XO Studio

Cook Christmas 2010

2010-12-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

Just a few photos of my home at Christmas time! I'm having so much fun making crafts and decorating! I am definitely in the Christmas spirit this year! :)

I will take and post photos of the outside of our home! We put up lights this year! I love it! I can't wait for Christmas! I am hoping my parents will come so we can make tamales! Mmmm!

Today's Christmas Craft!

2010-12-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

I felt like getting crafty today! My friend, Sandy sent me a link in my email for some cute Christmas craft ideas and that's where I got the idea to make my dogs cute holiday clips for their collars! I love the way they came out!

After dinner tonight, I'm going to try my hand at making a holiday banner for my living room! I'll let you all know how that goes!

:)

The Sweet Boutique

2010-11-29T21:03:00.000-07:00

My good friend, Veronica and I decided that we wanted to combine my cute crafts and her yummy baking and sign up for a booth at the annual fall bazaar here on Dugway! We wanted something cute and different that has not been done before at the bazaar!

We worked hard all October and into November...and on the 18th of November we had a blast setting up The Sweet Boutique booth and loved the responses we got from our customers!

I sold handmade magnets, notebooks and my popular butterfly clips! I also raffled off a free photo shoot to one lucky winner! We also sold yummy chocolate covered strawberries, cake pops, caramel apples, and chocolate dipped pretzels!

We wanted our booth to be eye catching and cute and I think we accomplished just that! :)

I was Featured...

2010-08-30T10:07:00.000-06:00

...HERE!

A set of my Funky ButterflyClips were featured on a beautiful blog called 6th Street Design School! Its always fun to see your designs appreciated! So a big THANK YOU to Kristen Krason for making my day! Be sure to check out her blog!

In other news...I know its been over 6 months since my last post and since then I've been working on my shop and getting caught up in that! Its been a lot of fun and hopefully new things will start coming my way here on Dugway Proving Ground with our Family Readiness Group that will open up a lot of opportunity to introduce my photography skills and crafty skills to our small community!

I've posted a lot of my photo shoots on Facebook and will get a badge on my blog so if you'd like to see some of my work feel free to take a look!

There's also new and Oh SO Beautiful clips in the shop! These new sets might just be my all time favorites! I love working with paper and design and matching them up and making them look pretty!

I guess being featured was my little push to getting back to my blog! I hope I still have a few readers out there! Lol!

Leyla's Invitations

2010-03-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

I have been busy making my friend's little girl's birthday party invitiations! My friend saw some tags on my etsy and wanted to use them as her daughter's party invites! I'm so happy with how they came out! They were a lot of work for such a simple and cute design! The words were cut using my cricut and were 1/2 an inch and the y's kept on ripping and driving me crazy! I had to do a little of the words at a time or I would've gone crazy!! Lol!

Leyla also wanted a picture of Alice Cullen from Twilight made into tags for her candy bags! Those came out so cute! I found the same picture of Alice that she liked online and cropped the photo in CS3 and printed out a picture package of 2x3 inch photos and punched them with a tag punch! Those were super cute and she is SO excited!

I've also been working on some new stuff for my shop and working on homework! The Indie business class that Freckled Nest, Elsie, and Jill starts in a few days and I'm pretty excited about it!!

You can check out the new stuff in my shop by clicking the link on the left hand side!! I have to get back to some homework!! Toodles!

Pretty Cute Pendents

2010-02-10T13:35:00.003-07:00

****** The next 8 customers from my etsy store will recieve one of these little charms for FREE with their order!******

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2.No Longer Available
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7.No Longer Available
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Can't Wait!!

2010-02-10T09:24:00.002-07:00

I signed up for this Indie Business class on Elsie Flannigan's blog! The class starts in March and I'm pretty excited! Its a chance to seek advice from other people who have been successful in following their dreams and making them come true...

Most of the time I feel so isolated because there isn't anybody that I can talk to about what I like to do...where I live is very remote and people stick to themselves like everyone else has the plague! I'm very grateful that I have my phone and internet...I am still able to connect with my friends that live in different states and they keep me sane, but I still crave that social interaction with like minded people. Thats why I'm SO thankful there are people who keep interesting blogs!

My heart has always been in my crafting and photography hobbies! I still have a photgraphy business card I made up in grade school! Lol! I find it really hard to sit and read thru a medical text book all day, but give me a book about photohop techniques and I'll sit and read and play around in CS3 all day long. When I got my new camera I researched and read and took pictures all day long! I haven't been taking as many pictures as of late because I am stuck in this place where I feel guilty for following something that isn't making me any money when I should be going to school and getting a degree in something that doesn't interest me, but will make money.

I just want to go after something that will make me happy. This class is kind of my first step. I know it doesn't set anything in stone, but it'll be fun to see how the three girls that are teaching the class accomplished their goals.

_________________________________________________________________

My friend Diana awarded me this sweet blog award!! Thank you! I'm supposed to tell you 7 things you may not know about me!

1. I enjoy running! I'm not that good and I definitely don't have the body shape of a runner, but I keep getting better and better! I'm almost to the point where a mile run is a breeze!!

2. I LOVE Bollywood movies!!! I have a growing collection of movies...I love all the singing and the dancing and the gorgeous colors!!

3. I am genetically predisposed to collect junk! I love junk! My grandparents loved junk...kept a whole basement full of junk treasures that I loved to rummage thru whenever I visited!

4. I remember people by what type of dog they own...an example of this would be...

Chris: Do you remember Sgt such and such from unit blah blah blah back in germany?....Me: umm...oh ya she's the one with that really cute pekinese poodle chihuahua mix?

5. I have a growing collection of beanie babies with really huge eyes....because they remind me of my dog, Reyna...

6. I love road trips with just me and my two dogs!

7. I lived in Germany for three years! That was AWESOME!!!

A small update!

2010-02-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is having a good start of the work week! Its sunny and beautiful outside! Perfect weather to make a trip into town....I have to return the home charger for a phone I bought and then returned the next day because it just wasn't working out between the two of us! Lol! My phone is my best friend...my LIFE LINE!! I couldn't live out here without it!

I've updated my etsy shop with some cute Valentine's Day tags! There's only a few tags since its already so close to Vday...

The roses are handmade by me out of felt! They're so cute! I love the way they came out!

I think we are headed to Vegas for the four day weekend we have coming up! I'm ready to see my family...I always miss them so much! Have a great rest of the day!!

My Etsy Finds * Necklace Edition!

2010-02-06T23:40:00.004-07:00

I am in LOVE with these necklaces that I've found on Etsy.com!

This one is SO cute!! You can find it from the Generation Gap shop on Etsy.com

This necklace from Decorate The Diva is gorgeous! I bought one similiar to this one at the Bijou Market. Last year it was held in Provo, UT and I bought mine from the Tom Design booth! I lingered at the booth for a good 30 minutes (<---thats a lie...it was much longer than 30 mins!) trying to decide which necklace I wanted to take home with me! They were all so beautiful!!

This necklace, for obvious reasons, is also in my favorites! I think I may have to purchase this sometime soon!! You can find it here at bunnylogic!

I could spend hours on looking thru etsy.com! There are so many talented people making cute stuff!! I was looking around in the geekery and some of that stuff had me cracking up laughing!! I'll have to post some of those finds and hope you'll get a good laugh out of them too! Have a good night!

New Stuff!!

2010-01-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

Here's what I've been up to since the last time I posted! You can see all the new listings in my etsy shop!

Up to something crafty...

2010-01-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

I've been adding new cutesy stuff to my etsy shop and working on some new stuff. I decorated this wall mount mailbox a few days ago. I think it came out quite lovely....those are SO my colors!! Here's a few pictures of what I put into the shop...if you want to see more click on the link to my shop!

My Etsy Shop

2010-01-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

Wow! Its been a very long couple of months since I've done anything with my blog...I have been keeping up with all my favorite blogs here and there, but haven't had the motivation to scrapbook, craft or blog in a long time! I've just kind of been in a rut and feeling a little unhappy, but I'm slowly making my way out of the gloom that we all sometimes go thru every now and again!

I'm starting by finally reopening my etsy shop! I posted a few items earlier and i've already had a few sales and that has me excited to start crafting again!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday and I wish you all the best in this new year!

Here's a few of my items I listed in my shop and here's the link

My Etsy

I'm Still Around

2009-10-22T21:38:00.001-06:00

I just thought I'd stop by and check in! Lol! I've been busy making cute stuff for my shop and coming up with ideas for it. Its been a lot of fun! I also started drawing again. Its more like doodling really, but fun and relaxing nonetheless. I found my old box of colored pencils from when I was a kid and boy does that take me back! Lol! The box is filled to the brim with pencils so the sound of them shuffling against eachother while I search for the perfect color is what makes me feel all nostalgic! Haha!

The picture was taken with my phone so its not the best and its unfinished, but I thought I would post it anyways.

I also brought home a box full of all my little toys that I played with as a kid! They are so cute! Most of them are from the dollar store and some are The Littlest PetShops toys back when they were smaller. The ones out on the market today are big and have big heads. Still cute, but I like the ones that I have better! haha! As a kid, my brother and I spent a lot of time with my grandparents during the summer because both of my parents worked full time. As a treat, my grandparents would take my brother and me and my two cousins to the dollar store and to lunch. My cousin Monique and I would usually pick something similar so that we could play with it together. I kept all of my little toys like these for obvious reasons! They are so cute!!!

I have a few sets of these mini toys. One set is called Teddy's Wonderland and has cute little bears the size of....well they're really tiny!! The other set is Meow Meow's Wonderland! Lol!

The last photo I used the technique for shooting in Macro with a 50mm lens by flipping it around.

Its been somewhat stressful around here lately. There's just some stuff going on here that really should have stayed one soldier's family business, but instead they blew it all out of porportion and made it a lot of people's problem. Never have I experienced something like this. In the real world this would have never have affected anybody's home life or work life other than the person going through it. But in the military, where you work is home. Its ridiculous. For as much as I have grown to love this place....the place...not the people.....I've been finding myself making frequent trips to town just to get out of here for awhile. Last weekend the first half of the problem came home and caused quite an uproar. My hubby has to pick up the other half of the problem from the airport tonight. I hope it'll be a quiet weekend....fingers crossed.

2009-10-07T17:03:00.002-06:00

****Just to let you know.....I deleted the photography blog because I kept posting to it unintentionally! Lol! Doesn't make much sense to have two of them when I'm only posting to one! I was just being stingy! Haha! I'll just post all my stuff here!****

I've been up to a lot of crafting lately! Gotta love it! Lol!

I've been feeling really inspired by this awesome Military Wife and Scrapper for awhile now! Her pages are pretty much "timeless" and she doesn't get caught up in all the "latest" hype! She's in it for the stories she wants to tell and record for her daughters. Me on the other hand, I do tend to get caught up in the newest and cutest scrappy stuff on the market and worry about that more than the content of my pages. I chalk it up to not having any kids yet and not really worrying about the stories til they come along, but I'm trying.

Anywho, here's what I've been up to around these parts.

I love those sassafras buttons so much! They are so cute...just like my baby cousin! Lol! Gosh, this kid makes me all mushy-hearted.

I've been playing around with the idea of opening up my etsy shop again. I was playing around with these tiles and came up with some ideas. The monogrammed "K" and "B" pieces are for my friends two little girls. The bottom piece was just for fun.

Here's another page I did. Just wanted to play around with my SC kits and my stash of fortune cookie fortunes to make a page. I like it.

These next two photos are just some ideas I've been playing around with for the shop. I had an etsy shop last year for a few months. It did surprisingly well for the small amount of time it was open! I closed it for the time being due to us PCSing across the country, but we should be pretty stable for another year or two....fingers crossed! With winter coming, I thought it would be a fun little venture to keep me busy through the long winter months!

More photos will come soon if I decide to move forward with the reopening of my shop!

2009-09-27T12:44:00.004-06:00

The other night I was flipping through my Body + Soul Magazine and really liked how some of the advertisements and pages were layed out. I decided to give myself a little challenge and make a page using the layout from one of the pages.

Here's what I came up with! Pretty cute, right?! Lol! Of course I added my own touches to it.

I used Studio Calico's June Kit called Soda Fountain.

The few embellies that aren't from the SC kit, but from my own stash of cuteness are: the cute doggie shape I used for the "i" in "their", the "puppy love" stamp, the small heart and arrow, and the blue paper.

I love the color pallette! Studio Calico always puts together such nice kits, you should check them out! I've been a subscriber for the past 6 months and I haven't been disappointed. They always have new papers and embellies from my favorite manufacturers, as well as their own papers and stamps that they design!

I know we are so spoiled around here in the fact that we have three day weekends while the rest of the military has two day weekends, buuuuuuuuuut I can't help but want another day off! Lol! I haven't touched my school books at all this weekend! All I've done this weekend was play with paper, scissors and glue, hung out with the doggies and my hubby, cookout, and relax. So darn nice!

2009-09-26T13:19:00.003-06:00

I've definitely been in the mood to scrap some photos that I took while in Tucson a few weeks ago. The two photos I used of my Nana were actually taken earlier this year when we moved from South Carolina to Utah in March or April. I love these photos so much!

The weekend started Thursday evening after Chris got off work. We were so worn out by the end of the day that we just relaxed all evening and then I ended up staying up til like 3am playing in my craft room.

The mornings have been so beautiful around these parts lately! Chris and I sleep with the window opened a few inches and in the morning the room is cool, bright and feels so fresh! Its a lovely way to wake up!

My friends and I have been walking a lot and spending a good amount of time outside!

No official plans for the weekend as usual, but thats the way I like it! Just going to do some scrapping, plug in the new Wacom tablet I bought and learn to use that!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Catching Up!

2009-09-23T15:11:00.003-06:00

Today has been a lovely day so far! I spent my morning doing some homework that has been put off for weeks and I feel a little better about that! I spent some time working on this layout yesterday and it took me forever to finish because I was distracted by the fact that I should have been doing homework and not this layout! Lol!

So, this morning I finished up a good chunk of homework and I'll hit the books again til Chris comes home in a few hours! I also went on two walks today and caught up with friends. I can't begin to describe how lovely the weather is! Mmmm....I love this season! I think I'm gonna light up my pumpkin pie scented candles this evening...mmmmm!

Point Blank Period

2009-09-22T11:03:00.005-06:00

This was for the 1st challenge over at Point Blank Period. Its a new challenge blog created by this awesome lady! Check both of the sites out, Sasha is so talented and tells it like it is!

So I'm trying to get back into the swing of things around here. I went to Tucson, AZ because we had a death in the family and my grandmother got sick from the shock of it all, but she is doing better and I enjoyed my time with my grandparents, cousins and uncles! I miss them so much and its always so good to go back home for a bit. We were all so close before we moved to Nevada, but it doesn't feel like any time has passed when we are all together. But the proof that life does go on and times have changed, see adorable new cousins in post below!

I celebrated my 25th birthday on the 17th of this month! My mom and dad took me out to eat in Vegas and me and my mom caught a movie afterwards. On the 15th, the day before me and mom drove home to Vegas, we celebrated with my nana's famous tacos for dinner! It was so nice! For some reason, Chris and I are never together on my birthdays, same held true for this year! Lol! I was in Vegas for my birthday. Last year, I was home alone in South Carolina while Chris was in WLC for two weeks. Luckily, I had a really special friend to take me out to lunch! Sandy, I got your card in the mail! Thank you sooooo much!!

Its getting so chilly here at Dugway, you can definitely tell that change is in the air! It feels so good! I had a lovely reunion with Chris and my dogs! Its always nice to spend a few days away from home to help you reappreciate what you have! Is reappreciate a word? Chris had the whole house spotless for me when I got home. He's amazing. I love that man.

I have lots of catching up to do around here, but I look forward to it!

Heart Thiefs 1&2

2009-09-20T18:43:00.004-06:00

I haven't known Angel (1 yr, left) or Mikey (3 yrs in Nov, right) that long and I just met Angel for the first time when I went home to Tucson, AZ this past week, but I love them nonetheless and they stole my heart! Its amazing and exciting to see that my family is still growing! I can see my cousin Charlie in his little boy, Angel and so much of my cousin Monique comes out in her son, Mikey. These boys are the first great grandchildren to my Nana and Tata. Its hard living so far away from my extended family, especially because we were so close as kids and now that they are having families of their own its harder to keep in touch because our lives are so different!

Even though I'm scared and feel so unprepared for having kids of my own someday I do hope that one day there will be more of these little ones running around out at the Ranch where we all grew up.

Dreamy

2009-09-07T21:42:00.001-06:00

Done and Done!

2009-09-07T10:06:00.011-06:00

I finished up the engagement photos on Friday. Its a weight off my shoulders! I think they came out great despite the fact that I chopped off Arica's arm in the photo below. It looks like a stump! Lol! So things to pay attention to in future sessions will be; chopped off limps, hair in eyes, and bright spots on faces when taking photos under treees or shade where light is peeking in!

