It's August Already?!?!

First of all I want to wish my dad a VERY HAPPY 88th BIRTHDAY!!! LOVE YOU DADDY!
The month of July simply FLEW past! With Noah's two-week visit and then 2 1/2 days later my trip to Houston, it was filled with TONS of FUN! I can't believe that it's already over. You know all about Noah's visit. But the Houston trip... What can I say? There aren't enough adjectives to describe it! It was the most amazing time I've had in a VERY long time! Fourteen of us from My Sketch World got together on Friday night and scrapped, laughed, played, giggled, screamed, cried and enjoyed each other's company until Monday morning when we finally had to part company and say farewell till next year. Other than when Steve and I went to St. Thomas a few years ago I think it was the best trip EVER! :) And none of us can wait to do it all over again! We were literally screaming when we met and crying when we left. I LOVE my MSW ladies!!!
We were treated like queens with a Hummer stretch limo from the hotel to the awesome Mexican restaurant for dinner and back again. And the buses from the airport to the hotel and back, plus the buses driving us to Houston's downtown medical center and then over to the Johnson Space Center. WOW! Saturday we spent at Archiver's and scrapped from 10 AM to 11 PM then went back to the hotel and scrapped until we couldn't stay up any longer! God bless Lori and her Rooster Tails! YUMMY! :)
And believe it or not I actually was able to scrap while on my trip! I got most of a 21 page mini album (10 x 6) done for Noah about the animals he saw on his visit here. I just finished it but will have to wait for sunlight to take pics of it. And then I did 4 full-sized layouts as well! There's a slideshow under this post of the few projects I created this month.
And now on to August. My ONLY month "off" this summer! YAY! I plan to have great fun with the MSW ABC Summer Crop. You can find the information here - http://www.mysketchworld.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=6098 (Sorry I can't get the link to work here..... Will put it in my sidebar shortly...
There's lots of AWESOME prizes and fun to be had here so come join me!
In September my parents and brother are coming for a 2-3 week visit. YAY! And then in October my third grandbaby is due! WOOHOO! By then it'll be time for Thanksgiving and then Christmas! So my year is full of lots of excitement and photo ops. (As if I need MORE pics to scrap! Haha!)
Anyway, hopefully I can keep up a bit better in August with all the events and boards. Meanwhile, happy scrapping and remember Jesus loves you!

Sharing the Scrappy Bug :)

My grandson just LOVES looking at my scrapbooks and is the subject of many of my pages. But ya just gotta LOVE it when the little guy looks at you with those big brown eyes and long lashes and says "Gigi, can I scrapbook please?" Talk about melting your heart! So out came the papers and stickers and some old pics I hadn't done yet and with VERY LITTLE supervision, he created these three pages!!! All I did was make sure they were within the boundaries of the papers and that he didn't use too much adhesive. He designed them and placed everything all by himself! You can color me PROUD!!! :)



Only a few more days with my little guy and then he goes home. :( We will miss him VERY much! Thank God I have Houston and the MSW crop to look forward to next weekend! :) Houston won't know what HIT it when we all get there! Hehe!

Palm Beach Zoo

Today was cloudy and cooler where we live so I thought it would be good to go to the Palm Beach Zoo. It's closer than the Miami zoo and much smaller so it didn't take the entire day. However, it also wasn't cloudy OR cooler there! How can it be that different only 20 mins away??? So the animals were pretty lazy. But we had a good time and I got some great shots. There's a slideshow in the post below of a few of the animals we saw today - including the human one pretending to be a puppy dog with Baxter imitating HIM under my scrappy table. Hehe! SOOOOOOO CUTE! Only a few more days till Noah goes home. Bax and I will miss him terribly!!!

GOODYEAR BLIMP!!!

I think I was more excited about this than Noah was. UNTIL he got into the hangar and saw the blimp! Then his eyes got huge and he was running all over and asking lots of questions! Unfortunately we didn't get to see it go up because the weather was threatening storms. :( But Noah was able to get into the gondola and I got a pic of him (blurry tho cuz he wouldn't stand still)!



These are the LED lights that show the display. There's nearly 3,000 of them!!!




Then on the way home he wanted to take pics himself so I daringly gave him my camera. He's a pretty good photographer! Here's some pics he took...




