Time Flies When You're Having Fun - FWF #21

 

Fun times ahead! Friday is our 16th wedding anniversary - we're pretty proud of that number, but we were together for eight years before that. SOOOO... we've been together for a mighty long time, more than half of our lives! Funny how when I look at my husband, he still looks like the same young man I fell in love with all those years ago. :)

 

 

Naturally, I wanted to make him a card to celebrate. I found a new sketch blog (Feeling Sketchy) and really liked their most recent sketch, which you can find here.

 

Here's the front... I used Happy Happy Anniversary and I Loaf You. The bread loaf with the extra slice was a little too big for this sketch, so I cut the slice off...

 

 ...and put it on the inside, with another sentiment from I Loaf You. Since my husband likes to bake bread (from scratch) in his spare time, I thought he would get an extra kick out of this card. We'll see!

 

 

For my new recipe of the week, I made some Chili Lime Chicken. I couldn't make up my mind on how to cook it (slow cooker? skillet?) but finally decided on skillet - and then the rest of the family ended up going out to the local minor league baseball game (see pic below), so nobody else tasted it. BUT - it was really tasty! I used red pepper flakes instead of the jalapenos (for the sake of the kids - before I realized they wouldn't be around to eat it anyway), so it still had a small jolt. The flavoring was VERY good. I will definitely be making this again soon... :)

 

So here the kids with the baseball mascot, Bernie. I gotta say, it's pretty amazing how good some cell phone cameras are getting - I was thrilled when DaddyDude sent this picture! Bernie is usually an elusive creature, so the girls got really lucky he posed with them.

 

Hope you all have a great weekend! Thanks for visiting!



Thank heavens for EBay!

Patterned paper (Authentique [Fresh]), Tim Holtz Festive Berries Distress Ink, button and bling (Basic Grey), ribbon (MME Laundry Line & Stella/Rose), stamp (Unity Stamp Co), markers (Spectrum Noir)

This week, cropchocolate's challenge #59 was to use buttons, ribbon, and an image on a project. Since I usually couple my CC challenge with Unity Stamp Company's "Friends with Flair" on Fridays, I thought it was perfect time to make a card for DaddyDude - because today is the anniversary of our first date.

Yeah, yeah... I know a lot of you may think that this is overkill and too corny. But to us, this date is very special - and we've been celebrating it for 22 years now. What did we do? Of all things... we went to a screening of Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation on our college campus. I don't know how many of you have ever been to one of these shows but it's very... different. I would NOT recommend this for a first date! I suppose, however, that is what helped to make it so memorable. :) I am also kind of surprised that it is still alive and well!

And what does EBay have to do with all of this? I've been on the hunt for all things having to do with Unity Stamp Co. I saw this lovely stamp image on EBay (wood-mounted and everything!) and absolutely HAD to have it. Does anybody have any idea how old this stamp is? Is it vintage? ;)

So anyway... happy anniversary (of sorts) to my dear husband! I love you! He still surprises me (usually in a good way!), which I find shocking & endearing, all at the same time.

For all of you Friends With Flair folks - I wish you all a lovely weekend filled with sunshine and fun! Thanks for visiting!

Can You Spot the Difference?

Can you see it???

What's the whoop? Mika got her braces taken off this afternoon. Woohoo! First thing I did was to give her some chewing gum. She kept chewing gum through her softball game (until I finally made her spit it out, because she was blowing bubbles!)! She had a good game (she hit another triple today), until the very end - when she was the very last out, with the bases loaded. She totally cracked under the pressure, starting to cry after she had 2 strikes on her. At that point, we knew it was over. Somehow, she can't pull herself back together after she psyches herself out. *sigh* Oh, well... there is no way her team will end up in 2nd place (only the top two finishers get a regular season trophy), so their other bet for a trophy finish will be the championship (which, in all honesty - still aren't very good chances).

Patterned paper (MME Fine & Dandy True Blue), flowers and buttons (MM Panorama), metal embellishments (MM Bravissimo), ribbon (MM Paper Reverie Brun), glitter (Stickles), lollipop sticks (Wilton), green floral foam, hot glue

The cropchocolate.com challenge for this week was to create a project using blue and brown as the main color choices. Since today is our wedding anniversary and I hadn't gotten around to making DaddyDude a card (*gasp*), I figured it was a sign from above, when I received my BHG.com newsletter this morning and there was a paper cupcake project by Leah Fung on the front. Who doesn't like a calorie-free cupcake?

Happy Anniversary, DaddyDude! I love you!

Softball update

Wow! I'm behind again! On May 14th, Mika's team had their last regular season game and took home their coveted first place trophies. This was a big deal for the girls because now that they're 7-8 years old, ONLY first place finishers get a trophy. It was HUGE, too! In another couple of weeks, the girls will play their championship game (although with 3 teams in the division, I'm baffled why there NEED to be "play-offs") and hopefully, win another trophy. I'm really bummed that I'll be missing the game - but I committed to being in a soccer tournament (that day) about 7 weeks ago. It's too late to back out because the captain won't be able to fill my spot. However, it's actually pretty stressful for me to watch Mika's games (they're very tense with excitement) - I would hate to see them lose but I'll be sad if I miss seeing them win. Oh, well! I'm sure Mika will be happy to give me the game details later.

