Campin' and Scrappin'

We had a great time camping this weekend. We drove up the Poudre canyon just west of Fort Collins until we got to State Forest State Park near Gould. I've lived in Colorado all my life and never been to this part of the state. It was so beautiful, I'm sure we'll go back again sometime. Our campsite was near North Michigan reservoir and we couldn't tell from the website if it would be a smallish reservoir or a big concrete/rock monstrosity. So, we were REALLY kicking ourselves when we got up there after deciding to leave the kayak home for this trip. It would've been *perfect* for kayaking. Sigh. Here's a photo I took from the shore. Those mountains in the back are actually in Rocky Mountain National Park.
In general, we enjoyed camping with the kids, but found it to be a much different experience than camping without them. For one thing, everytime we would start to sit down and enjoy the scenery, *someone* would be needing a potty break or having some other sort of kid-typical crisis. But that's okay. The kids enjoyed themselves, did GREAT the entire time (even on the long drive home - we decided to take the scenic route through Wyoming) and no one got hurt or eaten by bears. I was happy to have a chance this week to scrap our experience (credits here):
We were only out for one night and came home pretty exhausted. For our next trip, we *must* remember pillows and extra blankets or sleeping bags. It got pretty cold up there at 10,000 feet overnight.

On Sunday after liturgy we decided to stop by the Orthodox Food Festival at Holy Transfiguration Cathedral in Denver. We all had a wonderful time catching up with old friends and eating delicious Romanian food while watching ethnic dancers and musicians. The girls got their face painted, played games to win prizes, had balloon animals made and in general had a terrific time. I bought myself a hand-painted enamel pendant from Russia - sort of like this one (only prettier). Then we had friends over for dinner. All-in-all, a fun weekend.

I also completed two other layouts this week, deciding to get my CT duties out of the way at the beginning since I've been itching to scrap for so long. There is this one about an evening spent with a good friend of ours and his girlfriend:
And this one of Emmelia's adventures at soccer camp last week. I didn't feel that either of these layouts really required a lot of journaling, so I just stuck with the basic photos and elements. I spent some time playing with blending modes for the backgrounds of each of them. Click on the links to see credits for Dancing and Soccer Camp.