I guess I can say I learned soooooo much from taking these and editing them! I stressed out a lot about making them perfect! I know they're far from perfect, but they are decent and Arica loves them! So much to learn! But I'm learning! :)

I am so thankful they trusted me enough to do this for them. I just hope they look great in print, but I don't want to think about that at the moment....too much pressure! Lol!

I know I posted some of these already, but oh well. I'm so happy with them and I'm happy I'm done with them! Lol!

This weekend was great! My mom and dad came down for a spur of the moment visit! I love those! It was relaxing and I really missed them, so it was wonderful! Chris was with his parents camping in Delta, but came home yesterday afternoon and we cooked out! It was fun!

My parents left about an hour ago. Right before they left my Tata had called with some bad news. My Nana's brother passed away. So it looks like I will be going to Arizona for a few days for the funeral. I'm so sad for my Nana and my uncle's family. My cousin Serena, his granddaughter just got married last weekend, it seems that he was holding on for her and her special occassion. At least they have those last wonderful memories of him.

Well, I'm gonna work on some stuff here that I've been neglecting! Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday! Mine was great and relaxing!

Looong day...

2009-09-02T21:40:00.006-06:00

...I'm looking forward to the long weekend! I hope it goes nice and slow! Here's a few photos I edited yesterday and tonight. I'm going cross-eyed! There's one below where I think I over did it a little. If you happen to notice or not notice could you let me know?! Lol! By the time I finished the last one for the night my eyes were straining. Anywho, I can't wait to be done, I love these two, but I'm tired of looking at their mugs for real! LMAO!

Picasa

2009-08-31T20:08:00.003-06:00

I'm just playing around a photo program I downloaded off the internet called, Picasa. Its pretty neat and I like that you can make collages out of your photos in no time! I haven't learned how to do it in CS3 yet. I worked on these photos today. Pretty simple to edit, I already knew how I wanted to edit these. The original photos were totally blue since they were taken in a blue tunnel slide. I converted them to b&w, lightened them up, and applied a lens blur yet again! Its my favorite way to draw attention to the subjects! Plus it just looks neat!

I hope Cody and Arica like these, as well as all of you who have been stopping by my blog and leaving me comments! I really really appreciate them and you! Thank you!

After thought: I really don't like how small the collage came out and my photos really aren't as blurry as they look on here! Promise! Lol! I'll look into it for next time!

Happy 1st Birthday, Mr. Man!

2009-08-29T22:50:00.004-06:00

Today, I got to watch the cutest one-year-old shove cake in his face and make a huge mess! It was adorable! I love this photo even though its a little blurry! He thought it was pretty funny that he was so dirty when his mommy went to grab him from the high chair! He was laughing and trying to touch her face! SO cute!

This is the birthday card I made him. I wanted a card that his mom could use in his scrapbook. I wrote a little something on the back.

This is me and Mr. Man's momma, Sam. She is an amazing mother and friend! I'm so thankful for her friendship.

Some more smurfy-cuteness!

After the party I came home and worked on some more photos. Editing is fun, but very time consuming. My finger is sore, I want to look into getting one of those pads that come with the pen to do this stuff. But there are other more important things we need to take care of before I splurge on that! Lol! Another reason why its taking me so long is because I have to look up how to do some of these things and I still don't know how everything works, but the more I play the more I learn. The only thing that hangs in the back of my mind while I do this is that I am not getting any homework done! Lol!

This was my favorite photo from the few I worked on tonight! She has amazing eyes, I just can't get over them! I did the lens blur technique I learned the other day. I really wanted to show case her ring and her gorgeous eyes! I absolutely love the results!

I made these the other day for our FRG ladies night that we are having here in my backyard. I've always wanted to do a little get-together just so I could make invitations! Lol! I'm a dork like that! These were pretty easy though. I typed them up in photoshop and printed them out onto white-textured cardstock and backed them with Amy Butler "Sola" patterned paper.

Well, I best be getting off, if I go to bed too late I won't be up til noon and I'll feel like crap to boot! Lol!

Padding Myself On The Back...

2009-08-27T22:59:00.003-06:00

...for this super cute wedding announcement/poster I made for my brother-n-law's facebook group! Isn't it so freakn cute??!

I took some shots of my soon~2b~sis and brother~in~law playing in the slide and at the bottom were those two little hearts that some kid drew in the tunnel and I tried to fit them in, but I ended up with this photo with an ear and a hand with a ring on it! I didn't even dare to crop it, its awesome the way it is!

I had to convert the photo to b&w because the slide was blue and it was a bright day. (They looked like the cutest couple from the Blue Man Group! Lol!) I filled in the sharpie hearts with a gradient, applied a lens blur that I just learned how to do today, and went through my collection of fonts to find the perfect one! I also added a vignette to finish it off! I love it! SO SO proud! Hahaha!

I think my favorite thing about the photo, besides the whole photo (lol!) is the hand-drawn hearts! They're playful, just like Cody and Arica!

Fetish

2009-08-20T15:41:00.004-06:00

I have a "thing" for the red fences here on Dugway.

I love the color and the texture.

I love the way the red stands out against the blueness of the sky and the green of the grass.

I love how the setting sun saturates the fences with warm light. It makes them look pinkish-orange.

I love that we see in color.

Did I mention I have a "thing" for color?

This Says It All

2009-08-19T19:14:00.006-06:00

"If the sight of blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, Rejoice, for your soul is alive."

~Eleonora Duse

Photo Taken: June 26, 2009

Serenity: Captured

2009-08-18T13:16:00.004-06:00

The view a few steps from my back gate.

Lucky Me.

Sass is Sunshine...

2009-08-15T22:56:00.006-06:00

....on a dark, rainy and windy day!

They were having a huge clearance sale at their office location in Salt Lake City! They had some killer deals that not even a tornado could keep me from! The wind was howling when I woke up this morning and it was dark....well, it was 5am, but when the sun came up the sky was dark and heavy! I didn't let that deter me! I was on a mission to grab up as much Sassafrass cuteness as I could get my hands on!

If I wasn't such a kind and honest person, this poster would have been hanging in my scrapbook room tonight! Lol! I want one so bad. I love Sassafrass. Their supplies are so fun and colorful and its like.....Sunshine Lollipops. :)

So you wanna know how much I spent???

I spent a whopping.....$63.00! Yep! Thats about $100 less than what I would have paid in stores for as much loot as I got! Those chipboard stickers were a buck a piece......those buttons were $.25 a pack, those beautiful brads were $4 (only because they are still pretty new!)

The newish pattern paper was $.50 a piece if you bought ten sheets. So I did. Paid $5. Older paper was $.40 if you bought ten. I bought 20 sheets for $8.

Their adorable clear stamps were only THREE DOLLARS a pack!!!!!!

Paper whimsies were $2 a pack, sticker sheets were a buck, as well as their rubons!

Soooo....seriously...I wanted to grab one of every stamp set they had for purchase, but I have to admit that I would have only used them to look at and admire! lol! I did grab three packs....2 for me and a pack for my good friend, Sandy.

I'm so glad I braved the weather, it was pretty ugly out there, but by the time I got out of the office the weather was nicer and it turned out to be a beautiful day!!!

BTW....Pics were taken with my phone....I was too lazy to upload the ones from my camera.

I'm sooooo THERE!!!

2009-08-13T10:42:00.004-06:00

This Saturday, one of my favorite scrapbooking companies,

SASSAFRAS, is having an office location sale in Salt Lake City!!! I knew they were based somewhere here in Utah, but I never figured it was so close!! I'm so excited!!

They have the cutest products ever! Each line is always cuter than the last!

I have their blinkie on my side bar, it should take you to their website (if I posted the link right! Lol!)

I'm taking my camera for sure!

I bet their office is super cute and I'm hoping that Elizabeth Kartchner will be there! Lol! I know she lives somewhere in SLC! Lol! I feel like such a groupie saying that! haha!

Creepy Crawly!

2009-08-12T08:53:00.004-06:00

Last night, Chris was walking down the stairs and luckily flipped on the light switch before he stepped off the last step onto this sucker!!!

It's creepy because, I was just downstairs a few minutes earlier talking on the phone, walking around barefoot, and had walked across the hallway in front of the stairs to the bathroom where it was found a few minutes later!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwww! I had the creepy crawlies all night long! I threw the bed sheets off like a crazy person when I felt a small prick on my leg last night! Chris thought that was pretty funny! Me, not so much! Just makes me wonder how many more are here in the house that we haven't seen! Gross!

Chris says that their sting is no worse than a bee's sting, but I don't like bees either so I really don't care if they're poisonous or not! They're ugly and creepy and got me watching every dang step I take!!!!

Chris caught him in a glass and put him on the table last night. We were thinking that he would freeze because its been pretty chilly at night, but he was alive and pretty pissed this morning.

I want to let him go because I feel kind of bad, but I want to let him go a hundred miles from here! Lol! I don't want to just toss him out and have him crawl back here!!

On another note:

Today is Chris' birthday!

I didn't say happy birthday to him, which is probably the last thing he cares about right now. He could barely move this morning! He has a herniated disc in his back that has just gotten so bad in the last couple of days and this morning he didn't make it to PT and every move he made took his breath away! I hate watching him like this! Hopefully, today he will get an appointment to get a cortisone shot or something! I know its not a permanent fix, but he at least needs something to take the edge off so he can at least function while we try to find something! I was looking up Non Surgical Spinal Decompression, but he said that we should get a back inversion machine because its basically the same thing as NSSD.

So much for a happy birthday for my Love.

That's Better!

2009-08-07T16:55:00.007-06:00

I've been working my butt off for the last two days trying to get my craft room in order and decluttered! I started school again....online....and the room wasn't condusive to learning! Before, you could not see the top of my desk. It had the house computer, which we weren't using and my laptop on it plus tons of other crap that needed to be put away.

I finally finished after two long days of organizing. Basically, everything went into the closet. But in a neat and orderly fashion.

This was taken when I first set up the room when we moved here in April. I didn't take a "before the overhaul" photo, but just imagine loads of junk on that desk with no space to set anything! Lol!

This is what it looks like now! I like the way it came out! I removed the house computer since its now become obsolete, but now I'm thinking that it wasn't that smart because it did have itunes on it.

I love hanging stuff on the walls! I just hope it doesn't topple over! Lol!

I moved the filing cabinet that I used to keep under this desk and put it in the closet. My mutts thanked me. :)

The other part of the room is the scrapbooking area. Its kind of funny that without thinking, the shelving on that side of the room is white and my study area shelving is black! It helps divide the room up, but still feels cohesive and the collaged hangings on the wall in front of my desk help balance out the room with the shelving at my scrapbook desk. Which is probably why the room feels better. I also took out a tall shelf that was over in the corner of the scrappy side of the room! It just felt too cramped, uneven and heavy.

Anyway, if your interested, here's more of what the room looked like before, here!

Moving on!

Yesterday evening, my sweet neighbor, Heather (Left, tall blonde!) had a going away party at her house. Their house is connected to ours, by the way.

Her and her family are moving back to Virginia. Her husband, Matt, is a civilian contractor and was sent out here to work for six months out at Ditto (testing area). Its really sad to see them go! Heather and I played on the softball team, but we really never were out on the field together come to think of it!

There's a 50/50 chance that they may be coming back.....hopefully! I hope they don't have to leave! If they do leave and come back they probably won't get to be our neighbors again!

Also, pictured is my friend, Sam. I love this chick! She has fast become one of my closet friends and someone I look to as a source of inspiration!

Moving on....again....lol!

The weather was horrible yesterday! I woke up at five am to my alarm and rolled over and was blinded by lightning! Lol! There wasn't any rain to accompany it, not here anyways.

Life went on as usual and Chris took off on his motorcycle to Elko, NV to renew his license. Sure enough, after he left the wind started picking up and it got pretty bad! The lightning started a small brush fire in Skull Valley. Chris said that on his way through there in the morning, he saw fire trucks sitting on the side of the road. They were letting the fire burn and I guess hoping it would burn itself out. By the late afternoon, it was huge!!!

I didn't know anything of it til Chris called around 4:30 from a rest stop on I-80. Poor guy, drove through stong winds on the salt flats and the trip was made extra long because a part of I-80 was closed due to a high speed chase in which somebody was shot and killed. Then the Skull Valley exit was closed due to a wild fire. Chris had to drive clear up to Tooele and back down again to Dugway! He was beat!

I took these while at my neighbors party. The smoke cloud was huge, but as soon as I stepped outside the wind picked up and blew all the smoke towards Dugway. It smelled like one big campfire outside!!!

Well, thats all I got for this evening. I gotta do some catch up on school work!

Engagement Photos!

2009-08-04T11:00:00.004-06:00

This weekend, I had the honor of photographing my brother in law and his fiance's engagement photos! They are a ridiculously cute couple and I had so much fun! By the end of the day we were pretty much wore out, but totally worth it because they loved the first batch they were able to see!
Is she not gorgeous?! She seriously, just glows in all her photos! She has the most beautiful skin and skin tone! Not to mention her eyes! Lucky for Cody, he gets to stare into them for eternity. Not a bad way to spend your life! Lol!

BTW....these are proofs. Haven't done to much in the way of editing. But, its gonna be easy because Arica has such flawless skin, it already looks airbrushed. I would probably hate her if I didn't already love her! LOL!

Yep yep, they were sure fun to shoot! They will have plenty to chose from for their announcements! I just touched up a few because they started a cute "we're getting married" group on facebook and I wanted to post a few there.

I'm really happy that they trusted me enough to do the photos! Its great practice and I learn something new everytime I photograph people like this!

On a totally different note! This morning on my walk back home, I was walking along the path that runs through the park and I saw my neighbors dog, Trouble. I call him over because I wasn't sure if they knew he was running around loose and I didn't see anyone out looking for him. So, I call him and he saunters over and I pet him. I have him follow me along the path a few feet and we both stop because we both noticed that there was some sort of rodent laying in the grass. I thought it was dead, but Trouble (this being a very fitting name for the mutt) sticks his nose in the rodents face and that rat/gopher/i dont know what the heck it was just lunges at this dog with two huge front and bottom teeth! The rat wouldn't run away and kept lunging and baring its teeth at me and the dog. I kept telling the dog to come and I wanted to grab his color, but that stupid rat lunged at me! So there I was, in the middle of a field yelling "oh sh*t, oh sh*t!"

Trouble gets a good shot at the rat finally and takes the thing by the neck and whips it back in forth in his mouth! It was crazy and pretty disgusting because the body got torn and flew one way and the head and gizzards was in the dogs mouth! I follow the dog home and this nasty bloody gizzard stuff is hanging from his mouth. My other neighbor shows up and she has her little puppy with her, I'm trying to tell her not to touch the dog becuase he has gizzards hanging out of his mouth, when her pup ran up to trouble to see what he had. Trouble runs home to his front door and wolfs down what he had in his mouth so that the other dog wouldn't get it.

So, ya. Pretty nasty!

My neighbor, Heather, came to the door because she heard our comotion and opened the door and the dog ran in! I was like, "don't let him lick your kids!" haha!

She has toddlers.

Ick.

Well, I've squandered enough time again. Lol! I have to take an exam! Wish me luck!!

2009-08-03T13:30:00.005-06:00

The last two weeks have been pretty busy! We got home on June 25th and a few days later I drove another couple hundred miles down to vegas to get my dogs! I stayed a week at my parents and drove back home last friday and got home around 11am. Later on that night, I gathered up some of my scrapbooking supplies and headed over to my friend's house. She wanted me to talk to her girl's youth group about scrapbooking. I let them have a bunch of my old patterned paper, cardstock, and old scrap magazine's. Even later in the evening, I get a call from my brother in law saying he's on his way out to Dugway. I knew he was coming with his 5min old fiance, but I totally spaced it! Lol! And I say 5min old very lovingly.....he had just proposed to her earlier that evening.

Saturday, I photographed my bro's engagement photos here on dugway, ophir, and at the SLC temple. They came out great and they look so cute together!! So needless to say, Saturday, was very draining. By the end of the day the couples smiles were getting more forced and my photos were getting blurry! hahaha!

Yesterday, I think I slept in a little. I had grand plans of waking up early, working out, and doing tons of school work. I did two hours of school work. It was tedious, but I got through it and went over to Sam's house where we loaded my car's backseat with bundles and bundles of clothes that she has shrunk out of! They are all in different sizes and in good condition! Free is good! Lol!

Sam whipped out her son's first year baby album that she scrapped the other day and it was ADORABLE! Her kids are way cute! I came home feeling the need to scrap as well and here is the finished product. Done in an evening! Which, for me, is pretty dang awesome and I sooooooo must have been in the mood! Lol!

