It's Card Kit Time!

Is it October ALREADY?!!! Why is it that the weeks go so slow, but the months fly by? The Holiday Season is just around the corner!

We finished our last round with the card kit group and started over with an additional two ladies! Everyone welcome Diane and Terri to the group! With 6 people and just three months left in the year, we decided to break up into two groups. Everyone will rotate through the groups so that we are in a group with different ladies each month.

I got to supply the kit for one of the groups this month. Here is the kit that I put together. Kind of fall-ish... only kind of... The typical fall pallet, brown/rust/gold, is so not me.

And here are my cards....

This first card is the one that I had in my head when I put the kit together. It uses one of my favorite trees from Unity Stamp Co, and one of the Think Big #13 stamp set from PTI.

Here is my second card. The leaf stamp is from Unity Stamp Co, and it uses another sentiment from the PTI Think Big #13 stamp set.

This last card uses all stamps from Unity Stamp Co.

I had a good time making this embellishment cluster.

Thanks for stopping by! Now go see the what the other ladies have created with this kit:

Hostess Joni - Diane, Mary
Hostess Beth - Mara, Terri

Thinking of you...card share

I'm still participating in the progressive challenge at Crafter's Digital Art Center. Here is my card for this month.

The image a digital stamp from DoodlePantry through the Crafter's Digital Art Center Progressive Challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!

4-wheelin' day-trippin'

Cheryl had a game and Chris had school, so Jim, Jena, and I jumped in the truck to beat the heat and head... to the top of Saddleback!

I've lived here all my life and have not been to the top of Saddleback. I've always wanted to go. As the crow flies, the top of Saddleback is 8 miles from Mission Viejo Lake, but it's a 3 hour trip by car to the top. Here we go...

We needed to stop and give Jena a potty break, but we're getting closer! Here we are at the top of Modjeska peak. That's the shorter mountain that makes up Saddleback (the one on the left) at 5,496 feet. But we are headed to the tip top... Santiago Peak!

We made it to Santiago Peak... 5,689 feet, and the tallest mountain in Orange County.

Here is the view from the top... we can even see Catalina Island from here!

Can you find our house?

Jena did really well on her first 4-wheelin' adventure. The poor little girl strained her ACL last week making a flying leap for the frisbee. She's on anti-inflammatory medicine and she's still limping, but she sure had a great time riding in the truck!

The kiddos and I went on a 10-mile run today. It was 93F when we dragged into the house. We are so going to die during the half-marathon next week!

I hope that everyone had a great weekend! Monday comes way too FAST!

Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure

As I was sitting at work on a slow afternoon, I saw an email promoting the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and at the spur of the moment, I decided to put together a team. Team Panasonic grew to 15 team members and earned $1150 in donations toward breast cancer research.

We arrived in Newport Beach with a dozen "Panasonic-Blue" balloons. Some of our members took off in the 7:15am competitive run start. The rest of us started in the 7:30 walk/run. Jim walked his first 5K! It's a PR for Jim... just a little under an hour, lol! It was a GREAT day for a stroll through Newport Beach and for a GREAT cause!

Thank-you to all of those who supported our team!

Happy Birthday, Lita!

I made you a card, even though I can't send it to you :oD. Thank-you for being a part of Chris's life and for making him so happy. I want to let you know how much you are appreciated, and I wish you the happiest of birthdays!

Best Wishes to you!

Missing You... card share

I got the idea for this tri-fold style card from my friend, Mara, and I used left-overs from Mary's Card Kit. I forgot to take a picture of the inside, but this sweet little kitty is saying, "I miss you..."

The image a digital stamp from priscillastyles through the Crafter's Digital Art Center Progressive Challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!

Card Kit Club Reveal

Hello everyone! It's card kit time! We skipped card kit club last month to accommodate every-one's summer schedule. I love this group of ladies... everyone is so fun and easy going!

The kit for this month was supplied by Mary. Thank-you, Mary!

Here are all the cards that I created with this kit. It was a wonderful kit for creating cards for every occasion:

This first card has more of a rustic look to it. Very fun and fall looking!

This one is completely different than the first one, in that is is bright and clean like spring-time. I think this might be only the second digital image that I've ever colored. It was a challenge for me to get the image to match the PP in the kit.

And here we have another completely different look again... sort of soft and vintage-y. I love that wooden butterfly accent!

This last one is a clean and simple gift card holder. Mary put two of these big ribbon flowers into the kit. I'm save the other one for another project :oD

Thanks for stopping by, now go checkout the wonderful projects from the other ladies in the group!

Mary

Beth

Mara

Next month we start a new round of the Card Kit Club and include two new members: Terri and Diane. I can't wait!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Kauai Revisited

Looks like our heat has finally broken! YAY! It's cooling off! Bring on the crisp cool fall days!

Mary sent me a CD full of her pictures! I LOVED looking through her pictures... it was like reliving the trip!{sigh} I need another vacation, hahaha.

Anyway, I wanted to share some of my favorite photos here.

Here is all of us at Kilohana:

Here are a couple of pictures that my mom took using Mary's camera at Salt Pond. Yep, those are my kiddos... lol!

Here's a pretty picture of the Wailua River... how did I miss that shot?!

