Grandpa Great

You are probably wondering who this distinguished gentleman is. This is my grandfather, Paul. He is my mother's father and the my only grandparent that is still alive. I have had very few opportunities to spend time with him. When I was 18, I went to Oregon for my Aunt Lydia's wedding and spent a few days with him, his wife, my other aunt and uncles then. And when I got married in 1995, he was sweet enough to make the trip from Florida to be there for my special day. And then when Zachary was a year old, he and his wife, Janey, made a special trip while they were in New York to my home in Maine to visit us for the day. Both of our lives have been so busy, I have not had the opportunity to see him again.
Then, a few weeks ago, my mom told me that my grandfather would be making the trip from Florida to Utah and spending a few weeks with her. She picked him up from the airport this afternoon and came to my house to let the kids and I spend a few hours getting acquainted with him. I prepared a lunch and we gathered around the table an ate as we shared stories.

Once lunch was over, Grandfather gathered some gifts out of his luggage that he had brought for the children. Each child was presented with t-shirt from Florida and then a few dice games, named FARKLE. Grandfather explain the rules of the game and how the scoring works. We cleared everything off the coffee table and began our game. Becky, Belle, Zack and I spent this time playing the game with "grandpa great".

Before Grandfather, mom and pop loaded up to head home; I pulled out some of the scrapbooks and shared some of the neat things my family and I have done over the years. He seemed to genuinely enjoy looking at the books and complimented on having such a wonderful family. Spending this little bit of time with my grandfather, made me a little sad for all the years that have gone by and the time that we missed. But I also feel so blessed to have had this opportunity today and that my children got to meet their Great, Grandpa.

Swiss Days

Yesterday Wendy, Sandra, Jill, Julie and I went to Swiss Days in Midway.

This was my second year going and I was just as excited.

Wendy was nice enough to drive us all there.

After walking around and shopping for a while we made our way over to the scones.

They were HUMONGOUS!!!

Wendy and I split one so we would still have an appetite for lunch later.

There were s many booth with magnet boards and cool frames to hang on your walls.
I loved much of the stuff, but I already have so many things on my walls, I wasn't sure where I would dd something new

Once it got too hot and we had walked through most of the booths, we decided it was time to head to Park City and have lunch.

We went to Hapa Grill. We ate there last year and I was excited to eat there again. Their food was so yummy. It is also very pretty. Take a look at some of the yummies we ordered.



It was a fun afternoon. I am already looking forward to next year.

Busy, Busy, Busy

On Monday Zack started Middle School. He actually went to school last Thursday and spent a few hours there running through his schedule before he actually started school. We also popped into the school last week to scope out his locker and practice the combination to guarantee he could actually get in. I drove him to the school Monday morning at 7:40 am and watched as my "little guy" got out of the car and walked to the school. I truly was excited for him, but so sad for myself. I just remembered that first day of kindergarten and this little 5 year old boy walking up onto the school bus all by himself and knowing, as I stood there, that this was just the beginning. Then when he returned from kindergarten that afternoon, he was so excited and took my hand and proceeded to kiss the inside on my palm, then closed my fingers around it.

And asked, "do you know what that is?"

I replied, "no, what is it."

"It is the kissing hand, so you will always have a kiss from me when I am not here."

I thought about that moment on Monday and how it seemed like it was not that long. I am so afraid that before I know it he will be graduating from high school and beginning his own life. Sometimes I feel like this time with my children is going so fast. If I could get it to slow down just a little bit.

Last week while the girls were in school and Zack was still in California on vacation with Grandma and Papa, Steve and I rode our bikes to the District shopping center. We got Jamba Juice and walked around, window shopping and just enjoying each other's company. We made our way over to Ross and looked at clothes. Since I have lost a little bit of weight I have started to really enjoy shopping for clothes.

I saw this cute white sundress, tried it on and it fit and Steve bought it for me. So yesterday when I got showered and dressed, I decided to wear my new white sundress. I walked down stairs and Steve expressed that I looked very pretty, but the best comments came from the kids. I heard one of the twins say, "...it's not even Sunday and mommy is wearing a dress." All the children expressed to me before they walked out the door for school how pretty I looked. Quite a boost for the ego.

So I have also tried something new. Back in November of 2007, I was invited to teach a scrapbooking class to my mom's Relief Society. I assembled kits to make the Exploding Box. The project was a HUGE hit with the women. Then a little while later TIP JUNKIE had a call for Christmas projects and I shared with her the Exploding Box. I then began getting emails from sweet women asking how they could get the instructions and did I sell them. At first I was just flattered by the inquiries and then the more interest I got, I realized I should try to act upon this. I had heard of Etsy and thought it might be the perfect forum to sell these instructions. So I spent a few hours typing up details instructions, taking photos and making diagrams of the boxes.

I turned my hard work into a pdf document and then posted it on my etsy store named Creative Nik. I was afraid maybe I would post the instructions and no one would be interested, but to my surprise people have had much interest in them. I even sold one of the assembled boxes. It is a little scary for me to put myself out there, but it has also been kind of fun.

