list 7 Random facts about myself so here goes:

1. I have 6 toes on my right foot.
2. I can not keep house plants alive no matter how hard I try. Amazingly I have 2 right now that have made it 4 months...has to be a new record.
3. I get very grouchy if I get hungry. People who know me well, know to find food for me when I say I need to eat.
4. I'm a librarian who is very organized at work but can't keep my scrapbook organized no matter how hard I try.
5. I can communicate very basically in Spanish.
6. I am a very passionate car seat technician and instructor. (Yeah MI passing the new Booster seat law!!)
7. I love listening to audiobooks on my Mp3 player. I never listened to them on CD or tape but love them in this format.

I know I'm supposed to tag 7 other people but I think everyone who reads this has already been tagged so this one will stop here. Thanks Lan for tagging me!

Random Pictures

2008-04-13T20:03:00.001-04:00

From my Shack Trip in mid-March. We had a great time and I got a ton accomplished:

Me scrapping at my table. Not a great picture. Have to remember to find something thinner to layer under that shirt!

One of my favorite layouts I did while there:

A very cute picture of Gabriele that Randy took while visiting the butterfly exhibit at Frederik Meijer Gardens:

And finally two of Callie and Teddy playing:

Putting a paw on Callie's head is Teddy's way of keeping Callie from attacking:

Didn't work this time though. Almost looks like they are hugging if I didn't know they were play fighting with each other:

Easter

2008-04-13T20:01:00.003-04:00

Just a few pictures from Easter:

Me and John at Lisa's House:

Gabriele (Randy's Daughter) with the Easter Bunny:

Ice

2008-04-13T19:39:00.004-04:00

Here are the long promised pictures of the ice at the end of our driveway. Thankfully the ice is now gone, but when it first started to warm up, we decided it would be a good idea to start chipping off all the ice that had built up. We had no idea how thick it actually was. John started chipping at it and it came up in large pieces that were over 4 inches thick. While we did get all the ice off the driveway, quite a bit was built up on the road, so we had a large drop off when pulling into the driveway. We had to pull in really slowly or we would bottom out our cars.

Driveway with pieces of ice chipped up:

One of the thicker pieces of ice:

John removing some of the larger pieces:

Happy Easter

2008-03-23T22:07:00.004-04:00

We just got back from our Easter celebrations and it's after 10 p.m. here but as promised to SANDY and all our Californian family, I give you Heath Dessert:

Ingredients:
2 packagees of lady fingers
2 8oz containers of cool whip
1 package of Heath Candy Bits

Combined cool whip and Heath bits together in large bowl, setting aside a handful of heath bits to garnish the finished dessert. In a 9x13 pan, layer one package of lady fingers. Put half of cool whip mixture over the lady fingers. Layer second package of lady fingers on top followed by remaining cool whip. Sprinkle heath bits to garnish. To irritate second cousins, particularly Karen, offer to put chocolate pudding in the middle or garnish top with words spelled out with chocolate. :-)

Next blog entry will include ice pictures a hopefully a few more pictures from Easter.

Unity Tour Scrapbook

2008-03-19T15:26:00.003-04:00

I made a scrapbook for an officer I do carseats once in awhile to help her raise $$ for the upcoming unity tour. She was thrilled with it and while I was very happy to give it to her, I had to take pictures to remember it by.

http://www.slide.com/r/QiWXL79M2j9OUnoctHT9xqWZ0JTc42vs?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

It never ends!!!

2008-02-10T18:44:00.000-05:00

Snowed in again. Temps are -25 with wind chill. There is a 100 degree difference between us and our cousins in California. John is just starting to shovel out the driveway. He can't stay out long due to the extreme cold temperatures but he's managed to get a few of the drifts out of the driveway. The State Police have closed different sections of the highway all day. At one point I-96 was closed from here to Muskegon. Over 40 miles! They are advising people to stay home unless it's an emergency. I can't remember when it's been this bad. I've stayed inside all day working on the Police Unity Tour scrapbook which is slowly getting closer to completion. I would help John shovel but I conveniently broke my shovel yesterday. :-)

Pictures from today:

Getting ready to tackle the drifts

The drifts. These are knee high on John. And if you look just above and behind John's car you'll see the very top of our mailbox. That is how high our snow piles are right now and that's before John shovels that part.