Horrible, horrible lighting as usual.....pisses me off.

But anywho......they are pictures from a random day in June. I love them. The darkest picture is a photo of green grass, against the red fence and a blue sky with white clouds. It really is a lovely photo IRL.

I used my crusty old type writer for my strips of journaling. The flowers were cut out of a piece of Making Memories patterned paper. Specifically from the Great Escape line. I love MM's summer lines! Last year's, Passport line, was by far my favorite line ever! I was able to score the whole line from Michael's end of summer clearance. It was pretty sweet! Lol!

I used foam thicker's that came in July's Studio Calico kit, brads from MM's Chloe's closet line, and the material covered brads are from Sassafrass as is that chipboard number.

I had lots of fun working on that. I love being inspired!

Missing The Pups...

2009-07-26T22:05:00.004-06:00

....which is probably why I was able to whip this layout out in a few minutes without thinking about it too much!

AND

....which is why I'm driving down to Vegas tomarrow morning to go pick them up!

I was lazy and took the photo with my cel phone. Me thinks it wasn't such a good idea after all! It looks horrible and the cardstock is actually green and not gray!

Oh....sweetness! I miss them. I thought we were a quiet, kidless, family of four. But life without them is pretty quiet! G, is my shadow and always by my side. He's so loving and gentle. Reyna is my 3lb bag of sugar and spice! I really do enjoy my little pals. They make us laugh!

This morning, I got up and went to church. I was invited by the chaplains wife to come and see the conclusion of the Vacation Bible School activities they had over the last couple of weeks while I was gone. I sat with my friend Sam and her family and watched Chad, her hubby, play the part of a roman soldier. It was way cute how all the kids were involved! The chaplains wife asked if I would stop by the youth group meeting this friday evening and talk to the girls about scrapbooking! Of course, I obliged! I'm gathering some of my old supplies so they can use them. It should be lots of fun!

After the service, Sam and Chad invited me to go hiking with them! It was awesome to get out after two weeks of sitting on a bike! Not that I have a problem with sitting on a bike! Lol! But exercise is good! We drove out to Simpson Springs and saw about 30-40 wild mustangs around a watering hole! They were beautiful! When I got home the electricity was out! So I took a shower by candle light. It was relaxing!

Saturday, ACS treated us military wives to a morning of pampering! Mr. Reilly's wife, who is a Mary Kay consultant, volunteered to come in and treat us all to facials! It was a nice way to be welcomed home and perfect timing! Two weeks wearing a helmet and constant applying of sunscreen to the face has my pores clogged!!!

I came back home feeling prettier and more refreshed than when I left! It was nice to catch up with my friends and have girl talk!

Here's a photo of all of us looking FAB-O-LUS! Lol!

From left to right, we have the lovely miss Hazel who is retired military and married to the ACS director. Kneeling, is the generous Mrs. Laura Reilly, who came all the way out to Dugway to treat us to facials! Throwing up the peace sign is fellow Army wife, Amber! Then there's me....looking oh so tanned and fresh faced thanks to Laura! Next to me is my sweet, petite and leggy friend, Sam! She's awesome and a source of inspiration to me! She has 7 more lbs to go til she has lost 100 lbs since she had her son a year ago in September! Can't say enough good things about this chick! It was lovely getting to spend the morning chitchatting with her! Next to Sam is Colleen! She is such a sweet, soft spoken woman. She's also the one who invited me to church and to the youth group meeting to teach some scrapbooking! Can't wait!

Its been such a pleasure getting to know these people better and it makes me want to get out there even more and share some of my hobbies with whoever wants to know about them! I'm still trying to get a crop together! It would be fun!

Well, I have an early morning! Ta ta for now! Lol!

Just a few....

2009-07-26T01:37:00.003-06:00

...photos from the trip to share tonight. Its really late, but I was downloading my pics and these came out great! Most of my photos were taken while on the road, but they still came out pretty good!

I'll post more in the coming days....I took over 1500. Really, who needs that many photos??

Enjoy!

Home, Oh So Sweet Home

2009-07-24T20:50:00.003-06:00

Feels so lovely to be back in my cool, comfy, and clean house! The trip was wonderful and amazing, but the last three days in Montana and in Idaho were scorchers!

We started the day in Salmon, Idaho and rode down to Rigby, Idaho where we stopped in for a quick visit at Chris' grandfather's house. The ride there was beautiful with the river, hills, mountains and fields of crops at our side. Horses, cows, and deer could be spotted in the fields! The sky was amazingly blue and the weather was cool. It felt like we owned the road because there were only a handful of cars that we passed on the way to Rigby. I sat back, daydreamed, and watched the scenery go by.

There is something about seeing the world from a motorcycle that makes me feel so renewed and thankful! There is nothing like being thousands of miles from home with only a few pairs of clothes and a camera! But it also makes you thankful that you have a permanent place to rest your head and call home...well in my case a semi-permanent! ;)

The only downfalls to being out on the road a long way from home is eating out all the time. Its so gross! We tried to eat a good breakfast in the mornings, but its really early when we start our day. We didn't really stop for lunch so by the time we got to the next destination we were all pretty hungry and just about stuffed ourselves at the chosen restaurant!

But, we stopped at a farmers market on the way home and bought some fresh corn on the cob, red potatoes and peaches for dinner! It was delicious! We did the same thing last year! Its refreshing to have fresh veggies and fruits after two weeks of icky restaurant food!

This month is going to be busy and exciting!

Softball tournaments are coming up!
I am going back to school and need to finish up the paperwork and talk to a career counselor *excited*
I have my cousins wedding on the 21st and my little cousins bday party on the 22nd of August!
I have plenty of photo shoots to keep me busy for awhile and I have to finish the ones from before the trip

So much more stuff to do, but those are the ones I can think of from off the top of my head!
I miss my puppies soooooo bad! They will have been gone for a whole month after I pick them up sometime next weekend and I miss them terribly! But I know they are fine and probably being spoiled rotten by my parents! Lol!
Well, I'm sleepy and need a bath so bad right now! Lol! Tomarrow, I'm getting a facial and its perfect timing and free! My pores are so clogged with sunscreen its not even funny! But I'm pretty happy that I don't look like a pizza face, just a little tanned on the cheeks and nose.
Alrighty, good night!
P.S. Pics coming soon....hopefully!!!!

I heart Canada!

2009-07-18T18:17:00.003-06:00

Its been a long week full of breathtaking scenery! I'm finally able to take a few minutes here at the hotel to get my blog some what up to date!

So I'm here in Kamloops, B.C. We took a ferry from Port Angeles, Washington to Victoria B.C. and stayed the night there. We also stayed the night in Whistler where they are going to host the 2010 winter olympics. It was really beautiful!

The ride along the coast has been amazing! The weather was pretty cold, but soooo worth it! I actually saw a whale off the coast of oregon!

I've taken soooo many awesome photos! We still have another week on the road, I hope we can make it! This trip has cost a fortune in just a week! Its worth it though!

Well I gotta go get ready for dinner! I'll get some pics up when I get home!

I almost forgot to mention.....I got to go to Forks, La Push, and we stayed in Port Angeles! They have a twilight store there! I didn't get to the PA store on time which was a bummer! Lol!

Yesterday...

2009-07-09T08:18:00.004-06:00

I helped a complete stranger (an older gentleman) find some stuff he needed at WalMart. He said I was the kindest, most nicest person he ever met and shook my hand and kissed the top of it to thank me. It was so nice.
I had a great rest of the day afterwards......I think it was karma ;)
I bought a two piece swimsuit that I feel comfortable wearing! Amazing! Lol!
All the clothes I tried on fit! (I was in shock! But like I said...KARMA!) So they came home with me!
I earned my friend $200 on a day that she was bummed out and made her day a little better! (HOPE YOU'RE FEELING BETTER TODAY!)
I cleaned all the carpeting in my house and it looks GREAT!!!
I decided I'm going back to school...well school's coming to me...via my internet connection! Lol!

Yesterday, Chris:

Went to a funeral for a WW2 Vet/POW in Rush Valley. This American Hero was not recieving Military Funeral Honors even though he sacrificed so much for this country. His family called up the soldiers here on Dugway as a last resort and asked them if they would attend to at least render this man some honor. I don't know what the reason was behind this man not getting the proper military funeral, but I'm proud of my husband stepping up and volunteering a second after he heard the words Vet and POW. Chris' soldiers just felt bad that it was at a moments notice and they were in ACU's. It just goes to show that we do take care of our own in times such as these. The US Military is one big family and I'm proud of all of them.

Try this one...

2009-07-07T14:02:00.002-06:00

So Far Today...

2009-07-07T13:30:00.004-06:00

I woke up feeling tired, but happy and excited!

I went to an 8 o'clock meeting and was the only person there, but I got one on one attention and got to take all the donuts with me! Lol! I gave them to Chris so he could share with the clinic!

I broke my sandal and had to walk out barefoot from said meeting.

I steam cleaned the carpet in my bedroom and it smells lovely!

I read this article and found it very interesting. For as long as I can remember, I've always had an issue with my weight. Even when I was in elementary school I felt fat. Pretty sad considering the only thing kids that age should be worried about is what time recess is at or what fun thing they're going to do next. I probably remember every little comment that was made about my weight and I hate to say that they had an affect on me, but they did. I know a lot of people struggle with this and that I'm not the only one. I hope you'll take a couple minutes if you can to read the article. I liked it and wanted to share it. I'm hoping that you can click on it to make it bigger to read, but if not you can leave a comment telling me so and I can probably email it to you if you'd like!

I'm gonna clean up the scraproom so I can clean the carpet! The carpet in here is probably the dirtiest. I spend a lot of time in here cutting stuff up and the dogs are always in here too....play fighting and rolling around on the carpet! lol! I miss those little guys! Its weird and quiet with them not here....*sad face*

Home!

2009-07-06T17:26:00.003-06:00

This weekend was lovely! Full of family and good food! Lol! We just got home a few hours ago from Vegas and the weather is a "wee" bit cooler than it was down there. Thursday evening, we stopped in Logandale where Chris' parents live and it was humid!! Ugh! Haha! I'm so spoiled up here in the mountains!

My parents live in a two bedroom apartment in Vegas now that we are all moved out so it was a tight squeeze when my Grandparents, my brother and his girlfriend came down from AZ. It was so nice though! Its hard to get all of us in the same place at the same time so I know my mom and dad enjoyed having a full house! I did too! Its been a few months since I've seen my grandparents.

Yesterday, my brother's girlfriend Heli did two new tattoos on my wrists! They are small and way cute! My brother reshaded the one Heli did a few months ago. He's learning how to do tattoos and he did a pretty good job with the shading. Heli was watching over him so I was as comfortable as someone can be when they are getting needles stuck into they're back! Haha! It hurt....but obviously not that much to deter me from getting two more! Lol! The pink ink Heli used was so pretty and I couldn't let the rest sitting in the little cap go to waste so I decided to get the two paws I've been wanting....one for each of my little dogs whom I love so much! I miss those little terd muffins already! They stayed in Vegas with my parents. They're gonna watch them for us while we go on vacation! I know they are being spoiled as we speak!

I'll snap a picture of them later!

We have a softball game tonight should be fun, but its hot outside! Its in the 90's and although its cooler than in vegas I really don't feel like running around in it! Haha! But I have to make up for all that deliciousness I ate at home! Holy cow! We eat so good when we go home! Its amazing! Lol!

I have a lot to do this week!

The running list looks like this!

clean
clean
clean

AND

clean some more!

HAHA!

I borrowed my mother in laws carpet cleaner. Chris said the house smells like dog. Ya....pretty gross. Its a combination of my dogs and that big slobbering dog we took care of. Lol! Although, there were no accidents done in the house its in dire need of a good cleaning! It'll be nice coming home from a long road trip to a nice clean house!

Alrighty, I'm gonna jump off and get ready for the game! Wish us luck, we usually need it! Ha!

Dugway Days

2009-07-01T08:04:00.005-06:00

Today marks the beginning of the next crazy couple of weeks! Tonight is Dugway Days, which is the posts way of celebrating the fourth of July. We do it earlier because most people leave for the actual fourth of july. This is my first time attending one. I hope its fun. The FRG (Family Readiness Group for Military families) is trying to make a little money so that we can start doing some fun stuff. We don't have any funding at all. Its a long story, but basically we are the redheaded step children of the Army out here. There's not very many military personnel out here, so Ft.Carson doesn't really feel the need to send the funds that they recieve specifically for us over here. Oh, I guess I should mention that the clinic my hubby works at is a satellite clinic attached to Ft.Carson in CO.

Its up to the few wives who do attend the meetings which, is like 5 of us to try to get the ball rolling. We are going to be selling fake tattoos and those glowy necklaces. We have so much competition out here, with the churches, civilian groups, and the community club that its really going to be hard raising money. We were told that MWR had a problem with us selling baked goods because there was already so many people selling food. The sentiment towards the military families here isn't all that great to begin with and being that there are so many civies out here, they are used to pretty much running the place. I get it, they stay here longer than we do. They live and work out here, some have been living out here for generations so it is their home. But its ours too. MWR and all that stuff is for the soldiers. My husband was all excited because there is a rock shop on post, a woodworking shop and other fun things like that, that are really meant for the soldiers, but he was told that it was pretty hard for any of them to get in there because civillians kept the keys and some keep there private stock of wood and tools in there so they pretty much keep it closed to military. Thats not fair.

I really didn't mean to turn this post into a bitch fest, but I did, didn't I? Haha! Sorry, but we are the least paid people here! Most are scientist making 6digit incomes and I know their expertise is valuable and they all went to college, but then why are soldiers stationed here in the first place?

Okay, so seriously, we are working on things and we have a great guy who is retired military working with the FRG to try to change things. Its slow and go, but these things take time. We aren't trying to take over, but we are trying to at least open up places that are meant for military families in the first place.

But, back to the crazy next few weeks....

Thursday we are driving into vegas to visit my parents and drop off my dogs. We are doing another bike trip! This time we are going up the west coast into Canada. Last year it was the East Coast! That was an amazing trip and I am sure this one will be even better!!! I hear the Oregon coast is amazing! Can't wait!! Here's a few pictures from last years trip and you can also go here for a few more photos!

I'm sure I'll be back on in a few days and every now and then throughout the trip! Talk at ya later!

(Hmmm....so looking over this post...ya...I did make a long story long!) Sorry! ;)

Some more

2009-06-29T17:06:00.003-06:00

I am trying to add a signature that I made up. So hopefully it works. I had to paste it into the html since the other way didn't work! Thats been the problem all along. I think the tutorials I'm trying to follow are old. But whatever, I'm figuring it out on my own. Its pretty fun! Lol!

30seconds later.....

It works! hahaha! Sweet!

Colorful...

2009-06-29T11:07:00.002-06:00

...is my new blog!!! I love the way it came out! I had something kind of different in mind, but this works too! It matches the colors in my craft room! Lol! Thank you for the nice comments! I might play around a little bit more, but for the most part I love the new look and its gonna stay for awhile!!

I am kind of on my way out. I want to take Chris some lunch at EMS and take all the dogs so that they can run free in the open field right next to it! My dogs love it and Boomer loves playing catch so I'm going to take something to throw for him! He is so much fun! We had him out with us yesterday on the side yard and the sprinklers were on kind of towards the back, but he was running through them having a good ol' time! My dogs don't want anything to do with water and being wet! Lol!

Alrighty, I'm going to get going!

Have a good day!

Raquel

Testing

2009-06-28T17:30:00.002-06:00

I converted my blog into three columns.....I'm hoping I didn't screw anything up because the tutorial I was following was a little bit different than what I had to do to get it this way! Lol!

Overall, the site I used was pretty helpful! I played around with the html and did a little tweaking from what the article said to do.

Here's the link.

I think I had a harder time because those tutorials were from 2007. Hmmmm.....okay I seriously hope I can post, add pics and all that good stuff without any trouble!

Wish me luck! :)

Whoops....

2009-06-28T14:20:00.001-06:00

...this cutie must've gotten erased by accident. But we can't forget him....he's tooooo cute!

Weekend Update

2009-06-28T13:16:00.007-06:00

Its been another lovely, quiet, relaxed weekend here in the Cook household. I love our weekends!

Friday was spent:

Sleeping in and waking up to clear blue skies
Making plans, spot cleaning, and preparing some yummy dishes for the bbq we had here at our place with this adorable family of five.....

Sam, Chad and their coppertone kiddies.....

I call them that because they have the most delicious skin tone! Lol!

Well, the two youngest do. The oldest, Brooke (above) reminds me of Strawberry Shortcake. She is a cute strawberry blonde!

