Monday, November 23, 2009

Quick Notes

It's snowy. It's windy. It's cold.

That did not, however, prevent anyone from getting family pictures taken outside this weekend. We did SEVEN photoshoots over the course of two days. Fortunately for us, Darrin had pity and set up Rory (the RV, remember?) at the park so we could have some warm place to hang out between shoots. It was fun to have a "mobile office" set up there. We have some seriously tough Alaskan clients! Even the little ones did great with their frozen fingers and red noses. 5 degrees is painful!

In other news, I must mention that two of my friends competed in and FINISHED the Arizona Ironman competition yesterday. The race consisted of a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bike ride and ended with a literal marathon which is a 26.2 mile run. They both finished at about the thirteen hour mark. I followed them online all day yesterday and I'm exhausted!

Way to go Corrie Smith and BethAnne Clary! So proud of you both.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Jake's Writing

A couple of days ago I came upstairs to find the kids all drawing and coloring. Jakey was in the process of writing this out...



Can you figure out what song this is? He was writing it phonetically, ALL BY HIMSELF. I helped in a little at the end but mostly this was all on his own.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Happy Birthday!

Today is my Mama's birthday.

Dear Mama,
I hope you have a wonderful, relaxing day full of doing nothing but fun stuff. I hope you are recovering from your travels too! Are you even home yet?

Thanks for being awesome. I miss you and love you so much. All the family says, "Happy Birthday!" except Doobie because he says, "Happy Burstay!"

*hugs*

Monday, November 16, 2009

It's Snowing!

The snow is here but now we are suffering through negative temperatures. It's too cold to snow, but evidently, not too cold for photography! Check out my new photo journal for pictures of an exciting event that we photographed this week!

PS Photography's Photo Journal

Monday, November 09, 2009

Home From CKC!

For the past four days, my friend Tracy and I, have been scrappin' it up at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Bellevue, Wa. We flew down from Alaska last Wednesday night and started classes on Thursday morning.

A special thank you goes out to my darling mom and pops, who generously loaned us the use of their home and car while we were there. We scrapped. We shopped. We ate at places not found in Alaska (ie: PF Changs and Jack in the Box) and we enjoyed every minute!

It was nice to come home to our sweet kids and hubbies, who also deserve a special thank you for allowing us to take this trip every year!

I didn't take a ton of pictures because everything was so fast paced, but I got some highlights...


Every year I try to get my picture taken with a "scralebrity" and this year I found Megan Hoeppner, the Creative Editor at CK magazine. Jealous?


Thursday night was dinner at PF Changs with some friends. A few girls from high school met up with us at the convention for the scrap-a-thon and we all went out to dinner. Lettuce wraps. Yum. This was our desert.


Here we all are in class. From left to right: Tracy, Me, Rachael and Jessica.


Starbucks. My life blood. I think I drank one for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day.


Apart from scrapping, we also did some shopping. HELLO! This is my mom and my sister in law, Kate. I did not get the puffy vest memo. But I wish I had, because they were super cute.


What is THIS GUY doing here? A dude (a DUDE? At a scrapbook convention?) from Alaska. Johnny Moyer. He hooked us up.


The parting shot. This was taken about five minutes before we all parted ways until next year.

Now we are all home safe. I'm inspired to do some creative things (my first challenge was getting all my new STUFF into my limited luggage situation. I really hate that airlines charge for all checked luggage!

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Star Wars Halloween (Again)



Last year Obi Wan, R2D2 and Princess Leia went out for some trick or treating together. This year, in keeping with the theme that will NEVER END, it was Boba Fett, Yoda and Darth Vader. Jordan REALLY wanted to be Darth Vader. I think she was the cutest Darth Vader ever.


Darth Vader, aka Jordan


Yoda, aka Joshy


Boba Fett, aka Jaycob

As per our usual tradition, we all went tricking treating with our friends. There were about 15 kids in our group this year. Afterward, our friend Trinity had a birthday party. However, we didn't stay because Jordan had been very sick the previous night (threw up 14 times!) and we didn't want to spread our disease. So far everyone else is healthy though!