Back in the saddle again...

Barb with her 43rd Anniversary gift: a 24" girls Schwinn.

For our anniversary this year we decided to stay home and have a cook-out instead of going out on the roads on a Friday night. We also stopped and picked out a 24" bike for me, since I can't reach the ground well on the 26" bikes. After falling while biking on vacation, we felt it safer to be short sized. It fits just right!

Our current vehicles sneaked into the photo too. Notice the Mazda with her perpetual "smile". Such a sweet car to drive! 2011 has been a good year! :D

Watercolor moods...

Bluebird on a branch

3 Cherries under construction on vacation

3 Cherries - completed July 2011

I have been enjoying my watercolors again... Restful times! 

Thanks for looking! 

Thank the Lord for PEAS...

I tried to ride the bike for my exercise this morning. I logged in five minutes before I attempted to stop at the cabin to say goodbye to Al, leaving for his walk in town on the Rails to Trails in Kila Montana.

As I slowed to stop, my feet missed the ground on the "too tall" bike and I kept going toward the ground. Skinned my knee and hand, but nothing amiss. The bag of frozen peas made a nice "ice bag" for the knee to prevent it from swelling.

Oh, well. Guess I will try walking later today for my half hour of exercise!

All Star 2011 Little League games...

The All Star Games 2011 were held in Belfair WA this year and it was wonderful to watch grandson, David, play third base again. Seeing him field the balls was exciting, as well as hitting the ball, running the bases and having a great time with his team mates.

They played well together, and we are happy he was able to play them again this year, his third year on the All Star Team for South Kitsap Southern Little League Team.

Good job, David!

SCRAP GIRLS GALLERY VIEW

12 Grandkids in a Picture...

Charity asked for a new photo of her 12 kids this past week. What fun to get some of the non-smilers to smile for me! :D

Scrap Girls High Noon Challenge this week was "white space", meaning more paper than pics, usually. With 12 faces to see, I left the photo larger intentionally.

This is posted at Scrap Girls in my gallery HERE, if you wish to see the comments of other viewers.

SISTERS...

full 2 page view

Left page - SEEN IN GALLERY HERE

Right Page -SEEN IN GALLERY HERE

One of the best treats on our recent trip to Colorado was spending time with my sister, Jan, and her husband, Chuck. Al and Chuck became more acquainted while Jan and I had some good bonding time again. What a blessing to have "like minded" family we can fellowship with!

Staying in their home was a special blessing for us. Sweet memories!

Cliff Dwellers

2 page Layout of Cliff Dwellers

While in Manitou Springs CO we had time to see the Cliff Dwellings and the red rock Garden of the Gods. The Scrap Girl kit Zoomba by Brandy Murray was perfect for this layout! Thanks for looking.

The comments read: 

When we visited Colorado Springs in June 2011, we were excited to learn there were Cliff Dwellings in the area that we could visit. We expected to SEE them, but did not know we would be able to actually go INTO the dwellings and see them ourselves!

The lower left photos are the interior and exterior views of the common kitchen cooking area.You can see the path Al is standing on, where the traffic flowed around the work area.The middle left photo shows Al in the trash room where they also kept some fowl just outside the kitchen area. There are rooms above most of the structure, except above this room.


The rooms were built with mud and rocks that were chips off the larger stones. The walls were built very level and with great precision. There was a separate section on the far left end of the dwelling where it appears to be bunk rooms up and downstairs, with smaller openings. 

One room with a rounded wall was labeled as possibly the chief's quarters in the middle section. 

Al stands in the door of a small adobe home.The rounded outdoor oven nearby appears to have a pizza paddle!

The plants were all labeled with explanations of what the tribe used them for.KINNIKINNICK was one of the trees / bushes there.  I did't know that was a real word!


Larger individual pages here:  LEFT    RIGHT

IRL- In Real Life Meet Up

3 for tea in Monument Colorado at the Wisdom Tea Room

While in Colorado, I had tea with two other Scrap Girls that live nearby.

Fun! Meeting IRL (in real life) all over the states is a great experience!

Here is the page online:  3 together

Sisters are GOLDEN...

Jan and Chuck

A REAL bike rack!

Kayakers were riding the waves on the ice-pack swollen river!

Table Mountain with Castle Rock in the foreground

After a good nap, we headed out again for a stroll on the river walk in Golden, Colorado. The weather was lovely: warm and breezy. We walked close to three miles after our great dinner in the historic district of Golden, which was the capital of the Colorado Territory.

Table Mountain and Castle Rock overlook this quaint town. Afterwards we tried to see the Bison, but they were still hiding. At least we saw prairie dogs, more elk and NO rattlesnakes!

(more blog posts follow with more pictures)

Denver delights...

Barb in front of the Rocky Mountain National Park
and Continental Divide

Off on an early adventure today, we were seeking to see a herd of bison maintained by the City of Denver. They played hide and seek with us, and we only saw them at a distance. Meanwhile, we found a herd of elk grazing in the woods on one of our attempts to see bison.

A herd of elk lazing and grazing. Only 2 in this pic.

Al at Dinosaur Ridge

Five thousand years ago, a herd of dinosaurs were playing on the hillside when a flood took them to their deaths. Their path was preserved on this hillside and discovered in 1937.