To keep the girls occupied, I brought down some scrapbooking goodies for the girls to create with. We have no kids and so our house isn't kid friendly! Lol! The girls were really happy with the scrappy stuff though. We had stuff all over the living room floor.
We had hotdogs for the kiddos and steaks for the adults, with yummy red baked potatoes.
For dessert, Chris made homemade strawberry sherbet ice cream! Which was a huge hit with the kids (and the adults!) Lol!
Chris and Chad tried to play frisbee, but it was a little too windy
The girls played with their buckets and shovels in our backyard.....we have a little sandbox from the previous tenants.
We all had a nice time. I forgot how noisy it is with kids running around.....its always just me, Chris and our dogs. Haha! It was fun!

Yesterday:

More relaxing took place
I played around with some photos and the html on my blog...I want to give my blog some more personality
I picked up a huge furry houseguest. This is Boomer. He'll be with us til next Thursday. He's so cute and sweet! Our dogs don't really think so though! Lol! Reyna follows this guy everywhere! She's so bossy! Guero pretty much stays out of his way, he is terrified! hahaha! Boomer is extremly friendly though!

9:30ish pm....with camera in hand....we all go outside to enjoy the sunset. Its become a nightly ritual. We've been having the most beautiful sunsets! We threw the ball around for Boomer and then went inside after the last of the colors couldn't be seen anymore.

Today:

I was awake a few minutes before Revielle sounded. Boomer slept on the floor in our room and he makes the loudest licking noises.....which I thought my dogs were loud and annoying! Lol! So I got up and let him do his business outside.
I crawled back into bed and woke up a few hours later to a soft kiss on the cheek from my hubby.
We had pancakes for breakfast.....I also almost swallowed a mouthful of sour milk.....eeeew!
Chris is doing the dishes......its a pretty good day! Lol!

I think I'm going to go let the dogs run for awhile and then come in and do some scrapping! I hope you all had a lovely weekend and continue to enjoy the rest of your sunday!

Raquel

Ophir, My Love

2009-06-26T10:58:00.009-06:00

You leave me breathless.

Last Friday, Chris and I spent a gorgeous day riding around on our motorcycle. I asked if we could take a ride to Ophir and Chris happily obliged. It was a mining town established back in the late 1800's by the U.S. Army. Today, it is living ghost town with rusty, old remnants of its past lying around. The town is nestled in a beautiful, but jagged canyon out of the way and miles from anywhere.

Railroad tracks and mining carts can still be found on the hillsides.

Dirt roads under a lush canopy......makes me weak in the knees.

To see the rest of my photos from our day trip click on my bloglink in my sidebar to be taken to my photography blog! It'll be worth it! ;)

Raquel

A little Random

2009-06-23T20:56:00.003-06:00

Morning! I was up bright and early thanks to Reveille and the coyotes that always sound off right after! Its pretty neat hearing them howl so early in the morning and its always right after Reveille finishes. Its a pretty unique way to wake up and start the day! Wouldn't change it for anything!

I've been pretty busy lately! Its been a lot of fun! Last Friday, Chris and I went for a bike ride up to Ophir. It was a mining town back in the day. I'd say its a ghost town, but there are some lucky SOB's living up there! I say that out of jealousy! Lol! Ophir is absolutely beautiful! There are still railroad tracks for the little mining carts up on the sides of the hills and parts of machinery laying around.

2200hrs.....Totally Random...

I didn't get to upload the photos I wanted because I have scatterbrain syndrome.

So taps just played....I know...an hour early....most of the post is made up of civilians and they complained enough about Taps waking up their children at night that they bumped it up an hour, so that it wasn't ruining anyone's beauty sleep! I love hearing it and I know the meaning behind it and its never bothered me.

The coyotes like to howl afterwards....pretty neat.

We had another game tonight. We won by one point at the last possible minute! It was a lot of fun. We had plans for a few friends to come over a few hours before the game started, but Chris went and helped a soldier move and he didn't get home til later. We still had burgers, but we were really pressed for time and nobody likes running around on a full stomach.

I made this card for a friend who was going to a baby shower. Word got around that I was pretty crafty so she asked if I could customize a baby book that she bought at WalMart.....you know those Winnie the Pooh baby books. I went through it and put personal touches on it and made this card. I can always whip up something cute for other people, but when it come to do stuff for myself, I sit there almost dumbfounded. Lol!

Today was a pretty warm day! I think it got into the 90's. I was sweating like a pig at the game! Me no likey! Lol! But it could be worse.....like Columbia, SC worse!!! (Hot, humid and disgusting!)

I've been reading up a lot about html and revamping this boring ol' blog. I am gonna try to do my own header and all that good stuff! I have so many photos that I want to post, but I always get sidetracked and I still need to get my friends photos done! So tomarrow, I'm definitely gonna try to do that. I realized that after I posted those pics on my photography blog.....in one of them, I edited them way too much and she looks like she's had tons of plastic surgery and her hubby's eyes are so freaky! Lol! Hey, I'm learning! Lol!

Alrighty, I'm way tired and I gotta shower!!! Have a good night!

R

p.s........new signature coming soon.....as soon as I figure out how to do that!!! ;)

~The Simple Woman's Daybook~: Taking Part In The Simple Woman's Daybook

2009-06-22T08:07:00.002-06:00

FOR TODAY

Monday, June 22, 2009

Outside my window...the view is gorgeous, sunny, blue skies, but its windy.
I am thinking... about all the chores I've put off these and making a game plan.
I am thankful for... for all the wonderful people I have in my life and for living in a place that inspires me, thankful for my husband who believes in me, my dreams and understands my need to create.

From the kitchen... dishes need to be put away, pick out recipes from cookbook, clean up so I can come home to a clean kitchen after the dreaded grocery shopping.
I am wearing... my workout clothes and socks.
I am creating... works of art! Lol! I am working on photos that I took of friends and their beautiful families.
I am going... into Salt Lake City...AGAIN! Ugh! Might sneek in a trip to a craft store! Lol!
I am reading... My camera's manual, a field guide to my camera and a cs3 guide book. I also get my blog fix on a daily basis.
I am hoping... that the trip into SLC won't be that bad.
I am hearing... the radio on downstairs and the wind howling outside.
Around the house... there are small messes that need tending to (like making the bed, organizing the kitchen) but otherwise looks pretty clean.
One of my favorite things... is driving through Johnson's Pass and Clover, its beautiful this time of year!

A few plans for the rest of the week: Finish up Sam's photo's, work on new ones, clean the house, learn something new, make a new header and widget for my blog, give my doggies a bath! They smell! Lol!

Here is picture thought I am sharing...

Sneek peeks of...

2009-06-19T21:07:00.004-06:00

...Childhood bliss! These photos I took of my friends kids make me smile! Thank you for letting me borrow your kiddies! Lol!

The next road down from my street is completely vacant! No one lives in the houses on that street because they are (finished now...I think) being renovated for the influx of soldiers that we are supposed to be getting here soon! I was driving down it the other day, coming back from Sam and Chads photo shoot and it was beautiful! This part of the community is really old and the trees are huge and some of the branches hang over the street! I passed a house that had a really beautiful weeping willow! At least I think its a willow, but maybe not......maybe its just a tree thats never been trimmed!

Anyway, I immediately started dreaming of my next shoot that would take place under this tree!!

On Wednesday after the FRG meeting I asked my friend Sam if she would let me photograph her girls at this cool spot I found! Of course she agreed! I also asked our friend Amber if she'd like to come. She has an almost 2yr old daughter!

The photos here haven't been touched up yet, just watermarked, sharpened, and resized for the web. I shot in color and in B&W.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

They sure are sweethearts aren't they??!!!!!!

Goodnight!

Testing......

2009-06-18T11:12:00.001-06:00

Well...that uploaded faster, but their skin now has white splotchy patches instead of red. Back to the drawing board! Lol!

Update on TEST photo...

2009-06-18T00:23:00.003-06:00

Alrighty.....I figured out what conversions I have to make to my photos to upload them easier.

I love this place!

www.clickinmoms.com

I'll be doing more photos later.

P.S. I've also went and retouched the photo below. The skin tones were orangey and their necks are a little splotchy. I'll post it again later!

Thanks for looking!

Pure Loveliness

2009-06-17T22:00:00.002-06:00

IMG_1223 copyv3 copy, originally uploaded by R_C_Photography09.

Test

Hello!

I've been working endlessly on a fun photo shoot I had the other day of my beautiful friend Sam and her hubby, Chad. I am still very new to all this photo editing and uploading photos in a different way so that the quality is not degraded when you view them on my blog.

*Could you do me a huuuuuuge favor????

Would you let me know if the photo I posted looks weird on your browser (ie, colors look off, pixelated, or if it looks too sharpened??). I used a web sizer and sharpening action in PS and then uploaded it to flickr...which I heard that flickr sharpens as well when they are uploaded to that site.

You feedback would help me out a WHOLE LOT!!! I am learning as I go, but I am so excited to at least let my friend have a peek at one of her photos! She's so anxious!! Lol! I have a few more I need to get posted, but I want to know if I did this right!!

So hit me back and let me know what you think!!! :)

Thanks!!!

Rockie

I should be in bed, but....

2009-06-17T01:27:00.003-06:00

...I have a hard time sleeping.......yes, we've already discussed this...I know...but I've seemed to have gotten used to having my husband sleeping at my side every night. I've been lucky in the fact that for the past two years I've had my hubby by me every night....give or take a few months for schooling and field training here and there. So its been awhile, for which I'm so thankful! :) But I've forgotten how quiet it is at night when he's not home (not that we make "too" much noise at night...hahaha! We do have neighbors with small children! LMFAO! Okay, now I'm just crackin' myself up!)

Okay, so seriously....its really quiet and I totally forgot how jumpy I am at night with all the different noises and it took three times as long for me to warm up! Usually I just cuddle up next to Chris and then he's rolling me off him because I start to make him sweat! Lol! I had to roll up into a little ball to create my own warmth! Lol! Then when I moved...which is like every 5 minutes...I have to start the warming process all over again!

Oh, BTW.....Chris is just down the street pulling the night shift at EMS. No biggie whatsoever, but Chris got a pretty good laugh when he came home this morning and I was dog ass tired from getting up to check every little noise and when he saw a night light plugged into our bedroom wall he laughed even harder. Funny thing is, is he gets more sleep than I do when he has these twelve hour night shifts! Ya, he has a pretty sweet job out here. When he goes to pull medical duty at the ranges.....he plays xbox all day. I do more than him at home! So I decided that I'm never gonna feel guilty again about not having a job...well I'm gonna try not to anyway! Lol!

I think the reason why I kinda got freaked out is because a while back I was sitting in the living room at night....by myself....and there was something scratching and thumping around in the wall. I think its a mouse or something. Then two nights ago I went into the laundry room and I heard what sounded like a mouse. I haven't found any mouse poop, but I'm pretty sure there is something in our walls and that just gives me the heebie jeebies....ewwww!

I am letting the dogs sleep in my room on the floor right by me tonight! :) Its raining outside. Speaking of rain, we had an awesome storm system come through today! We were going over johnson's pass when we got slammed with hail and rain. It was awesome! We finally replaced my car battery. We had to go all the way into Salt Lake City! The Napa in Tooele didn't get the battery we ordered in and Checker Auto parts or any other auto parts store isn't good enough in Chris' eyes! Lol! He's biased. His dad owns a Napa store in Nevada and so Chris has worked with them and says they have good warranties or guarantees or...blah blah blah. He says you buy cheap you get cheap...blah blah blah. I was just irritated because he dragged me into the city again....says I'm gonna have to learn to live with people again...blah blah blah.

I am pleasant and happy go lucky til we pass the last little town into Tooele, then its all downhill from there. I try to stay somewhat chipper, but Chris doesn't help either when he's yelling obscenities at everyone and there grandmother for driving 2 mph under the speed limit. He gets upset, then I get upset, then he gets upset because I'm upset. WTF!!

But let me just show you why I never want to leave my piece of heaven on earth! I snapped pics to help you all understand why I love this place!

These are cel phone pics.....and seriously do not do the beautiful scenery justice! I have plenty more photos, but I've been pretty obsorbed in other projects tht I haven't downloaded them. I will have to do that later! I'll save it for another post!!

Okay, I seriously gotta get to bed. Its two thirty. I got an FRG meeting at 9am....ugh. Whoever came up with that time is probably a mother of young children! Lol!

Good night!

Excited

2009-06-14T13:44:00.002-06:00

I have a photo shoot in a few hours....my first one in a long while! I've done photos for some of my friends back in South Carolina that came out great and mostly were for fun and practice, but I've learned so much more since then! I'm excited to put what I've learned into use with some actual "clients" Lol! I'm always practicing, but I haven't had any people except myself and the hubby to practice on so I'm way excited!

I had a practice shoot with myself a few days ago and despite having a hard time with auto/manual focusing on myself I got some great shots! I'll post a few of those later on when I have time!

The couple I am shooting is a young military family and friends of ours....they are way too cute! She wants me to do an engagement shoot of sorts....she has lost over 80 lbs (my inspiration!) and wants new pictures since she feels and looks great!

Photos to come in a few days!!!

Yesterday, Chris and I, reluctantly went into Tooele to buy a new car battery at Napa. They didn't have any in stock so we'll have to make another dreaded trip into society. We also made a horrible trip to Wal-Mart. Ick! Wal-Mart always puts me in a nasty mood. In the first place, Chris had to drag me outta the house! Its not that I don't like being outdoors because I absolutely love being outside, but we had to leave my precious sanctuary for the crazy outside world! The only part of going into town that I like is driving though Johnsons Pass which is absolutely beautiful, I mean gorgeous....like take your breath away...heart ache...beautiful! And the second best part is driving back!!!

So needless to say, Chris and I came out of Walmart (which was packed with screaming kids) in not so pleasant moods. I think I was getting anxiety or something because it almost felt like I wanted to cry (or scream) if we didn't get outta there soon. When we got to the truck, Chris asked if there was anything I needed and I said "no, just get me outta here!" Lol! We get outta town where the traffic dies down and I can see the road to home and my mood lifts. The scream building in my chest is gone and I start giggling to myself. Chris turns and looks at me and smiles because I guess he knew what I was thinking. I think we are getting to used to this quiet lifestyle.

When I lived in SC, Michaels and Hobby Lobby were right down the road and I was there almost every other day! Ya...poor wallet...poor hubby. But now, I don't miss it, I don't miss fast food, I don't really miss anything about living in the city. Even Tooele, which is (a pretty good sized) small town is too big. The traffic is horrendous and...no offense to the natives, but the drivers are horrible!!!

Just goes to show that we can make it without a lot of amenities. The commissary may not carry everything I need, but we aren't going to starve. I have plenty of stuff to keep me busy and none of the unnecessary distractions....like coupons to mikes and hobby lobby! Lol!

One thing I do need though, is my internet connection and cel...and my camera!!! So seriously, we are nowhere near "roughing it!"

Alright, gotta get going!

I've been lost...

2009-06-12T10:52:00.005-06:00

...in my own little world this week! Playing endlessly in my craft room, taking pictures and playing with photoshop! The weather has been gray, rainy, and chilly for the last two weeks so its been great weather to stay in and work on stuff. I've really been writing nonstop these last couple of days! It started a few weeks ago when I was going thru this very annoying state of mind (I guess you could call it), I was overanalyzing every little thing that popped into my head. I started writing things down and found that its really helped and my mind feels a lot clearer and last night I slept really well, but I went to bed really late! Lol!

Here's what I've been up to lately!

I have a bunch of cel phone pics that I love! Its really convenient to grab my phone which is always nearby and just snap away. The pictures on this page were taken with my phone at our old house in South Carolina. I had a great time with this layout because its been the first thing I've scrapped in about a month. I distressed, inked, and made my own embellishments! I cut almost everything out with scissors and I really like this page. I love the colors and how I just let elements flow off my page. I am tired of selling myself short by worrying too much about how pretty its going to look or if its going to look as good as some of these awesome scrappers out there. So I just let myself go with my flow. One of the things I have a hard time with is journaling. I am very critical of myself and never want to sound too mushy, but I'm really trying to just write what I feel if the I'm doing a layout about something like that. I also really want to start telling the stories of our life. If I passed on tomarrow, people looking through my "unfinished" scrapbooks really wouldn't come away knowing anything more than what they already knew before they went thru it. Some of my pages don't even have journaling! Not only that, but I feel really weird writing about myself. I have this thing about being the center of attention. I never really felt like there was anything special about me to focus on. But thats just really stupid and silly of me....And now you are seeing the overanalytical side of me!

Moving on......

I went to the post thrift shop the other day and I found these cute mugs for $.50 ea! They are two years older than me and sooooo cute! They look like something that I would have had when I was younger! I have a lot of unicorn knicknacks around here. These made me think about my childhood so of course I couldn't pass them up! Not for a buck anyway! Lol!

