Ice Skating

Yes, you read that right, I took Samantha ice skating on Sunday. ( anything but watch the super bowl! LOL!) I was supposed to see my Nana that day but she wasn't feeling well so Sammie and I went to the ice palace for some fun. I haven't skated in YEARS... I can't even remember the last time and don't think it was even in California.. I used to take lessons when I was a kid. You don't really forget how.. but i still managed to fall. ( only once but hard enough for a few bruises!) Sammie did great. It was her first time and she caught on quickly.. She fell again and again but laughed and got right back up and did it again. The kid is determined!!! She has been wanting to skate ever since we saw the psuedo rink at the irvine spectrum during the holidays. Ice palace has open skating on Sundays and it was something fun and different to do for 2 hours. She wants to go again. I had to switch halfway though the session from the cute "girlie figure skater skates" to the "man hockey skates" They were much more comfortable for my wide feetsies..

Saturday was a blast.. Tammy I got a bunch of girls together to crop at The scrappin table. We had a great time and I got several pages done. Christine, Donna, Jenn and I all scrapped together.

Here are some of the pages I made..

Ah yes.. just a little more about CHA.. Loved it. It was a great show and so much to see even though it wasn't as crowded as last year. Owls are big this year so I thought this sign was cute.

On Monday, the 2nd day of CHA, there was a fire alarm activated ad we had to evacuate the show. It was really strange. The alarm was sounding and no one was moving. It took an announcement that said, "Emergency.. please exit immediately" before anyone decided to leave. We all looked around to see what everyone else was doing and everyone was just standing around until they announced for us to leave. How scary that people don't take is seriously because we are so used to false alarms. This one turned out to be a false alarm but better safe than sorry.

Here is a pic of Melody Ross, Dawn and I. Melody is the designer/owner of Chatterbox. I remembered her for her "Journaling Genie" stencils from long ago.. She was very friendly and sweet. It was fun meeting her.

I think my favorite new line from the show was this one from "My Little Shoebox" I love the bright, fun colors and all the embellishments to go with. This owl one is adorable!! ( difficult to see in the pic but super cute in person!)

Another cute line by My little shoebox.

How could I miss the opportunity to take a picture with a PINK crayon??

Monday I had lunch with some special friends of mine from my previous school, Irene and Betty. They are both retired from teaching and we get together about once a month or so, to catch up. It is always great to see them. They are so good to Samantha and bring her presents almost every time.. She is special to them.

Well, now it is officially February and someone is going to be turning 5 pretty soon. She is very excited. ( I am a little bit sad at how fast the time has gone.. but excited to see her continue to learn and grow.) She thinks she is going to kindergarten NOW since she will be 5 but i have to keep explaining that it is next school year. Be back soon with a birthday post. :)

Quickutz ROCKS!

Christine won this at the Quickutz booth at CHA today!!! This was the grand prize.. a brand new Silhouette electronic die cutter!!! She was soooo excited and shocked. I am so happy for her.





More good things.. Christine designed this book for Best Creations and they had it on display in their booth. Of course it is near and dear to my heart because it is starring my Sammie!

We had a great time seeing all the new products at the show.

This is an art project I did with Sammie. We had so much fun. She really did most of it. I only cut out some of the tricky shapes like the ribbon scarves, snowman hat, noses, stick arms, dog ears, and I made the fish and fishbowl. Sammie did all the cutting and gluing. It was her idea to make our "snow family" which is why she added the dog and her fish, Belle. Oh, and the horse stickers along the bottom for her "someday horse". The snowpeople/dog are Brad, Sammie Naomi and I.

I just may have a future scrapbooker on my hands.. she enjoys arts and crafts just like I do.

That's all for now. I'll be back soon with more updates!

Hello 2009!

Yes, it is already 2 weeks into 2009 and this is my first post!!! I guess this year started off busy!

Love this photo of "It's a Small World" with all the lights. This was the first time we experienced the "snow" at Disneyland. Sammie had a blast chasing the snowflakes. I love how her scarf was flying in the air and the snow was landing on her hair!

