Joy Captured - Hail.

What a NIGHT! Thunder, lightning, and HAIL! What fun is HAIL? It falls from the sky, first at BB sized balls, and then as pea sized balls. It turns the ground white. It makes a lot of racket! AND they make great snowballs!

Add to that lightning, thunder, three dogs barking, and lots of laughter! It was a fun, WILD night!

Card share...

I broke out my flower stamps, using the pretty PP from SEI as inspiration. The SEI paper has a sheen to it, so I also broke out my embossing powders to give my stamped images that extra shine!

This is a gift card holder. I have no idea where the flower stamps are from; I've had them forever! The wonderful saying is from the PTI Signature Greetings stamp set.

Thanks everyone for stopping by!

Four dogs!

If three dogs weren't enough fun, Jammer came over to visit for a little while today. She was a little overwhelmed, understandably...

Jena is telling Jammer not to worry.

After a rousing play date, it's time for a rest.

After six days... LOOK! They're sleeping!!! HALLELUJAH!!!

More dogs...

Buddy is on the left. He's 3 years old. BJ is on the right. He's more like 1.5 years. I was hoping to get a cute photo of them curled up sleeping together, but I don't think they sleep. No one knows that better than Jim! They keep coming over to Jim's side of the bed and waking him up. They definitely respond better to men. They like Jim and Chris better than they like me and Cheryl.

Here's Chris giving Jena a little break from Buddy. BJ and Jena chase each other and play a lot, but Buddy is the alpha dog. He likes to "assert his dominance" over the other two. I'm sure glad that they are all fixed!

Doesn't Jena look happy? I think that she really enjoys having company over!

More visitors!

No sooner than Flat Stanley left to go home to North Carolina, we have new house guests! Meet Buddy and BJ, two 65-pound golden retrievers.

And I thought Jena was BIG! Look at the SIZE of those guys!

That is definitely a LOT of DOG! They get along great with Jena... Jena especially loves the younger one, BJ. They've been chasing each other all over the house and yard.

BJ and Buddy play rough. Jena hangs back when they really get into it. I'm sure glad that Chris's birthday was last weekend and not this weekend! lol!

Buddy and BJ will be here for a week. Stay tuned!... more Buddy, BJ and Jena photos to come!

More jewelry projects

Chris is really rocking the jewelry! Look at this gorgeous ring that he made for Cheryl! The stone is turquoise. The setting is brass and nickel, with fine silver accents. I love the wire band, it's so delicate looking. He got extra credit points on this ring. It came out GREAT, and Cheryl LOVES it! Here's another new project... chain maille! He spent days weaving this chain maille bracelet!

Here's a close up...

He found the perfect clasp for the back! He started another bracelet in European chain maille, and he has an etched cuff in the works. He is having a great time making jewelry!

A visitor from North Carolina...

Meet Flat Stanley... he looks a lot like our nephew Alex.

Flat Stanley came to stay with us for a few weeks...

We went a lot of places: Mission San Juan Capistrano, Dana Point for some whale watching, and surfing at the beach. One of the fun activities, we took him to was the Turkey Trot Race.

He did really well... he came in FIRST PLACE!

Not all things went well. Flat Stanley and Jena got into a little fight... Jena won.

Not to worry... Cheryl just finished Physiology at school, so she patched him back up. He's as good as new. He and Jena made up and are friends again.

It's been fun, but it's time for Flat Stanley to go home. He is leaving with a little mini-book of his adventures.

Good-bye, Flat Stanley.... Say "Hi" to Alex for us!

It's Party Time!!!

It's Chris's birthday, part 2! Grandma, Papa, Cat, Randy, and all the cousins were here. Chris's birthday menu... party chicken, clam chowder, chinese chicken salad, pizza, spam musubi, and lemon cake. It looks like that cake is going up in flames! LOL!

There was a treasure hunt, of course. Chris took all the pictures with his new camera. We also had video games, lots and lots of food, and another round of presents!

Now it's time to get those thank-yous out...

A Birthday Invite

Here are the invitations that I made for my son's bday. The party is Sunday... I'd better get these baby's out in the MAIL!


Stamps and dies from PTI: Mat Stack 3 Collection, 2011 Birthday Tags, Mat Stack 3 die, and button dies. PP from Crate Paper.

Thanks for visiting! I hope everyone is having a great week!

Buon giorno... YahSU...

Want to see where we are going this summer? This is our BIG trip. This year Chris is graduating from High School and Cheryl is graduating from Saddleback. We are taking the kids and ourselves to Europe to celebrate! We were thinking of a cruise, but as the travel agent says, "Why are you thinking about a cruise if you don't like cruising?" Well, DUH! After she pointed out the obvious, we picked THIS partially hosted, land/sea tour from Travalgar.

Cheryl is busily learning Italian through iTunes, and I have a Greek traveller lesson on my MP3 player...

Europa, arriviamo!

Boxers or Briefs?

Spicing up a boring laundry day... Jena perfers boxers, lol!