On the day we went kayaking, Mary and Doug saw a monk seal on the beach at Poipu:

I just adore this picture of Jim and Doug... Look at those expressions! It's like the kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar!

I have one more share... Last week, while I was waiting for Eclipse and all its associated parts to download, I watched a tutorial on photo blending. (Ah yes... I know. Probably why it took so long to download was because I was watching a tutorial ;oD )

Anyway, here is a simple layout that I put together using the blended photo.

I LOVE this look! I joined a Photoshop class to learn more about photo blending. So, look for more blended photos from me in the future!

How to install Eclipse for C++ on XP and Vista

This is kind of a strange post, but I spent all day with Chris trying to figure out how to install Eclipse for C++ development. There are tutorials for how to install Eclipse for Java, but not C++. Since we have it figured out, we thought we'd share for all the others trying the same thing. Here's what you do (be patient these loadables are HUGE):

1. Download and install MinGW from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/

Click on "Looking for the latest version? Download mingw-get-inst-20120426.exe (662.7 kB)"

2. Add MinGW bin directory to path enviroment variable (step by step below for XP, Vista is similar):

Go to Control Panel/System/Advanced/Environment Variables
Select path in the list of System variables
Press Edit
Go to the end of path list
Add a ; and add bin directory in MinGW directory (e.g., ;c:\MinGW\bin)

3. Download and install Java - Windows Online from http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

4. Download Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers, from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php (32-bit or 64-bit)

Find out if you have 32-bit or 64-bit OS by going here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827218

5. Unzip eclipse-... .zip
Create a shorcut on your desktop to Eclipse (e.g., to c:\Program Files\eclipse\eclipse.exe)

All done! Now try it:

1. Start Eclipse (close that big window with the icons that comes up)

2. Name your workspace.

3. Create a project: File -> New -> C++ Project

Select: Executable -> Hello World C++ Project (NOT a GNU Autotools project!)

4. Build and Run!

The end of Summer...

I always think of Labor Day as being the end of summer. School usually starts the week after Labor Day. Not this year though... Chris has already been in school for two weeks, and Cheryl still have two more weeks until her classes start. But still Labor Day hold the place for "end of summer" in my heart, and I made this card...

The image a digital stamp from Tiffany Doodles through the Crafter's Digital Art Center Progressive Challenge.

That's not all I have some Summer photos to share. This first one is from the Southeast Japanese Community Center Obon in Norwalk.

Here are more pictures of the taiko, bon dance, and my mom's hula show:

Earlier this summer, Cheryl and I took a girls' day and spent the whole day in Laguna Beach. We started with a walking tour called "Flavors of Laguna Beach." We sampled 5 restaurants, a candy store, beer tasting at a local brewery, and gelato for dessert! After that we stopped at Casey's Cupcakes. That was the place that won at Cupcake Wars on TV. We visited some art galleries in the afternoon and spent hours at the "Art a Faire." What a FUN day!

How do you like Jim's summer haircut? Hahaha! He had to shave all his hair for a skin cancer treatment. Chris had some fun giving Jim his new haircut... (can it be called a haircut, if he has no hair left?)

The doctors put some kind of medication on his face and exposed it to light. The light targets the cancer cells and burns them off. Right now he looks like a boiled lobster, but he is skin cancer free!

The final good-bye to summer was heralded by a "blue moon." Did you see the blue moon this weekend? It only happens once in a blue moon, hehehe...

I hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend? We spent a day at my mom and dad's... where it is 5 degrees cooler than it is at our house. For a relaxing day, lots of food, and swimming. I'm so bummed that I forgot my camera.

Aloha!

Did you miss me? We got home from Kauai about a week and a half ago, and I've been busy creating a video memory of our trip. Well, that's finally done! Now on to the pictures :oD

What made this trip so special was that my friend, Mary, and her family came to join us! We've been online friends since 2005 and met IRL two years ago in Cleveland. We were worried about the hubbies... if they didn't like each other, this was going to be a looong week! But, no worries. Everyone got along fine!

Here is our first day. We picked flowers and made leis at my aunt and uncle's house for Mary's family's arrival. Then we dragged them out to a late night Obon in the evening. With the time difference, we kept them up until 3am Eastern time.

Here are some pics sight-seeing around the island...

We went ATV-ing one day. My family has never done this before and it was a BLAST! The kids were on 4-wheelers. Doug, Mary, Jim and I were on 2-seater mud buddies. We drove out to a private waterfall for a swim... what fun!

Another one of our prearranged events was a snorkel cruise to the Napali coast. This was Mary's family first time on the ocean and first time snorkeling! We've been on this trip a couple of times before. It was so fun seeing it all new through their eyes!

Mary and Doug took the day off, while we took Carley kayaking with us! It's completely safe. In all the years we've been kayaking, no one has ever fallen out. Carley paddled in a double kayak with Jim... and they rolled it over. Chalk it up to a full kayaking experience, lol! We paddled up to a trail, parked our kayaks and walked to a beautiful waterfall!

And lastly, no Hawaiian vacation is complete without a day of surfing!

It was a whirlwind vacation! All that in one week!
What made it BEST, was that it was a great time with great friends!