Skiing at Blue Mountain

My sister, Karen, and best friend, Barb, try to plan a ski trip to Blue Mountain Ski Resort in PA every year. We don't get to ski much any more, and all three of us absolutely love it, although we are not experts by any stretch of the imagination. I would say we are in the beginner to intermediate levels. Anyway, we went this past Wednesday, and unfortunately Barb got sick and couldn't go. We really missed her.

It was such a gorgeous day Here is the lodge at Blue Mountain.

The sun was shinning so beautifully. We arrived around 8:30, and practically had the slopes to ourselves for the first hours.




All in all, we both did GREAT. We had a few spills, and let me tell you, trying to get up after falling skiing was not easy at our age - lol, but for the most part, we had no problems.

Here are the twin skiiers:

My favorite part about skiing is getting a chance to see the most awesome views!

Little Girls, A Little Tea

2/29/11 addendum:

Here is the layout that I created using Jessica's (aka scrapbaby) sketch at the memory lane pa site on Facebook. She has been posting fun challenges over there!

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When we received our invitation to attend the Moravian Historical Society's mother-daughter tea, Anne really thrilled! But instead of taking her American Girl doll, Ivy, like she did last year, she took Monty, a sea otter that she "befriended" during our trip to California. (We purchased him at one of the the gift shops at the Montery Bay Aquarium.) Anne dressed him up in a bow tie, so that he would look his best at the tea. He was pretty sure that he would be able to meet some friends there, hopefully girls!

After we arrived at the tea, we found that we could make our own petties four cakes for our dolls, or sea-otters, which ever applied!.

Next, Anne decorated her own tea caddy and added 2 teaspoons of tea to take home.

Here is Anne after she completed her crafts.

We crossed the street to the tea gathering. Each guest had their own place setting and name tag. Monty was a little shy when he saw all of the beautiful girls arriving.


The "ice breaker" questions helped alleviate his shyness.



New friendships were made. Anne and her new friend were

enjoying one of the games played during colonial times.


The men were conversing. Lucky for Monty - he was not the only guy that attended the tea.



Examples of a Colonial sugar cone, sugar bowl, and creamer:

Each of us got to take our tea cup and saucer home.

As you can see, Monty had a blast meeting all of his new friends - he was quite happy!!!

What a ladies' man.

The Victorian Tea was awesome - here's one of the servers.

And Monty did meet a new girlfriend - her name is Julie!!

Maybe they will be living happily ever after . . . or just be friends.

Wide Open Spaces

This week's Scrapping the Music song is Wide Open Spaces by the Dixie Chicks. I have always loved the lyrics to this song and was inspired to use a photo of Katie taken at Big Sur during our family vacation to California. To me, Katie looks so beautiful here against the stunning Ca coast. Go check the challenges out at http://www.scrappingthemusic.blogspot.com/! You won't be sorry - it's so much fun!!!

Cosmo Cricket Challenge

This month's Cosmo Cricket challenge at sb.com is using Kayla's (aka mustangkayla) awesome sketch. The challenge is to use 95% cosmo cricket products on your layout/project.

I loved this sketch so much that I used it in 2 different layouts.

For my first page, I used photos taken by my twin sister, Karen, at one of our West Point football games. I really like the picture she took of the cadets with the West Point flag.

I was inspired to make my second layout after seeing 2 of the contenders using the "Togetherness" line. I used photos that I took at our most recent travel group get-together last Friday. You can see how much fun the girls and their moms had.

Thanks again, Kayla, for the inspiration and for hosting the monthly challenges!

Happy Valentine's Day to Karen

This is dedicated to my twin sister, Karen, who has always been there for me throught the years. She has been going through some hard times and I wanted to share this page with her to let her know how much I love her!

No matter how much things change, one thing won't - the love that we feel for each other!!!

Happy Valentine's Day, Karen!

February Scrapbook Challenges

I am participating in a couple of challenges on scrapbook.com this month. I love these challenges because I feel that they get me out of my comfort zone and trying new ideas and techniques.

The first is the Darker Side Challenge, started by Celina (aka fovervampress) on sb.com because she wanted to see more of the darker side of scrapping. (i.e. using darker colors, darker subjects like goth, punk, etc, and/or distressing.) I followed her challenge for months without participating, and really liked seeing all of the different and creative layouts. I was inspired and have since started making pages for her challenge. This month's subject is "A Dark Heart." My layout showcases some of my most favorite movies about forbidden love.

I made my second layout for the Steampunk challenge. Celina included Steampunk as one of her topics for the Darker Side challenge one month, and it really look off! Steampunk is a whimsical style that showcases gears, clocks, metal, vintage, Victorian and collages. February's topic is "Timeless Romance," so in my mind, nothing signifies timeless love more than the love a mother has for her child. Here is one of my favorite vintage photos of my mom: she is holding my sister, Cathy, when she was 10 months old. (I quoted Abraham Lincoln: "All I am or can be, I owe to my angel mother.")

Ending the week in a wonderful way

Between the bad weather, the snow days, and the doctor's moods, last week was not that great, to say the least. But . . . it ended in a wonderful way. My good friend from college, who also adopted her daughter from China, had a get-together at her home Friday night. We all had a chance to check out the new Matilda Jane clothing line,(for adults and kids) to celebrate our daughters' 8th birthdays, and to observe Chinese New Year. My creative friend, Barbarann, had the girls make candy sushi with twizzlers, fruit roll ups, and flattened rice crispy treats!

We all had a blast.

Thanks, BA!!!!!

There's no crying in nursing!

Yesterday and the day before were just awful at work. I am a nurse in a cardiology office. We started a new electronic medical record system and some of the doctors are having a hard time with it. Not only do they HATE the new system, but they also had trouble getting to work with the icy roads. So needless to say, they lashed out at me, the only nurse in our satellite office. My usual "broad" shoulders felt very small on Wednesday, and I actually cried TWICE because of their stinging words. But today I giggled thinking about Tom Hank's line "There's no crying in baseball." I guess there's no crying in nursing, too!


Here are some more snow and ice photos:




(Something we've been seeing WAY too much of!)

Liebster (Love) Blog Award

I was tagged by my blog and sb.com friend, Cindy, on her blog: (http://www.cindyspagesintime.blogspot.com/ ) and given the "Libster Blog" award. Thank you so much, Cindy!

This award is given to new and up-coming blogs that you think are great! This is a good way to share these blogs with people who normally wouldn't have seen them. Hopefully I will share a blog with you that you haven't heard of yet.

If you are tagged and want to participate, just create a post were you display the "Liebster Blog" image. Then chose 3 to 5 of your favorite blogs that you think deserve more followers.

Here are some of my favorites that don't seem to have a lot of followers. (I have lots of other favorite blogs, that I think are beautiful, but they all have at least 50 followers or more!!) Please stop by and check them out - I promise it will be well worth you time and you won't be disapointed.

beckysbitsnpieces.blogspot.com

themissionwithapurpose.blogspot.com

cherylspassion.blogspot.com

noodleswithbutter.blogspot.com

brewerygirlmel.blogspot.com

Thanks again, Cindy, for tagging me!!!

Scrapping the Music

The song for the latest challenge on Scrapping the Music is "New Shoes" by Paolo Nutini. Go check it out at http://www.scrappingthemusic.blogspot.com/ and join in on the fun! I found inspiration with the line "take me wandering through these streets." I used a photo from our trip to Monterey California as the basis for my page. I look forward to seeing you over there!!