Sushi anyone?

Mom and Pop have come up for a visit. Well, it is a little more than a visit. My babies are turning 9 years old on Tuesday. That is stinkin' CRAZY!! While we are celebrating this wonderful event on Tuesday, Mom and Pop offered to take us out to dinner on Monday. And one of Katie and Becky's favorite lace has been the Fortune Cookie restaurant.
It is a mix of Chinese food and a full Sushi bar. My little girls are quite adventurous when it comes to food. About 6 months ago we went to the Fortune Cookie and while there Grandma ordered some Salmon and Tuna Sushi. The girls all tried and loved it so much that Grandma had hardly any for herself. So she order a few rolls for herself again last night and had a repeat. Katie especially seems to love the stuff.

All the kids order Japanese Bento Boxes. The girls chose boxes that came with salmon teriyaki and 6 California Rolls. Zack was the most adventurous. He also ordered a Japanese Bento box, but rather than getting the Teriyaki, he ordered octopus sushi. The waiter was quite surprised and confirmed a couple of times if Zack was sure that was what he wanted.

When the food arrived, we all watched to see how Zack would handle the octopus. He did eat 1 1/2 of the,. He said it was a bit chewy and hard to get down. But I sure was proud of him for trying something new. I am not sure I would ever have the courage to order octopus.

Everyone enjoyed their meal and we ended with the traditional fortune cookie. I am so grateful to have Mom and Pop around and their willingness to expose my children to new experiences.

OH NO!!! OBOE

Last spring Zack decided to stop taking piano and that he wanted to take an instrument in Middle School. When I registered him for school and the band teacher inquired about which instrument Zack wanted to play, I looked at the list of instruments and quickly picked the oboe. I was not quite sure which one he was actually planning on and hoped that my selection would work for him

Well, last week he gt his oboe, which we are renting through the school, and ran out to get the reeds for his instrument. He is not planning much music yet, but h is beginning to learn the notes. He has taken to sitting on the back deck and practicing out there. Well, a few days ago, the weather cooled off and Steve and I decided to shut off the air conditioner and open up the windows. Well, Zack wandered out on the deck and got all set up to practice. Then the notes began to creep into the house.

Steve told him he needed to go into the basement to practice. As he approached the basement door, I remembered Belle was down there doing something and the "music" would probably bother her. So he decided to go up to his bedroom. Not long later we could hear the practicing begin. Steve said to Becky, "would you go up there and close Zack's door." She called from the top of the stairs to let us know that the door was close. I am thinking this is will be long school year full of dueling piano/oboe playing.

CREATIVE ESCAPE: day 3

Sarah and I were the first ones up and moving in both of our rooms. We were up in the conference room area by 6:15 am ready to have breakfast. It was a yummy spread too: fresh fruit, muffins, bagels, eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, oj and even when I requested hot cocoa a nice man name Socorro went to the kitchen and brought me a cup of hot cocoa. Very nice!!!

Then we were off to classes. We started with Jenni Bowlin. She had a cut project, but as we went along she realized there were pieces in her kits that were missing and that kind of held us up. We were unable to assemble the box that the little album fit into.

Next, we went to Laurie Stamas class, which I was so excited for. We had homework assignments for this class. Questionnaires that needed to be filled out and photos that were brought along. We mostly completed the cover for the 12x12 album and some of the inside pieces, but still much of the assembly needs to be completed at home.

After lunch we went to Janet Hopkins class. This may have been one of my favorite merely for the technique we learned. She had applied an art medium to the cover of an album and it just turned out so cool. I LOVED it!!

Finally we were in Tim Holtz class. Let me just say, "HE ROCKS". Holy cow...he is a great instructor and is so laid back. Initially we were all a little freaked out. We saw the project which we were told was something you could wear, but it was a frame. Then as he described what we were doing it all became clear. The frame was where you hung the pin (which we were also making) when you weren't wearing it. Very cool!!!

Dinner was a delicious Mexican buffet. We were totally spoiled with these meals.

"FRIDAY NIGHT EXTRAVAGANZA" was interesting. We made thank you cards. Which was fun, but it was just so quick. The room was so full that we were not able to all sit together. I was a little punchy and was ready to just laugh and have a good time. And it was kind of hard to in a class where you are actually being instructed.

We all managed to get a little silly.

We all wore our aprons that were our goodies the night before.

