Pakistan Military Layout.

Journal reads:

The local water purification facility in Ghari Dupatta was destroyed in the earthquake and the ROWPU could produce the water fast enough, but distributing it was the problem. So often the people resorted to filling up on probably contaminated water run off from the mountain. I saw this girl in green sitting there with her water jug while I was on a hike up the mountain. She was looking at us intently until I tried to take a picture of her. I noticed that females are very shy in this regard unless they are quite young. At age 10 they start taking on grown up responsibilities and learning how to do things the women do. The pot in front of her is a common way of transporting water. Typically the women of the house will go down to the river to fill these up and using a cloth doughnut on their head will place the pot on their head to carry the water. The kids on the other hand loved getting their picture taken. As soon as you pull out the camera they form these little groups.

The overloaded car is a pretty common sight in Pakistan, and this is a mild version. I saw large buses and once the seats were filled the roof would fill up and then the sides; anywhere they could hang on. Few people had vehicles, and what vehicles they did have were pretty dilapidated. Here is also a good example of a jingle truck. It is called that because of the chains that dangle from the truck make the jingle noise when the truck moves. They paint their vehicle the weird bright colors and I have heard it is because of they have a lot of pride in their vehicles. They get even more outrageous than this, with neon flashing lights. They have annoying air horns that you have to hear to believe. They are kind of like the horn on The General on Dukes of Hazard but not as musical. Jingle trucks are everywhere in Pakistan because they do not have semi’s and this is how they move all their commercial goods.

I was so glad that Mark kept a journal in Pakistan. I think there were some pretty long and boring days, so this helped pass the time. I know his children and grandchildren will one day appreciate his thoughts and experiences. This is why we scrapbook. :)

Blessings!

Julie

Winter

Winter in Hawaii

Winter in Saskatoon

Today	Tonight	Tomorrow	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Blowing snow High: -16 ºC WindChill: -34 ºC Wind: SE 20 km/h	Chance of flurries Low: -22 ºC POP: 60 % Wind: NE 10 km/h	Chance of flurries Low: -21 ºC High: -17 ºC POP: 40 % WindChill: -28 ºC Wind: NW 15 km/h	Sunny Low: -26 ºC High: -23 ºC Wind: W 15 km/h	Sunny Low: -26 ºC High: -16 ºC Wind: W 15 km/h	A mix of sun and cloud Low: -21 ºC High: -17 ºC Wind: W 15 km/h

soooo...remind me why I live here?

MINUS 21 Celcius!! It is cccccold here and getting colder.

Yes the forecast here in Saskatoon for tomorrow and the rest of this week, is a balmy high of minus 21Celsius - That, for all you Americans who frequent my site is minus 6 Fahrenheit. Remember water freezes at plus 32 F. The windchill - which is a measure of how cold it actually feels with the ccccccold north wwwwind, is for minus 33 C...that is minus 15 F....which I am betting, given where most of my USA site visit come from, is a temperature you have never experienced!! Come visit and you can feel it for yourselves!! It is quite the experience...than again maybe it isn't?? We are settleing in for the Loooong cccccold dark wwwinter here.

That being said, you can now appreciate my gratefulness of my husband recently having a business meeting in Hawaii!! Yup - spent the past 10 days in PLUS 85 F most days and the sun was shining and the wind? - just a cool refreshing breeze off the ocean. Perfect weather. Why do we live in Northern Canada??? I am contemplating buying a condo in Hawaii....do I have anyone from Canada that would like to rent a month or two? Sorry December and January will be booked solid!!

Here are some of the pictures of this wonderful and relaxing vacation to help the locals feel a little warmer ...

This is the Condo we stayed in - fifth floor on the beach. Listened to the waves day and night. Amazing!

Lazy warm days touring the island with the love of my life. North coast beach.

At the end of our cove, the ocean waves pounded into the lava and coral rock. It was mesmerizing and I could have sat there all day watching this incredible relentless energy force etching itself on the rocks. The sounds, smells and pounding waves are beautiful to watch.

