It's a doggie beach day!

It's a June Gloom morning, but that didn't stop the crew from heading out to Doggie Beach.

This is Jena's first trip to the beach... there are so many new smells...

... holes to dig...

... and waves to chase...

Jena loves doggie beach!

Don't you Jena?

What's for Dinner?

Cheryl had help tonight with dinner! Yep, invite the cousin over to spend the night and put her to work, hehehe...

Tonight, the girls made... Greek Pasta Salad with prosciutto, artichokes and feta cheese. YUM!

... AND for the main course... Olive, Red Pepper, and Arugula Pizza on whole wheat pizza crust. This was delicious!!!

Now the kiddos have settled down for a Red Box movie marathon. They got Green Hornet, Beastly and Unstoppable. That should keep them busy for a while {grin}...

Is this ART?

Cheryl and I took an Art Journal class last week at the Carson Stamp show. It's kind of new, kind of different, and a lot of FUN! This first one is Cheryl's creation:

I'll have to admit that I didn't think that I would like it that much. Do the pictures give you the creeps? BUT, after working with them, they have a charm and a mood... which leads to a message (hence the journal part).

The whole process was rewarding. And even though you won't find my girl hanging on the wall at my house, she still has a place in my heart (and on the first page of my art journal).

Celebrity Look-alike?

My friend from work brought her 14yr daughter to the 4th of July race. She thinks that Chris is so CUTE!... and that he looks like T.L. (I'm not going to type his name because I'm afraid my blog will get found by the crazies).

Chris thinks that she's delusional. But, what do you think? Maybe a little around the nose? lol!

Summer Card Camp - week 2

It's week 2 of summer card making class! And here is the color combo for the week:

It's hard to see the glaze in the flat light, but it's there... I love the extra shine it adds to the card.

What's for Dinner?

Since Jim is working late on Tuesday and Thursday, Cheryl has been making dinner for Chris, herself, and me. I give her $20 a week to spend at the market, plus she can use anything we have at home. For dinner tonight she made Mediterranean Chicken with Feta Cheese and Sun Dried Tomatoes:

Add an arugula and spinach salad with Champagne Pear Vinaigrette dressing... YUM!!!

Thank-you for the GREAT dinner, Cheryl!

Lake Forest Firecracker 5K

Chris, I and a few people from my lunch time running group ran the Lake Forest 5K on the 4th of July. It was downhill out and uphill back... UGH!

Poor Chris hasn't run for 4-5 weeks and had a tough race. There were a lot of boys running in his age group!

Chris
men 15-19: 36/77
time: 23:24.5
pace: 7:33
men : 108/505
overall: 144/1096

...and me! I came in 1st place in my age group. We really should remember to wait for the award ceremony to find out if we won a medal.

Me
Women 50-54: 1/41
time: 24:29.0
pace: 7:54
women: 53/591
overall: 181/1096

Summer Card Camp!

I've joined an online card making class for the summer. It supposed to teach me all sorts of new ideas for using stamps on cards... and I do have a LOT of STAMPS!

Week 1: Color Combo:
This card uses light blue embossed paper rubbed with white ink; stamped tag; stamped circle border; and die cut sentiment. I also added this to the PIO challenge!

It's a Party!!!

Happy Graduation to Chris!!!

Here is my crafty share (besides the invites). When I was making these, I kept thinking how proud Mara, my crafty buddy, would be of me!

Cheryl helped me with the hats. We used melted chocolate chips to glue together, a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup, a Ghirardelli square, a mini M&M, and a strip of mango Fruit Rollup. The Fruit Rollup wasn't as yellow as I hoped, but oh well... They went together very quickly! A tip... freeze the peanut butter cups. It keeps them from falling apart when unwrapping.

The finished product!

But wait! These are not ordinary cupcakes! They are topped with a BIG dollop of whipped cream; filled with cream cheese and a mini Oreo! YUM! Everybody LOVED them!

My friend Mary is always interested in what kind of food we serve. My mom was a BIG help... she brought sushi, spam musubi, fruit, rice, and jello. That just left me to make green salad, macaroni salad, spicy fried chicken, sesame chicken, pizza and munchies. Everyone ate a lot :oD

I wish I had taken some pictures backyard. Jim worked really hard cleaning up the yard and it looked GREAT! Most everyone was outside enjoying the backyard.

Here is the grad... what a handsome guy! He'll be attending Saddleback Community College in the fall.

We actually have two grads. Cheryl graduated from Saddleback with a AA in Liberal Arts. She'll be starting at Cal Poly Pomona in the Fall. She said that we shouldn't celebrate until she finished her PHD, but notice that she's not objecting to presents, hehehe... Here she is checking out the digital recorder we got for her to take to lectures in the fall.

Jena-girl went next door to play with Jammer while this was going on. Here is Jena helping Jim and Chris fix the screen on the sliding glass door before the party.

That's it! Schools over! Bring on Summer!

Oreo Cupcakes

1 pkg. (2-layer size) chocolate cake mix (I used devil's food)
1 pkg. (8 ox) Cream Cheese, softened
1 egg
2 T. sugar
24 mini Oreos
1.5 cups cool whip

Prepare cake batter per package directions. Mix cream cheese, egg and sugar until wll blended.
Spoon half the cake batter into 24 paper-lined muffin cups. Top each with about 1.5 tsp. cream cheese mixture and 1 cookie; cover with remaining cake batter.
Bake 350 degrees for 22 minutes o runtil toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean.
Frost with Cool Whip.

Congratulations Chris!!!

Yesterday was Chris's High School Graduation! That's it for us! No more High School-ers! There were 664 graduating seniors... smaller than Cheryl's class, which was just over 800.

The night of graduation is Grad Night. Chris went back to school at 9pm where there was a dance in one of the gyms. After a couple hours, they all piled onto buses and went out to Bellflower for a night of entertainment. Chris had a GREAT time and was in very high spirits when I picked him up at 6am this morning. That didn't last long... he was out within 10 minutes of his head hitting his pillow.

Anyway, back to graduation... it was a pleasantly breezy day as we sat and watched the ceremony... trying to pick Chris out of a sea of black.

Hey, LOOK!!! THERE HE IS!!!

Grandma, papa, my SIL and all the kids came to cheer Chris on!

Here are the obligatory posed shots... Of our family...

And with Grandma and Papa...

After the ceremony, we went back to the house for cake. I actually tried to make a reservation at Farrell's. It took me a couple of hours of trying to get through, and then when I asked to make a reservation, they laughed at me! I think that was very unprofessional of them, but then I guess they were overrun with graduation parties.

So, We had a nice relaxing family time at home...

Look! It's the first graduate from the class of 2020!

Happy Papa Day!

Happy Papa Day, everyone!

I had my camera with me, hoping to get some photos of the papas... but I didn't even take my camera out! So, today, all you will get to see are some Father's Day cards.

This one is for my dad. Kinda fun and playful, just like my dad!

Here's the one I made for Jim. This one is made using a two sided stamp.

Isn't this FUN? I really like how it came out!

Here is the model for the the dog on the card. It's a good thing I have a lot of different shades of brown copics!