Our Scrapbook Weekend

I went with some friends to a cabin Melissa was able to get this weekend. A family whose son was a patient at MCCP has made their dream a reality. They made a place for families of children who have/had cancer to get away, to escape life for awhile and rejuvenate. Appropriately, the camp is named Stronghold. I think that's fantastic, as a stronghold is a place that is fortified, secured and protected, and a place for others outside of it to come to in times of great need. It had a beautiful, calming presence. I keep noticing how hard it is to decompress lately, to just relax and be calm. It was much easier there!

We all brought a meal, and the owners of the cabin treated us to one as well from the Ugly Moose. It was VERY yummy food!

I completed 27 pages, then there are 2 pages with everything done but the one title, for a grand total of 29. This seems a bit less than the others, but I was there 3 or 4 hours after them, and left around 3 hours sooner than 2 others... and all my journaling is done on my pages, so it all evens out. Some favorites to show you (apologizing for the lousy photography, my poor camera probably feels offended to be forced to take such lousy pictures!):

Nicki had my kids over the summer and made s'mores with them... sort of!

I L.O.V.E. this picture!!

Then most kids took a turn holding Ethan:

The top picture is of Michael holding a baby doll at age two, the bottom holding a BABY at age seven, the feeling hasn't changed much!!

Dustin made chocolate chip cookies for the first (and last, so far) time. He dumped in all the ingredients, without stirring as the recipe said... oops.

My boy!

I loved the quote, perfect between 2 yo Daniel and 12 yo Dustin!

Evening pictures from relay for life this past summer:

Our sweet Savannah:

4 hours of my life I will never get back...

I pulled out my scrapbook supplies at 11:30 this morning, after taking some time to clean my living room. I had a set of very crafty pictures, and I have these very crafty supplies that came in a tote Kevin gave me for Christmas. So, I challenged myself to use them. And 4 hours (and lunch time, and nap time, and numerous other things included) later, here it is:

So, I picked up my stuff, and now I await a visit from Princess Savannah. And her mom. They are stopping in on their way home from the hospital, to give her husband a little more time to get the place picked up a bit. It's apparently in bad enough condition that he warned her about it. On the plus side, she said she would bring me this:

Because I haven't left my house due to this:

and especially this:

I couldn't get out without shoveling, and even a Diet Pepsi isn't worth that, when Bill can do it with the snowblower, or Kevin with his truck, or George, or Everett, really, the list goes on. I'd rather wait.

The kids had no school, so they went out and did this:

and this:

I have no idea what that one is, sorry. But it's beautiful, and I'm sure it will be treasured until it melts. With the occassional, "Mom, he's wrecking my ***." To which I will roll my eyes, but at least then I will know what it is!

My Turn...

As I hang my head in shame, I stand and confess "It has been 11 days since my last post..."

Sorry. I'm back. With very little to say. It was an emotional few days there, they are honestly a bit of a blur, but my head is screwed on again, and my laundry is washed enough that we all have clothes for tomorrow, and the dishes are in the dishwasher, so here goes.

What to write about? Hmm. Oh, well, Dustin made his first 'in game' foul shot ever the other day. It was way cool.

Hmm. Oh, I could show you some scrapbook pages I've done... wait, no, they are mostly beach. I have blogging friends in them, and frankly, they have beach pictures of me too, too risky. That has been my focus though, these last four or five days, scrapbooking. So I'll show you an older layout I did, the pedicure page.

My first one, and I highly recommend it. I have, arguably, the most ticklish feet on the face of the planet, but I really enjoyed this. Oh, and we are on the phone because since Apollo's only seats two people per room we weren't able to chat with Nicki unless we called her. We did get one of the ladies to take pictures for us, though.

Hmm. Oh, on the 9th I got some cute pictures. Dustin, Brian, Michael, Zachary, Shamira and Kiara were all here, Donovan was at his B'nanas, and the kids decided to play outside. It started with a snowball fight, and ended with sledding, good times.

I'm not sure where Dustin's backside went in this shot, but it is definitely gone!

Kiara was very cute, when I finally gave in to Z and told him he could slide, she let his ride with her. Then, when he struggled to come back up, she (having hauled the sled to the top of the hill) WALKED down to meet him, and held his hand. She is precious, I was really moved.

Awww, brotherly love!

Zachary wiped out!

All in all, it was a fun time. More tomorrow (I hope!)

My Weekend

So, I started the weekend late, but on Friday, after two hours of this:

I arrived here:

And spent the next several days doing this:

And a total of 30 minutes doing this:

Which was not nearly enough.

And I will share with you, dear friends and family, a marvelous lesson that I learned. Prayer works. When we have a righteous desire, such as to be able to share a weekend with good friends doing good things and helping each other relax and feel like people again, Heavenly Father does his best to answer such a prayer. Savannah's body was unable to resist viruses and bacteria, and yet still she did not get a fever or begin to feel poorly until her mother came home Sunday morning. The Lord answers our prayers.