We had a lovely time with the

grandkidlets last night.

An amazing dinner with homemade pasta

made by Grandpop and Owen.

Owen was the best pasta cranker ever.

Photo by Kevin Duffy

We enjoyed our time at Ocean Beach.

 I took a walk around and visiting the ocean was a must.

 Sea shell by the seashore.

 I love sea grass.

 And yard birds.

 This just called for an old timey look.

 Gin's flower still hanging on.

We  are headed home later today.

Catch ya later!

Sunset over Ocean Beach......

Sigh.

Thanksgiving with the Clan

The beautiful banquet hall which is now 3 years running, 

does this mean a new tradition is born?

 The beautiful Lara with her favorite father-in-law.

 My favorite husband and sister-in-law.

 My favorite brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

 My favorite niece-in-law and brother-in-law.

My favorite sister-in-law and her favorite son. 

A lot of favortism going on which is all good.

A fun time was had by all and the

food as usual rocked.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

AND when you get a minute between scarfing down pie and turkey 

- I'd appreciate if you read my new hub 

26 miles across the sea 

and vote UP and interesting, and awesome, and whatever else you'd choose. 

UP UP and Away.........

at the Air and Space museum at Dulles.

 The shuttle Enterprise has a home there.

 And its huge and amazing.

It would've been cool to cruise on inside.

But alas you're only allowed to admire it on the outside.

 These were just too adorable.

R2D2 and a coin phone. Snort.

 Enola Gay.

 Flying tigers.

 As you know Nick is in the Army.

So anything Army on it - I sent to him by iphone.

hoo-rah!

 The planes were flying from each and every direction.

 And the early ones - omg! It took a 

brave and restless soul to fly them.

Or an adreneline junky.

I have 2 of them.

 Big brother could be watching.

 Anyone remember the song Telestar.

An amazing instrumental.

You could be humming that now.

As you may know, I'm an amateur picture-taker.

So this day I decided to move up to RAW.

OMG! what took me so long.

Also, I hit the ground running using manual.

Took me a minute to hit my stride

and I didn't like the yellowish overcast I was getting.

White balance - DOH! Tungsten!

So I did something I never done before, blew away

almost 200 pix and started over.
Which is why I don't do weddings.
disclaimer: No flash was used in the course of these photos.

It was totally worth it.

Leaving on a jet plane.......

Once again.

It appears that my mojo

packed its bags and headed out on vacation

without consulting me.

I cannot begin to tell you how annoying that is.

I had plans and a project.

I still have plans and a project.

None of which is any closer to being done.

Heavy sigh.

Scenic view at Ft. Foster, ME

Tied UP

I'm working on an album for my SIL, getting those 

precious heritage photos out of a magnetic album.

And I happened to do a page that incorporated the OLW challenge. UP.

This photo is unique and I have heard the story but I want my SIL to do the journaling.

When she was a kidlet she had a set of siblings older than her

that were twins. When they went out in the yard to play

mom of course had housework and such and couldn't watch them, and the

older ones were fine they didn't need watching.

So instead of having the older watching the younger

mom tied a rope around her waist and fastened the other end 

either to a tree or cement block so she wouldn't leave the yard.

On one hand its hysterical, and with all the political correctness today

can you imagine that happening NOW??

No one was harmed and everyone enjoyed the great outdoors.

It really cracks me up.

If you would like to know more about this project 

please check out my hub

Magnetic Albums are not your friend.

and vote UP!

Sand Sculptures 2011 at Siesta Key

Again the sculptures were amazing.

Since it was Veteran's Day when they started,

they honored the Vet's with the famous

raising of the flag at Iwo Jima.

 I had issues with the settings on the camera, and kept flopping back to auto.

 I loved this one with the horses and moving around it

there were more goodies to see.

 Everything is so detailed and huge.

 I wanted to pet the horses.

 This was a lot of fun. 

 It was the back to school nightmare and all the

fun stuff was being sold.

I should've thought of that.

We went with friends and had a blast. 

I was kinda disappointed as it was smaller than

last year both on scale and amount,

but it was no less intricate and detailed.

Challenges are up at Moments....

The Heritage challenge for this month is to compare

yourself to an ancestor.

This is a photo of my grandfather, that I thought was me.

I was about 7-8 when I had this conversation

with my grandmother.

journaling: I always thought this was a picture of me. And if you saw pictures of me at that age, you'd have thought so too. This pic was hanging in my gram's attic and I would just insist. Nope she said, its grandpop. That's how little boys looked back then. I don't know gram. Look at that hair. Are you sure its not me?

Life lessons learned while

learning a skill.

Read more about it by checking out my hub

Learning life lessons and culinary skills

Please click on link, read, VOTE UP and share.

Thanks!!!

Virtual no more..........

April and I have been on-line pals for about 6 years.

We have IM'd and Webcam'd 

and chatted on the cell.

bringing and challenging each other to new heights

 in virtual scrapping.

And we never met.

Until today.

Fresh off the Disney boat with her kidlets

and SO (who booked an earlier flight).

Smart man - ducks out on girl time.

Maintaining the cruise high she schlepped over to

Orlando International to head on home.

Orlando International is 2 hrs from my abode.

So we plotted and planned, and I gassed

up the caddy and went tearing up the highway

like a big ole dinosaur (the caddy that is) to meet up bwahahahaha!!

And we met at the escalator to Chili's two......

where we had the best time...

Thank you Veterans!

Especially to my son!

I'm proud of you!

3 S's to you and those in harms way.

I adore boats......

shrimpers, tugs, fishing boats.

The older and rustier the better.

They have so much character.

This boat is in Bahama and the colors

just make me swoon.

And the rust giddy with delight.

I was experimenting and did get carried away

with the saturation button.

My bad.

This photo just cracks me up....

It reminds me of Heckle and Jeckle that

old cartoon where two crows act like crotchety old men.

They'd get into hysterical situations where slap stick humor abounded.

Its just the whole pose. 

Haven't been doing much creating lately....

So I'll dazzle you with photos.

This is a lighthouse on CA Hwy 1.

I wish I could identify it, but alas

CRS has struck again. 

Off to ride my bike.

I've gotten soooooooo lazy.

I have a new hub that chats about

Removing those photographs from those rotten magnetic albums and what to do about it.

Please click on the link, read, share and vote UP.

Thanks in advance.

Magnetic albums are not your friend

Its been a busy week....

These are flowers in the Brooklyn Bridge park.

I haven't been updating this week, because well, the week was busy and I have been involved in being an overbearing mother that had incredible results and gave a much needed boost to my favorite youngest son's confidence. Now I'm trying to step back and let him fly. Sigh....

I have also bitten off a project that has taken a life all of its own. My SIL whipped out this photo album that while it had amazing heritage photos in it, all I could see was that they were in MAGNETIC ALBUM PAGES. OMG! AND it took all I could do not to rip it out of her hands and take those photos out. So I took the whole book home with me and I'm now in the process of scrapping those photos and creating digital copies. And I want to get it done by Thanksgiving when we return to NJ. 

We can all take a breath and laugh hysterically now.