Making a little progress.

And a few of John's car which hasn't moved all day. Our winds have been really strong and the snow has frozen in a couple inch overhang off the side of the car.

Going down to one...

2008-01-23T11:09:00.001-05:00

One job that is. After working two jobs for almost 5 years now, I have decided that it's time for me to give up my job in Holland. I've loved being there and love the people there but it's time for me to slow down a little. The driving this winter has not been great and it's not fair to other staff to have me calling in all the time. Plus this will open up my schedule to more opportunities as far as my car seat stuff and also my scrapbooking. Looking forward to more time at home with John as well.

And to leave you with a picture for the day:

This is from Dad's Pizza party on the 13th for his birthday.
Back row is Joe, Marie, Julie and Laurie
Karen and Lisa are in front of them.
Me with my back to the camera (my hair acutally looks nice though if I do say so myself)
And of course Dad with his Cake
Oh and Mom is the one on the very right edge of the photo.

Do you want one??

2008-01-11T22:16:00.001-05:00

John was very excited to bring home this M&M that he got from a merchandiser at the store.

(Please excuse John's hair do..it's courtesy of Teddy.)

Don't you want one for your house?

A few new favorite pictures & Knitting

2008-01-11T21:56:00.000-05:00

Two new favorites of Callie and Teddy:

And my new hobby...knitting. So far I've completed a baby blanket, a scarf for my sister and am working on a scarf for myself.

Don't you wish you were here?

2007-12-23T15:41:00.001-05:00

Lovely weather we are having today. Looks like it's going to be a white Christmas much to my dismay. This morning we started with thunderstorms, pouring rain, sleet and maybe some hail. Now we have snow coming down and really strong winds. The local news website says 74,000 are without power right now with an estimated restoration time of midnight Christmas Eve night. My parents lost their power for about an hour but have since gotten it back. We are just praying we don't loose ours. Thankfully most of our power lines are underground so unless they loose a transformer (which is entirely possible) we should be okay. Winds are between 20-30 mph with frequent gusts up to 40 mph. Trees are down all over the place. Snow is suppose to start coming down harder at any time now and continue until morning with up to 5 inches by us, more in some areas. Here's a few pictures from our back deck.

This one was taken earlier and shows our neighbors trampoline standing straight up thanks to a gust of wind. Amazingly it hasn't flipped over yet. Wind must have planted it pretty good into the ground when it set it upright.

And then about an hour later I took these. Visiabilities way down already and you can see the wind gusting. Notice in the first one ou can't even see the trampoline through the blowing snow.

Don't you wish you were here??

Thanksgiving

2007-12-04T15:27:00.000-05:00

Just a few photos to share from Thanksgiving.

This was the view from my grandparents house...very appropriate for Thanksgiving.

Then a few from dinner at Steve and Lisa's.

Me and John:

Julie and Gabriele

Looking for toothpicks lost in the Heath dessert...again.

Randy cleaning off the turkey

and his new best friend..Karen and Joe's dog Beasley

I know it's been forever...

2007-11-26T11:19:00.000-05:00

It has been a long time since I've blogged but I'm going to make a renewed effort again as not to get in trouble with certain CA cousins. :-) So without further ado I bring you...Turkey Cookies!

Right before Thanksgiving I had Gabriele over to help me create these. The recipe is on the Pillsbury website and was really pretty easy. A little difficult to squeeze the orange frosting for small hands but Gabriele did a great job and we both had a lot of fun.

Up next is Christmas cookies and Gabriele has asked for Elvf cookies. I'm still looking to find such a cookie cutter.

THANK YOU AUNT GENNY!!!

2007-04-03T21:32:00.000-04:00

I came home from work today to find a package containing this:

It's a cricut!!! My own personal die cutter. So exciting. I had been debating about getting one but had held off and my aunt just sent me own. I was shocked!! Haven't been able to play with it yet but I'm definitely going to need some cartridges now. It comes with the George one which looks like a great font and has some shapes like flowers as well that you can cut out. Can't wait to start creating LO's with it!! Thank you so much Aunt Genny! It was a great surprise.