I don't have a picture of it, but I also bought an old electric type writer for $15 bucks. I had to clean it up a bit and when you press the return button the slider bar thingy kind of gets stuck

and you have to fiddle with it to get it typing again, but I love it and the ribbon is still fairly good. I just need to find some place to buy more!

I love this little layout of my reyna girl! Another cel phone pic taken awhile back! I wanted something simple and cute....and is it not cute?! Lol! I love this page so much that I am dreaming up other ways to incorporate it into other craftiness!

Here's another page I finished yesterday that I absolutely love! May 15, 2009 was our 5th wedding anniversary and all I had was a cel phone pic that we took on the bus Chris was driving. Stupid me brought my camera, but I put the wrong lens on it...I put a telephoto lens on it. yep....helllooooo. Anyway, the pic is still really cute and doesn't look too bad printed at that size. Again, I just let myself go with the flow.

The top of the page is a photo of Chris and I, back in 2003 after a few months of dating and a picture of us after we were announced "man and wife" in 2004! Lol! I love us, we are sooooo cute! Lol!

And here's us five years later...AWWWW! Sweeeeet! LMFAO! Seriously, I'm smiling like a fool right now because these pictures make me soooo happy! Lol!

These dogs have been driving me nuts!!! Usually its only Guero who comes up here and begs for a spot on my lap til I tell him no (he is shedding soooo bad!) and so he'll lay down under my desk, but lately Reyna has been a LOT more active so they are both up here play fighting and making a big o' ruckus! If there's something for them to lay on (cuz heaven forbid they should sleep on the plain ol' carpet!) like a pillow or blanket they tend to settle down and take a nice little nappy poo while I work. If not they get all rambunctious! Lol! I don't have a problem with them playing and I know its been too cold outside for them to stay out there so they feel cooped up, but their breath smells way bad and when they get playing and breathing hard I can smell it and its pretty smelly!!!! The other thing that really grosses me out is the sound of them licking! Like, Guero will be behind me licking at his paws and it DRIVES me NUTS!!!! Or Reyna likes to lick Guero's face....(guess he's a messy eater! Lol!). I enjoy their company and I love that they like being up here with me, but I like the quiet! Lol!

Last night, a few minutes before the sun set I went out and snapped some pictures. I love where we live. Everything is green and the way the red fence, in all its beautifully textured glory, stands out against the blue of the sky and the green of the grass really makes me drool! This photo doesn't really capture what I just described, but believe me its beautiful.

The rest of the photos I took last night are in Raw form and need to be converted. Its kind of a pain in the butt. I'll have to figure out a system that will make the workflow smoother. Not only that, but the photos I took had great color in the camera and when I got them onto my computer they looked dull. I think I need my moniter calibrated or something. I am trying to get my pictures to look their best in camera that way I don't have to post process them too much.

That's all I have to share for now.

Have a great day!

Rockie

EXTREMELY LONG POST...about nothing really.

2009-06-09T08:30:00.003-06:00

I love the light scent of a clean house. Its a mix of freshly febreezed furniture and carpets with a hint of fabric softner. I love that for at least the first few hours after sweeping and mopping you can walk barefoot on the tile floor and your feet stay clean and the carpets look brighter and have that "just vacuumed" pattern. I love clean, crisp sheets fresh out of the dryer and the way you bundle them in your arms and stuff your face into the warmth and it makes you sleepy for a minute. I love how your living space feels brighter and airier because all the reflective surfaces are now shiny and disinfected!

Mmmmm.....love it,

but damn it

TAKES ALL DAY LONG!

I got up sleepier than I've felt in a long while! I had stayed up too late to watch the first episode of Army Wives on Lifetime (which I will not be doing EVER again while my soldier hubby is in the same room.)

It was after midnight when I turned off the lights and I guess thats when its prime tweetin' time for this crazy f#$%n' bird outside! He sang

ALL NIGHT LONG!

Needless to say.....

I dreamt of a pellet gun.

I had grand plans to wake up with Chris at 5am and get my cleaning plan into action and run some errands, but I forced myself outta bed at 8am. I felt like my day was shot, but I switched gears and wrote down a list of everything I wanted to get done and I stuck to it! But first I ran on the treadmill for 30 mins. I felt great afterwards. I love how exercising first thing in the morning makes you feel energized and really sets the tone for the rest of the day. I had a nice shower afterwards and then got to work.

I usually spot clean throughout the week to maintain and then just go all out on any given day to really get the house shiny! Kitchen and floors look great, the carpets are lint and pet hair free (for the time being), and our laundry is clean, folded and put away.

So the last things on my list were to run to the commissary and have something faxed to our Bank. I step out the door and head to my car (which hasn't been driven, in a few days)

I hit unlock button on the clicker and the doors don't unlock. Hmmm...I know last week or so I discovered that my doors weren't locking when I pressed the clicker. I had to lock them manually. So I hesitantly used the key to unlock the door. I was afraid that the alarm would go off and I'd be stuck out there looking like a fool with the alarm blasting. But nothing happend. I stuck the key into the ignition and nothing happened! GREAT! I thought maybe the clicker gave out and since it has a chip inside to start the car that maybe that was the problem. But it still blinked when I pressed a button so that wasn't it. I popped the hood, which thankfully is not automatic like the door locks and the trunk! I checked the battery and there was the problem. Where the cables connect to the battery was covered in blue battery acid buildup. I get some water and baking soda to nuetralize the crap and let it sit for a few minutes. Then got a wire brush and started cleaning it off. By that time Chris was had pulled up and he started working on it. The battery is sitting in the garage being charged as I type this super long post. Most likely we will have to go get a new battery.

I love being worn out at the end of the day because I think I'm going to fall asleep faster and sleep better, but that is such wishful thinking on my part! I am the WORST SLEEPER EVER! I could be dog ass tired and once I lay in bed its like everything I didn't have time to think of because I was so busy all day long comes rushing in as I'm trying to settle down! Not to mention that I have a bad problem with songs getting stuck in my head and it plays over and over! I don't now how to shut it all off! Its really annoying and I seriously have to look into finding something to help me out. I don't mean with sleep aids or anything, but like hypnosis or something.

It probably didn't help that I was flipping through the new CK mag before bed. Even their ads were giving me layout ideas!

I've been keeping a journal type book by my bed the last few weeks because I was in this super over the top state where I was just over analyzing EVERY little thing! I found that writing stuff down helped clear my head and I feel a lot better now, but last night I was also feeling really inspired by a page I did and I got excited about the possibilities of expanding this idea and reopening my etsy shop! So I went crazy writing all these ideas down and then when I thought I should try to sleep I kept thinking about it more. I really don't know when my mind finally shut down, but I know it was past 2am.

I do need to find something to help calm my mind when its time for bed. I really would just like to sleep like I've never slept before. Chris can fall asleep within minutes of shutting his eyes. I'm envious!

________________________________________________________________

Anyways, if you've stuck with me this long than your just about as crazy as I am! Lol! Just kidding. Thank you.

On a different note:

I'm playing around with some of those ideas I wrote down in my journal......

ideas that I'll share with you all later. Its going to be really cute and totally inspired by the smallest and sweetest friends in my life!! :)

Have a great day!!

*Rockie

(Oh, don't know if I ever shared this with you, but all of my closest friends and family know me by this nickname I've had since.....like...birth!) ;)

Sweeet....

2009-06-05T14:22:00.009-06:00

..I looooooove what you can do with Photoshop! I found this action to convert your photos into polaroids here at http://www.rawimage.deviantart.com/. The picture is from a while back (from the days when there was less of me! LMFAO!)

2009-05-30T22:12:00.002-06:00

Love the way this came out! The original had blown out highlights, but they worked to my advantage!

Holy crap....

2009-05-30T20:30:00.006-06:00

...there is sooooooooooooooo much to learn about photography! I feel like my head is going to explode! I had a film camera when I was younger and it seems like back then I had a pretty good understanding of how everything worked together...iso, aperature, and shutter speed. But now with my DSLR it seems that I'm having a much harder time wrapping my head around all these functions! I know people get better by practicing and I have been doing so everyday! I've been reading my camera's manual and playing with all the settings and taking pictures. I picked up a field guide for my camera that has been super helpful and I've been reading a lot of tutorials online! I really need to start asking my friends to model for me!

I also picked up a "how to" book for CS3. I play around in the program every once in awhile, but I'm really trying to get comfortable with my camera before I really delve into that! I just recently switched my camera over to shoot in RAW and JPEG Fine and holy moly there is a huuuuuuge difference! I just downloaded some pics I've been taking all week and in the picture editor program that comes with the camera the RAW and JPEG photos are placed side by side and you can definitely see the difference right away! I will be shooting in RAW from now on.

Here's why.......The top photo is a jpeg and the lower one was shot in raw then converted to tiff....then converted to png just so I could post it here! lol! There's a few more steps involved with shooting in raw, but you don't lose tons of your photos color info and data like you do when you shoot in jpeg.

I could go on and on about all the cool stuff I've been learning....but I'll spare ya! Lol!

On a much different note, my knee is feeling a lot better and I played in last weeks softball game. It was a little sore after, but no biggie! I seriously felt like I was running slower than molasses on the field! Its awful, but I'm doing something about it so I don't want to dwell on it!

My memorial day weekend was AWESOME!!! We spent the whole weekend camping, riding dune buggies and quads at little sahara with Chris' whole family. It was a blast! I took my camera, but it stayed wrapped up in a plastic bag for fear of getting all that fine sand in it. There was no way I was going to chance getting anything in my camera so needless to say I don't have any pics to post, but hopefully my lil bro will send me some of his! This weekend we are just chillin' here at home.....its a good way to save money! Lol! So thats all for tonight, I've been trying to muster up some mojo to scrap, but I've been way bummed out about the job I didn't get. Won't go into details...just gonna say good night! ;)

Adrenalin rush and a bum knee

2009-05-19T08:10:00.008-06:00

Sunday afternoon was a blast!! Chris, Ssg Strain, and I went repelling at Lone Mtn in Skull Valley! It was my first time EVER and holy crap was it an adrenalin rush! I was kind of nervous, but since I'm not afraid of heights I thought it would be a piece of cake! Well, let me tell you......climbing up to the top of a mountain is nothing....its beautiful and you have a 360 degree view of everything! Its the walking backwards off the edge that gets you! Lol! Chris was waiting for me at the bottom and Strain was at the top giving me some pointers. I hooked myself onto the rope and was like "okay, I got this". BUT as I started walking backwards off the edge I wasn't sure if I could do it! Strain assured me that I would be okay and to trust the rope! So, my butt is hanging off this shear drop off and my feet are on the edge and I was trying to pull myself back up to no avail! Lol! The only place to go was down! For a few feet down my feet were in contact with the rock face then it caved in and there I was....dangling off a rope a few hundred feet off the ground (or so it seemed! lol!) with my heart pumping and me sweating like I stole somthing! LOL! I slowly started letting out the rope to repel down and I let a little too much rope out and I dropped kinda fast then caught myself all the while letting out a shrill girly scream! hahaha! When I came to the ground I was shaking and sweating and exhilerated! Chris kept saying, "wasn't that fun?!" and all I could say was that it was scary! However, the second and third time was awesome, although I was still kinda shakey walking off the edge backwards, but its a rush and it sure gets the adrenalin going! the leg loops kept sliding down my thighs so my butt kept sticking out instead of being in a seated-like postion! Not that my butt isnt out there any other day! Lol!

This is lone mountain out in skull valley! I wish I would have taken a pic farther away. This rock is the only thing protruding from the ground! Everything else is flat for miles! This is a side view of it.

This is Ssg. Strain. He's a pro at this. He did his first repel here when he was 8!

So, needless to say he was fearless! Lol! He went down head first like a ninja! haha!

Here's my hubby!

Here's me! This was my second repel of the day and I was already a lot more comfortable.

Reyna and Guero came along for the ride, but they had to stay in the truck bed. Didn't want them following me up the mountain and taking a plunge after me! Lol!

Here's the view from the foot of the mountain. Its pretty awesome!

I have more pics, but they need to be touched up because I was shooting in automatic and it was high noon so they are kinda washed out.

Chris was holding the rope so I could free my hands to take pictures.

I can definitely see myself getting more into this sport/hobby whatever you wanna call it! We already have the equipment for it....we bought it last saturday so there's no need to rent equipment. I love trying new things and I especially love doing them together with the Hubs!

On a different note.....

I'm so bummed that my knee isn't healing fast enough! Its been almost two weeks! Its been feeling a lot better and I can actually walk on it for awhile before it starts getting sore. But it feels stiff and certain movements hurt and catch me off guard. Tonight was our first softball practice and I tried going for a ball that was hit to short stop and that wasn't a good idea! It started aching after that. The problem is, since my left knee isn't fully functional my right knee is doing extra work and now its hurting. So here I am seated at my computer with ice packs on my knees feeling sorry for myself! hahah! Tomarrow we have a game and as much as I wanna play, I don't think I'm gonna. I just have to let it heal. Boooooo. :(

Late Mother's Day Gift...

2009-05-17T11:09:00.002-06:00

Here's a layout I did for my Mom and Nana! I hope they like it! We took this photo at my Nana's house in Tucson, Arizona in March. I loved this sketch from this awesome blog!

(sorry the pic is so unflattering, really bad lighting in my scraproom!)
I love the paper butterflies by Prima! So pretty!

Here's a little poem I love about mother's! Its so true! I don't know what I would do without these two women in my life. I am truly blessed to have the love of my mother and nana! They are the strongest and most loving women I know.

A Great Day

2009-05-15T20:13:00.002-06:00

Today, Chris and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary! Everyday is a new adventure and I'm so glad to be sharing my life with him! I can't wait to see where the next five years takes us! Maybe throw in some kiddos and hopefully more chihuahuas! Lol!

I don't know if you can tell or not, but Chris and I took this pic with my cel phone camera in a long white bus! Chris was the driver! Lol! Today was military spouse appreciation day and ACS (Army Community Services) set up a fun day of shopping, lunch and a movie for all Army wives on Dugway! Chris, who is licensed to drive every vehicle known to man was the only soldier on Dugway who was licensed to drive the bus. So, he drove me and about 10 other wives to Salt Lake City for our wifey's day out! Our first stop was the South Town Mall (I think thats the name?), where we had way too little time to shop! I am moving in extra slow motion since I hurt my knee a week ago so an hour to shop wasn't ideal. So around 11:45am we hopped on the bus and went to Spaghetti Mama's for a free lunch and afterwards we got free movie passes to see any movie we wanted! Of course the ladies and I chose the chick flick...Ghosts of Girlfriends Past....which was pretty funny! Chris, of course, would not have anything to do with that movie so he went and saw Demons and Angels. He didn't get to finish the movie since it ran later than the rest of our movies, but the ACS director gave him two free movie tickets so he could see it again. We are saving those for the new Terminator movie! Mmmm....Christian Bale! Lol!

All in all, today was a great day! I'm glad my hubby got to come along! I love him madly! Lol!

In other news, I finally scrapped and will get those pictures up tomarrow maybe if I'm not too lazy! Also, the other day I won a RAK from Crop Suey that is just awesome! It was waiting for me in the mail today when I got home! The papers are beautiful! It also came with die cut chipboard, epoxy stickers, and Rubons!!

That's all for tonight! I want to spend some qualitay time with my new scrappy goodies!! Lol!

2009-05-03T12:27:00.003-06:00

What a beautiful Sunday it is! The sun is shining after a bit of rain yesterday! Love days like these! Chris and I are relaxing again on the couch! We've been pretty lazy this weekend! I haven't touched any chores this weekend.....though I did exercise on my treadmill. I've already lost a pound! Yay! Lol!

So my family didn't make it down this weekend. My brothers truck broke down before Phoenix and my dad went in the middle of the night to go help him and his girlfriend. They ended up having to tow the truck into Vegas and got home late. To make matters worse, my dad twisted his back right after they got home. They called me yesterday and told me they weren't going to be able to make it here. Too much driving. I was bummed. I was really looking forward to seeing all of them and do some family photos, but stuff happens! Lol!

Next weekend, soldiers from the clinic are going down to Zion to dod some survival training. Spouses are invited to go camp out as well so I think I'm going to go....especially now that I have my camera. I've been playing all weekend in CS3! I'm totally addicted! When I'm not editing photos, I am looking for tutorials on it! Its too much fun!

I signed up to play softball! The clinic has a team, but I signed onto the free agent team since I know somebody on it. I might change teams if my friend Sam decides to play. So looks like I have to dust off my cleats!

I looooooooooooove...

2009-04-29T23:00:00.004-06:00

...PHOTOSHOP!!!!

Before....

After......
I love that you can change the color levels to bring out skin tones and make the photo look warmer! I think I have to have it!

