TMBG!

Wow, it's been two weeks since I posted! Life's been busy.

Mainly, the Deac went to California for work-related training for nearly two weeks. So life as a solo parent has bogged me down. I also had a lot to do at work, so didn't get online much. The Deac, although he would've preferred not being gone so long, learned a lot at his training and had some fun, too. Several of our friends over the years have ended up in the Bay area, and he was able to get together with all of them during his trip. He also visited a couple of fire stations, which of course he got a kick out of. I sent the point-n-shoot digital camera with him... and he used it. Last Sunday, he called me and said he'd taken a short video at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and decided he didn't want it and went to delete it from the memory card.... you can see where this is going. When it asked if he wanted to delete current frame only or delete all frames, he thought that since it was a video, it was made up of more than one frame.... only that's what the camera calls all its digital images. So, long story short, there are a FEW photos from Monterey Bay and our friends Tom and Shannon in my flickr account. ;-)

By the way - Happy 25th birthday to the Smiley (emoticon) this week! On the same day as that anniversary, we had a little fun around here with National Talk Like a Pirate Day. I am anxiously awaiting the release of the next game in the Munchkin series: Munchkin Booty. Speaking of Munchkin, even with the Deac gone, our group of friends got together a few times to play. Our last game combined three separate game sets - Star Munchkin, Munchkin Fu and Munchkin Bites. It was a lot of fun and, surprisingly, went faster than a regular game of Munchkin!

Last night, the Deac and I went with friends to see one of our favorite groups - They Might Be Giants! They were playing at the Boulder Theatre and the show was AWESOME! Although I might be getting a little old for staying up until 1 am, standing and dancing for hours (I admit it - I'm really tired today and my legs hurt!). At least we decided to be in the non-drinking section, which I think made the show even more enjoyable. We had an excellent view of the stage and were as close as we could be without being in "the pit" - so only about 20 feet or so from the stage and up a little higher so I could see over all those heads! We were so happy to be able to go and in the process, we even found a new and reliable babysitter that the kids love. So, a win-win all around. Unfortunately, the Deac talked me out of taking my camera since most concerts don't allow them (they were actually all around - oh well). I did try to snap a couple of shots with my camera phone, but the resolution is horrible. Here's the best one:
I'm still going to try to scrap it. We also came home with an autographed vinyl record of their new album and a concert t-shirt.

Speaking of scrapping, here are a couple of layouts I made in the last week. Click on the titles here to see credits for Tea Party and Diva. The blue "Diva" one is really just a Quick Page that I added a few elements to and dressed up a bit. I love doing that.
It's nice to have a stash again - I'm slowly re-building it with freebies and goodies around the web these days.

Last, but not least, soccer season is in full-swing. My team of little munchkins had their first game last Saturday. Everyone did a great job - I had at least 3-4 kids out of 5 willing to play the whole time - that's really very good for 3-year-olds! I'm hoping tomorrow's game will go as well. I handed my camera to one of the other Mom's and asked her to take pictures last week. Here's one she captured (that's our team in the red. We were supposed to be blue, but the other team was confused):
Tomorrow will be odd schedule-wise, because Emmelia's game is at 9, and Maura's (the one I will be coaching) isn't until noon. Plus, it's picture day, so we have to be there at 8:30 for Emmelia and stay late after Maura's game. I'm glad the Deac is back so we can split up a little bit! Have a great weekend!

Edited to add - three more layouts I never got around to posting! Wow. Here you go! Feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

Emmelia, using Christine Beasley's new Opulence kit:
Treasured Friends:
Karate, using Doodleboogs' wonderful new Rotten Tomatoes kit (speaking of which - Emmelia has earned SIX stripes now and will be testing for her 2nd belt in another week!):

Back safe

We did make it back safely from our road trip to Sioux City. We took Friday and Tuesday off work and school and made the 10-hour each way trip out to visit our friends who are also Emmelia's Godparents. We had a wonderful time visiting with them for 3 days. We went to the Sioux City Art Splash, liturgy, and the mall. We got a babysitter one night (best idea the Deac's ever had) so we adults could go out for dinner and eat, drink, and be merry without constant interruption or meltdowns. It was bliss. We watched a really good movie called Everything Is Illuminated. We cooked out for Labor Day and ate well the entire time, thanks to the culinary genius of Emmelia's Godmother. The Deac got a cool Romanian hat to wear with his cassock and jibbee. Here is Maura modeling it (she looks good in black - I think the nun's habit will agree with her):

On the way back, we stopped at not one, but TWO Cabela's stores. Oh, a funny story on the way there... as we were driving between Omaha and Sioux City, a crane suddenly flew up from under a bridge and nearly collided with our windshield. We were seriously frightened for our lives for a second, before lapsing into exclamations of "Wow - was that a CRANE? How cool!". As we turned the bend in the road, there was a giant billboard in a field that read "Prepare to Meet Thy God." Ha, ha, ha! Maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty funny.

So this week we've been trying to catch up on sleep, get back into our routine and launch ourselves into fall. Emmelia got another stripe at karate and is only 2 stripes away from being able to test for her yellow striped (white stripe on yellow) belt. She is doing really, really well with violin and soccer, too. She's really matured in the past year.

Yesterday was our first practice for Maura's soccer team. I was very apprehensive all day, but it turned out well. The kids are a lot of fun and listen surprisingly well for 3-year-olds. I though their attention spans for games and drills would be about 4-5 minutes, but I was wrong - it was more like 3 minutes. But that's okay. We played lots of games with the ball, including Simon Says, Red Light Green Light, and Feed the Dragons. We have one more practice and then we'll have our first game! Emmelia's first game is tomorrow morning. Suddenly, I find myself a soccer mom minus the minivan....

Anyway, I think I would've gotten more done this week if I hadn't discovered Facebook. If you are on there and want to friend me, send me an e-mail.

I did manage to scrap today. I need to scrap for Amy and Seebee's CTs, but am not sure I'll have time to do another LO today. I just really HAD to scrap this photo with this kit, if you know what I mean. Here's credits for Dinosaur Rest Stop:
Today I read that one of my favorite authors of all time has died: Madeleine L'Engle. I have always loved her books and her way of looking at the world, both physical and spiritual. May her memory be eternal! She died on the 20th anniversary of my baptism. That somehow seems significant, as does the fact that the book I am now reading the kids at bedtime is "A Wrinkle in Time". She really was an awesome author.