LO's from the Shack

2007-03-21T13:58:00.000-04:00

Had a wonderful time at my annual scrapbook weekend at the shack. It was wonderful as always, much need and tons of food and fun.

Here are some of the 17 pages (a new record for me) that I created.

This was John's favorite from the weekend:

My favorite:

A few more LO's

2007-02-05T14:55:00.000-05:00

Most are from my class. A few are some that I just finally got finished.

New Layouts

2007-01-30T11:00:00.000-05:00

I've been busy this month taking an online class at www.nyscraps.com where I do one scrapbook layout (LO) every 48 hours. I've amazed myself that I've stayed caught up so far and have met every deadline and there is only two more LO's to go!! Here are a few I've done so far: If you click on the image, you should be able to see a bigger image of each LO.

Sad

2006-12-12T16:06:00.000-05:00

Sunday John and I came home from my grandpa's to find this:

Sadly someone had vandalized our display. The arch was a total loss and penguin isn't usable any longer either, plus whoever it was stole another penguin that looked just like him before the beating. Very upsetting as it just seemed so violent. So we took down almost all the lights in the yard related to the arches and pathway and brought it several of the other small yard ornaments. For now we'll leave the lights on the house up. Not sure what we are doing yet with the inflatables as the officer who took the report mentioned that they had some trouble of people slashing them. We'll have to check all ours and then decide.

Meet the Grizwolds - Kuberski Style

2006-11-28T13:22:00.000-05:00

First here are 4 out of 5 inflatables. I forgot to take a picture of the Santa. Penguin is in the back yard. Moose and Globe are in the front on the garage side. Santa is in the front, sun room side and scooby is in the side yard, sun room side.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y289/burgie11/Inflatables.jpg

And then here's the rest. Top picture is the front yard from the garage to the side yard. It's hard to tell but all the lights form a pathway from one sidewalk to the other (we are a corner lot) with lighted arches at both ends. Then there are some plastic figures, a train and a bunch more lighted things along it. Our neighborhood kids are loving being able to walk through it. So cute. The next picture down is the back yard with 3 trees, penguin and mama and baby bear. Mama bear is also pictured top right. To the right of that picture is one of the snowmen that run along the garage, which is pictured directly below him. The picture to the left of that is again the front of the house, along the lighted path with a picture of the train that's along side it. Behind you can see the inflatable santa and the edge of Scooby on the left hand side. Also the lights around the sun room and a few of the lighted candy canes by the front walk. Under that are the trees that go along side the garage. This pic is taken from the back yard looking toward the front. The Snow Globe and Mosse are in front of these. Then Finally are some of the small trees that are behind santa going towards scooby. What I didn't get pics of are the lights on the house, one the deck and the lighted rope latter that goes from up the deck, with characters on it so it looks like Santa and his elves climbing up.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y289/burgie11/Lightssmallversion.jpg

Landscaping

2006-11-13T15:11:00.000-05:00

And catching up on one other big event. We had our yard landscaped in September and it turned out so well.

The front:

The back and side:

Behind the garage:

Another view from the side:

Alongside the garage:

The Japanese Maple right outside the front door:

Some of the stuff you can't see from the pictures is that there are 4 red maples along the road between the curb and the sidewalk. And instead of doing wood chips we used a type of coral rock in most of the beds which really turned out nice. You can kind of see it in the pictures of the pine trees. The guys from Everett's did an amazing job and we can't wait to see what everything looks like in the spring!!

An Addition to our Family

2006-11-13T14:52:00.000-05:00

Meet Teddy :

He's a 2.5 year old long haired orange tiger and he's a sweetheart. He came home at the beginning of October and hid under the bed in the spare bedroom most of the time. We introduced Callie on day 3 and while Teddy was interested in his new sister, Callie wanted nothing to do with Teddy. The next day while John was home, he left the bedroom door open and slowly Teddy began to venture out and Callie, would follow him around but wouldn't get too close, as shown here:

A few days later though we were to this point:

And it's been all good from that point on. They groom each other and rough house like crazy. They love to chase each other around the house and tackle each other. It's so funny to watch, even though I'm a bit paranoid they are going to hurt each other. We also find them curled up together in a few different places. They really are cute together and Teddy's been a great addition to our family.

