Last Summer Hurrah!

BEfore the summer ended we made a fun little trip up to Park City Utah. 

We were lucky and got a time share to stay in.

It was AHHHHHmazing!!!



and RIGHT next to this fun stuff!!!

 Kristen and Jack coming down the Alpine Slide

I confess.....this ride terrifies me.
Pretty sure the people who caught up to me and then had to go slow mo down half the slide, sadly, knew it too.

Nathan and Samantha were brave little souls and did the zip line!!!!
It was crazy far up!
After they decided they weren't terrified anymore....they thought it was freaking awesome!!!!

One ride that I don't have a photo ready for...somewhere on my phone.  But it was the Alpine Coaster, you get pulled up the mountain and then let go on a coaster where YOU control the speed.  YOu are flying through the fresh mountain air and forest......FUNNESTRIDEONTHEUNIVERSE.  Enough said.

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This is Park City.
Nestled in the Rocky Mountains along the Wasatch Front.  Up Parleys Canyon to be exact.
It's a quaint little picturesque kind of town, old and historic.
Surrounded by the best snow on earth...as they say.
See the grooves up in the mountains there,  slopes for skiing.

Love all the color.

 Main Street, filled with lots of little quaint shops and art studio's.









The kids sat down to rest for a moment on this  bear bench (so of course I made them pose for a pic)  those stinky faces they are pulling are the result of the garbage can nearby that they are all just now getting a good whiff of ;)

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We hiked Bridal Veil Falls

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Hit up the Olympic Museum  (you know, the 2002 Olympics ;)

The slopes ;)

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Took the kids to their favorite place and my worst nightmare ;)
 








 hahahahahahahaaa!!!!
Pretty sure I'm too old for that.

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And no trip to Utah is complete without some time at grandma and grandpas!

 Cleaning up his beet greens ;)

It was a fun week, and a great way to end the summer

Some Recent Faves

I've been having a lot of fun playing around with Jillibean Soup lately.  I LOVE all the fun colors and the way they pop off white and kraft backgrounds.

I used a mix of lines for this page....all the colors were great for this picture of my mom and I.  Love how this one in particular shows our relationship together.  We do nothing but laugh.  She is always such a breath of fresh air in my life.  She helps me to deal, and re-evaluate how I look at things.  She's a great listener and always lets me cry on her shoulder, which usually leads to laughter.  She is my biggest cheerleader ;)

I absolutely love the quirkiness to this collection of paper.  As I was sorting through them I loved how the colors played off each other and immediately started designing a page in my head.  It's kinda funny...sometimes I get ideas about a page and have it already planned, all I have to do is find a picture that works with it ;)   This one of Samantha was perfect.  It was the only good sun flair one I got of her so it didn't really have a partner.  It's kinda hard to see here but I stitched some sun rays up in the right hand corner to add some subtle texture.

I love it when pages make me so happy ;)

Eighteen25 Guest Post

I was so excited to guest on my good friends craft blog;  eighteen25

This month is their big September Spooktacular and I've got a little tutorial up showing how I made these 2 different garlands.

Head on over and check it out, then have a look at all the other fun stuff

I also made a fun little artist tray display of last years pictures ;)

September already??

Between end of the summer vacation and going back to school the last few weeks have felt like a blur!  But good thing I have lots of photo's to help me remember ;)   I finally loaded them up last night and was surprised at how many there were.  I've got a bit of work ahead of me and will share some stories when I get them done.

For now I've got our gorgeous September Nook kit.  It's our last one and it makes me sad.  I've been with the Nook for like 5 years now! Designing for 2.  I don't know what I'll do next month when we are all done.  But for now I'm totally loving this kit and whipped out 2 layouts pretty quick with it ;)

It's got the new Echo Park For the Record 2....loving all the pretty blues and yellows.  

Pretty much my favorite colors.

I was immediately drawn to the light blue paper in the collection and loved the way it looked with the brown newsprint.  I've had these amazing pictures of Nathan for some time now, obviously.  I'm not even sure how old he is here, I'll have to look it up, but I'm thinking no more than 10.  He's such a handsome boy ;)

This floral was also one of my faves.  Wanted to show it off well, so I used a large block for my background.  All the phrase stickers in the kit are pretty fun and I stacked them together to create a little description of my Samantha.

I love it when layouts come together so quickly and easily, especially when they

 make me totally happy as well.