YELLOWSTONE AND SCRAPBOOKING

We went to Yellowstone for a week June 16-21. It was such a fun trip! I was so excited to get Tuesday, Friday and Saturday off of work. This was our family vacation for the summer.  It was such beautiful weather and it was great to be out hiking. 

This photo (below) is the unfortunate event that happened to us on this trip.  We were on our way to Mesa Falls when all of the sudden, something hit our car.  It had flown at us from the side so it was obviously a bird of some kind (which was also evidenced by the flurry of feathers that was settling on the road behind us!).  From the feathers we found we decided the bird was a ruffed grouse.

R-Jay and the boys worked on a painting of some flowers. The finished painting is awesome! I'll take a photo and post it maybe tomorrow.
Here we are on the Big Springs River Trail near island park. So fun!

And finally, some layouts I promised to share. There were made a few months ago, a couple were from right after Jack was born. But they are some of my favorites.  The one below is from the 24th of July last year.  I wanted some red white and blue, but I really loved the green balloon and wanted to highlight that a little.  I love the way this turned out! I used a ruler and pen to draw a line around the edge to give it a little more definition. Loved how that worked.

This is a super cute and sweet layout I did about Jack. I really love the colors of this one!
Another one from Jack's birth. I love these layouts with one photo. I love that they highlight an emotion that the one photo brings up.  I think I am liking these two layouts even more right now because Jack will be 2 years old in about a month. I can't believe it!
This is a cute layout that I made to demonstrate the products in a kit that I will be putting up on my etsy shop this week.  The next layout is from that kit as well.

I really love these papers and things. They are all so vintage looking. I am loving that right now.  

Hope you all have a great evening! Tomorrow I am planning on posting some photos from a cool art journal I made. I will also have a link to our Flickr account so you can see the full set of Yellowstone photos. There are a ton! :) 

Is anyone there?

So I am the worst blogger ever. I have been so busy. Posting to my blog has been the last thing on my list. My computer was so slow, it took way too long to even post the shortest thing. Now that we have a new computer (yeah, mac!), it will go much quicker.  Now I have to think of what to talk about!

First of all, these photos are from two separate trips we took to San Diego last month.  I work for an airline so we get to travel for free. The first trip we ever took was in February (none of these photos are from that trip. R-Jay and I went to San Diego alone for 3 days.  We had a trip for the whole family planned for May. He then found out he had to teach a training class at Amex. I was disappointed, but I decided I was going to go anyway. So I did. I took Sam and we went to San Diego for 2 days. It was so awesome to be able to do that with him.  He and I don't get much time together just the two of us these days. It was so nice to focus on him for so long. He was so good. I get lost so easily in San Diego, but Sam was such a patient little trooper.  He was great. We had such a great time.  Two weeks after that trip, R-Jay and I took both of the boys to San Diego. It was so much fun. The outbound flight was a little hard because Jack was so tired. He was screaming and crying for the first half hour we were on the plane. Luckily, once we were actually in the air, he fell asleep and slept the rest of the time.  It was so cute to see Sam on the plane for the second time. He sat right in his seat, put on his seatbelt and his headphones and was ready to go. He knew exactly what he wanted for a snack and a drink. He is so cute.
While in San Diego with the boys, we headed to a mall so I could go to Sephora. It is my favorite cosmetics store. Oh! It is like a pretty, scented, sparkly candy store for grown up girls! I was so giddy while I was there! Anyway, while were at this cool shopping center, there were cool sculptures of sea lions. Here is Sam near a mom and baby one. Cute! Look at that face!

This is my favorite photo from my trip with Sam. I loved being with him so much. He is a great kid.

Our lives are pretty normal. Boring, busy, exhausting. R-jay and I are both overwhelmed with creative energy these days. There are so many things we want to do and not enough time to do all of them. I have been very excited about scrapbooking again.  I was burned out after all of the projects I did at Christmas time. My attempt at giving more handmade gifts this past year was successful as far as how the projects turned out, but I was so tired and sick of anything to do with any of it. Anyway, my passion is finally returning and I am excited about that. I am also excited to paint again. I haven't for a really long time. But I am looking forward to doing it again once I get some new supplies (like fresh paint etc.).

I've been reading like crazy. I read so much more now that I have kids than I did before. It's a great relaxing escape. I am reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. I love love love John Steinbeck, so I have not been disappointed so far. I saw the movie "The Jane Austen Book Club" and loved it. So far I am not impressed with the book. It is relatively flat. I am waiting for more to happen that might fill out the characters and give some meaning to the book as a whole.  Before these, I finished reading the three books in the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers. Loved them so much! I cannot wait for the fourth book, the movie and, hopefully someday, the book she is writing from Edward's perspective. I am not a geek, I promise! I just have a thing for vampires!

We recently added the soundtrack for "Across the Universe" to our iPods. I love that movie so much and the music is beautiful. I love how Julie Taymor (the director) put the Beatles' songs in such different contexts from what they were originally. It adds so much to the story. Anyway- watch it! It's so great!

That's about all I'll talk about right now. And hopefully it will not be another 8 months before I post again. I am hosting a scrapbooking group at my house this wednesday. Perhaps I will share some photos from that as well, as some of my most recent projects!

Later!