The floor is in!!

2006-08-14T12:19:00.000-04:00

After a very long day for John, the basement floor is in. It took an entire Sunday with the help of our friend Dale and John's brother Randy but it looks awesome. Only a few minor glitches. John accidentally cut of the part that you need to snap the next piece into on one piece for a little built in shelving area and didn't realize it until he had laid three more rows. Thankfully Randy was over and they pulled the the needed pieces and fixed it. John still has to do the trim and a few little pieces but the majorirty is DONE!!

One more picture

2006-06-20T09:53:00.000-04:00

Here I am with the rest of the instructors. In the back: Matt, Greg, and Angela. In the front: Jen, Heather, Me and John.

I had so much fun with this group and they were all wonderful in giving me suggestions and encouragement. I especially want to thank Heather for all her help. She's the one who encouraged me to get my paperwork in to become an instructor, made sure I submitted everything correctly and took care of a lot of other details!! I definitely owe her one!

Good News

2006-06-19T15:21:00.000-04:00

Lots of good news around our house lately. First, I spent last week in Howell, MI training to become a Child Passenger Safety Instructor. I passed and as soon as the paperwork is completed I will be certified to train new technicians. I had to have a wisdom tooth the morning that I left but other than that the trip went extremely well and the other instructors were very encouraging and lots of fun! The picture is of me teaching on Wednesday and we were discussing proper use of the harnesses.

On the home front, we were thrilled to finally recieve our flooring. Home Depot called Saturday morning and we picked it up that evening. We have to fix a small water leak from the wall were the outdoor hose attachment is and then after that we will lay the floor. John laid out one box and it looks awesome.

And my flowers and garden is flourishing. I have tomoatoes the size of golfballs already. I staked them yesterday. My lillies are looking just wonderful. I can't believe how much they expanded in one year. For those of you who don't know these were given to me from a very dear friend who grows them. And the best news of all is that my allium has finally bloomed after 3 years of trying!! It got really close last year and this year it actually survived and has two blooms. Here are pictures:

Another Delay

2006-06-01T09:55:00.000-04:00

Home Depot called yesterday an there is another delay in getting our flooring. First it was backordered until the end of May and then June 5 and now Pergo says it will be going into production June 9 and shipping out June 13th. We don't know how long it will take to get here from there but hopefully by the end of the month!!

Our Anniversary

2006-05-17T11:53:00.000-04:00

Monday was our second anniversary. At times it's amazing how fast time goes by and other times it feels like it's been a lot longer...in a good way. We had orginally decided not to do gifts or just do something small, as we just purchased the basement flooring. John didn't listen and totally spoiled me. He sent me this beautiful and enormous bouquet of flowers. He had it delivered to me at work and it made me smile the entire afternoon. Then when I got home he had a card and a gift waiting for me. The gift was a beautiful mystic topaz ring that I had seen in an ad and really liked. It was a wonderful suprise...even though he's in trouble for not sticking to the agreement. He said he mis-interpretted small to mean small in size not expense. Sure! Anyways, we decided to go to Logan's for dinner which was really nice. John had a chicken sandwich and I had the porkchops. Yummy!! After dinner we went to our favorite Hallmark and I bought John some new beanie babies he had been wanting. I'll have to post a picture of them at some point. Then we had the great excitement of spending an hour at the store so that John could get ahead on his ordering as they had a big store evaluation on Tuesday morning and wasn't sure how much time he was going to have. I did some stocking while he ordered and we only stayed for an hour. We came home and watched the Piston's blow game 4 against the Caveliers and then went to bed early. A very nice day all and all. Here are two more picture, one fo the flowers close up and one of the ring sitting in a lilly.