Some of the girls got a little "creative" with how exactly the apron is worn.

CREATIVE ESCAPE: day 2

Day 2 began kind of slowly. I was of course up and running fairly early and my roomies, Sandra and Suzanne got up and walked/ran the nature trail.

I met up with Sarah in the registration area and waited for it to open as we ate our breakfast.

It was fun to plant ourselves down on the ground and visit with the other women.

So much fun to hear where everyone is from and what brings them here. I think one of the things that is always surprising is the people who come alone. And I know many who came alone once, made friends and now come with those people. Its too cool.

After registration the TECHNIQUE BOUTIQUE began. It was a lot of standing in lines, but fun all the same.

Then we traveled across the hallway to the TRUNK SHOW.
It was there that we could meet the instructors for the weekend. First we visited Tim Holtz. I brought my "Flat Annette" along with me. And let Tim read the letter she had written about being his biggest fan here in South Jordan. He thought that it was so funny and was even willing to pose for a photo with her. What a good sport.

We then went to Kelly Goree's table and looked through some of her previous work. We got our photos taken with her. She is just the sweetest girl from Kentucky and extremely talented.

Then of course we stopped for the photo op with Heidi Swapp. She had flown in the day before from China, where she has been living. She had some neat projects laying out on her table. I am always so inspired when I see the work other scrappers do.

Janet Hopkins was also another nice instructor to visit with. I loved her style. I spent a few minutes while at her table taking photos of some of the projects she had laying out.

Jenni Bowlin was another nice instructor to stop and take a picture with. I did not visit with her much, by that time I was tired of waiting in lines and looking forward to getting to the end.

The Halls, Kollette and Jason, were also there. Collect was there to teach a class entitled, "the GOOD BOOK". Don't get it confused with the original good book and I was quite excited about that class. And her husband Jason was invited to be the keynote speaker for the events on the last evening.

Laurie Stamas's table was our final stop. She had some pretty cool projects that she had done. I probably walked away from her table with a collection of ideas of things I would like to try.

We all: Suzanne, Sandra, Sarah, Kathy, Kim and I, got together and decided it was time to head out for dinner. Kathy knew where there was a Cheesecake Factory, which seemed perfect. I believe we have eaten at a Cheesecake Factory every time we have done a scrapbook get away.

And just as usual, we were not disappointed. Yummy food, good friends and fun conversation. For me that is the best part of these trips. And it has been especially fun to bring the Maine friends and Utah friends together. They all seem to get along and that makes it even better.

After dinner we went back to our room and found a package laying on the bed that said, " LUCKY GIRL". Inside we found a cute prairie skirt apron. Unfortunately, due to a mix up wit the hotel, the registration record only showed Suzanne in the room. So Sandra and I would ave to wait until the next day to find out what the problem was and get our nigh time goodies.

To bed we went with thoughts of what kind of fun projects we would be getting to dig our teeth into the next day.

CREATIVE ESCAPE: day 1

Suzanne, Sandra and I flew to Phoenix last Wednesday to begin our CREATIVE ESCAPE .

Almost as soon as we got to the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort, we were off for our bus tour.

The first stop was the Bazzill Paper factory where we could do some shopping.

My friend Annette, who was unable to come along with us, sent me a paper doll version (kind of like "flat Stanley") of herself. So I took her along with us as we walked through the factory.
At one point during the tour Mr. Bazzill took us into the warehouse and showed us where all the paper is store before it is cut into 12x12 or smaller pieces. It was quite AWESOME.


It was really neat to see the different machines doing their job to cut the paper or make the paper packs. For a scrapper it was kind of like HEAVEN...so much pretty, pretty cardstock.
After we left Bazzill we were dropped off at Scrapbook Etc. a store to do some shopping and then we were brought back to the hotel.
Scattered around the resort were little guest books that you could sign and in turn would be entered in a drawing for prizes at the end of the weekend. Each of the boxes had weird hats, sunglasses, crowns that you could put on and take a picture of yourself. We did put on the crowns to sign this book, but passed on putting the hats on that had small umbrellas. Not quite my style

Finally we went out to dinner. Thank heavens that Kathy, who lives in the area, had a car. We cruise to the mall and found a restaurant to eat at. We settled for Olive Garden, which kind of disappointed Kim (she could eat that back home), but the meal was quite enjoyable, inspite of the overly toasted bruscetta bread.