STEVE & ZACK CAMPING

Last Monday Steve and Zack left on their long anticipated backpacking trip into Yellowstone and Teton. This past winter Steve introduced Zack to tying flies. And they began talking about using all these flies and that how the vacation was born.
I did not go on this trip...boys only...so I don't have any stories to go along with the photos. But I though I would go ahead and share these images of my two favorite guys. This is Zack standing in front of Old Faithful.
I love this shot of Zack standing on the bank fishing. Steve said that it was kind of challenging for Zack to master the rod. I'm sure the more opportunities he gets to practice the better he will get.
On my list of favorite things is when I see a genuine smile on Zack's face. I love seeing him happy.
Steve and Zack enjoying hot cocoa and the view of the Tetons.
Zack trying to get a better view of a moose.
There is the big guys. Pretty neat creature to see in the woods.


This is better than any view you can get in a hotel room. The guys decided not to pitch their tents, but just to sleep in the back of the truck.

Steve getting a little washed up before heading home to me.
What a cutie!!!

CKU-Provo

I went to CKU-Provo this past week. A few months ago, my friend, Suzanne, called me and asked if I would be interested in going with her. So on a whim, I decided to go and we invited our friend, Annette to come along with us. Annette and Suzanne arrived at the Marriott early in the afternoon and attended a few classes. I was unable to join them until later that evening.
Thursday morning I went and got my registration packet and bag. Then the girls and I went to the Arches class to await our teachers. This day we would spend the entire day in one classroom and the teachers would be coming to us and teaching us different 2 page 6x6 pages to go into a "CKU Memories" album. Margie Romney-Aslett from Making Memories was our first teacher. She is a hoot to have as a teacher. She is part comedian and part instructor. I am NEVER bored in a class that she is teaching. We also had pages by Lisa Bearnson, Lance from Rusty Pickle, Ali Edwards, Tim Holtz from Ranger, Jen Gallagher from Little Yellow Bicycle.

Other times that I have attended CKU they have had similar projects, but usually the colors of the page spread do not coordinate and have been a little disappointed by that, but this time that was not the case. The colors pretty much coordinated with each other and overall the designs of the pages were quite cute. The only real problem with our class was the room. IT WAS FREEZING!!! Suzanne actually commented that her feet had gone numb. Annette and gone to the hotel gift shop and bought a sweatshirt to help keep her warm. When lunch time arrived, we ate outside on the sidewalk, so we could thaw out before going back to the classroom.

Before all of the classes were complete, Annette received a call on her cellphone. She was informed that her 19 year old son had been hit in the eye with a airsoft pellet that had ricocheted off the wall and was on his way to the emergency. She obviously could not stay and had to go back to South Jordan and assess the situation. Which left Suzanne and I at CKU feeling so bad for our friend. We later heard that things would "hopefully" be okay and she would be back Friday morning for classes.

It made it a little hard to enjoy the Thursday night crop and festivities. We did try to make the best of the situation. We sat through 3 dorms performances which were pretty cute. BUT, I was surprised how few dorms there were. In years past I really had a good time participating in these activities, but this time had opted to be a little more low key. And it appeared, maybe others had the same feeling. They actually had another project that we could work on during the crop. Suzanne and I stayed up until midnight, put together our album and hoped to win in one of the drawings, but unfortunately we did not have our name picked. Oh well, we thought... there is always tomorrow night.


Friday morning we moved around to the teachers classrooms.

We took classes from Piggy Takes and made a cute "slider album", attended a class sponsored by Scenic Route and did a nice Summer themed double page spread and then went to our favorite of the day, TIM HOLTZ. Suzanne and I had taken a class from him 2 years ago and still remember how awesome his class was.

I love learning new ways to use inks and how to really distress paper. he had brought a bunch of his finished projects and had them on display. I took tons of pictures to use for inspiration.

Our project was to make a frame using a bunch of his cool products. We used grunge board, little acrylic pieces, crackle, paint, ink...it was so great!! As I listened to him tell us what we would be doing, or how a product worked I found myself in awe. When someone commented on how cool the effect was, his response was, "SHUT THE FRONT DOOR...I'M A GENIUS" That became one of our catch phrases for the remainder of the weekend.



The project turned out GREAT!!!
Now I just need to figure out where to hang it.

Saturday was the Ali album day. I was so excited about this. The title of the class was EVOLUTION. I am always so inspired when I listen to her speak. She talks much about focusing on capturing moments and not necessarily just events and I love that about her creations. She also talked about "EMBRACING" imperfections in our creations and our photography.


It is always so much fun to open up that cardboard box and see what kind of goodies it contains.

After working from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, my album was more than half way done. I am so excited to finished my creation and will try to post it here on the blog for all of you to see. It is absolutely beautiful.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and we packed up all of the goodies and projects that we had received in the past 3 days. Luckily we had received a bunch of different little bags that we could load up with all the goodies.


It took a couple of trips to get everything out to the car. And then we attended the commencement, watched the slide show and then said our good-byes and headed back to home and our families.