This pretty spot was to the south of our condo

This was the view to the North

I will try to post more pictures soon...but right now I have a mini baby album to finish up and then I can't wait to try out a few of the layouts in the new Best of Becky Higgins Sketches.....yes Laura talked me into this gem of a book (she is good at that). They arrived at Just Scrap It on Thursday and so I plan to make use of it. BTW I do believe that Laura bought one too....so be looking for a few Becky Higgins layouts on her blog!!! There! That's what you get for raving about the book Laura!! The challenge is on!!

Blessings!

Julie

Family Bo Bunny chipboard albums

I sure had fun doing this easy project. There are also chip board books that say LOVE, FRIENDS, BABY, PARTY...just so much creativity!!

Thanks for letting me share!

Blessings,

Julie

el computador

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine. "House" for instance, is feminine: "la casa." "Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz."
A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"
Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.
The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computadora"), because:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you findyourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

(THIS GETS BETTER!)

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ("el computador"), because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

Blessings!
Julie

next military layout

Journalling reads....
Canadian Press
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Islamabad — Just getting to their camp in mountainous Kashmir may be the greatest challenged faced by Canadian soldiers on a humanitarian relief mission to this earthquake devastated country.
The main part of the Disaster Assistance Response Team – DART – was heading out at dawn Thursday through a series of rugged mountain passes to a camp in Garidupata, near the epicenter of the Oct. …for the whole story look behind this page.
Mark writes...
The next day in Islamabad we were waiting for instructions and relaxing. We passed the time by playing some cards. The signals guys on the team liked to play cards whenever they got the chance.

These vehicles were part of the convoy we were in on the way up to Garhi Dupatta. In addition to these vehicles we had three tiny buses packed with people and a Pakistani Army escort. I believe one the vehicles pictured broke down on the way up and had to be later retrieved. The trip up was not pleasant. I remember feeling very nauseated. Difficult roads, turns, crazy drivers and cramped quarters made this a miserable part of our adventure.

Remember our troops today.

Handsome Mark

Threw this together after staring at it on my desk for 10 days. I moved everything around every morning and then I would come home from work and say "no I think this should be over here" and then leave it for another day. So finally I just glued everything down!!

The letters say HANDSOME and are much nicer in real life - they have shimmery silver on them and the rub-on swirls are silver too. So you just have to come into Just Scrap It! to see it!

Thanks for looking....

Julie

More 2000 layouts

Here are a few layout...yes I am STILL working on the summer of 2000 - we sure did a lot of stuff that summer - my children can never say we didn't do stuff with them!

Only about 40 more photos to finish up the year 2000 for our albums.

Blessings!

Julie

scrapbooking!

Some days scrapbooking is about taking lots of not so great pictures with terrible colour that mark a fun event in our lives...and using up old paper, rub-ons and old chipboard produce a page. Here it is....no new product, only old....a little sanding and inking and a gel pen and in the album it goes.

BTW - I grew up listening to classical music....David on the other hand played in a rock and roll band with his brothers....so when you visit the cousins on his side..guess what you do?

Military layout

Journalling reads...

Sunday October 15th 2005
At this point we were at CFB Trenton waiting to leave. There was a lot of media there, and with all the hype I think most of us were excited and ready to go. Our first stop was Glasgow, Scotland and then on to Croatia. From there it was a day in UAE at camp Mirage – no photos allowed unfortunately!

Wednesday October 19th
When we arrived in Islamabad they had a huge meal all laid out for us. It was some unknown meat and rice along with a few other things. It was very tasty We were not expecting such a nice meal and thought it was going to be rations as soon as we got into the country. We would get them soon enough.

We slept in the parking garage of the Canadian High Commission during our first stay in Islamabad. It was hot, stuffy and loud which made it difficult to sleep, but no one was complaining because of all the good food we were being fed. We were so tired that we just wanted to get some sleep. After five hours going through customs in the middle of the night the night before and a very busy day of briefing, we were functioning on only a few hours sleep.

Just Scrap It! Vegas Crop

Well there were a lot of laughs at Just Scrap It! this weekend... good fun, great food and fantastic scrapbooking and cardmaking - the talent of these gals is amazing! And hey! a visit from Elvis!

Here are some photos from the event.