Mother's Day

2006-05-17T11:48:00.000-04:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. Callie was very sweet and gave me a card from her and several of the cats at the shelter, a bouquet of roses and a scrapbook magazine that I had been wanting. Sorry the picture is bad. I was trying to get it in natural lighting but ended up with shadows.

Our day seriously flew by, as we started with having Sunday coffee with my grandparents. Then visited John's parents to see the new bedroom suite and to see John's mom. Dropped John off at the store for an hour, then back to my grandparents for lunch. Followed by dinner at Steve and Lisa's. A very busy day but wonderful to spend so much time with family.

Lots of Updates

2006-05-08T10:13:00.000-04:00

Wow!! It's been a long time since I've updated!! John and I have both been really busy! In April we had a wonderful visit from his Uncle Frank and Aunt Sharon. Sadly it was because of the loss of Aunt Sharon's father but we definitely enjoyed seeing them and spending some very memorable time with them. Callie turned 3 on April 25th. We had a small party for her on the 27th but she decided she was a) scared fo the birthday banner and wouldn't go in the living room and b) anti-social and pretty much stayed up stairs the entire time. Silly kitty. It was still a nice time with my parents, John's mom and Randy stopped by when he got out of work.

As far as the basement is concerned, we are making more progress. John has finished putting in all the stairs and it turned out really nice. He still wants to add some trim but they look great and are so much nicer than the old ones. I'll try and update with pictures soon! Also, we took the leap last weekend and ordered our Pergo floors for the main area of the basement. We had picked out the Applewood quite awhile ago, because we loved the color and the grain patterned that it had, but were waiting for Home Depot to run a sale and for us to have the $$ at the same time and it finally happened. We had to special order it but we should have it within the next couple weeks. To see a sample of what it looks like, click here.

John and I are in the process of finalizing our vacation plans. We are hoping to leave GR to Kenosha WI on July 19. Stay the night there and visit the Jelly Belly factory. On Thursday go to Sheboygan and have some fun there and go to Gibbsville Cheese factory. On Friday we will be heading to my Aunt Genny's house where I hope to do some scrapbooking as well as taking John to see my Grandparents old house, see my uncle Jay and visit the cemetary where my grandparents, cousin and aunt are buried. We'll probably stay there until Sunday and then head back. No plans for the trip back yet, so we are not sure if we are going to go back all in one day or stop 1/2 way. We'll see. We still need to find a few hotels and I need to locate all the local scrapbook stores, but we are at least making progress.

And finally, I have made the decision to go ahead and get my CPS instructorship status through National Safe Kids, which will allow me to train new technicains coming into the field. I spent last week assisting a class and the instructors in that class really encouraged me to do so. I'm very excited but yet a little nervous as well. My paperwork has all been approved and now I just have to teach a 4 day class under another instructor. Looks like I'll be teaching in Howell, MI the week of June 12. Lots of preparation to do for that, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Back from the Shack

2006-03-23T10:51:00.000-05:00

Had a wonderful weekend at the shack scrapbooking. I was able to complete 17 pages!! Blogger isn't letting me add pictures so I've uploaded them all to yahoo. You should be able to see them all here:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/burgie11/album?.dir=/6fec&.view=t

You can view it as a Slideshow by clicking on the "View Slideshow" link that is located under the light green bar on the right hand side. Enjoy and thanks for looking.

Another Layout

2006-01-26T10:41:00.000-05:00

Another simple LO that I did as a challenge for the Scrap-Room.
Love the way it turned out. Journalling talks about how Callie stole this frog from my collection and how she loved to play with it but was impossible to photograph!

Another Lay out

2006-01-23T10:55:00.000-05:00

Did this one for a challenge for my monthly scrapbook club. Love the way it turned out and I did a lot of stuff I normally don't do: I left a large blank space on the title block, I didn't matte two pictures, I used my alpha stamps for the title, and I printed my journalling right on the 12x12 piece of white Basic Grey Paper.

4 down...9 to go!

2006-01-20T10:34:00.000-05:00

Now that the tile is in John could finally start on creating his oak staircase. So far he has four steps done and they look great. The difference is really quite amazing and will be absolutely beautiful when completely finished!

We have tile!

