SHOOO WOP DO WOP

FINALLY!!! The surprise birthday bash for our friend Bill. IT was really tough keeping it a secret and everyone was afraid they'd blow it. But nope. HE was surprised.
Robin's rendtion of happy birthday was awesome. She just reeked Marilyn Monroe. All of Bill's lovely young grands shared a dance. I think I got them all.

The cake was made by his daughter and omg. it was adorable. WAY too cute to cut. So its at our house where the party is carrying over today. Speaking of which i need to clean.
The gang who made it all possible!!! They rocked the food, the centerpieces, all the decorations and the fun DJ. Everything was perfect. They are sooooo talented.

So these are a tad out of order. Here's the SURPRISE part.
Meeting old friends.
Seeing friends with HAIR.
Dancing the night away with your favorite partner. Love love love the music from. Ain't coordinated for the dances except the twist, the stroll and everyone's favorite YMCA! lol! Which we did them all.

and the hottest couple of the night with their bubblicious gum-grape. bwahahahahaha! I can say that because well, this is my blog. Get your own!

Happy Birthday Bill! It was a fun, great time!

SHHHH! Don't tell the boss........

Don't get me wrong. *I* volunteered. Silly me. I spent the last day and 1/2 cutting, measuring and pasting and generally screwing up a perfectly good kit. Now I can cut and paste w/the best of them, BUT, measuring???? Using a stick w/numbers, arrghhh!!!!!!

You have to work the paper JUST SO. Because you use every scrap. Seriously. You have to MEASURE everything CORRECTLY, because you don't get a do over. UNLESS you have the exact paper at the shop.

It started out innocently enough. After I read the measurements FOR THE FIRST PROJECT. A.CARD. Several times, just to make sure. I cut it, and all matching items. Then came the tricky part. I needed a heart in the same color. So I dutifully cut my heart out, having ALL the pieces ready to adhere (big word for paste) to the card. So putting everything together and getting ready for the big finale, adhering it THE CARD. Well guess just take a wild ass guess where the heart was cut from???? There were a few more scraps along the way but don't need to give the boss a total heart attack.

NOW for the best part. I have to impart this knowledge flawlessly to a class of earnest scrapbookers. *SNORT*

Countdown to launch

It was lookin iffy there for a moment or two with the cloud cover, BUT, the clouds moved. And then the countdown started. We were over in the visitor's center about 8 miles away, so you couldn't see anything until it came over the trees. The crowd was great, those that saw, gasped and pointed. Which was good. It took me a minute to find it visually, then it took me a minute to find it through the viewfinder. But when I did. WOW! Actually WOW really doesn't come close. It was totally AWESOME! And there is MY SHOT!

This shot was PLANNED. Tom saw that I had a great lens. My tamron 28-300 and then he added a 2x extender. WOO HOO!!! HOWEVER, of course there's a monkey in the wrench somewhere, the LENS would NOT focus automatically. SIGH. So we kinda played around. Tom also had gotten information off the net from a photographer that took great photos, and he said actually to watch the launch and buy a postcard. BUT if you just HAD to take photos (doh) to set your ISO at 200 and your aperature at F8. Which I did. and WA-LA awesome photos. AND yes i bought a postcard too. BWAHAHAHA!

It was an awesome experience, because first you SEE it. A magnficent sight - the tail (fire) is about 3x's the length of the shuttle. Then you HEAR it. and WOW. I thought I could feel the heat but Tom said I was getting carried away. AS IF. NOT ME!!! lol

Grand Adventures to Come!

A visit to the east coast by dh and I, found this great park. Which is by this inlet that we'll have to take the boat out in when we want to hit the open seas. Its set up like a tub and the tide rushes in and out, so its moving very very fast. Once you hit the bridge you are commited, there is no turning around. Definately something new.

We were on a quest to find a new marina, which we did find. 3/4 a mile from the inlet, at a great price for that side of the sate and the bonus-50 miles from the Bahamas. A place to go and relax. We pretty much explored everything in our area, so this'll give a new bunch of places to explore. Although Bimini is our favorite Bahama island, we'll be able to explore more of those as well. Being w/Tom is the greatest. We are on the greatest adventure always!

Is the sign of a clean desk the sign of a sick mind?

That question has been asked by cubicle dwellers everywhere, and although I don't dwell in a cube anymore I still have my own space. Which begs the question, will my creativity be enhanced now that I have room to be creative???? Hmmm...one presumes I was creative to begin with. yunk yunk yunk.

