Good Vibrations

I went with the advice from my friends here and scrapped the last photo

that I took at a recent wedding John and I attended at the beach. 

The setting was so peaceful and lovely! 

It brought to mind one of my FAVorite Beach Boys songs: 

 "Good Vibrations"

It was a pretty simple layout to make and took me no time at all! 

Thanks Shawn and Izzy for asking me to scrap this! 

Have a great Wednesday everyone!!!

So Sweet!

My wonderful scrappy friend, Kelly, sent me an amazingly sweet award:
The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award!!!

Woohoo - thanks so much Kelly!

Her amazing and fun blog is @ http://www.kellycreates.blogspot.com/

In return, I am to nominate seven sweet bloggers to pass this delicious award on to. It is very hard to pick just 7, because there are so many sweet and amazing blogs out there, but here goes:

Patricia at http://roebuck-adventures.blogspot.com/

Cindy at http://www.cindyderosier.com/

Julie at http://thetuckerwolekclan.blogspot.com/

Carla at http://carliesscraplife.blogspot.com/

Marlene at http://disguisedasagrownup.blogspot.com/

Donna at http://scrappydee.blogspot.com/

Becky at http://beckysbitsnpieces.blogspot.com/

and since I could't pick just 7, here are my final nominations:

Alia at http://straightfromthescraploft.blogspot.com/

Heather at http://miraclesmommadesigns.blogspot.com/

Thank so so much, Kelly for being the sweetest friend and for the nomination.

Kelly also nominated the following blogs, who are very good (and sweet!) friends of mine, too:

Renee at http://luvthisscrap.blogspot.com/

Patty at http://asassyscrapper.blogspot.com/

Shawn at http://poetryinapotoftea.blogspot.com/

Izzy at http://writesnapscrap.blogspot.com/

(and FYI, Kelly has the biggest hair from the past . . . lol . . .)

Thanks to all of my scrappy and bloggy friends out there - your support of my blog means the world to me!

Katie's busy summer

We have been so busy with Katie this summer. She wants to attend either West Point or the Naval Academy, so she applied for and was accepted to both of their summer leadership seminars.

The summer began with her going to West Point in NY for a week:

The very next week, Katie attended the Naval Academy's summer leadership seminar in Annapolis, MD.

Next, Katie attended the American Legion's week of mock congress entitled "Girls' State" at Shippensburg University.

We were really happy to hear that first she was elected mayor of her "town," then Lieutenant Governor of her "state."

She was 2 out of 150 girls to be selected to attend "Girls Nation" in Washington,. DC. (You can go to their Facebook page if you want to learn more about it.) What an honor!

I copied some pictures from the American Legion's Girls' Nation Facebook page to share with you here. Katie is attending this week. We couldn't be more proud of and happy for her!

Between West Point, Annapolis, Shippensburg, and Washington, DC, we have spent a lot of time in the car this summer . . .

A romantic beach wedding

My husband's co-worker got married this past weekend. It was a very amazing and romantic wedding. The ceremony took place at the beach at Seaside, NJ.

Here is the romantic and absolutely beautiful setting:

The groom's first glimpse of his bride-to-be:

The bride walking down the stairs with her dad:

The readings were very beautiful and moving:



The entire wedding party looked amazing:

. . . and they lived happily ever after . . .







I really enjoyed wedding and loved meeting John's co-workers for the first time, too!

And it was so nice to be at the Jersey shore again!!

(brought back good childhood memories!)

Three Little Birds

This week's Scrapping the Music song is "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley. Such a happy and joyful song - quirky, too! I found the lyrics cute and inspiring. If you feel like playing along, check out http://www.scrappingthemusic.blogspot.com/ and join in the fun!!!!!!

On my layout, is a photo of Anne just after getting up with the rising sun.(yep - she gets up at 5:30 every morning - weekends or weekdays! LOL!) We were up at Arrowhead Lake visiting my friends cabin. Anne absolutely loves it there. It was kind of a cold and rainy day, but we still enjoy the quiet mornings at the "beach" along the lake.

I used MORE from my stash sent to be by the lovely women at Scraps of Darkness from the "Now and Zen" kit. (thanks so much, Christine!!!!)

Thank you for stopping by. Your comments mean so much to me!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Scraps of Darkness kit club

I recently became a member of the "Scraps of Darkness" kit club. I received my first kit in the mail in record time, and started scrapping with it - it's entitled "Welcome to the Jungle" and features BoBunny's Zoology line. I will share those layouts with you in my next post, but wanted to tell you how wonderful everyone is over at the "dark side!" After I signed up for the kit club, I went over to their message board and introduced myself. I received a very warm welcome, I might add. I merely mentioned that I was looking for paper and embellishments from their "Now and Zen" kit from May because I thought it would be perfect to scrap photos of Anne. And POW! I received so many message with tips on where to find things and even had offers to send me things from their own stash. I am telling you, if you are thinking about joining a kit club, give Scraps of Darkness a try - you won't be disappointed!

Their site is as follows: http://www.scrapsofdarkness.com

The first page that I created using the gifts sent to me from my wonderful new friends! I love, LOVE this paper. I especially liked the paper with the lanterns on - so pretty!

The second page I created was with a recent photo of Anne at age 8. I was waiting to scrap it with just the right papers, and found them when I received this gift in the mail!

I think that this next page is my most favorite of all! The photo is taken at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou, China right after we adopted Anne. She was just getting out of the bath tub, and looking so sweet. She has been, and still is, a very happy girl.

I used photos of Anne at a beach at Hilton Head Island for this next page - they were taken in October of 2006, when she was just 2 years old. My sister and brother in law won a week's stay at a condo there, and asked us to join them. The pictures that I got of Anne on the beach were so cute!!!!

This is the last page that I created using the "Now and Zen" kit with the things that the awesome ladies sent me in the mail - from their OWN stash, I might add:

The photos were taken at my sister, Karen's and my birthday on September 30, 2006. Anne was such a cutie back then, and still is. She is growing up so quickly!!

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So just to reiterate: (and sorry about repeating myself) if you are thinking about joining a scrap booking kit club, run, don't walk, over to Scraps of Darkness. The prices are very reasonable, the service is speedy, and the design team is very talented, and the women are incredibly friendly and nice!

Thanks so much! I hope you are having a great summer so far. It has gone by way to quickly, hasn't it? I can't believe that we are almost in the middle of July already.

Blue Skies

This week's Scrapping the Music challenge song is Blue Skies by Willie Nelson.

If you are interested in playing along with the challenges, go over to http://www.scrappingthemusic.blogspot.com/ and check us out!

Scrapping the Music has been going through some changes lately as Michelle, Julie and Jeanet recently resigned, but the remaining design team members are taking over all of Michelle's responsibilities, and under Jenn's new leadership,

I am sure it will be GRRRRRREAT!!!!! (said like Tony the Tiger!)

My inspiration for this challenge was the photo that my sister took of me when we went skiing this past Feb at Blue Mountain Ski Resort.

There were nothing but blue skies all around us that day!

(We will miss you, Michelle, Julie, and Jeanet!)