Spring 2002

When spring of 2002 arrived, our perennial garden in the front of the house was actually starting to look like it had real potential to be a show stopper. The tulips were first up and were beautiful. The Heliopsis came back double the thickness of the previous year and the snow drops were taking over the garden. That’s what happens when you get a free plant with “invasive” qualities. But no matter, the white blossoms contrasted the colorful tulips beautifully and I can always pull them out if they get out of hand. Things were mighty pretty the first of May, 2002!

Advent Calendar

This was a twelve hour project. But it is done and hanging in the hall. Yeah, I know, a month early but right now it is the safest place to put it.

Scrapbooking Frenzy

Man, I did a LOT of scrapbooking this weekend. And I am still trying to finish up two projects I worked on this weekend at JSI ...as well as finishing up the page on Allison in my previous post.
JSI was just a flurry of activity. Trish Ladouceur was our guest teacher and we really did some cool stuff and had a great time. I will post my projects when I am done.
For now, just a few pics of the weekend. Friday night and Sunday afternoon.

It's the little things that make you BEAUTIFUL

This page has been sitting on my desk all week waiting for me to have 15 min to glue it down and add some rub-ons.
I love this simple picture of Allison. So innocent and lovely and she really is. It is these gentle qualities that truly make her beautiful..and so that is what I attempted to portray in this page. Not sure if I succeeded. The word beautiful seems kind of harsh for what I was going for. But once a rub-on is on the page..well it's a done deal!

I am quite enjoying the new Crate Paper - very pretty. And I bought more of the "Dotted Swiss' Bazzill paper. More colours came into JSI. So, so nice. So me.
I was able to use some rub ons and flowers from my stash too!

Don't you just love your stash?

Stay tuned! I was up until midnight (unheard of for me) taking a class with Trish Ladouceur at JSI last night. We were making THIS! Very beautiful! I still have to finish mine before you get to see it. I was very tired and Janys is a bad influence on me. We laughed way too much!! At our mistakes that is. Like a couple of hysterical school girls. The motto of the evening was "Just put a flower over it!" Hey is is all about being creative right?

Not sure how Trish put up with us. But we had a good time.

Good Dog

I scanned this 4X6 and made it a 5X7. It was such a cute picture of Mark and Sam in 2002. I also needed to deal with some red eye. Love my scanner but my dream scanner would be a 12X12 scanner to speed up the process of scanning and uploading my pages to the blog. Although I am pretty fast with the photo merge in Photoshop! I am also dreaming about a new HP Photosmart printer that will print up to 12X18. Think of the scrapbooking possibilities and the cool journalling...but the ink costs! Whoa!

Anyways.... this paper from Reminisce is called Good Dog. The paper was a perfect match for this photo. We have some pretty fun cat and dog paper in right now. Ralna really brings in some terrific patterned paper to the store and sooo much of it ...I love it all. I also used Creative Cafe paper behind the photo, some Creative Cafe rub-ons and buttons, Basic Gray chip board letters and my white gel pen.

For me?

In 2002 I turned 45. .....it seems so long ago. Allison made me a cake and decorated it. Sweet girl.

I used that new Bazzill paper along with BG ambrosia "winsome" so pretty. Thickers letter for "For me?" which is really hard to see in this scan, but it is there. Some heidi swapp clear extras - the butterfly over the journalling and the "happiness" and the 45 comes from K and Company stash. And of course my trusty white gel pen.

Winter fun and friends

Dotted Swiss is the BRAND NEW textured cardstock from Bazzill, and I LOVE it!

It is so me... uncomplicated, minimalist, uncluttered and clean. Add the new Basic Great chip board letters and these fabulous snowflakes from Jolee's that came in on Monday - well all I needed was my white gel pen and the 10 min page was done.

Just a few photos of us skiing up at Table Mountain Feb, 2002. I know the boys were there snow boarding, but somehow they missed the camera.

Love how delicate these snowflakes are.









And now for the photo that did not make it on the page...the one that really captures the day for me....

This one will get tucked in behind the page too. LOL

Guess whose back side?

Further to my discussion in previous post re having your children as early as possible - as long as you can afford them that is..... I give you...

ME! Can't you tell??

When you hand your child the camera to hold while you haul them back up the hill, do not be surprised at what may turn up when the roll of film is developed. Now these days you just press delete before you actually pay for a picture of your beeehind. But way back in 2002, we were still developing film. I will tuck this precious photo in behind this page when it goes into the album... just for the laughs! ...and memories.
I was actually in pretty good shape back then. That's a 12 yr old I am pulling up the hill/slope there.

I look at this picture and ask myself...how did you do it??? This kind of stuff and these kind of days must be why I am so darn tired all the time now. I can't wait to get into bed at 10 pm and am asleep in about 240 seconds. I am sure I must be catching up on years of lost sleep....

....I think I need another holiday.

Man, just thinking about these days makes me tired.

Hills? In Saskatchewan?

Another layout from the year 2002...plodding along. Kind of busy - but then that WAS our lives back then. Just one family activity after another and I wouldn't change it for the world. THIS is why you need to have your children in your early twenties - because you need the energy to pull them up a hill on a toboggan!! That after getting up at 6 am to prepare all the food you have to take along to this event, get them all dressed for church, fed and in the car with all their tobogganing gear and out the door for the 1 hr drive to church being sure to arrive in time to greet the saints and settle everyone in before church begins. Did someone (Mom) fill the car with gas?
HOW did we do it??
Then pull them up the hill on the toboggan?
Visit all afternoon, collect all the containers you brought, gather all the sleds and extra mittens. then round up four children and make the drive home. Yeah - you have to be under 35 to do this.