Photoshop

2009-04-29T20:27:00.004-06:00

I thought I got lucky today because when I opened up my thumb drive I saw that there was a photoshop cs3 folder on it. So I downloaded it and hoped that it would open the program, but it only downloaded the files. The program asked if I had the serial number for it or if I wanted to try a 30 day free trial. I had to do the 30 days. The thumb drive belonged to Chris and he doesn't know where he got the program from anyways. Would have been nice to have CS3 for free! Oh well, I've never used photoshop before so I'll just learn to use it then maybe buy it for myself. I was playing around with this self portrait I took today.

I hate blogger, I can never orient my posts the way I want them, but anyways.....this is after editing in cs3.

This is straight out of the camera. I was laying on my bed facing the window and its kind of washed out. I love how just fooling around with the settings in CS3 gave the after photo more warmth in the face. I have lots and lots to learn! I wish I could take a class or somebody could sit down and teach me!

Okay, so I really really hate blogger! Anybody out there know how to use? I just want to know how I can get links on the left side of my blog and also how to change the layout....and I don't mean the layout options they give you when you go to the layout sections.

Chris goes into work in a few minutes. He gets to go out and play in the desert with the Special Forces boys. They have a mock haji town set up out there. Sounds like fun! I would love to get pictures of their training, but nobody without a "secret clearance" is allowed out there...*rolling eyes*

Somebody....

2009-04-28T21:57:00.003-06:00

...got a new camera!!! I was all but dying and going through withdrawals from lack of picture taking! I guess the hubby noticed and at the last minute let me go all the way back into Salt Lake City to buy a Cannon 50D! My last camera was a 40D and it pooped out on me last month after only a year! Chris got it for me for Christmas 07. He bought an expensive warranty and when my camera died we tried to get a hold of the warranty company to no avail....turns out they went out of business and are being sued!

Chris says its my anniversary present! I couldn't be happier! It has 15 mega pixels!! I can't believe how crisp and clear the pictures are! Its amazing!! They come out 10x better than the 40D pictures!

My family is coming up to Dugway this weekend and I'm so excited to take family portraits!! I can't wait!!! We have never had family portraits done!

Well....I'm off to go read some camera manuals and such! Nighty night!

Bingo Night!

2009-04-24T12:27:00.004-06:00

Last night my friend Renee invited me to go play bingo at the Community Club here on post! I had a blast! She introduced me to her friend Denise who is soooooooo funny! I won two bingo games in a row! I thought I was going to get a beat down from everybody else! lol! We play for prizes so I picked out a set of two decorative stars that match my living room decor and a $15 gift card to the PX. I took the pics on the layout with my camera phone, so they're not the best, but I wanted to do a layout about it! I kept two bingo cards so I could do this layout and the ticket we get when we pay.

This is a pic of another layout I did a few days ago....its not finished and I don't know what else to do to it. I left too much white space and it feels like its missing something so I have it laying out incase I get an idea as to what might make this layout feel finished!

In other news.....I am having such a great time getting to know people here on post! I've been walking everyday with a new friend I met, Sam and Teresa. I've also met a few of the other military wives and civilians and they seem nice. They kind of keep to themselves because they are trying to stay out of the rumor mill! Lol! From what I've been hearing about this place...the rumors and gossip are pretty bad! Which is horrible because then it keeps everybody from wanting to participate in community activities! I, however, will just keep doing what I'm doing! I don't want to be holed up in my house! I want to meet new people and if anything negative is ever said about me, hopefully the friends I make will get to know me good enough to where they know its not true! Its a small community and I know these kinds of things run rampant in them, but I am just going to be me and thats good enough for me!

I am sooooooooooo insanely jealous of my hubby! Special Forces is out here training and Chris gets to train with them! Ugh! I've seriously been thinking about talking to a recruiter! I've been seeing a chinook helicopter flying around here for days and everytime I hear it coming I run outside to see it fly over my house! I love this military life! Its not always fun, it can be stressful and scary, but its amazing! Chris also gets to fly in it by the way....and repel out of it....ya.....I'm jealous, but I'm also incredibly proud of him and his service. I'm proud that I can be apart of it, even though I'm here on the sidelines watching.

...but I wanna fly in a helicopter and drive a tank....actually I want to fly the helicopter!

One Last Post For Sunday!

2009-04-19T17:02:00.004-06:00

Just wanted to share a quick layout I did this afternoon inspired by this layout! Sasha Farina is an amazing scrapbooker! You can find her blog here. Check it out! You won't leave disappointed! Anywho, this page doesn't look anything like hers! I just used the same color scheme she did because it was AWESOME!!!
(Please excuse my dog's red nose at the top! He's nosy! Lol! The picture is kinda washed out because I took it outside! the lighting in my house is crap and I didn't want to use the flash on my crusty, old digi-cam! The white piece of paper underneath the heart is not part of the layout, its just there to keep my layout clean. )

Welcome....

2009-04-19T12:42:00.004-06:00

...to my HAPPY PLACE! I was so excited when we found out that we were getting a three bedroom house! Usually, military families with no kids get a two bedroom, but out here at Dugway single soldiers get 2bedrooms and families get 3!!! I still have a guest bedroom for whoever comes over! I chose this room because it has a bigger window, but it has a privacy screen that doesn't let in as much light as I would like. Seriously, that screen makes you dizzy when you try to look out the window, its a shame because I have an awesome view! There are no other houses behind our house!! So I have lots of lighting in my room! I hate dark rooms! First thing I do after I wake up is walk thru the house and open up all the blinds! Lol!

Anywho.....come on in and take a look around!

(Please excuse the poor quality of the pictures, my good camera is non-functional and I have to use a digicam that is older than dirt! Lol!)

I looooove bright colors! I love the color on my walls! It makes me happy! Chris calls this the pool room because it reminds him of a swimming pool! Lol!

p.s.....the color on the walls is by valspar and is called "aqua ocean"

On that floor shelf in the left hand corner, I have little doodads and knick knacks as well as picture frames. On the last shelf in the picture, in the colorful folders I keep my acrylic stamps.

Although, I like all the room on this "L" shaped desk, I want a desk thats bar heighth and handmade (by my hubby! Lol!) Underneath my desk, those plastic storage drawers hold a lot of my tools, adhesives, inks, and stamping supplies. The 12x12 plastic drawer holds a lot of my papers! Underneath the shelf that holds my Cricut, I have a wire basket with smaller punches in it, and then a box top that holds bigger punches. Right next to that is my making memories paper trimmer! I love it!

This is where I work. I bought the making memories tool spinner at michaels. They are kinda expensive so use a coupon if you can!! I hold all my liquid glues in one holder, as well as pens, and tools like the quickpic by quickutz, my bone folder and other stuff. Of course I have a pink laptop! I got it for christmas last year! I love it!! I use that purple mat for cutting, its self healing. Mine is for fabric and I got it at walmart...I think?

(Sorry the picture isn't all that great!)

I love my new shelves! Chris put them up for me a few days ago!!! They are from home depot! They weren't expensive at all! Depending on the length and width you want, they start at about $10 each and the triangle holder thingy's are only a few bucks! I think it only cost about $45 dollars to do this....maybe even a little less. The track lighting was a little pricey, they are $40 each! I really like them though! All you do is put two screws where you want them to hang and attach them. Then you just plug them into the wall like a lamp, there's no wiring involved and they also dim! I always wanted shelving like this to display a lot of my goodies! On the first shelf, I used it mainly for my flower embellishments, which are in glass jars. The top shelf has my colored glass collection and some other odds and ends that I love!

Aren't my curtains lovely and bright??!!! They are actually shower curtains from Target! I love the pattern, it just makes me happy! I bought two of them to cover this window! I actually chose the paint color from the blue color in the flowers! The three tiered basket is also from target and it holds glitter glue by Studio G, my ColorBox Chalk inks, and paints!

This half of the room has our home computer and the old desk I used for scrapping. The black wire shelf is also from target and its where I keep our printer and scanner. The second shelf holds my scrappy mags and albums. The third shelf holds craft books and the bottom one holds boxes full of memorabilia....those are from ikea.

So there it is! The brightest room in the house!!! I am really loving this new house! Its big for just two people, but I'm not complaining! We are definitely making this place our own and my scraproom definitely says....RAQUEL! Lol!

Catching Up!

2009-04-17T23:20:00.002-06:00

Did I mention that my camera quit working on me?? Yep, it doesn't want to take any pictures and when I click the shutter button I get an error 99 code. I looked it up on the internet and its one of the worst you can have. Basically, it means that there is something wrong, but we just don't know what! I was devastated! I only had it for a year and the kicker is.....the company we bought it from is no longer in business and the company we bought the warranty from is being sued! Did I also mention somebody punched the spoiler on my car and broke it in half??? We've had a bout of bad luck when we first got here! This all happened within the first two weeks of moving to Dugway. When our furniture was dropped off we found that the packers in South Carolina scratched and nicked practically every piece of furniture we own. Not to mention that they lost a few of the pieces, like screws and knobs to our bed. I was bummed! I'm somewhat over it now. My camera is in Vegas with my parents, my dad is gonna see if he can take it somewhere to get fixed. My spoiler is taped together to keep the flappy spoiler from scratching the trunk. It looks like an akward, skinny racing stripe! lol! Our freakin' insurance company sent out a claims adjustor to look at it and asses the damage and put together a quote to see how much it would be to fix. Our deductible is $500. We got a letter from the claims guy and he said it would be $498.78 to fix. So the insurance won't pay for the spoiler to be fixed! I think its a bunch of bull shit!

Anywho....one day in vegas my mom and I went to Michaels. We were in the parking lot and this lady walks up to us and asks if we shop there often. My mom said that I did and the lady asks if I want to buy a $200 gift card off her for $75 bucks. I was skeptical so I had her go with me to the register and buy something so I could see the reciept with the amount on it! Sure enough there was $203 on it! Woohoo! So I gave her $80 bucks for it since she needed the money to get home! I came home a happy girl with lots of goodies from michaels! It has gotten my creative juices flowing! I made this layout yesterday. Its my little brother and his girlfriend, Heli! They live in Arizona and I got to see them when we stopped in Tucson on the way to Utah. Then I took their pics when I went back to Tucson to drop off my nana.

Well, I got to get some sleep! Chris and I hung out at the community center all night last night! Then we spent the day in Tooele doing some shopping! We spent a lot more than intended, but my scraproom looks even more awesome! I'll post some pics later when I get it back in order again!

Holy Smokes!

2009-04-16T13:33:00.005-06:00

It's been a looooong while since I've scrapbooked! Feels good! Lol! I've got some pics of my layout! I must say it was so much fun to scrap the pic of my beautiful friend Berta and her baby boy, Carlitos! I finally got to meet him a few weeks ago when we took my Nana back to Tucson, AZ. There has been so much going on since we moved to Utah! Its been pretty busy around here, with me trying to get the house in order STILL! I finished the painting in the living room and now it seems so much bigger and it echos in there without all the clutter!

Here's a little recap of whats been going on.....I spent the last two weeks in Vegas with my parents! Just for fun! I've missed them so much and its just such a great pleasure to be close to them once again! For about the last 5 years we've been living so far away and I have to get used to the fact that for the time being we can see them whenever we want! (kind of...its still a 5-6 hr drive, but its worth it!) I don't even want to think of where the military will take us next! I just want to enjoy the moment! We are really enjoying living out here in Dugway! Its a beautiful place! The post is small and doesn't have a lot of people and we love that! Lol! Not that we are anti-social or anything! We are surrounded by mountains and you have to drive thru a really pretty mountain pass to get here! It's crazy!

We are fixing up our house the way we want too, so that it feels like home! We've painted the living room, master bedroom and my scraproom! We were supposed to wait for approval to paint from the housing gods, but its just taking to darn long! Ya, we had to write up a request for approval to paint to the housing office here on post. We did that about 6 weeks ago and supposedly its supposed to be signed by various people in different offices, but its just taking too long. I still have pictures and floating shelves to put up then I will snap some pix and post them on here!

I found some really cool sketches I want to try out here and another one here! So I'm off to play!

Blog Candy Giveaway!

2009-02-06T07:50:00.001-07:00

My friend Diana has reached 1000 views on her blog and would like to do a giveaway! Here's the link to the post!

BLOG CANDY!!!

For Grandpa Cook's Scrapbook

2009-02-05T11:53:00.002-07:00

Chris' grandpa's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and the family is putting together a family album for him. I've been putting off my part of the work for weeks already! lol! Thats me, slow starter, procrastinator...and I never finish anything I start! Oh, and did I tell you I only got to day 12 or 13 on my 365 project?!

Anywho, heres my first layout. I scraplifted it from Scrapbooks Etc. The design is by Heather Bowser, so thanks to her I have my first page done! I have to go start on another one so I will add those later!

Tagged!

2009-02-05T11:06:00.002-07:00

I was tagged by my friend Bree to play along!!!

Rules:

Copy your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and randomly tag 10 people (including me). Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real... nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

Have Fun!!!!!.

1.What is your name: Raquel
2. A four Letter word: Rice
3. A Boy's Name: Rex
4. A Girl's Name: Renee
5. An occupation: Ranger
6. A Color: Red
7. Something you wear: ribbon
8. A Food: Rotini
9. Something found in the Bathroom: Razor
10. A Place: Roanoke
11. A Reason for being late: Rioting
12. Something you Shout: Rock On!
13. A Movie Title: Reign of Fire
14. Something you Drink: RedBull
15. A Musical Group: Rage against the machine.....ewww!
16. An Animal: rabbit
17. A Street Name: Robin
18. A Type of Car: Rendevouz
19. Something Scary: Rabies
20. Ice Cream Flavor: Raspberry

Bree
IvyPink
Diana
AmyElise

I'll choose four instead of ten. I dont know that many people! Lol!

2009-02-02T11:52:00.002-07:00

I finished up a layout and now I'm trying to organize this mess that use to be my scrapbooking room! The movers are coming on the 9th and even though I don't have to pack up all this stuff myself, I want to get it as orderly as possible. Its a little overwhelming how much stuff I've accumulated over the years, but haven't used! We have 11 more days til we move and it doesn't feel like it. I'm so excited we are moving, but at the same time it doesn't feel like we are. It might be a little bit of anxiety about the long road trip we have ahead of us and how much stuff we have now! I walk into the garage and it is seriously packed! My husband has tools everywhere and boxes from our computer and tvs that we've kept for moves. When we first got married and moved to Germany we didnt have anything! I had a bed and some clothes shipped over! When we came back from Germany we had a couch, a christmas tree and clothes come back with us! Now we have a whole house full of stuff! I hope everything goes well with the move. I'm nervous, but excited.

We've been spending a lot of time with friends. We had get togethers all weekend that were fun and this weekend we are doing fondue again with Sandy and Randy. Can't wait for that! I am truly going to miss my small circle of friends. I know we will always be friends, but its going to be sad to be living so far away from eachother.

A cool upside to moving is that you have yet another clean pallette to start your life with again! New design for your new home and scrapbook room! You get to meet new people and learn about a new place! Although, I've been to Utah several times this time we really get to live there and see all of what it has to offer! My family will be closer and my grandparents might even be coming to live in Nevada with my parents!

Okay, I'm going to try and get back to cleaning. Theres a lot to do!

I didn't ...

2009-01-22T11:08:00.002-07:00

....take a picture yesterday. It was a way too early morning followed by a stressful day. I did however get to hang out with my friend D and she treated me to Olive Garden. I was the only one who enjoyed it. D really wanted to, but it was so painful for her to swallow. Its been a week since her tonsilectomy and she wanted to real food, but she could only eat a little before the pain was too much. I was bummed so I got myself to thinking that p365 isn't really that big of a deal and so I didn't take my camera and I didn't take any pictures. But today I feel a little renewed and Im taking my camera with me to get a pedi with D. Shes here now so I will talk later!

I'm Back

2009-01-20T11:36:00.003-07:00

Tuesday, p20/365

Monday 19/365

We woke up to snow! It wasn't a lot, but it covered everything pretty nicely! It wasn't that bad drivng home in it! I wish the weekend hadn't gone by so fast, but it was fun nonetheless. I wonder when we will all get to see eachother again. Its funny that we met as kids in Germany and now the Fields have a family!

Sunday p18/365

I actually took photos of Dawson on Monday before we came back home. I loved spending time with Jenn and the baby. Jenn was able to get her mom to sit for a few hours while we all went out to lunch!

Saturday p17/365

I love road trips! The puppies were comfy in the backseat and we put on our ancient ipod to hear some NIN! Its been awhile since Chris and I have been on a road trip! We got to Kingsport a little after 12pm. David wasn't home yet so we hung out with Jenn and her 3wk old son, Dawson. He is so tiny and cries a lot! lol! They have a new home which is spacious and beautiful!