God repented that he had made man and destroyed all living things with a flood. He began again with Noah's family. Yes, the account is absolutely true. The worldwide movement of mountains, rivers, land formations were shifted by the force of the one of a kind water force. The sediments of the rivers and newly formed fossil remains can be totally explained by the force of the water during God's flood.

The dark area is dinosaur fossil remains.

Good days can lead to Cold Stone Ice Cream treats! Yum!

After our drive we stopped for ice cream at Cold Stone. All's well that ends well, yes? Yummy!

Adventures in Colorado Springs...

The conference at Focus on the Family is what took us to Colorado Springs.
What a blessing it was!

Al with the Cog Train on Pike's Peak

We have never been this high elevation without an airplane!

The Garden of the Gods was donated to the city so everyone could enjoy them.

Al at the Balancing Rock

Al pushing the rock over! YIKES!

Condos in the rock! Interesting historical stop.

The common kitchen in the center of the units.

 Al visited Colorado Springs and Pike's Peak when he was a boy and his dad was stationed at Fort Carson in the early 50's. He remembered going up the mountain with his folks and always wanted to go back.

We have never been to Colorado in all our travels, so when we learned of the Pastors and Spouses conference there, we decided we would definitely visit the mountain again.

We rode the COG train to the top after the conference was over. The train traveled at a top speed of 8.5 mph and took an hour each way. The air is so thin we were getting dizzy. We took many pics from the ride and learned so much history of that mountain! What a delightful outing!

The Garden of the Gods was filled with interesting rock formations. Beautiful handiwork of God on display there!

The cliff dwellings are something I have always wanted to visit, so we stopped in for an hour and explored in the homes of the rock. We saw a common kitchen with shelves, loft bedrooms and brick and mortar walls that were perfectly level, per the people who studied these homes. It, too, was exciting to see. I'm so glad we went.

Al climbed into the "cleft of the ROCK"

As we explored the rock garden, Al discovered a cleft in a rock and climbed in it. Safe to the Rock that is higher... a safe place to be!

Family memories on Annapolis...

This photo is probably the last portrait of my family before my parents divorced. Bill appears to be a few months old so likely late 1960 or early 1961. The photo was taken in our living room on Annapolis Street. 

back row: Barb, 10(me); Mike,7; Vicki, 12

seated: Mom with Bill; Rosemary, 4; Dad

Angel for a day...

Ruth 1987

This week I found time to scan photos of Scott & Charity's wedding that my sister, Vicki, took. She gave them to me last fall. As I was laying around resting yesterday I decided to alter the photo settings from the poor scanning.

With a purple challenge for Scrap Girl's  High Noon Chat, I decided to do one of the wedding pages for Charity. After putting lots of wedding pics on the page, I discovered the sweet wings in my  stash and remembered this photo of Ruth was in the batch.

The journaling says, "We were able to get Ruth off her horse, Hawkeye, long enough to dress her up for her sister Charity's wedding."

The photo can be viewed at Scrap Girls here.

Doesn't Pearl look like her?

Illustrator Oriental Fan project done...

Oriental Fan project for Adobe Illustrated Class

Last quarter at college I took the beginner level of Adobe Illustrator. It was so much fun, that during the finals class and seeing the projects for the Intermediate class, I determined that I would take the class again this semester. On the way home after the finals were presented, I began to plan what projects I would create this quarter. This fan was one of them.

Now, nearing the end of this semester, the fan is finished and ready to present to the class during the finals on June 2. It was a work of love and learning.

The fabric is a tablecloth I bought when I was in China a few years ago. The pearls were made in Illustrator, and represent the pearls my husband bought me when we were in Beijing.

Art is so fulfilling for me... thank you for looking!

Missing my mom...

I just read a Facebook post about someone's "mama" being in heaven, and my tears began to flow...

My mom's been gone over 30 years and that wound can still be pricked in just a moment. I am missing talking with her every day, writing to her every week.... hearing from her every week.

Mom with Bill about 1962, in our front yard on Annapolis Street.

If you still have your mama, what time will you spend with her this week, while you can? [She knows you love her... but enough to spend more than a few minutes at a time with her?]

I am betting she misses your every day phone calls about nothing in particular!


She was one tough mama, and loved us more than her own life! She was a single mom working in a man's job at a factory to provide for us when Dad failed at it due to alcoholism. I miss her today...

April- feels good to scrap a bit!

It was fun to take a class in making paper flowers with Anna at Scrap Girls today. I actually found time to put a page together with the flowers! Thank you, Anna!

An amazing HONOR...

Today I learned I have been chosen Scrap Girls' MEMBER OF THE MONTH for April!

It's such an honor to be associated with such a friendly group of people in my life and art!

Here is a thread of the news announcement that I discovered as I was browsing earlier this morning.

Announcement


*** APR 16 NEWSLETTER story

THANK YOU, friends!

Ack! WEEDS!!

Now there are WEEDS... Gotta get out there soon! Hurry spring!

Al's birthday CELEBRATION...

Celebrating his birthday one day after Christmas has always been a challenge, but this year we invited Dr Ken Blue to preach on Al's birthday. Dr Blue is Al's best friend, and is dying of ALS. We were so thrilled he could help us make this birthday a memorable event.

Doodling day off...

Why do flowers show up when I doodle on Illustrator?