The title says "Finding a Hill in Saskatchewan....No small feat"



I scanned this page for the blog and it was set on B&W and I actually liked how it turned out. It is inspiring me to actually scrapbook B&W photos on a B&W paper with all B&W embellishments.



Journalling reads....

When the church family planned a tobogganing/wiener roast at the Barbers farm, we wondered how we would toboggan on the flat prairies. We are, after all, a family who had recently skied “The Peak” at Grouse Mountain.

Well we did toboggan and it was more of a slope than a hill, but we found out that you don’t need a big, long, fast hill to have a lot of fun and a lot of laughs! The date? I THINK it is February of 2002

¡Qué fiesta!

Sí, fue una fiesta en JSI. Y hemos tenido un montón de diversión y comida mexicana! Juegos, señala, premios, regalos, ofertas, comida mexicana y la diversión de becas con la creatividad desbordante.

Y yo ni siquiera tengo una foto de mí!

A busy time for staff, but always lots of fun. We love you guys!
Even when we are plum wore out.

Great make and takes!

Pina Colada? Strawberry Margarita?

...busy, busy, busy

mmmmmmm

fabulous costumes
...you would think a few people had been to Mexico several times!

Even the wee ones were into the festivities!

Translation... Yes, it was a party at JSI. And we had a lot of fun and Mexican food! Games, draws, prizes, gifts offers, Mexican food and fun fellowship with boundless creativity.

Another JSI harvest crop. Thanks to Ralna and Deb for all their work, time and energy in putting this together.

Creamy Potatoes a la DH

Okay, here it is...my dear wife said I had to post my secret recipe for those great creamy potatoes. And yes it is a pretty easy recipe, it has to be for me to remember it!!

So, here it is: Simply prepare the mashed potatoes then add in those great extra ingredients - a big chunk or two of cream cheese, a dollop (make that 7 or 8 big dollops) of sour cream, plus some garlic powder and white pepper. Then whip it up all up with a hand power mixer to really blend all ingredients really well.

So, that's it. From there you can pop them in the oven on the spot - or refrigerate or freeze them for another day. And of course, they really go well with turkey, and ham, and pork, and beef, and and.......

Julie here...I take over at the "pop it in the oven" stage - about an hour if they are at room temp and a little longer if cold. Thaw first if frozen. You are really just getting them nice and hot and a little brown on top. These potatoes save you peeling, draining, mashing when you are busy with all the other aspects of the meal because it can all be done ahead of time. Into the oven and out of the oven and onto the table. You can add a little onion salt if you want.

Lululemon

As y'all may have surmised, I have joined a gym. Yup, I am forking out the monthly commitment in hopes that I might get back to a former size. I have been a runner and gym goer in a former life, but for the past three years, since returning to work in the health care field and working in retail, I have been out of time...and slowly putting on weight, loosing abs, huffing and puffing on the stairs and getting old.

I pulled out the old aerobic stuff. It is over six years old and has seen the washing machine 1000's of times. As I looked around the step class I realized that I looked different! First of all I was 20 years older than most. Not much I can do about that except adapt an attitude of "I'll show you what a 50 year old can do!" Secondly it was apparent that I am in a lot worse shape than ALL of them. I have no abs and have gained a few rolls. THIS will come with time - I have to persevere on this one. The third thing I noticed, is that my workout wear looked like it had been through the wash ...about a 4000 times. Now this was something I COULD do something about right now!

So this morning in the rain, I headed downtown to another sporting event - dashing into the first available parking spot before the guy coming from the other direction does. Very competitive. Very nasty. I actually ended up parking a few block away and avoiding the sport all together...I circled the block twice until I found something only because I will vie for a spot with one other person - but six of them?

I had one quarter and one nickle in my purse..because I stopped for a coffee on the way. Let's get our priorities straight here! I got all of 10 min at the meter. Do you believe it? One quarter gets you 10 minutes. For those of you heading downtown with children, I suggest you get them all out of their car seats and settled into the strollers BEFORE you fork out your meter money, because it is going to cost you 25 cents just to unload your car.

I digress here. I decided to take my chances with the meter. It's raining, so those parking meter gals are probably having coffee somewhere.

And I found Lululemons. I was the oldest person in there and it felt like my daughter was selling me very expensive clothes. I found the most mature looking one in there and asked her to show me what they had and what would make me look really skinny...okay, hide the rolls.

I have to say though, the girls there were very helpful! Look what they talked me into??

One warning though? Lululemon does not sell anything larger than a size 10 - no wonder every one looks so great in their stuff!

And I did look pretty darn good at the power class at noon today. At least my clothes kept up! But I wasn't able to do the ten men's push-ups - still recovering from doing them yesterday! Time ....this part will take time.

Off to work at JSI to do some heavy paper lifting!
Remember, Ralna has a big sale on right now.

Giving Thanks

Well I am thankful my men arrived home safely from Winnipeg late this afternoon and in time for a feast - and I am thankful that we can sit around the table and enjoy all this good food.

Everyone seemed very appreciative and I think adding a little extra butter to everything was a good idea. The oohs and ahhhs were particularly plentiful this year.But then Mark always did appreciate a feast of mom's cooking.

I am stuffed! The dishes are done, the food is packed into the fridge, the bird is stripped and ready to make a delicious chicken broth. I will head to bed with the Good Book!

Blessings to you all.
ps - for those of you wanting a great deal to stock up on Scrapbook supplies for upcoming weekends - check out the JSI blog - Ralna is moving product again - new and old.