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:

Never Say Goodbye

Never say goodbye

you and me and my best friends

hoping it would never end

Say goodbye, never say goodbye

holding on we've got to try, holding on to never, say goodbye.

OK, bonus to who can tell me where those lyrics are from.

A few tears were shed the evening they left, but just a few. And then last night, when the check arrived, there were none!

And Dustin's have gone to Gram's for the winter. There are no tears over getting up a bit later and not playing in ice cold water first thing in the morning!

Be proud of me

I think I might be ending my tetris streak. For those of you unfamiliar with tetris, go here:
www.tetrisfriends.com

For those of you who think no one is unfamiliar with it, remind me to introduce you to my aunt Donna.

Anyway, in an effort to still love my laptop, and not waste time, instead of tetris when I'm done my email I have been sorting pictures.

Even better knowing that at least in theory I am scrapbooking this weekend.

I say in theory only because our fearless leader (aka the one with the place to go) now needs to spend Friday at the hospital and leave Sunday to attend a memorial service. Both very legitimate reasons to set aside scrapbooking, of course, but I have yet to wrap my brain around the details of it all. Perhaps we'll get to that today.

Oh, and I am being somewhat cautious of the blog world today. You see, I have allowed myself to breathe today knowing that a democrat is headed back to the white house. Perhaps people of the nation will be able to have money in their pockets in a few months. My husband's employer being able to afford the gas to send him to a service call would be nice. Even my friend's husband's job prospect relies on the government being able to afford to hire him.

CHANGE is good.

Not everyone agrees, one I read is afraid of their husband being told what to do at work.

Hmmm.

Sorry, I have no sympathy for that. My husband is told what to do at work every day.

CHANGE is still good.

It's Election Day!!!

And you know what that means!!!!!

That's RIGHT! Calendars!

Oh yes, I have spent my morning at our local community building, right after the polls, trying to schlep pander sell the calendars we have made for the fire department.

Calendars you ask? Why, the very calendars that my good friend from Memories by Melissa Photography (see side bar) spent hours of her time making. She went to different training activities, and even a bonfire, as well as driving from station to station taking pictures of fire trucks. Then, she edited them, uploaded them, made them look fancy, and shipped them off. Then we chewed off all our nails developed ulcers waited patiently for them to arrive. Then we jumped up and down with happy shouts for the fact that they came out SOOOOO good! Then we nit-picked it apart for flaws and mistakes because we are perfectionists. Then we figured nobody would really care, and were happy again.

Today is our big push to sell them. We are asking $16 each, and if when we sell them all, we will have brought in $800 for the Fire Department Association to fix up the antique truck. Now typically, raising money for an old truck is not in my realm of even remotely interesting. But there's a really nice tidbit of info regarding this particular truck. It happens to be not just any old truck collected to be neat in parades, it was an actual firetruck in service in our hometown. Well, it's Bill's home town, but he has so darn much enthusiasm for it that it's grown on me. You know, kind of like fungus.

Anyway, the truck was sold many years ago to help pay for a new one, but when that owner put it up for sale, the Association (not funded by taxpayers) bought it to preserve that little piece of history.

And I. Like. History.

Especially local, small town history.

So, can I interest you in a calendar today to support the Fire Department Association in raising money to refurbish the 1936 Diamond T antique fire truck? They are only $16 each!