Happy Fall Y'all!!!

I know some of the country is buried under snow, but here, our Halloween-eve is bright sunny and warm. In fact, it's a great day for the BEACH!

... and for throwing sticks...

... and for catching sticks...

... and for digging holes...

Jena is so proud of herself when she saves a stick from the waves!

We hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween!

Friends with Flair - She Art Girl

I put this up for the Unity Friday share. I love using Unity stamps for background patterns in mixed media art. This month Unity release a new Mixed Media Stamp kit just for me! Well, me along with the thousands of other Unity mixed media fans :oD

Here is my share for the day:

The thing about mixed media is that sometimes the stamps get buried under layers of paint or other stamps. Here are the Unity stamp sets that I used:

I really love the "It's All About Today" stamp. It goes perfectly with the quote, "She made Today Count."

Jena the flying frisbee catching dog!

The kids and I went running this morning in the Arroyo. It's been a while since we've been down there. Since we weren't sure what it would be like, we left Jena at home... poor Jena... she was so sad... It's a good thing we left her home because part of the trail was flooded. We tried to find our way around on a different trail, but we got lost and had to turn back.

After we got home, Cheryl went to her little girl's game, and Chris and I took Jena to play frisbee. Jena is a champion frisbee player!

Here is Jena in action!!!

BTW, Cheryl's girls TIED 0-0 today!!! YAHOO!!! This is the first game that they didn't lose! Hopefully, they are on a roll!

Engineers without Borders

Last weekend I competed on the Panasonic Engineers without Borders team! I was the last person asked to join, making up our team of 13 engineers. I'm one of the oldest people on the team! {sigh} When did I get OLD?!!! Anyway, here we are! Panasonic's Engineering team!

Engineering without Borders isn't so much an athletic event as it is a team work event. Our first event was a series of relay events which included a balloon toss, pass the water down the line to fill a bucket, and pass a hula hoop down the line and back again... We also had: putting...

A walk the plank to the end of the field and back:

In this one we were supposed to find little foam blocks in a bin of packing foam, without knocking any foam outside the bin (points deducted if we get any foam on the ground). It's not as easy as it sounds!

Our two basket ball players were enlisted to throw the balls into the bucket... they didn't say we couldn't use a couple of our BIG guys as a backstop, lol! Riding on the edge of the rules kind of set the tone for our team, which you will see later...

In this one we had to get everyone to fit on one a small square. More points were given for the smallest squares.

We got a little messed up because we couldn't use the same people in each event (they should have told us that before!) Miriam and I were supposed to run the maze, but we had just done the plank walk. We had a bit of confusion as we tried to figure out who could take our places in the maze. As a result, we lost the relay event.

And here is my dodge ball debut! We had to field three teams. I was in the first team. I didn't know that dodge ball had so many RULES! I'm so proud that I wasn't the first one out... I was the second.... A ball that I threw was caught by the other team, so I was out. My team lost. Our second team fielded won. And our third team lost. So overall, we lost...


Then there is the infamous ropes course! 8 people go up the ropes course and race to the end. The rest of us are on the ground building as tall a structure as we can before the ropes people finish the course. Points are award for the first team finishing the ropes, and for the tallest structure.

Here is the ropes course... I would have loved to go up there, but there was a height requirement.


So I was part of the ground crew (actually I spend more time taking pictures than building the structure). We were handed a gallon zip bag of popsicle sticks and paper clips. We were told that that was all we could use to build our structure. So, our interpretation was that we could use the bag too...

The plan... split the bag open, roll it up, and build on top of it. BRILLIANT! Well... The other teams complained, and we were disqualified.

We also had a tug of war 5 rounds of 12 people each side. Since we had 13 on our team, we had a tug off between all the women to see which one would sit out. Guess who lost? But I took a lot of great photos! Hahaha!

So overall, Panasonic came in 6th out of the 10 companies competing. Kind of a dismal finish for our team of runners, basketball players, and weight lifters.

It was still a FUN time! Here we are waiting for lunch after the competition was over... FIRST in line! At least we got first in something! LOL!

Unity Stamp Challenge

Here's my entry for the Unity Stamp Challenge. I used BG paper and Unity Stamps. I love the typewritter stamp. In fact I bought that kit just for that one stamp. The "It's a great day!" stamp is one of my favorite sayings for thinking-of-you type cards. I threw the messy butterfly in the corner, for no reason other than I felt like using it :oD

Thanks for looking!!!

She Art #3

Here's my last She Art girl... or at least the last one I have in progress. This one has a patterned paper background, which makes it more colorful than the other two. It was hard for my to work with such a colorful background.


