Crazy Faces

Template: Fluffy Bunny Feet Designs
Take Me Home by: Shawna Clingerman, Larua Grier, and Micheline Martin
Mat by Melissa Bennett
Word Art by: Pattie Knox

Swimming

Template by Christy Haig

Template Cindy Schneider

Template by Yin designs (modified to add additional photos)

Template by Chrissy W (modified to add additional photos)

I told you I was have a blast with this kit!! You can pick up Deep Blue Sea by Dani Mogstad at the Sweet Shoppe!! The possibilities are endless and there are already so many awesome layouts in the the SS and DST galleries from this kit that you can scraplift!!

Cooling Off

Wowser, I love this kit. I know for sure there will be many layouts coming from this kit. Here is the first of many to come! (oh and I'm finally managing to squeeze in some scrapping. I hope this means my mojo is coming back)

Kit: Deep Blue Sea by Dani Mogstad
Template by: Aggie Aviso

How is it possible?

Wow, I finally feel rested, rejuvenated and back to normal. After months of exhaustion, stress, different little bugs (strep throat, ear infections, sinus infections) and all that the first half of 2008 dumped on me I finally feel like I have reached the light that was waiting on me at the end of the tunnel. I can finally breathe!

I think vacation was a huge help in just finding some focus and putting things in perspective again for me. I have tons of things I want to do now that I'm feeling better and slowly I am accomplishing them. I cleaned out the coat closet, reorganized all our art supplies, got my counters organized and the biggest task of all was cleaning up my desk. What a mess. How is it possible that I had piled so much on my desk. It's a wonder I could see the monitor. I have several more things I want to get done this summer and loads more organizing. I'm just happy I finally feel like I have the energy to do some of the things on my list.

My boys are about to start preschool and I'm so incredibly nervous. I'm afraid to drive first of all and I will be driving them back and forth 4 days a week. Aside from that I worry that they will get to school and act up the way they do here at home. I can't believe they are already starting preschool. I know I have the same jitters every other mom feels when she sends her babies off to school...only if it's for a few hours a day. I hoping that they love going and that they behave!

Well.... one of the things on that list I mentioned earlier was cleaning up my computer. I sometimes go into my files and purge things that I will never use or that I don't need anymore. What a stinking mess. I have files scattered all over my computer in little to no organizational manner. The past three afternoons during nap time I have tried to put my files into a more organized fashion and purge what I no longer desire. Amazingly I freed up 10GB. How is that possible? I was sitting on some SUPER old stuff. Today I finally reached a stopping point. I haven't managed to get all my files where I want them but I'm at a stand still. I don't know where else to go with them. I have all my seasonal type files and a templates file along with different themes. However, I have some items that I can't decide just what category to stick them in. I wish I could just finish up the last two jam packed folders and be done! I'm totally scrap deprived. It's been a long time since I've made a layout. Maybe once I do a couple more things on that list I will be able to put forth enough focus to do a couple layouts!

I did find a fabulous idea on Yin's blog which really has me thinking. She is so organized. She places all her previews together, prints them and places them in her binder. This allows her to mix and match more easily! Maybe I'll add that to my list. On that note, I'm off to try to accomplish another task.

To all my digi friends.... I miss ya and I'm thinking of you all!

Day 7 Last Day RMNP and Estes Park

Well this would be the last day of our vacation (except the long driving day ahead). I'm not counting that one. On our final day we gave the National Park one last go; stopping again at Sheep Lakes and the Alluvial Fan. We then spent the morning and early afternoon in downtown Estes Park. We went to the glass blowing shop and watched the artist making things. That was really neat and each of the boys got a little souvenir there.









We went down to Tregent Park and then had lunch at Penelope's. Yep you heard it right we didn't have a picnic today. It was YUMMO. We spent some time going into shops. Everything is so touristy so we were happy when we came upon a few year round stores! After doing a little bit of shopping we headed back to the cabin where we spent the afternoon relaxing or sleeping in some cases. We got the car nearly packed up for the ride home the next day.





We ended our vacation with a nice pizza from the Estes Park Brewery and go kart riding and monster sliding at Fun City. I'm so glad we did this. When I first looked into this during the planning phase of vacation I didn't think we would do it b/c it seemed pricey and it's something we could do right here at home. Except when i saw their faces light up each time we drove by Fun City and to hear them talking about wanting to ride the go karts I knew I didn't want to let them down. After all they did do pretty much everything Levi and I wanted to do on vacation. What a joy. They had soooo much fun. My only regret is that we didn't do more rides!







Well there you have it. In summary that was our vacation. I'll spare you the gory details of the fighting between the boys on the way home. If you have kids and they've had to sit next to each other in a car for an extended period of time; you already know what I'm talking about! *laugh.

Hope you've enjoyed my stories or find something useful for your upcoming Rocky Mountain Adventure.

For us the best parts were Pike's Peak, Garden of the Gods, Mount Evans, the scenic drives, Bear Lake and Sprague Lake. These are all kid friendly!

Day 6 Bear Lake, Sprague Lake, and Lake Estes Marina

Still going at it strong! On day 6 we wanted to get in some hiking. Logan strongly dislikes hiking but he did pretty well..or as well as can be expected. We headed off to Bear Lake Rd and took it all the way to Bear Lake where we hiked the trail around the lake. It's about 1/2 mile so nothing too big and no real elevation gain. The view...ahh.. It was very pretty. While on the hike Landon was being so cute he kept stopping and saying picture stop and he'd pose. At the end of the hike Levi and I so badly wanted to continue on to Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and Emerald Lake. In total about 3.7 miles which we knew we could not do with the boys. *frown*












Instead we went to Sprague Lake. It was beautiful and I personally enjoyed the view better although Levi enjoyed Bear Lake's hike more. Sprague Lake was a nice level trail and the lake so shallow that there were a few folks standing out in the middle fishing for trout. In effort to keep the boys interested we had them on the look out for chipmunks and we did find one that kept coming up to us and walked with us for a while. On the other side of the lake we stopped so the boys could touch the water and toss in a few rocks. There we met a really nice ranger who posed with Landon for a photo. Another highlight for him.























After spending a relaxing afternoon at our cabin we went into Estes Park for dinner. We ate at the overpriced and not so fantastic Mama Roses. Actually I think I'm the only one who enjoyed dinner and it was just ok. Did I mention overpriced...yes we read the menu before hand and were fine with it until we saw the quality and taste of the dishes... anyway lesson learned. Moving on.

After dinner we had the shopper's shuttle take us to the Marina where we rented a pedal cycle and took the boys for a ride on the trail next to the lake. Imagine a screaming 2 year old the entire time you are biking. Yes he was having a fit because he wanted to drive the bike. Bless his heart. Finally we got him calmed down on the way back to the Marina and let him hold on to the steering wheel. He thought he was driving so that was nice. We also let him sit in the driver's seat once the bike was parked.




We made s'mores tonight too! Before bed time we let the boys try out the whirlpool tub. That thing was pretty big. They called it a swimming pool.. Just so cute!



Tomorrow is our last day in Colorado so we better make the best of it!