What a great week it was with my family, but it’s nice to be back home now too. After another plane delay, I am safely back home in Vancouver. Wow, did I ever recieve the ultimate in excitement greetings from the dogs! Honestly though, I was just as excited to see them as they were to see me! I missed them SO much.
I have already unpacked everything, put it all away and started laundry. A total record for me as usually the suitcase is sitting around with stuff in it days after I return from a trip. hehe. Well Brent cleaned the house yesterday, and it was so nice coming home to a clean house that I just wanted to keep it that way. I haven’t even seen Brent yet – he doesn’t get home for another hour or so from work.
Here are a few pictures I took of my family a couple days ago. I really did have a fun time with everyone in Indianapolis. We went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button a few nights ago and it was fantastic!! A really long movie but so so good (and so emotional, I was almost in tears in several places!). We also went to this fabulous restaurant called Maggiano’s.
If you have one of these nearby, I totally recommend going, the food was unbelievable. The closest one to us is in Seattle.
I am in Indianapolis with my parents at my sisters house. It was quite the ordeal getting here on Tuesday due to the bad weather conditions everywhere. I was lucky to make it out of the Vancouver airport as they had reopened the 2nd runway which was closed for over a day. Tons of people had been stranded. The problems started when I arrived in Chicago at O’hare. I checked to see what gate my next flight was at and it said that it was cancelled!! I then had to wait in the customer service line up to talk to a United Airlines representative for 2 and a half hours, there were so many people who’s flights had been cancelled. While I was in line, someone suggested calling United Airlines 1-800 number and trying to rebook there. When I finally got past all the automated menus and got to talk to a real person, she booked me on a flight leaving later that night at 8:30 but she suggested I continue to wait in the line to ask about my luggage and stuff. I was in the line for another 30 minutes and in that time my flight had already been cancelled! There was only one more flight to Indianapolis that night and it was full so they put me on standby.
I could not believe how many people were at this airport, there had been 500 flights cancelled that day just at O’Hare alone! After waiting for another long while at the gate where the next flight was leaving from, they finally started boarding and informed all of us standby’s that there weren’t many seats left but they would call us by name if we got a seat. Tons of people were on standby. They stopped adding people to the list at 80 people and informed the huge line waiting to get on the list that they would have to now wait until the next day. I was number 27 on the list and really I thought I’d be spending the night in Chicago. A few names got called for standby and those people ran to the desk and thrust their standby tickets at the agent. Surprisingly, I suddenly heard my name! Yay! I got the very last seat on the plane, right at the back of course, but I would have sat on the floor if I had to just to make this flight. We waited over an hour while they de-iced the plane, and then it was a very bumpy flight to Indy. My parents had arrived in Indy just over an hour before me, so they and my brother in law were waiting at the airport for me. Also, my luggage was there waiting! Wow, I totally expected it to be delayed so that was a nice surprise.
I have been having a great time with my family, but of course miss my dogs. My nieces are so adorable and its been awesome seeing Christmas through their eyes, really takes me back to my own childhood and the excitement of the holidays.
This is our first Christmas without my Grandma (my mum’s mum) as she passed away last summer. While I was doing Christmas shopping the last couple weeks, I saw many things in the mall that I know my Grandma would have loved and even caught myself thinking I should get it for her, then was like “oh yeah…” A few days ago my sister told me about a sweet question my oldest neice (6 years old) asked her, she was totally serious and asked if she could send my Grandma a card in heaven to tell her she missed her and loves her. I miss my Grandma lots but I am thankful I got to spend 30 Christmases with her. I have so many happy memories of our time together.
This is what I heard on the news today, actually what they said was that there is a very good chance that all of Canada is going to have a White Christmas – the first time this has happened since 1971!
This is somewhat unusual for us West Coasters, as we are used to and quite enjoy our green Christmases. (Well, at least I do!)
We got majorly dumped on with snow yesterday, its been coming all week, bit by bit. I was out last Wednesday running errands and got caught in a snowstorm and actually got the car stuck in snow on the street! Since I was by myself, I was totally panicking. I did manage to get the car moving again, but I decided just to go straight home and forgo the rest of the errands I needed to do. What normally would have been a 20 minute drive home took me over 2 hours. Trucks were sliding across the road, big semi’s were stuck in the snow, it was just a mess out there.
Anyway, yesterday we got it bad, lots more snow. We took the dogs to a big park yesterday and tried to go sledding, but the snow was so deep in some places that the sled wouldn’t even go down the hill with one of us on it cause we were too heavy for it and it just dug into the snow. However, Angus took a huge liking to the sled (lol!). He got on it and let us pull him all around, then he even let us send him down a little hill and he SAT on the sled! It was too funny. I tried to get a video of it but it was too dark outside. He must have had a lot of fun on it cause we came to this steeper hill that didn’t have deep snow so I sat on the sled and was about to go down the hill when Angus ran to me and jumped on my lap!