2006-01-20T10:32:00.000-05:00

We were so excited to have a family friend come and lay the tile in the hallway of the basement. Dale did an excellent job and we are thrilled with the results.

A few more layouts

2006-01-14T13:01:00.000-05:00

My good friend Marci came over last night and we scrapped until just after midnight. She made a really cute altered notebook and an awesome paint can for her brother. I was able to finish up two layouts and completely do a third. Here they are:
John and I writing Thank you's after our wedding:

Flowers from John

Me and my sister Christmas Eve 2004. This is proibably my favorite of the night. Layout idea was scraplift from one I saw on 2Peas.

Pictures from Slides

2006-01-03T11:33:00.000-05:00

Scrapbook Answers

2005-12-27T12:44:00.000-05:00

John gave me two issues of this new scrapbooking magazine and I can't tell you how impressed I am with it. After several days I'm still not through either magazine! They have some great articles with wonderful how-to's, great instructions, excellent product reviews and beautiful layouts. Plus, every issue comes with a great CD with all sorts of wonderful stuff including free fonts that are easily installed onto your computer! I had heard good things about the magazine before receiving these two issue but was holding out on subscribing. No longer!! I subscribed today and am looking forward to the next issue!! Check out there website here: www.scrapbookanswers.com

Merry Christmas!!

2005-12-27T12:28:00.000-05:00

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!! We were very busy but loved being able to spend time with all of our family! Just a few pics for you.

Every year I try and get a really good Christmas picture of John and I. My brother took this one on Christmas Eve at my grandparents and I'm so happy with the way it turned out!

John and I opened presents from each other on Christmas Eve as Christmas Day is so busy. It's nice to be able to take our time and share shopping stories while we are doing this; a very special time for the both of us. Here's both of us with our gifts from each other.

Paint Cans

2005-12-27T12:24:00.000-05:00

I made these for 4 of the nieces (+ one boyfriend) and my dad as a way to creatively wrap gift cards. They are quart size paint cans that I got from Home Depot and then decorated with scrapbook paper and some ribbon, brads and paper flowers. Besides the gift cards, I filled them with all sorts of candy. The girls really liked them and I was thrilled that they after opening them they were coming up with different ways they were going to use them!!

Our Tree

2005-12-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

It took me 3 hours to put the tree together this year but I'm very happy with the way it turned out. John and I finally found the tri-color lights that we had been looking for at Lowe's and I love the way they look on the tree. Almost every ornament on this tree has a story behind it which makes it very special to me. They are hard to see but the little maroon sled at the top is one I've had since I was 2 mos. old and it's always the first item on the tree and the last to come off and also the highes ornament on the tree, minus the angle of course. The little white bulb towards the top on the right, has a hand painted santa on it and is our new ornament thise year. I try and buy one new one each year from Bronners for me and John. The maroon bulb on the left side, in the middle is the one for our first year as a married couple and the two toned one on the bottom right (next to the purple one) is for our first year in our house.

Basement Progress

2005-12-07T11:01:00.000-05:00

John just had some photos developed of the basement to show the progress that has been made. My dad and him have been working on this for quite awhile now and we are getting to the point of being able to put some flooring down! Yeah!! Here are a few pictures of the work in progress.

These two are of the hallway before and after. Dad and John were shocked that I didn't notice that difference between the two in terms of the wall. If you look close on the first picture you'll notice that it goes in a little bit right before the hall ends. In the after picture it's a smooth wall.

The final project painted and you can also see a little bit of the oak doors they put in. This door is for the closet under the stairs.

And finally a look at the opposite wall. This is the wall you see when you walk down the hallway. It's two different shades of green. Also pictured here is the new OAK stair treads that will go in as soon as the tile has been laid in the hallway.

New Layout

2005-10-30T19:51:00.000-05:00

This is the layout I created this weekend. It's a total scraplift of Lizz Parson's layout that was published in the Paperkuts book called Pet Friendly that came out a month or two ago. She used the Lollipop line of Basic Grey papers, while I used the Skate Shoppe Line. I also inked all the monographs and the tag with All My Memories chocolate ink (which took forever!) The journalling talks about how Callie acts like a dog sometimes: coming when John whistles, begging for table scraps and greeting visitors at the door. I LOVE the way this turned out!!