P16/365

Friday, we went out to dinner with Lisa, James and Isaiah after Chris got off work. We had our fave little mexican restaurant called, San Jose's. Later we went back to their place and hung out and watched a movie. We came back home late and started packing for our little road trip to see our friends Jenn and David in Kingsport, TN.

For Pencil Lines Challenge Blog

2009-01-16T11:38:00.002-07:00

I'm trying to break free of my rut by using challenge blogs. I really liked the challenge this week for Pencil Lines International Sketch Challenge Blog. I used Sass papers that I got from Shop Crop Suey!

This is my godson, Isaish and my dog guero. They love cuddling together!

Yay!

2009-01-15T18:43:00.004-07:00

My super terrific hubby who spoils me rotten bought me an AWESOME new helmet for our motorcycle! I'm in looooooooooooooove!!!!!

Ain't it beautiful!!! Ahhhh....yes....yes it is! Lol! I can't wait to ride now!!! This is last years model. This years model was white and light pink with the same butterfly. It was pretty sweet, but I love this one! It has a little more attitude!!! Plus, this years model was $450 and the one I got was $299.

Okay, so today was a super long day! I woke up before six this morning to ride with Chris to Ft. Jackson again. My friend, Danielle had to get a tonsilectomy done this morning and she needed someone to drive her to her house afterwards. I waited with her til they wheeled her in to the OR. Poor thing was nervous, but we talked a lot to try to keep her mind off the surgery. She wasn't really scared to go through with the surgery, she was more afraid of the excruciating pain they told her she would be in after the meds they put down her throat would wear off. After I got her home and settled in Chris picked me up since he got off work a little early. We came home so Chris could ride his bike to the Honda Shop. He needed to get a new front wheel put on before our move. He'll be riding his bike all the way to Nevada. So we dropped it off there and went to Cycle Gear down the road where I got my freakn sweet helmet! Lol! We are finally settled in for the evening. After Honda, we went to walmart to pick up stuff for dinner and came home. We had gourmet hamburgers!!! Yum! Lol! I made a trip over to Sandy's a few minutes ago to pick up the scrapbooking stuff she bought for me at Big Lots. They were having a sale so Chris gave her money so she could pick me up some stuff! Isn't he just the sweeeeeeeeetest! yes....yes he is! Lol!

This kid is a complete HAM! He loves the camera! I take one picture of him and then I end up with a million! He's my godson, Isaiah. These were taken yesterday when I hung out with Lisa. This pic was taken at Panera Bread.

I love this pic! You can see Isaiah in the blurred background looking at toys. I love the way I framed the photo....so cool!

This week has been a good full week. For not having an extra vehicle anymore, I've been out quit a lot! I've also done quite a bit of shopping! Tomarrow, I am going to chill here at home and do some laundry and get things ready for our road trip to Kingsport, Tennessee. I can't wait to see my friend!!!! Well, I'm sleepy so I'll be getting off here! G'night!

I finally saw...

2009-01-14T20:56:00.002-07:00

....TWILIGHT! My friend Lisa took me out to see it. I had to giggle on some parts because it was so corny, but other than that I enjoyed the movie. The book of course is by far much more better, but thats the way it goes with books they turn into movies. I feel like reading the book all over again!

Before we decided to see a movie, Lisa and Isaiah picked me up at my house and we did a little shopping! I've been doing a lot of shopping lately, but I only spent $20. We went to World Market, Ulta, and Bath and Body Works where I spent the $20 bucks. I smell good! Lol! Lisa took me to Panera Bread. I'd never been there before and she said that I definitely had to try their coffee. It was sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet and delicious! Later, Chris met us at Red Robins after work and we had dinner. He came directly from work so he was still in uniform. A little boy walking with his mom stopped at our table and the little boy thanked Chris for serving our country. It was so sweet! Chris leaned over and shook his little hand. An older gentleman walking by also thanked him. I know it makes Chris feel akward when people thank him because to him its his job, but I'm still proud of him.

I will post a cool picture (I think its cool! lol!) I took at world market tomarrow. It will be later on in the evening. I am going to post early with Chris to help out my friend D, she is going to get her tonsils taken out and she will need someone to drive her home. Friday, Chris and I are going to Tennessee to visit our friends from Germany! They just had a baby boy! Well I got to get to bed, I have an early morning!!! G'Night!

4 Things....

2009-01-14T09:05:00.002-07:00

My friend Diana in Germany started a game with her friends and she tagged me next!

1. 4 jobs you had in your life

Babysitter
secretary
cashier
receptionist

2. 4 movies you can watch over and over again.

Empire of the Sun
Fifth Element
Bollywood movies!
Legend of the Falls

3. 4 places you used to live4.

Texas
Arizona
Nevada
Germany (now, South Carolina......and soon I will be adding Utah!)

4 TV series you like

Ghost Hunters (thanks to my friend, Dea!)
House Hunters
National Geographics: Explorer
Army Wives (hee!)

5. 4 places you've been on vacation

Austria
Germany
Across the Northeastern US on a motorcycle
Canada

6. 4 websites you visit daily

My Blog
Everyone listed on my fave blogs
Two Peas
My hotmail Acct.

7. 4 of your favorite meals

Tacos
Albondigas
Caldito
And everything else my mom and nana make!

8. 4 places you want to be right now.

With Chris....he's at work down the road, but I wanna be with him! Lol!
At home in Nevada with my mom and dad
At my nana and tata's in Arizona
In Utah at our new duty station! (can you tell I'm missing my family and ready to get on with this move!?)

I'm gonna tag Ivy! I know she loves surveys!!!!

My sweetheart is back!

2009-01-13T17:03:00.005-07:00

I missed her so much! My friend D and Jayelle finally came home from their long holiday vacation! We got together today and did a little shopping! Since we only have one car now, Chris and I drove to Ft. Jackson together early this morning and he dropped me off at D's on post. It was so early and no stores would be open so I ended up falling asleep on her couch after she asked me if she could sleep for a little longer. We woke up again at nine and got Jay ready for her doctor's appointment. Poor baby had to go and get another shot! It took forever to get out of there! We ended up having lunch at a mexican restaurant and then we went to Target! I'm going to miss them so very much when we leave!

The picture is kind of dark, but Jay has the most beautiful, bright blue eyes! She is such a sweet kid! This is my pic for p13/365

This is for p12/365. Since we sold our other car, I felt stuck yesterday. Its weird not being able to go anywhere I want! Lol! But I did get a lot of cleaning done and I bathed my stinky puppies! I put the heater and a blanket on the floor so they could warm up and they slept there for hours! It was so funny to catch my lil boy dog sitting with his face right in the front of the heater! I think he liked the heat blasting over him! Lol!

Here's..

2009-01-12T11:50:00.004-07:00

...what I've been up to this weekend. Finally scrapped the photos from the ball. I liked the look of the second layout, where its the photo of all four of us, so I did a different version of it for the first layout.

The last layout I had fun with. Its so bright and I loved mixing hambly and sassafras together.

one last thing...

2009-01-11T19:08:00.004-07:00

...this is the pic of the day for day 10 of project 365. Saturday we hung out all day upstairs since the lamp in our living room popped. Our dogs are extremely spoiled!

{I meant the lamp in the tv in the livingroom popped}

Farewell old friend...

2009-01-11T18:22:00.002-07:00

p11/365

This evening we bid farewell to our faithful ol' 96 Mazda. I put it up for sale on craigslist this afternoon and she drove off our driveway around 7pm. This was Chris' first car. He paid 9k for it in 2001 and 8 years later he sold it for $900. This old mazda has been back and forth from the states and germany. Its been driven from the coast of South Carolina to Ft.Sam Houston in Texas and back again. Chris drove it everyday to and from work and would drive it even when he could have taken my car instead. When its new owner drove off, Chris and I stood in our garage and looked at eachother with somewhat of sad faces. It feels kind of weird to be rid of it. We both thought we would have it til the bitter end, but with us having another car and motorcycle to drive to Utah we decided to sell. Its funny to me to have somewhat of a sentimental attachment to the car, but every time I got in it the smell, which always smelled like cool waters cologne, would remind me of the first time I rode in it with Chris. He was coming to pick me up for the first time to take me out on a date! I remember being giddy and nervous. I loved driving with him with the stereo going and the sunroof open! Ahh yes...those were the days! It was also the car that I learned to drive stick shift in when I was in Germany. Chris said it was okay if I dinged it up a bit while learning since it was already oxidized and he put his own dents and scrapes in it. My mom and I did many day trips in it when she came to visit me in germany. I busted out laughing when I caught myself thinking about the car because I was seeing it like a sappy old movie montage in my head!

Here she is in all her oxidized greatness! lol! She was the reason why we got another mazda! We never had any major problems with it! I guess I can stop refering to this beat up old car as "she" and "her"! Lol!

On another note, the lamp in the big tv downstairs popped so we have been hanging out upstairs in our bedroom watching tv. We did absolutely nothing this weekend except hangout. Next weekend we are heading up to Tennesse to visit our friends whom we met in Germany. They just had their first baby on Christmas eve and we want to meet the lil angel before we move across the country! I can't wait for that! Thats it for tonight!

p9/365

2009-01-09T18:40:00.002-07:00

Today, I had a doctor's appointment at Moncrief and boy was that place packed! I had to park way out in BFE!!!! Chris and I had lunch since my appointment was over just in time for lunch. We went and had a noisy lunch at the PX. Later, I took off and picked up Sandy for another dose of cheapy shopping! I know all this shopping could get us into trouble even though its cheap! But, you can't really say much when we shop at the dollar store! We even went to Good Will, where Sandy found some good steals. We also went to another Big Lots where we found some great deals on Heidi Grace scrappy stuff! I was way excited! I also found a sweet 9x9 faux leather Making Memories album for $7! You can't beat that people! After we went to Pages, my LSS to browse through their racks since they always have new stuff coming in. We came out with a few goodies. I snapped this pic on the way out!

I love my LSS. Nan, the owner is so nice and easy to talk to. I remember when I first moved here and I was looking for a job. I went and asked if they needed any help here. Of course they didn't need any. So I kept looking and I ended up working right next door at the Blockbuster! So on my breaks I would walk over and browse the aisles while daydreaming or sit and chat with the nice ladies who worked there! The world truly is small! Nan, has also lived in some of the states I have lived in. Her father was in the air force and was stationed at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ. I grew up in Tucson! So this is my pic for day nine.....Pages From The Heart! My fave lil place to snag up some scrap goodies that the giants like Mike's and Hobby Lobby don't carry. I will miss my lil hangout and I hope they will be able to stay afloat when so many LSS's are closing!

Tonight, has been quiet and relaxing. I'm so glad its the weekend. Next week brings us closer to our moving day and everyday makes me even more excited! Chris is downstairs with a stack of sudoku puzzles that a coworker gave him. I swear he's addicted to those. He finishes them in only a few minutes! Smart and Sexy....yep! That's my hubs! I'm up in my craft room writing this post and I'm about to hop off here and work on some layouts. I want to post them to the two peas website so I can try and earn that $20 bucks they are giving to people who upload 20 projects to their site! I could use some free money for scrapbooking stuff! Lol! Alrighty, thats all for tonight! G'Night!

How Sweet!

2009-01-09T15:16:00.005-07:00

My scrappy friend Amy Elise has given me this sweet award!!! Makes me happy to know that people stop by to read my blog! I originally started this blog for my parents because we live so far apart and I wanted to give them a glipse of our everyday lives, but they no longer have internet and so this blog has slowly been turning into the place where I share my love of scrapbooking!

That being said, the rules of this award are pretty straightforward. I am to name 7 things that I love and pass the award along to 7 deserving bloggers. I'm going to pass it onto my three most favorites!

7 Things I love!

1. My hubby! He is the sexiest dork I ever met! Lol! Nobody loves me like he does! He spoils me non-stop and he looks so darn good in a uniform!

2. My two chihuahuas! They're crazy lil mutts who will make you smile and brighten anyone's day!

3. My family, they are so far away! But not for long!!! Yay!

4. I love the blogging world! It gives you the opportunity to share something that you love with people all around the world! You become friends with people who you may never meet!

5. I love shopping at cheapy stores for scrapbooking stuff with my friend Sandy! We scored big time today at Big Lots!!!

6. I love our honda goldwing! It has a cushy backseat for me! I can't wait to take more road trips!! (and scrap them! LOL!)

7. I looooooooooooove mexican food!

So, I'm only choosing three of my most favorite....and here they are:

Bree and Camille, from Crop Suey! I wish I had their scrappy stamina! They keep going and going.....and well you get the idea! They are the awesome owners of the fabby online store and kit club, Crop Suey. You can visit their blog here for some awesome inspo and ideas on how to use their cool kits! Oh! And they also have a cool challenge blog called, Scrapping Across the Universe! Check it out!

ivyPINK is another awesome scrapper whose blog I love to frequent! She has the cutest hedgie named Abbey and she's just soooooooo nice!!!

Wild Wings

2009-01-08T19:48:00.003-07:00

Tonight, we had dinner at the Wild Wings Cafe at Sandhills. Chris called an hour before he came home and asked if we could go out to eat because he was craving chicken wings! I never pass up an opportunity to eat out! Lol! Chris ordered a tray of 25 chicken wings! He ate 23 wings and downed 3 coronas! Poor kid hadn't eaten anything all day and he tore up those wings!
It was nice to get out. I love the time you have between your order getting taken and your food coming because you have time to chat about your day. Our conversation was centered around our move! I love talking about stuff we are looking forward too!
I took a picture of Chris devouring the last of his wings, its funny cuz there's a little bone pile in the middle of this huge round tray! Even though he's a good sport about it and would have let me post it here, I won't! Lol! I wouldn't want him to take a picture of me like that and plaster it all over the internet! Lol!

Today...

2009-01-07T18:38:00.002-07:00

Pic for P7/365

.....I made home-made banana nut muffins (minus the nuts! Hubby no likey!). I bought bananas a few days ago and they have been sitting there ever since, getting darker and darker! So I decided to get my bake on! I really don't enjoy cooking since I'm not very creative at it, but I couldn't let those nanners go to waste! Funny thing is Chris saw them sitting there this morning and he was thinking that they would make good muffins! So when he came home he had fresh muffins for dessert! It made me happy! I also found a yummy recipe for spinach and artichoke dip! We ordered some a few weeks ago at Chili's and it was delish. I've been wanting to go back just for the dip, but Chris suggested looking for the recipe online and I did! Yay me! Lol! So I give myself twice the kudos for cooking something that I normally wouldn't have! That's one of my things for 2009. I don't want to call it a goal because I never follow through with them, so its just one of those things I want to do more of in 2009. I want to cook more different foods than I normally do, maybe find some new recipes and when I go home I want to make sure I pay close attention to the food my nana and my mom make!

Holiday Ball.....December 13, 2008

2009-01-06T11:56:00.002-07:00

Here's most of the pics I took from the ball. I should have taken my cannon cam instead of our old sucky digi cam from back in the day! I'm mad at myself for that, but at least I still have these crummy pics! Lol! I've been trying to scrap them, but I can't figure out a good layout!

This hairstyle cost an arm! It was $55, but it was worth it! The young lady was awesome and very innovative! My hair is super short so she suggested a fun bun....a fake hair piece!
Chris (my future baby-daddy) and me!

Chris and Randy (Sandy's hubby!)

This is my BFF! This woman is AWESOME!

I loooooooooove this group picture of us! Randy is also in the military, but he didnt want to wear his greens.

Tuesday 6/365

2009-01-06T11:03:00.004-07:00

Yesterday, I was so tired! The night before I was wide awake after the lights went out! I woke up pretty late yesterday morning, around 11:30! I knew that if I didn't get moving I was going to fall asleep so I called up my friend Sandy and we went shopping! First we went and had lunch at the px on Fort Jackson. It was nice to sit down for awhile outside of my house since we hadn't gone anywhere over the long New Years weekend. I got to vent out some of my frustrations with my sleeping habits and with myself. It helps to talk things out since she usually gives me pretty good advice! I also figured out what my word of the year is going to be and told her about it! My word for the year is:

PATIENCE

I don't have any at all! I think thats why I have so many problems sleeping is because I get so over excited for things to come! Like this move thats coming up! Then I start thinking about all this stuff that I have to do before and my mind just goes on and on. Sometimes when Im lying there wide awake at two in the morning I wish that night would just hurry up and pass so I can get working on the things I'm thinking about. So I'm going to try and practice having patience! Lets see how this goes!!!