I’m really going to miss these guys this next week. I leave first thing in the morning for Indianapolis. This is the first Christmas that I’ll be spending away from home. I’m going to my sister’s this year to spend Christmas with them and my parents are flying in from Florida (they just were on a cruise for their 40th Wedding Anniversary). They get in about an hour before me so we’re all meeting at the airport. I’m really excited about seeing everyone! It’s been over 2 weeks since I’ve talked to either of my parents and I think that’s the longest ever! But the sad thing is that Brent has to work all through Christmas so he’s staying here, and of course all the pets have to stay. We’re going to celebrate Christmas together the first weekend in January and we’ll be going to Victoria to spend it with my parents there and Brent’s mom.
Here are some pictures of our winter wonderland!
I got a really nice surprise in the mail today from Kelly-Eileen (aka Pryn), she’s been taking some of my online classes. Look what she sent me: a beautiful card she made and 2 adorable stamps – a paw print and a little white dog stamp that looks like Angus!! It’s so cute! Thanks so much Kelly-Eileen, you made my day!
CHA is coming up soon in Anaheim, California. I’m going to be going and teaching a workshop for Memory Makers! yay! My workshop, called Playing with Paper, can be seen here : I’ll be teaching 2 mini albums from my book, and everyone who takes the workshop will get a copy of my book! I’ll also be doing some book signings in the Memory Makers (F & W Publications) booth, so if you’re at CHA, please pop on over to say hi.
I worked on a bunch of new tutorials today, all Holiday related, there are 6 new ones posted on my tutorials page: Quick and Easy Holiday Tags, Holiday Card Holder Felt Wall Hanging, and 4 Take Out Gift boxes, using techiques by Claudine Hellmuth and some of her new products.
I just recieved the first copy of my book today! *Excitement!!* It was such an awesome moment seeing it complete for the first time, the very moment I dreamed of for the last 17 months. It’s a little surreal seeing this entire book….with my name on the cover and my mini books inside it! This whole process has been eye opening and amazing, ever since I got the phone call from Christine Doyle at F & W Publications congratulating me, telling me that my book proposal got accepted and I was the latest author for Memory Makers books. Wow. I spent the next 6 months solely making mini albums for the book, completing 40 of them, all in different themes and different types of albums. I then had to ship them all off to Memory Makers so they could be photographed for the book, and I just recently got them back – so strange to see them all again after not having them here for 9 months. It’s been such a great opportunity and experience, so a huge thank you to everyone at F & W!
So… there are 50 different mini albums featured in the book, 38 of them have step by step photo instructions, as well there are additional techniques featured and templates. 40 of the albums are mine, and 10 are from some fabulous contributor designers: Cami Bauman, Mou Saha, Michelle Van Etten, Kathie Davis, Julie Overby, Carolyn Lontin, Andrea Deer, and Brenda Neuberger.
Here are a few photos of the book and I will feature a few more sneak peeks in a bit. The book will be in the stores by February and you can pre-order it on Amazon already. As soon as I am able to get some more copies of it in January, I will do a giveaway here, so keep your eyes out!
So that was my exciting news! Now onto why I haven’t been around the internet world this past week, I’ve been sick again, this time with bronchial pneumonia. Of course I had to get it the last week of classes, the one week where I cannot miss a class at all! So I went to school sick, excusing myself peridically from class to rush to the bathroom to cough up part of a lung, then quietly slip back into class. All is good.
I had 2 Christmas parties to go to this past weekend too, both which I was really looking forward to, so I loaded myself up on medication and went. All this good Holiday food and I couldn’t taste anything! ergh. For last night’s party though I could taste some stuff so I’m finally starting to get my taste buds back – yay!
Oh, a big thank you to the ladies last night who gave me the tip about the Vick’s vapo rub! I was told that by rubbing the Vicks on your feet, then putting socks on and going to bed, that will stop you from coughing all night. Of course as soon a my head hit the pillow last night, I started coughing so I got up, found the vicks and tried it. I don’t remember coughing at all during the night! Awesome!! I was so happy to be able to sleep in my bed again, as the previous nights that I coughed, I got up and retreated down to the couch so I wouldn’t keep Brent awake all night.
Here are some pictures I took over the weekend, and of a little mini album I made Brent for his birthday. I also did a tutorial on using the distress inks here.
Angus with his shaggy winter coat
Having a lazy Sunday: Zoey in her favorite spot on the couch
I got this nice surprise yesterday from DebbyD! Thanks Deb! It’s the Kreativ Blogger Award! Debby is super talented, and I feel honored that she’s taken some of my online classes. Check out her blog: http://drdewilde.blogspot.com/
With the award came some simple rules:
1. The winner may put the logo on their blog. 2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award. 3. Nominate 5 blogs. 4. Provide links to their blogs. 5. Leave a message for your nominees.
So I have gone through the comments that were posted here a couple days ago for the giveaway and randomly chose 5 of the ones who had blogs listed. I think all these ladies are fabulous!
On another note: I am extremely tired today. Last night I drove across the border with some friends to go to the midnight madness sale at the Seattle Premium outlets. We didn’t get down there until 10:30pm and a few of the stores had opened early (like Banana Republic and Gap). The line ups were huge! Between waiting in line to get into the store, waiting in line for change rooms, and then waiting in line to pay, we spent hours and hours in line ups!! Was it worth it? I’m not sure. We did get some incredibly good deals, but all the lines and crowds were brutal. I got home at 5:30am this morning so I’ve only had about 4 hours sleep. At least it’s Friday!! Happy Friday everybody!