I couldn't find the before photos but I think the lo w/give you an idea of exactly HOW MESSY my space was. Which is in the living room btw. After lusting after rooms in a new book that came out, and I can't remember name of said book, but suffice it to say that 4 top designers had some awesomely tricked out spaces/rooms. I figured since I *had* the living room, my space can be just as tricky. Bwahahahaha!! So last night I spent alot of hours, 7:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. (after a tough day at the *My Scrapbook Shoppe) slaving over hot scrapbooking supplies-a total dream job) purging and arranging, and I realize I still have more to do, but alas, *I* needed more time and some more storage stuff. And I still have one or two more bookcase to weed out.

Now do I sell said purged stuff or do I just give it away. And let me tell you and DO NOT tell DH that there's a lot of money is said purged stuff. Sigh.

So here is the beginning of *my* tricked out space. I t hink this is also the fault of a cold I'm fighting off, so I think it is a sign of a sick mind. Now if only I can remember where I put stuff that was directly in front of me because I HAD to have it immediately, although honestly some of it I haven't touched in awhile except to move it out of my way. But now *I* have to remember where I put it and in some cases when I put things in a really good spot, I never find them again. Speaking of which I lost and 2 entire packages of ejection from from my 4x4 QK dies. *Gasp*Faint*Thud* and after all the purging they are still MIA. Which leaves me to believe they are in the "sock dimension." On the plus side I did find some M&M's that escaped the bag I hide in my drawer and to my delight they weren't stale. BWAHAHAA! Can't scrap w/o M&M's w/peanuts. Stay tuned for more tricked out space.

WOOO HOOOO - YOU CAN'T HAVE TOO MANY SCRAPBOOK SUPPLIES-CHECK IT OUT!

THE SEPTEMBER MEGA KIT IS IN THE STORE! (click on the image to see it larger) There is so much you can do with this kit Be sure and check out the other kits and designers while your there.ALSO STOP BY THE PAPER STORE AND CHECK OUT THE ROCKIN DEALS GOIN on! SHe has EVERYTHING on sale!! We are making room for new inventory and EVERYTHING HAS TO GO! THIS IS Tracy'S birthday month so we are naming the sale IN HONOR OF HER BIRTHDAY!! SOOO THE SALE GOES AS FOLLOWS:WE NEED TO CELEBRATE!!!!!!Paper Store at TTS30% off all product except for Sept and BCA (Breast Cancer Awareness) TTS kits until 9/30/2007Use the Coupon Code: TracysbirthdayNow if you buy $25 or more then give yourself 40% off with the coupon code: whatastealBUT WAIT: SHe has marked some things down to OMG YOUR KIDDING ME PRICES SO check that out... read the posts she has links to the products there!!!THIS IS A MARVELOUS TIME TO STOCK UP ON YOUR FAVORITE SUPPLIES!

Why did I think that when some stories

ended. It was over? I love to scrapbook and heritage pictures are so my forte. It started when I came across photos I didn't know I had in the attic in a box of all places. There were photos of my great grandparents in their youth and my grandfather as a toddler. So I traced, I tracked and finally subscribed to ancestory.com (which totally rocks BTW) and researched. I also took trips back to my home town and hounded my two aunts (one on each side of the family), and returned with MORE photos, MORE information and MORE stories. And when Family Roots was "completed" I was kind of let down. It was fun, FASCINATING (to me anyway) and and totally phenominal to look back in time and see real people. People that lived, loved and reivented themselves to keep up times that changed faster than they could only imagine. It took a couple of years to gather all the information and begin to tell their stories. I really wanted to do more and silly me thought the stories ended.

AND then the family reunion was became an idea and came into fruition by some wonderful cousins who provided their time and home to host this event. It was incredibly fun and absolutely wonderful to reconnect w/all the family that I hadn't seen in WAY TOO MANY YEARS. But time and life sometimes get in the way, which makes reunions all that more important. There were cousins I had no idea existed. There were 2 more generations established, because when I remembered them, they are still 2 years old. LOL!!! How can they be old enough to have families and in some cases, grandchildren of their own. So there are more stories to tell because our ancestors live on in us. So now creatively, I'm thinking that some of these stories will overlap, so maybe it won't be chronological, and yes, my orderly self is cringing, but the scrapbooker in me arises, because its all comes down to family and its all about their stories and their lives. Family - the next generations!