I have been working a lot and cleaning a lot and we just took down our decorations this past weekend.

Sammie has been riding Joey which is her favorite Saturday activity.

My favorite activity is scrapbooking!! Christine, Donna and I got to celebrate birthdays and scrapbook at the Scrappin' Table. It is always so much fun to go to Michelle's store. We had fun catching up and scrappin'. We had yummy chocolate cupcakes too. My friend Jennifer couldn't join us but she made me the most beautiful bracelet. Look here to see a picture of it. It is really special and each charm is something that reminds her of me. Thanks Jenn! You are awesome!

Here are some of my recent pages.

I had some birthday money to spend and this just arrived today!!! YIPPEE! I am so excited.
I haven't had a chance to play with it yet but hopefully I will soon.

I am going to participate in a monthly challenge on tallyscrapper. By the end of the year, I will have a complete scrapbook for 2009. (If I can keep up with it) LOL! I am already behind.

Well, off I go to grade some papers.... not so much fun but a necessity. Bye for now.

Goodbye 2008!

Happy New Year to everyone! Wishing you a wonderful year full of good health and happiness! I am sneaking in one last blog post of the year since I realized I posted more last year than this year!! OOPS! Life just gets busy as we all know!

We have all been on and off sick for the past few weeks. (colds, bronchitis, sniffles, congestion,) It seems to go away and then come back in a new form to another one of us! UGGGHH...
We were on the go so much so now it is time to take it easy and relax a bit.

I have been trying to clean up closets, etc, which is a NEVER ending job!! I was able to take a bunch of bags to goodwill so that made me happy, although I have plenty more to go through and feel like I will never finish!! Maybe little by little this year I can get things cleaned out. We have lived here for 13 years so that's a lot of stuff accumulated over time. Yes, this is one of my goals for 2009, among others but we'll start with this one.. :0)
My fun goal is to scrapbook more.. ( well to organize my stuff better so I can scrapbook more..)

Here are a few layouts I've made:

I can't wait to watch the Rose Parade tomorrow. Sammie and I went with ponyclub to Equestfest in Los Angeles to see the horses that will be in the parade. It was a lot of fun and will be neat to see them on tv. Here are a few pics:

Lots to Celebrate!!!

We just got back from my birthday cruise on Carnival's Elation. We went to Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada, Mexico. We had a wonderful time, tons of fun and mostly great weather. ( It rained in Ensenada) Here are lots of pics and fun things to share!


Life Boat Drill before we set sail from San Diego.
This was Sammie's 2nd cruise and she loved it. Brad and I have cruised lots of times before. My parents came with us to celebrate their anniversary too. Their anniversary is Dec. 17th and my bday is Dec. 18th so we always celebrated together when i was a kid.

Brad ordered this super yummy cake for us and got roses for my mom, Sammie and I. (We couldn't take them off the ship though due to US Customs laws. )

We did so many things on the ship. The shows were great. The kids at Camp Carnival did a holiday show on the last day which was cute. Sammie's group had on reindeer antlers and stood on the stage with all the other kids. At the end, Santa came out and gave all the kids a present. A ruldolph mug, candy cane, and some plastic sunglasses. She was so excited. This is Sammie with the Captain of the ship.

Our first port was Cabo and the weather was warm and beautiful. We didn't do any "shore excursions" and had fun just walking around, shopping, etc. There was a luxury mall with lots of expensive stores and then we went to the beach and Sammie had so much fun there. She didnt' want to leave but we had to. Right when we were walking to the beach, some locals put iguanas on our heads and we took pictures.




It was weird having them all over me but it didn't freak me out.. just made me giggle.

This is us on formal night. Sammie loved being all dressed up like a princess.
She made so many friends and fans on the ship. This is David, a bartender from Jamaica who adored her. He let her sit up on the bar, help him and even let her go behind the bar and play the

piano!!

