back from vacation...

Today I left these lovely ladies in Montana, and flew home to the love of my life. It's a good thing I love Rory so much, because leaving these girls was really hard. Mara pointed out many times during my four days there, "I am growing bigger because...my legs are way longer" or "because I can see out my window better in my carseat!"

I soaked up the Flathead Valley, soaked in every moment of sister time, and laughed hard with her strong, opinionated, hysterical girls. Jedd was in Minnesota for most of the time, so it really just was a good ol' girls get together. We built forts, played with glitter glue, played lots of candy land and did a 64 piece strawberry shortcake puzzle close to 64 times, watched little orphan Annie, went out for hot chocolate, played at the park, celebrated Annika's birthday a bit early with a tea party and hung out on a beautiful dock on Flathead Lake.

The good news? Only 49 days until I see these guys again at Christmas!!!

Off to Montana!!!

So, this is pretty sneaky, but the last few days were posts that I wrote on Wednesday night and post-dated. I feel so blog savvy! And this post is also being written on Wednesday night. I stocked up on blog posts because I am actually in Texas right now at a Lutheran Outdoor Ministry conference. The weather has been lovely (forecasted 73 degrees) and I'm sure I've made some good friends by now.

But today I am flying from Houston to Denver to Kalispell, Montana where I will be greeted by my sister for some quality sister time. I miss this woman so much and hate the fact that we live so far away from each other. So here's to some good laughs in the days ahead. Here's a laugh to get us started. Annika really knew how to work a perm...and a matching sweat suit...and a 10 speed.

I've been looking on a lot of craft websites lately for projects to do for our Women's Craft Night at camp as well as good projects for our adults with special needs. In the process, I have found many a project that overwhelms me with delight. The following are from a site called craftster, and I can't get enough. Be sure to check it out, because the pictures here are just a smidgen of the cool stuff this woman made. Can you imagine how fun it would be to play with all of this food?!!

Happy Halloween!

I scanned these pictures from my parents. I love the pumpkins because the one that looks like The Count on the left is so very much my brother's pumpkin. And the pumpkin on the right with long eye lashes is so my sister's pumpkin. And the generic one that screams, "I'm the baby in the family!" is so very mine. The picture below is of my 2nd grade class. You will find me in the back row, wearing the pumpkin sandwich board costume and green ribbon on my head. Here's to Reese's Peanut Butter cups, the very best candy you could receive while trick-or-treating.

Eye Candy

I have a new favorite blog. Everything on her page is lovely. And inspiring. And makes me want to try my hand at cool sounding things like crackle paste. The artist's name is Donna Downey and she makes some glorious things. Enjoy!