Shannon's hair....

Shannon told me she wanted a haircut.  I said that I think she just needed a trim, so I cut off about 3 inches.  We then go and take some 'Senior' photos at a park in Scottsdale.  Here are some of them.

It was a nice day for photo's because of the overcast day.   I asked Allan to come and help with the 'reflection disc'.  Sometimes he got in the way as demonstrated in this next photo.  We were trying, and succeeded in a few pictures, to get the windblown hair look.  Our counting skills were not always in sync.

Allan took a turn with the camera now.

 I'm adding this picture, not so much that it's great - but Allan got a bee in the photo - the larger picture shows the bee flying right next to Shannon's cheek!

A few shots of Allan.  And yes, he was barefoot the whole time in the park.  I told him if he came to help I'd treat him to a Water & Ice slush.........he was the first one in the car. 

Kinda like a dog going for a ride in the countryside with the window down.  

Okay, so this fun family day was August 6th - two days before school was to start.   Shannon again tells me that the trim was nice but not what she had hoped for, so she still wants a haircut.  I'll just put this out there, that I was against it. Stacey asks her hairdresser if she can squeeze Shannon in before school starts (yep, the day before!) and luckily she can.........

Okay, I'll admit I was wrong on this one......Shannon's hair turned out darling!  

Now two random photo's:  A mushroom in our yard.  And of course a heart in a parking lot.

July 4th.....oops....

Yep, these are some way old photos that I've decided to post.  Happy 4th of July!  For the past few years, the Valley of the Sun has 'unbanned' fireworks on certain days and in certain areas.  We can set off certain types of fireworks on our road.  We choose a few simple ones.  Of course the ever popular sparklers.  When I was a young girl and we would travel to Springville, Utah - and we happened to be there during a holiday, (or maybe fireworks/sparklers were allowed all the time up there) this is what I loved:  We would sit on my grandparents lush lawn (and I mean lush - Utah lawns!  you all know what I'm talking about)....and my grandparents would be sitting up on their porch....which was really only big enough for 2 chairs (

and from what I'm remembering they look like these:

 http://www.meijer.com/assets/product_images/styles/xlarge/1004921_CO1001ABL_A_400.jpg

and then we would watch the 'big people' set off fireworks out in the road and then FINALLY we got to do sparklers!  Sometimes 3 or 4 each!  

The breeze must have been going Shannons way.

Posing for the shot

Okay, now for a project I've worked on.  Doug and I have been invited (and maybe we pushed a little) to go back to Florida and be with Brian and his family for a long weekend in September.  We will be going to Disney World!  Say What?!!!  So, Celynda had seen these dresses made up on Etsy - a online craft 'sell your stuff'' store for sale but for a bit more than she wanted to pay, so she sent me the picture and asked if I could make Brookie and Roxy a dress similar to those online and then she would double use the dress for Halloween!  Here they are!  

I thing they turned out cute.  I found a remnant of 'leather' looking material for Minnie's head.

Lastly for this post, I made Twix cupcakes for everyone to try.  They were pretty good. I loved the maple flavored frosting.

  

For our next big family adventure, we are planning on opening a frozen yogurt/cake/cupcake shoppe!  Hopefully within a year it will be up and running!  Katie has done some amazing cakes and we would like to open up this store for her to do her own work out of and then have the rest of us running the yogurt/treat side of the business. Keep your fingers crossed that all will go well and we can have a great business!!

Jessa Lynn

I'm kinda bummed right now.....I can't find any of the pictures I needed to do my blog.  I'm still not liking the Picaso picture format.  Ugh........  But I found a couple of things to share that were sent to me.  I thought I would share just a few 'heart' photos and one of my newest granddaughter, Jessa Lynn.  

First Jessa!

She looks a lot like one of her older brothers to me....Treyson, but once in a while I'll see a Kai face too.

Now for the hearts:

Sent to me by my neighbors the Barentines.  

Sent to me by some good friends, the Blau's.  Heart leaves from Alaska!

I might have shown you this before, but little Roxy and paint.

And sorry, I couldn't turn this one - spilled paint!  

When I first started my 'pinning' one of the crafts that took my breath away was this:

http://pinterest.com/pin/165859198749202491/

It was for sale on Etsy and of course I didn't want to pay for it, so I pinned it and not only did I pin it on my Crafts to Do board, but it was my board cover because I liked it immensely.  So....I have finally made it!  Yes, it's not quite as cute, but we have been looking for something to hang above our bed and well, why not these.  

I first went to Goodwill and found a book at half-off, but it had to be a special book with larger than usual font.  