I decided to make this one a brunette. I think the brown hair is easier to work with than the black and the blond.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend! Jim worked today... he'll be working Saturdays until the end of the year. Cheryl's girls had a game in Palm Springs... they lost again. Chris, Jena-girl and I went for a run. I'm excited! We did 4 miles in just over 31 minutes. I'm finally back in running shape after our trip followed by that pesky cold.

Tomorrow, I'll be competing with the Panasonic Team at the Engineering without Borders challenge. Wish us LUCK!

She Art #2

Here is another girl from the She Art class by Christy T. on mixed media canvases. This background is layered with tissue and stamped. I used my Unity Stamps: Distressed Dots, Worn Grid, and Time of your Life (my favoirte clock stamp). I LOVE how Unity stamps are perfect for mixed media projects!

Brown really isn't my color, but nothing else seemed to stand out from the background for her dress. I gave this girl a black bob, and I think she came out CUTE!


I have one more girl in the works! She's going to be very colorful! Wait until you see her!

Just me being random....

As I sit here contemplating the mass murder of every ant living in the walls of our house, I changed my blog header...

She Art....

I'm taking a class from Christy T. on mixed media canvases. She calls her particular type of art, "She Art."

We started with canvases that we collaged, painted, stamped and distressed:

Then we get to the fun part... adding the girl. I think she came out cute!


I have one more canvas that I'm working on for week 1 of the class. The first week of the class has taken me 3 weeks to finish. It's good thing it's a self paced class!

Stay tuned for girl #2. It won't be today though... I have to go kill some ants!

Happy Anniversary, Jena!

We completely missed Jena's one year anniversary! Yep! Jena has been with us now for a whole year! We are so lucky to have her. She's such a good dog!

Here's Jena posing for a portrait at Fun with Chalk. Hahaha! She has delusions of grandeur.

Here' something that she learned just a couple weeks ago... Don't try to smell the fish...

Look Jena found a friend!

Speaking a friends... Jena is having a friend stay over for a week. This is Sandy...

Want to see what it's like at our house?



LOL! What a good dog Jena is! We sure LOVE her!

Italy/Greece: Day 16 - Athens -> Home

What does 26.2 mean to you? Is it the number of miles in a marathon? That's on lots of people's minds right now since the Long Beach Marathon is just around the corner (I'm not running it, if you were wondering...).

Well, 26.2 is also the number of hours that it takes to get from the hotel in Athens to our front door. Yes, you heard that right! 26.2 HOURS!!!

So where do I start... We left the hotel at 8:30am via airport shuttle. That left us a couple of hours to bum around the Athens Airport.

Our flight to Philadelphia is 10 hours 45 minutes. No fancy in-flight entertainment on this aircraft. Nothing to do but watch Marley and Me on the itsy-bitsy screen way up in the front of the cabin, or sleep... UGH! What is that?

What's going on back there?!!

Oh, I see...


While the kids sleep, let me add some random highlights from Greece. First of all, does this look safe to you?

I guess if it's been standing for thousands of years, it'll stand for a few seconds more.

We learned that everything tastes better with olive oil on it.

I don't think I posted this picture of the bridge from the Greek peninsula to the main land:

Uhm... GO BRAZIL???

I think it's AMAZING how archaeologists can know what a statue looks like from the few pieces they find:

In Greece they use guard dogs! Yes, this is not a place for my niece and nephew to visit any time soon. There are dogs all over the ruin site, checking out the people as they walk by... do not pet the dogs!

Slushies! Need I say more...?

Hey, Mary! Athens is Doug's kind of city! Look at the types of cars they drive, lol!

Cheryl can never resist sunflowers! Chris took both of these photos... look at the butterfly he caught in flight!


The Greek islands are over run by cats! Chris decided that he was going to do a cat study. Here are some of his cat pictures.

I'm just realizing that most of these random pictures are by Chris. Here is another one of Chris's photos... a Greek Orthodox Priest,

A goofy goat...

A preposterous pigeon...

Silly swallows...

A freaky fly...

And as Jim calls them... a flying rat...

And here's a behind the scene shot! Is my behind really that big?!!!

Anyway, back to the trip home. We landed at 11pm (Greece time) in Philadelphia, and spend 1.5 hours going through passport control, customs and security.

We left Philadelphia at 3:45am (Greece time). UGH! No movies for almost 6 hours!

We ended up getting home at 11am (Greece time) which is midnight Pacific time. We are WIDE AWAKE and STARVING! Our first meal at home? Del Taco 24 hour drive through! LOL! Welcome home!

After all the planning, all the anticipation, and all the fun, now the trip is over... thanks for all of you who stuck through it all. The trip recap lasted about 4 times longer than the trip, hahaha! The pictures that I have enjoyed sifting through again and again, reliving the trip through the blog, will now get saved to limbo-land (AKA, the external USB drive). That makes me sad... But, now we have next summer to think about. Where are are going next?