Now back to the shopping:

We hit up all our favorite cheapy stores, like Big Lots (sometimes you can find good scrappy supplies for cheap!). We also scanned Target's dollar section and they had cute V-Day supplies! I spent twenty bucks and that included lunch and some household supplies I needed! Thats my kind of shopping! Lol! Our last stop was hobby lobby and by that time I was dragging! I was so sleepy and ready to get home! So I took Sandy home and headed to my house. Chris was already home so we made dinner and relaxed with a cocktail. He made me an orange julius with orange bacardi in it and he had himself a jack and coke. I was in bed by nine or so and I slept like a baby!

This morning I woke up to my chihuahua whimpering in her bed because she needed to go relieve herself outside! It was around 7 am and after that I brought them up to my room to lay down with me, but I couldn't go back to sleep so I jumped out of bed and took a shower! I feel great today! I made some sandwiches and went to the hospital to have lunch with Chris. Now, I'm back at home and am going to do some laundry, blogging, and maybe get to my layout that I've left on my scraptable for a few days now. I will check in a little later so post some pics if I take any! For yesterdays, pic I am keeping the reciepts from my little shopping excursion!

Tonight, Chris made bbq chicken for dinner and we hung out on the couch with our puppies watching HGTV! We have been getting into that lately! We watch it, like everyday! It gets you dreaming! You can make a regular home the house of your dreams with a little imagination (and money! Lol!) The pic was taken with my cel phone so the quality isn't that great, but I wanted to get the pic in the moment instead of dashing up the stairs and losing the moment. Chris was being uncooperative and gave me one of his joker smiles, but it makes me laugh and that is so him! I love our evenings. This is my pic for day 6!

Sunday

2009-01-04T20:21:00.008-07:00

Today was spent relaxing on the couch. Chris and I spent the morning looking at real estate near and around Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. We aren't sure if we will be able to live off post since Tooele, the closest town to Dugway is quite a few miles away, but its fun to look! We also looked up the housing on Dugway and its just like the housing here at Fort Jackson. Nothing, but townhouses. The thing about housing in the military is its separated by rank, typically the higher ranking you are the housing is somewhat better than what a lower ranking soldier would get. At Dugway the housing is for E7 and above, but since Chris is an E5 we will probably live in the housing for E7. The cool thing is is that the E7 housing for soldiers with dependents has 3 bedrooms! Thats fairly exciting since here at Jackson if you have a family of 3 you get two bedrooms. Since its just me and Chris for now and I will still be able to have my scrapbook room and a spare bedroom for guests!

This is the townhouse we are hoping to get into if we can't live off post. It has three bedrooms and is a little over 1400 sq. ft. The house we are in now is 1300 sq ft.

On a different note:

Tonight I spent some time organizing my scraproom and was a little overwhelmed by how much stuff I have! I have stuff that I bought in Germany and never used! I think that when I get to our next duty station and set up my room, I'm going to go through my stuff and make a whole bunch of stuff for my etsy store and once I use up all the stuff I will do a subscription to a kit club. I think it would help save me money and it would come to me! Lol! But then again, Salt Lake City (in my mind) is like the scrapbooking capitol of the world! lol! So I could get into a lot of trouble out there!

I've been working on scrapping these pictures. I am stumped as to how I want to scrap them. I'll post the ball pics later, but I think I might nix this layout idea, nothing is glued down yet so I am still feeling things out.

I think the picture of that townhouse will be the pic of the day for p365. Anywho, this is all for tonight! Good night!

P365 Day 3

2009-01-03T19:01:00.003-07:00

Today, I slept in until almost one o'clock!!! I couldn't believe thatmy hubby hadn't tried to wake my butt up! He had been up for a few hours already cleaning up the yard. I heard the garage door opening and I jumped up and checked the clock on my phone! It was 15 minutes til so I got out of bed and took a shower. We've been staying up late every night and while my hubby can't sleep in for any length of time because his back starts to ache, Im a different story!
We didn't do much today. I finished up the layout in the previous post and Chris has been downstairs playing the xbox. We made a run to Wal-Mart for some coffee around 7:30pm and we bought a big plastic bin for our Christmas tree....its a 7.5ft fakey that we've had for about 4 years already and its still in good condition, but we got the bin since we will be making another move and the cardboard box it came in has seen better days and is about ready to call it quits! Lol! We came home and I made Chris a soup and a sandwhich while he brewed up some of his coffee! He's so sweet, he put a dallop of whip cream in mine! Thats my cup in the pic. I added some cinnamon and it was delish!

Project 365

2009-01-03T15:36:00.003-07:00

I've been taking pictures since the first for Project 365! The kit is sold out, but hopefully CK will have some more in stock soon so I can purchase it online!

This first pic was taken on 1.1.09. We rang in the New Year at Sandy and Randy's! We had a fondue dinner which was absolutely delish! Dessert was served shortly after midnight. We lit off fireworks in the street and decided to call it a night and go in for dessert after we kept setting lawns on fire! I've never had chocolate fondue before and it was amazing! I loved it!

Pic taken yesterday, 1.2.09. Today we tore down our tree and took the lights off the house. Now that its the new year, I am looking forward to so many new ventures! I want to make an inspiration journal to store all of my creative ideas and I'm starting by taking all of my CK mags from 08 and cutting out the articles and layouts that really appealed to me. I am so anxious to get things rolling, but we are moving in February so I am holding off on my new arrangement for my scraproom. Im hoping that the next duty station we are at has a nice space for my scrapbook room. In the meantime, I will be gathering photos and inspo for my next room! Can't wait!

I haven't taken a picture to mark today's date, but I did finish a layout! I think it came out pretty good! I love sassafrass papers so much, but I have a hard time using them because I just want to tape them to some canvas and hang the pp on my walls! Hey! That just gave me a good idea! Lol! I'll have to write that down!

Random Ramblings

2009-01-02T21:46:00.002-07:00

I have been looking forward to the new year and now that its finally here it won't officially start for me til we are on the road home! Chris and I will finally be moving to Utah in late February. I am happy to finally be putting the steps to clearing out of this place in motion! A few days ago we went and told the property manager that we will be out of the house we are renting on the 15th of February. Chris has an appointment with the transportation office on post next wednesday and hopefully he will be able to set up an appointment with them to come and pick up our household goods sometime during the first week of Feb. I keep telling myself that all of this is only a few weeks away, but I have no patience when it comes to something I want! Especially this move! Today, I took down our Christmas tree and decorations while Chris took down the lights outside. When he was done he came inside and saw me rolling up the area rug and asked me why I was taking it upstairs. I told him that I wanted to make it look like we are moving because it makes me feel better! He thought it was pretty funny, but I am just so ready to be closer to my family! I miss them so very much and I can't wait to hug my mom and dad. Thinking about it makes me tear up because I know they will be so happy to see us! When we first got stationed in SC, I thought it wasn't going to be that bad because at least we were living inthe same country as my family and we would be able to fly home. But since living here we've only been home once and that was last year due to a funeral. Plane tickets are so expensive and flying from the southwest to the east is the biggest hassle!

Anywho...I've been thinking a lot about where we are going to live. We will be living near Tooele, Utah at Dugway Proving Grounds. We heard that housing and the facilities were pretty nice. Chris will have a four day work week and that sounds great! No matter what the housing situation will be for us I plan on making it a home! When we first moved to SC, Chris and I lived on Ft. Jackson and the housing was roach infested and old, but we made the place ours by adding some paint to the walls and buying new furniture. When we moved to the rental house, which we're in at the moment, we didn't put any pictures on the walls or really do anything for fear that we might have to pay out of pocket for any damages! So despite feeling comfortable in the house, it really doesn't feel like ours. Plus, Columbia isn't a place where we feel at home anyway.

Thrilled!

2008-12-31T10:51:00.002-07:00

Yep....I'm thrilled that this month has gone by so fast! It has been a great month filled with lots of lovely memories and of course stress! But we've made it and have come out on top!

This month:

We studied non-stop for the E-6 Promotion board!
On 23 December Chris went to the board and scored a 145/150! Chris was happy and I was proud! It was the last board he would ever have to go through again! One less stressor off his back! Now hopefully in January he will get promoted to Staff Seargent! It would be another highlight to start off the new year!
December 13, we went to our first military ball! Well it was a holiday ball for the hospital here on Ft.Jackson, but I loved getting all dressed up and I had fun!
December 16, Chris's clinic had a holiday luncheon. Everybody brought there favorite dish and I made my famous Tacos! Needless to say we were all stuffed to the gills when all of a sudden the loud speaker system blares out to evacuate the hospital and that it wasnt a drill. My heart kind of sank because I had never had that happen to me! So everyone made a mass exodus to the parking lot across the street and waited there for a good 45 minutes. Later we were allowed to enter the building again and work resumed. What had happend was a few minutes prior to the evac message the front desk guy went on the loud speaker and asked for the taxi driver that dropped off the package to come back up to the front desk. When they repeated the message a few minutes later, I remeber thinking "oh crap, they're gonna have to evacuate!" So sure enough they did. You cant just go leaving mysterious packages at front desks without saying a word about who its for or whats inside! Not in todays world and especially not on a military installation! I was mad! Whoever dropped off the package must not have been thinking clearly! You just dont go around doing that! Okay!
Christmas eve and Christmas was so relaxing! We literally didnt do a thing the whole week Chris was off! I loved it! I got a brand new pink laptop from my wonderful hubby! It also came with a mini laptop that is awesome for using downstairs and jumping on the internet on a whim! We had dinner at my friend sandy's house and instead of the traditional turkey or ham dinner I made tacos, yet again! Lol!

So there was a lot more stuff, but as I havent been blogging I might have forgotten more of it! I have been pretty lazy and preoccupied with my little christmas project I had going on. I made my first acrylic mini album! I loved the way it came out, but I wasn't really to careful about the back sides of the pages so you can see adhesive and stuff, but I dont care. Its my first one and its mine! I cant do whatever I want with it! lol! I will post pics of that and some pictures from the ball a little later!

Yesterday, Chris and I went to the property manager for the house we are renting. We went and put it our 30 days notice of when we will be out of the house! We have to have this house cleared by the 15th of February! I am so excited! Finally we have pinned down a day and it makes the whole moving thing a lot more real! So its only a month and a half away! We will probably be leaving a few days after the 15th! We have a long drive to go, but one I was will to do yesterday! Lol! Chris will be riding his motorcycle all the way there! Which makes me extremely jealous because I looooooooove being on the back! We will be making several stops for gas and rest and such, but we will be staying a night in El Paso, Texas where my Grandma lives. Hopefully my grandma will want to come to Tucson, AZ with us to where we will be making our next stop. The majority of my family lives there and so does my other grandma! Then after a few days there we will be heading up to Las Vegas, Nv where our parents live and visit with everyone there for awhile. Then its up to Utah where we will make Dugway Proving Grounds our home! Lol! I am so excited!

I am looking forward to this year and being closer to family! I cant tell you how happy I am!

Today was...

2008-12-11T22:07:00.005-07:00

...GREAT!!! I got together with my two friends and we had an unintentional girls day! My good friend Sandy picked me up at at home around 12:15 and we went to meet up with my friend D and her daughter Jayelle at a nail salon. Sandy and I wanted to have our eye brows waxed, but I ended up getting that done, plus a mani and pedi! It was sooooo relaxing! I felt so girly having my toe nails painted! I had the lady put flowers on my big toes! Lol! I also had my finger nails painted and had a flower design put on two fingers. I tried to have a pedicure done a few years back at a cosmatology school, but I couldn't finish because the smells in that place made me so sick! This time it was all good and I came out so happy with my pretty nails! Lol! After we went and had lunch at an asian bistro which was really yummy. D wanted to shop the cute kid stores for a nice christmas outfit for Jayelle. That was tons of fun, because shopping for a baby girl, even though shes not yours is so much fun! We were trying adorable little hats on the kid and she loved the attention she got from everyone! We hit up the Icing to find the finishing touches for the ball thats on Saturday. Before we knew it, we had lost track of time and it was already 5:30 when we noticed! I ended up driving home with D, because she wanted me to do Jayelle's pictures, which came out so adorable by the way! It was such a nice day! Days like these make me sad to leave my friends. D is in the military and we have known eachother from a few years and were stationed together in Germany. She ended up getting stationed here at Ft.Jackson and its just been such a pleasure getting to see her start a family. Her little girl is absolutely adorable and Im in love with her! Its going to be hard to say goodbye now! I've known Sandy for about a year, but we were friends instantly when we met! Her and her husband are such a great couple and Im going to miss them so much! We've shared many meals together and this Saturday we are going to the ball together, I know it will be a blast!

Lately, I've been doing a lot of picture taking! A few days ago I set up the tripod and got to snapping pics of Chris and I! They came out pretty good considering I had to keep jumping up after every pose to hit the shutter button to take our picture! After seeing our pictures my friends definitely wanted me to do their family Christmas photos, which I happily obliged! So far I've done Sandy's family and I just did D and Jayelle's photos tonight here at my house with our tree. She's taking 26 days of leave to see her family so she didn't decorate a tree. Im kind of sad because when she gets back we will practically be packing up, but we have a plan to do another girls day out before I go. Hopefully my good friend Lisa will be able to come this time. We did stop by her work to say hi, we had missed her lunch hour by ten minutes so that was kind of a bummer.

I know this is such a long post, but I have so much to share. I feel so happy with my life and I am very very thankful for everything!

I wanted to show a picture from Christmas 2005. We were living in Germany and Chris and D were going to get deployed to Iraq at the first of the year. Seems like I remember our life in increments. Time frames are measured by events that took place. I dont know if that makes sense, but it makes sense for me. I wonder if its the same for everyone?

This is us in December 2005. I think we look younger....and a bit thinner! Lol! Chris doesn't fit into that suit anymore and those pants won't come up my thighs *sigh*

This is us today. We're still cute together! I love us!

This is the picture we chose to send in the christmas cards to family. It was a hard decision because I loved all of them, especially the pic up top, but I have cleavage in that pic and I didn't want to send it out! (But I'll post it here, no problem! LOL!)

Here's my adorable fur-kids. No, I didn't send this in the cards. I didn't want to be classified as one of "those" people who since they don't have kids, have pets who are their kids, (even though thats whats up! Lol!) My friend Sandy said she recieved a Christmas card in the mail with a picture of her friends dog. They decided not to have children so the dog makes up for it instead.

And this one just cracks me up because G is licking the roof of Reyna's mouth!

I wish I had photoshop to lighten up the photos. Although I do like the lighting, they are still a bit dark.

This extremely adorable child is my friend D's baby girl! I can't get enough of those eyes! I'm so glad they stayed blue! Just look at that button nose! Lol!

She was trying to eat my leg! She's teething!

Her hair is curly when its wet, but when it dries it goes straight! So I kept her hair wet for the curls.....

Isn't she so cute! I love this kid! She is the friendliest baby I've ever met!

These are all straigh out of the camera! Not too bad, eh?!!

I just laid her on her stomach and she did the rest! I didn't have to pose her or anything! I just let her do her thing and I got some great shots!

I was so pooped by the time the shoot was done. I was ready for bed, but once I laid down couldn't go to sleep! I hate that!!! So I decided to get up and write this long post! So I think this will be all for this early morning! (its 1:06 am) Good Day!

XO Studio

Cook Christmas 2010

Today's Christmas Craft!

The Sweet Boutique

I was Featured...

Leyla's Invitations

Pretty Cute Pendents

Can't Wait!!

A small update!

My Etsy Finds * Necklace Edition!

New Stuff!!

Up to something crafty...

My Etsy Shop

I'm Still Around

Catching Up!

Point Blank Period

Heart Thiefs 1&2

Dreamy

Done and Done!

Looong day...

Picasa

Happy 1st Birthday, Mr. Man!

Padding Myself On The Back...

Fetish

This Says It All

Serenity: Captured

Sass is Sunshine...

I'm sooooo THERE!!!

Creepy Crawly!

That's Better!

Engagement Photos!

Missing The Pups...

Just a few....

Home, Oh So Sweet Home

I heart Canada!

Yesterday...

Try this one...

So Far Today...

Home!

Dugway Days

Some more

Colorful...

Testing

Whoops....

Weekend Update

Ophir, My Love

A little Random

~The Simple Woman's Daybook~: Taking Part In The Simple Woman's Daybook

Sneek peeks of...

Testing......

Update on TEST photo...

*Pure Loveliness*

I should be in bed, but....

*Excited*

I've been lost...

EXTREMELY LONG POST...about nothing really.

Sweeet....

Holy crap....

Adrenalin rush and a bum knee

Late Mother's Day Gift...

A Great Day

I looooooooooooove...

Photoshop

Somebody....

Bingo Night!

One Last Post For Sunday!

Welcome....

Catching Up!

Holy Smokes!

Blog Candy Giveaway!

For Grandpa Cook's Scrapbook

Tagged!

I didn't ...

I'm Back

For Pencil Lines Challenge Blog

Yay!

I finally saw...

4 Things....

My sweetheart is back!

Here's..

Pure Loveliness

Excited