And finally, here's a pic of him creating his scrapbook page yesterday. LOVE the look on his face! :)

Later Steve's gonna take Noah fishing. Noah's been asking about it all afternoon! :) Hope they catch something! :) Tomorrow if the weather holds up we'll go to the Seaquarium. But it's not looking like it's gonna cooperate so it may be baking cupcakes and taking some to the fire station... We'll see... :)

Slip N Slide - Day 7

Today was relatively quiet. First Noah created his own scrapbook page! He picked the pictures, he told me where he wanted to place them on the page, he picked his stickers and he put them all on! I need to get him to write his name on it before I scan it and share it. But it's pretty good!
Then we went to Chick-Fil-A so he could play in the playplace. GREAT fun for him! I had fun people watching and listening. :)
Then Pa called and said he'd found $5 Slip N Slide at Wal-Mart so this evening was FULL of great fun in the front yard! Steve pulled out the beach toy and some string and was pulling Noah along on the slide. GREAT photo ops! Then they checked the mango tree for ripe ones, but not yet. :( After dinner they worked on the boat and Noah drilled some holes in a board for the first time! Then more Slip N Slide fun, and now Noah's building a "fort house" on the couch with pillows and blankets while Steve and I watch America's Got Talent.



Tomorrow we get to see the Goodyear Blimp up close! I'm totally excited about that one! :) We're having SO much fun!!! :) But we're worn out!!!! Only one more week! :( I'm gonna miss having him around and so is Baxter. They're GREAT buds!

Lion Country Safari - Day 6

We went to Lion Country Safari in West Palm Beach today. It's one of those places where you drive around in your car and see the animals. THEN you can go into this amusement park type place and get REALLY up close and personal with some of the animals! Among other things Noah and I rode a camel, we all fed a giraffe and saw HUGE alligators being fed! There's a slideshow in the next post of a few of the pics I took today... ENJOY!

Day 4 - ALLIGATORS!!!

My dear sweet husband Steve took pity on me today and let me rest while he and Noah went to the water park. They had GREAT fun and I had a wonderful nap! :) He didn't take any pictures but that's okay. I got some after dinner tonight.
We live near the Everglades. We can drive about 1/2 hour and be at the edge of the sea of grass where the alligators live. We knew Noah would enjoy it so we grabbed the dog (who HATES car rides) and off we went. There were several people around including a Hispanic couple with a little girl who were throwing food to a gator who was hanging out on an airboat ramp. This is HIGHLY dangerous and illegal but people do it anyway. Whatever she gave him was bright orange and he didn't eat it right away. I was taking pictures (from about 20 feet away with the zoom) when he came up out of the water and got whatever it was she'd thrown! Unfortunately I didn't have my good camera, just the Kodak Easy Share. Otherwise, this would have been a GREAT picture! Still it's very powerful! And this is a SMALL gator!!!

After it came closer to us Baxter finally noticed the thing. (Of course we kept Noah and Baxter far enough away that they were safe!) But all of a sudden Bax starts to growl! And then he started barking! The gator turned and looked at him as if to say "You're barking at ME?!?! I'd EAT you if I could!" We quickly made Bax quiet down and left the immediate vicinity! Hehe!
There were several other gators nearby that were bigger. These two seemed to be vying for territory and kept swimming at each other. No gator fights tho. Just a standoff :(

Again, I wish I'd had my better camera because the sunset was AMAZING!! And there was a small heron feeding at the edge of a marshy area. And I got a pic of Bax exploring the area while Steve and Noah looked at all the animal info and rules and regulations for the area.



Afterwards we took Bax with us to Dairy Queen. OH how he loves ice cream! Hehe! Only a couple of small bites tho... We'd never taken him anywhere public like that before and he did pretty well for an obsessive compulsive dog! But I was too busy controlling him and enjoying my hot fudge sundae to take any pics. :)
Tomorrow is Lion Country Safari. I LOVE that place! So there will be LOTS of pics! Both camera batteries are charging and both digi cards are empty! Plus I have an extra one for each camera! Hehe! I'm a crazy scrapper!
Thanks for looking and leave me some LOVE this time! haha! Blessings!

Museum of Discovery and Science - Day 3

We had a fun day at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale. The plan had been to go to Jungle Island but it was way too hot (heat index of about 100). So I decided we needed to do something inside. God bless Google! :) I think Noah enjoyed it quite a lot and we'll definitely be taking Molly the next time she visits!
There were planes to fly, a FABULOUS 3-D movie about the creatures around the Great Barrier Reef, lots and lots of interactive exhibits, busloads of screaming children (literally!) from summer camps and many other things that I can't remember now. :) And of course, all the children from several of the camps were wearing the same color orange t-shirt that Noah was!!! It was hard to keep track of him sometimes. :) But we managed and enjoyed our day INSIDE.
Flying a jet...

Baby crocodiles (LIVE!!!)

A real live TARANTULA!!!

Landing a jumbo jet

One of Noah's most fav things of the museum today was the orange picking exhibit. There were these trees that had oranges pop into holes. You picked the oranges, put them in a little box that held about 8 of them and put the box on a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt then took the oranges out of the boxes and put them on another conveyor belt that went up and down. Eventually they ended up inside the trees and the boxes came out somewhere else.