(

The cruise directors had fun with Sammie too. Jeff, the "fun guy" had her come onstage during bingo and check to make sure all the balls were there. He lifted her up to check and then asked her where she was from and what her name was. She said " Sammie" from Cal-ya-fornia. He gave her a special medal with a picture of the ship and told her it was magic. Every time she lifted it over her head, the crowd would cheer. She kept doing it and everyone yelled SAMMIE!

The rest of the cruise, people recognized her.. "Isn't that the Sammie from bingo?"

The same thing happened at the horse races.. She was jumping all around at the "Carnvial Race Track" Stu, the cruise director chose her to name a horse and she named it Jewel. Her horse took the lead but then lost by one stride in the end. She still had a ball watching and cheering. We bet on Jewel but she didn't win. Brad and I entered the tournaments in the casino. Brad played in the final round of the slot torunament but didn't win. He got a t-shirt though. I made it to the finals in black jack but then got bumped out in the last round. Oh well, at least we tried.

This was a hard birthday for me but being on the ship and celebrating a whole bunch sort of took my mind off it. The boat docked on the 18th but we spent the day at Sea World since we have annual passes. It wasn't crowded so we were able to see lots of the shows and attractions. We ended the day meeting our friends Mark and Tracey and their girls for dinner. Tracey and I share this birthday and were born at almost the exact same time. This is what we got for dessert. It is called a "messy sundae" and it sure was messy. The entire outside of the glass was covered in chocolate and anchored to the plate with chocolate fudge. YUMMERS!!

Sammie's favorite thing to see at Sea World is the Clydesdale horses. They even have one named Sammy.

Here is Shamu jumping up to wish me a happy birthday!! Nothing like a giant whale to wish you well on a giant birthday!! :)

They have a great "pets" show at Sea World and I thought this was quite a funny pic of Sammie. She did the "doggie face" all by herself!!

So the reason I have such a hard time with my "age" is because I don't really want to "grow up". Those of you who know me well know that I do silly things all the time. Here is our 3 generation picture of silliness. My dad, Sammie, and I are the only 3 that can do this in my family.

Not only did we celebrate an anniversary, and a birthday but we also celebrated Hanukkah. We went to my Nana's house for a little party and then on Christmas Eve, we went to my Aunt's house to see my cousins and their kids. Here is Sammie and Jacob, lighting the menorah.

Then on to my inlaws house to celebrate Christmas Eve.

We open presents together on Christmas Eve and then go there for dinner on Christmas day.

Santa was good to us this year. Brad and I got money, and Sammie got horses, pj's, my little pony stuff, littlest pet shop animals, slippers, a sweatshirt, stickers, and lots more.

This morning she woke up and yelled and jumped around because Santa brought her "Snort" also known as "Smores" the pony. She said this is the best day she has ever had. She loves this horse so much and has been on it all day. It moves and responds to her voice, movement, etc. I told her she must have been a very good girl since this is so expensive, but I think Santa is a bargain shopper and got a really good deal on this... just a guess.. :) wink wink.

Brad and I didn't really buy any gifts for each other this year since we just took two huge trips in the last 2 months. We gave each other stuff to wrap. I got a bunch of scrappy stuff and he got some socks, ties, shoes, and shirts. Every year though, he puts lottery tickets in my stocking. I am usually bummed because he spends like $30-$40 and we get back like $11 and then it is sad. Well not this year!!! I was so surprised to scratch this little baby!!!


In case it is too small to see... I WON $100.... that has never happened to me on a lottery ticket. We actually won a total of $121. That was very exciting..

Oh, and on another lucky note, Christine told me to post on Everafter's scrapbooking blog because they were having a prize giveaway. She recently won a bunch of goodies so I posted too and I won a $20.00 gift card to the store..

Maybe 40 is going to be a lucky year for me???

Well, whatever you are celebrating.. I wish you a happy one and a healthy New Year. I do have more to say as usual, but will be back another day.

Bon Voyage!

We're off to a cruise to Cabo San Lucas to celebrate my big birthday that's happening next week!! I'll tell ya all about it when we get back!! Adios amigos!!