Although Marika's softball season is over (her last game was marred by the coaches yelling at the other team's coaches and vice versa - geez, what a terrible lesson for the kids!), Mika will be playing for most of the summer because she made the All Stars team! We were very surprised to hear they started that young but we were very proud of Mika for making the team. Her coach applied for and got the All Stars coaching position and he basically ended up taking his infield with him. Although the coach totally forgot to call us about the first parent meeting, he did remember to call us for the first practice. We had expected to be at the ballpark from 9-12 on Sunday but as things turned out, the girls had a pick-up game and Mika did not get back home until after 3 pm. Poor kid... you could tell she was starting to fade by 12:30. However, they played an older team (8-year olds) who was used to kid-pitching and TIED them! Mika's team was lucky to have one girl who had been practicing pitching for some time at home - she pitched the entire game and even got a few strike-outs. Mika struck out for the first time ever - and cried, of course. But, at least she got it over with!

And yes, that is how we spent our wedding anniversary! It's odd to know that I've been with my husband for most than half my life now - although it's honestly really hard to remember life before him. :)

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Yesterday, we celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. Because we are trying to be frugal, we thought a great way to celebrate would be to visit the Getty Museum, which just happened to be having a very special Leonardo da Vinci exhibit. We had this planned about 6 weeks ago and finally, the big day arrived.

It'd been about 4 years since our last attempt at visiting an art museum. The girls definitely weren't ready then and it was frustrating, because Daddy Dude and I really like to walk around museums. For the past few weeks, I'd been preparing the girls for this visit, explaining how special the things we'd see were and what the rules were - no running, no screaming, no touching.

After a long drive, we finally arrived! The girls seemed to enjoy the tram ride, which was a pretty efficient operation.

Here is a balcony view from the outside of the museum. We went to explore the da Vinci exhibit first, since that was the main reason for coming. Unfortunately, photography wasn't allowed in any of the rooms (I was gently reprimanded by the guard, but he was very nice about it -very professional). The da Vinci exhibit also included works by several of his friends and associates. We explained to the girls that everything was at least 500 years old and created by an artistic geniuses. The girls seemed impressed and interested. However, in one of the rooms, one guard did not like the fact that Mika was looking at the paintings TOO CLOSE (I had explained that with oils, the resulting texture really enhanced a painting) and so, she and I got yelled at for that (I suppose she could have been worried about Mika sneezing on the painting, I don't know). THEN, when Marika started to get tired and raised one arm up to stretch, the same guard rushed over to Daddy Dude and told him that the museum recommended small children be placed in a stroller and where he could get one. I was totally flabberghasted by (1) the suggestion (she was just slowly raising an arm, I didn't think she was in any danger of knocking down an art piece) and (2) her demeanor was really quite offensive (was I really going to allow my kids to ruin a multi-million dollar piece of art?!). I thought my girls had been behaving pretty well - so what is this guard like when a more active child comes in??? Not a single other guard treated us in this manner. She was like a chicken jumping on a june bug. This was the only downer during our entire excursion.

Our second priority was to visit the French Impressionism wing. It's probably my favorite art period. =) In this wing, I was trying to explain how valuable a single painting was to Mika. I don't think she grasps that concept yet.

Here's the gang just outside one of the buildings... (by the way, it was really windy and cold that day!)

And just outside the Family Room, there was a beautiful spot for photography...

The Family Room was a special little building for kids to explore and play. They made a mask and then went to have some fun. We had to wait at least 15-20 minutes to get in.

There were a couple of art prints that I really liked here... (especially the one on the right!)...

And I *know* you were just dying to see the girls' masks up close...

We stopped at the Sculpture Terrace, just before we headed off to see the gardens...

What you see here is some heavily trained bougainvillea (one of my favorite shrubs). Gorgeous, aren't they?

And here are some shots from the garden itself... we really liked those red poppies with the black spots (I called them ladybug poppies - I wonder what they are really called! I want some!).

And last but not least, while the girls zonked out in the backseat, Daddy Dude drove me around town. First we drove around UCLA, then we passed by Beverly Hills, saw some people selling "star maps" (which totally cracked me up - but I couldn't get a very good picture of their signs) and finally... cruising on Sunset Boulevard. I asked Daddy Dude to please drive here, because for years, I've had a "Sunset Blvd" scrapbooking title sticker - and NOW I can finally use it! They had some awesome billboards on the strip, especially one advertising Season 3 for one of my favorite shows, True Blood (Season 2 is available on DVD in 2 days!!!).

All in all, it was a good day. The girls only lasted about one hour, because they started to get tired. Lunch and a visit to the Family Room perked them up a little bit, so we left the museum after 3.5 hours - not too bad for a 5 and 7 year old! Maybe in a couple of years, we'll venture out to the Getty Villa...

Ten Years!

Happy 10th Anniversary, honey! I love you!