After the museum we went to Chick Fil A for lunch and some fun in the playplace. Once again there was a police officer and Noah got to say hello again. Guess they like the food there too! :) Then we went to Target where we got some fun stuff for the beach and pool and finally home to rescue poor Baxter who was (as always) QUITE excited to see us. :)
Then he played Wii while I tried to at least pick up the house a little bit... And finally we went to the fav of the guys - the local Chinese buffet. I really don't like the food there, but I go cuz they love it. Dessert was good tho! And the look on Noah's face when Pa asked him if he wanted some octopus tentacles was PRICELESS! :) Wasn't ready for THAT! Hehe!
Tonight will be quiet with TV and rest. And then tomorrow the plan is to possibly make cupcakes in the morning and then go to the water park in the middle of the day. Pa is going to come with us and I may end up leaving them there by themselves for a couple of hours and coming home. I can't take the heat very well and I burn pretty easily. Plus Pa and Noah need some quality time together. KWIM? :) But we'll see... Then tomorrow night there's a local observatory that opens at dusk for free so we'll go there as well. Then home for more Wii and Speed TV and Nerf gun fights. :)
The time is flying by!!!

Noah's Visit - Day Two...

We did a bunch of errands today which included a trip to Chick Fil A where a police officer was parked next to us when we got ready to leave! She gave him his THIRD lollipop (first two were from the bank!) and then she left in a big hurry. We got up the road a couple of blocks and she'd pulled someone over! Then we went to the vet's office to pick up more drugs for the dog in case of more storms and right in front of their office were SIX cop cars with ONE car and they had one lane blocked and had the two guys on the curb! Noah kept saying "I dunno why they need SIX police cars for ONE car!" The ladies in the office and I tried to explain that they must have been REALLY bad! A bit unnerving, but exciting for Noah! :) Then we went to AC Moore where I bought him way too many things. ;) and then to the turtle rescue place. I was SOOOOOOO bad! I left my camera in the CAR! SO I took a couple of pics with my cellphone of a GIANT lobster and a couple of other things. But only the picture of one of the turtles came out. (Bad reflections off the water. :()

Then we went to the grocery store and back home. Walked Baxter over to the side yard to the mango tree, but nothing's ready yet. Watched some TV and then DH came home. So while DH took a nap Noah played with the super soaker and his cars.

Then it was a quick trip to the pool where Steve and Noah played for about an hour and then home for dinner. Noah boxed on the Wii while Steve and I cooked...

After dinner it was some TV and some play time. Baxter (the dog) got TOTALLY jealous and finally laid down amongst the toys (his and Noah's combined you see). Hehe!

Tomorrow is Jungle Island (formerly known as Parrot Jungle). He's soooooo excited! :) Just tired of being cooped up in the car so much. ;) Unfortunately, it's about an hour's drive each way to the jungle, but lots of fun while we're there. :) And can someone tell me how you keep up with a 6 YO at my age! DH was worn out after a couple of hours! Hehe! I said "Try being with him ALL DAY!" He just gave me the look... At least he TRIED to help! Hehe! Thanks Honey Bunny!

NOAH'S HERE!!!!!

I told you my July was gonna be a busy one.... Well, today it started in earnest! We drove up to Orlando and met Noah and his other grandma at the airport and brought him home with us. He'd been on an airplane all day so we stopped at a park along the way and I got this fun pic of him and Steve next to an old Army helicopter at the park.

It's SOOOOOOOO exciting to have him here with us! It's the first time in 2 1/2 years that he's been back at our home. He said "I thought you had a DIFFERENT house!" So we asked him "What did our other house look like?" (Remember he was not quite 4 when he left here...) "Well... I thought it was a lot BIGGER!" ROFL! Out of the mouths of babes! :) He's already picked two green mangoes, explored Pa's boat, made great friends with Baxter, played chess, looked at lots of pictures on the computer and looked at three scrapbooks! All at his request! Gotta love it! :)
Tomorrow it's an easy day for us - kinda sorta. I plan to take him to the fire station, Gumbo Limbo (sea turtle rescue place) and the library. We also need to go to the grocery store and the bank. Probably a McDonald's stop in there somewhere as well. :) And maybe the pool after Pa gets home. :)
Color me HAPPY! I'll be updating here every day with our adventures so stay tuned for more! TTFN!

My Latest Creations...

It was a SUPER busy June! I knew that I wasn't going to be able to scrap much in July and I didn't do much in May either. So I really went all-out in June! :) I've shared some already and I have to wait a few more days to share my MSW layout for July. But I was able to complete all 4 Camp Rock challenges at SB Deals 4U AND I was able to complete enough pages to cover all 30 days for the LOAD challenges at Scrapdango!!! PLUS I think I did all of the MSW challenges! (Some were combined of course!) So here's the latest of my creations...










This is my entry for SB Deals 4U's Camp Rock Week 3...

And this is my entry for SB Deals 4U's Camp Rock Week 4...