Photo editing

2005-10-18T12:30:00.000-04:00

I recently received copies of some great old pictures of my mom's family from my Aunt Genny. I'm so happy to have these and look forward to scrapbooking them soon. A few of them had some tear marks or scratches in them and I've been trying to edit them to take out some the blemishes. I was really happy with the one of my grandma's family where I was able to remove a large tear and I just finished this one of my grandpa. I just noticed a crease mark still in the middle so I might go back and try and fix this but I'm really happy with the results. Not bad for an amateur. :-)
Before:

After:

More Scrapbooking

2005-10-17T14:53:00.000-04:00

Actually spent some time scrapbooking Saturday night. One of the discussion boards I frequent had an online crop where we all chatted on our computers while we scrapbooked. It was lots of fun!! I didn't get a lot done but I did finish the page to the left of John and Callie. It was a very simple layout but I love the colors and the little MEOW license plate.

My trip to the Shack

2005-09-20T14:33:00.000-04:00

I spent this past weekend at a wonderful bed & breakfast called the Shack for a scrapbooking retreat. It was wonderful. I went with several ladies that I met through John at the store and their friends and relatives. We arrived at the Shack around 3 on Friday, settled into our rooms and waited to get access to the conference room. We had a little time so we went and sat by the lake and just enjoyed the wonderful weather. By 4 we could get into the room and we began organizing tables for everyone. After that the tiring task of hauling all our scrapbooking supplies down the stairs to the conference room began. I think I got all of my stuff down in about 8 trips!! The look on the faces of some of the other guests was great. I think they were stunned by the amount of stuff we dragged in! Then the fun began. All of our toys came out and the scrapping began. We scrapped until dinner at 5:45 (Chicken breasts, fish, roast beef, potatoes, veggies, and rolls). Then back to scrapping until banana splits at 8:45. YUM!! This is one of the best parts of staying at the shack. I had Mackinaw Island Fudge & Cherry Chocolate Ice cream on mine. Back to scrapping. I worked on a couple different pages and also finished all the iris folding on some Christmas cards for a swap I'm doing. Went to bed about 1 am. Breakfast the next morning was at 8 and then more scrapping, until lunch which was very disappointing (turkey and mayo sandwiches..yuck!), moere scrapping until dinner at 5:45 (Coleslaw salad, fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, several veggies and rolls...yum!) followed by more scrapping until banana splits at 8:30. This time I had two scoops of Cherry Chocolate...YUMM!! I worked on a bunch of different pages, and while each page seemed to take awhile, they all came together really well. I never felt like I had scrapper's block. I did take a short break Sat. afternoon to go sit by the lake, with my feet in the water and to make some phone calls. I also had a small break later that night to talk to John for awhile...even though he said he was on vaction from me. :-) Kathy, Angie, Mindi, Nancy and I all scrapped until almost 3 in the morning. Angie left to go get pizza sometime after 1 only to return with a box of pizza rolls they had got at the gas station as this was the only thing that was open. You had to be there but it was hilarious!! Anyways a little bit before 3 we all headed to our rooms to crash. We woke up around 8, had breakfast and then the laborious task of packing everything up, carrying it all up the stairs and back out to our cars began. I was surprised that it didn't take as long as I thought it would and I was packed up a little after 9. The 5 of us sat and talked for awhile, figuring out the details of our Passport Weekend coming up this Saturday and then I was off. The trip home was uneventful and I was back in GR a little after 11. It took me much of the day, with a long nap in the middle to unpack everything and get it back organized in the scrapbook room. The trip was wonderful and so relaxing. I can't wait until March when we go again!!!

Here are my three favorite LO's from the trip:

These are my tulips at my house from this Spring. The spot on the left will be for journalling.

This is the trees behind my house a few weeks ago. It's also the last LO I did on Sat...well Sunday morning, finishing around 2:30.

And finally my very favorite LO of Callie sleeping on my lap:

For more information on the Shack please check out their website at:
http://www.theshackbedandbreakfast.com/

Finally Finished!!