I then cut out many petals and spirals......

For the spirals, I decided to use the picture pages leaving the picture on the backside while rolling them up. I still had the words for the flower centers, but it added a small amount of color to the centers.

 

 Nicely placed over our bed.  They  look cuter in real life.

Grace Kelly special.....

Last week I was watching a channel 8 special on Grace Kelly.  It was very interesting and quite nice to learn a little more about her early life, her reason to marry Prince Rainier 

and then the family life she had.

I am leaving a big space below so you will read this first before seeing the photos I am talking about.

Now I know I was supposed to just be a TV audience observer, and I was, but as they 'panned' the crowd at one of Grace Kelly's visits, it stopped on this woman.  Yes, the one in the center is the one the camera was focused on, 

 but, and I'm sorry....would you take a look at the woman on the right?!  Is she to die for?  Laughing as I'm typing.  Too funny.  

(I hope no one that reads this is related to her; Given the fact that this shot was in Monaco or Paris many, many years ago, I highly doubt you are related or even know her). 

I'm gonna name her.....Hortense.....sadly, she wouldn't be able to have a nickname really.

Um....Rhodes failure.....

Yeah, so Sunday I came home from church to find these.  What are they you ask?  My thoughts exactly, except I knew what they were SUPPOSED to be.  

Please watch the video below.......

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10200795189513782&saved

This is the way they looked while cooking.  Not too much better.  I thought they looked like an anemone, Doug was reminded of the stones from the movie 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'.  All in all, we were amused by them.  Carolyn thought we should have played the 'prop' game from Who's line is it Anyway? and seen how many things we could have come up with.

At the end of the night, all but 2 had been eaten.  Among all the jokes and laughing they were edible.
 And yes, I look forward to when Carolyn and her rolls return.

Mexico with Brian and Celynda!

2 weeks ago, Doug, Brian, Celynda and I got to travel down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a 'celebration' of sorts, for Brian's graduation of Medical school.  We got to spend 6 great days of fun, although I shouldn't make that 'blanket' statement for Brian and Celynda.  We went to Lover's/Divorce Beach and spent a few hours there.  The reason for the name is that at the end of the peninsula of the baja, there is a stretch of land that on one side is Sea of Cortez - calm  waters and the other side is the pounding Pacific Ocean.  They have signs that say NO SWIMMING due to the terrific undertow of the waters.  

This picture of Brian and Celynda took several tries to get it just right and before the water would crash up on the shore.  

In this picture you see the Lover's Beach side where it is calm.   There is snorkling there and a large rock to jump off.  Believe it or not, Brian went to jump.  He is in the blue t-shirt about ready to jump but sadly, I missed the actual jump.

 For dinner one night we went to a 'pirates' themed restaurant where we ran into Jack Sparrow!  He had some pretty great weapons.

Another day we drove to a waterfall area.  It's quite the drive back into this place and you now have to pay a few dollars to park there; (we'd been back before with Ben and Judy Cotter and it was a free hike to this place).  Anyway, as you can see there was only a small dribble of a water fall and quite disappointing.  AND to top it all off, there were small water snakes!  There were MANY snakes. But it didn't bother Doug at all.  He swam out to the 'diving' rock and went right in.  No fear at all.  

Brian on the other hand had doubts.  And as soon as he went in he swam as fast as he could to get past the weedy/reedy area where the snakes probably liked to hide.

 We ended up hiking back up the creek for a bit and found these great trees that have wrapped their roots around these rocks.

Another great find during the hike.....a bum rock! Brian thought his kids would love this and sadly the lighting did not highlight the crack adequately.  

Driving to Santiago, Mexico, near the waterfall, we passed through the Tropic of Cancer.  

This was our mode of transportation to our room and up to the lobby.  If you don't take a ride on this it is quite a hike up the hill to get to your car.

We also decided to go zip-lining and repelling.  No personal photos were allowed, but of course they would sell you a DVD that they had made during our day there.  

Walking around town one day there was a man 'selling' pictures of his iguana wearing a sombrero   Come on, how can you pass that up?  An iguana wearing a sombrero?  We had to do it.  Or Brian had to do it anyway.  

One one of the last mornings we went down to the beach to look in the rocks as the tide went out.  Brian and Celynda each had their own idea of what that meant.  I found a rock with a heart on it, and sorry, I could not get the picture to turn right side up.  Also the heart in the leaf, was as we were taking the waterfall hike.  

This was the morning they would be returning back to their kids.  Although they had a great time, they were ready to be with their kids!

Thanks B & C for being with us and putting up with my snoring.  We had a great time with you two.  Loves!