2005-09-12T14:26:00.000-04:00

After many, many months of trying to figure out how to scrap this picture, it's finally done. And it's about time as the picture is seriously 2 years old. I had originally thought I was going to do a pink background but just couldn't get it to work. When I finally decided to change it to green and with the help of my Pages By Design system, I finally came up with something I was happy with. Everything has been inked. All the green paper was inked with pink all the pink paper with green. The titles were printed off on my printer using CK Jot font and the tag behind the main picture pulls out to show another picture of Callie standing on the door of the dishwasher.

Scrapbook shopping!

2005-09-05T14:38:00.000-04:00

My trip to Okemos and Lansing were both very successful, and I feel like I have just about everything I need for my trip to the Shack in a couple weekends.

The new store call Photos to Scrapbooks in Okemos is a nice store. They had a lot of new stuff including the new Basic Grey Papers and the Pages by Design System. I had been debating about buying the Pages by Design system but after hearing many great reviews and finding a store that carried it, I decided to purchase the starter kit, which comes with the first edition of templates, the idea book and the second edition of templates.

The staff at Photos to Scrapbooks were great and even gave me a quick tour of how things were laid out when I arrived. The only thing I didn't care for was the way the store was laid out. Everything was by theme: travel, christmas, school, wedding, etc. They didn't have any just general paper aisles and it felt like everything was spread out and that I had to do a lot of walking in circles to find what I wanted. Plus, while the store was very good sized, with a great cropping area, it felt like they could have had a lot more product. I suspect with time this will be true. Overall, a really nice store and definitely worth a stop if you are in the area.

After spending entirely too much money at Photos to Scrapbooks, I still stopped at my all time favorite scrapbooking store, Pages in Time in Lansing. They always have everything I need when I need it. Surprisingly they didn't have the Basic Grey Paper or the Design System I bought at the previous store so I was really happy I had already bought them. I still found a lot of great paper for the list of pictures I'm hoping to scrapbook at my retreat, along with a new bottle of Prima flowers. :-) After a little over an hour of shopping, I made my purchases (under $20 thanks to a full punch card :-)) and headed home.

Upon arriving home, I was happy to discover that my latest Scrapgoods box had arrived and was waiting on the front porch for me. A great kit. I can't wait to try the metal embossing technique, however the colors are really formal...blacks, whites, reds and I'm not sure what pictures I'm going to use it on yet.

A great scrapbooking day though. I know have lots of new goodies to play with...just have to find the time. :-)

Callie attacking John

2005-08-30T10:12:00.000-04:00

This happened awhile ago but it was just too funny not to share. John came home from work one evening and was just sitting on the floor reading the newspaper. Callie came over and just started batting at his leg like it was something evil. She did this for quite awhile and I was able to catch a few seconds of her antics on camera. After awhile though she just laid down and stared at his leg. We never did figure out what it was that she thought was so awful.

To see the video clip just click on the little blue triangle and it will open in a new window. (You may have to click the play button in that window as well. )

John and Callie

2005-08-29T11:44:00.000-04:00

Just a few pictures of John and Callie that I wanted to share. Callie and John have been doing this since she was a kitten. They'll just sit by the screen and watch the sprinklers, bugs or whatever else might be out there. These pics were taken back in June 2005.

Did you see that Dad?

Scrapbook Layouts

2005-08-26T13:56:00.000-04:00

I've been scrapbooking for just over four years now and it's seriously turned into an addiction. What started out as a small hobby where all my supplies fit into one small bag, has now turned into an obsession that fills an entire room of our house. Here are a few of my favorite layouts:

4th of July 2005 :

Mega Meet:

Callie:

Halloween 2004

Callie

2005-08-26T13:52:00.000-04:00

This is Callie. She's a little over two years old and is very spoiled. I adopted her from the Lake Haven Animal Shelter when she was about 7 weeks old. She is my pride and joy. I'm sure there will be many more pictures of her to come.

Welcome

2005-08-26T13:29:00.000-04:00

Welcome to our blog!
Sara