Celebrating the 4th and year #23!!!

Boy was it HOT here on the 4th, but that didn't stop us from our usual celebrations.  I had hoped that we could skip the parade this year, but Hope (and friends) wanted to walk in the parade with our church VBS float.  SO...we went to the parade.  LOL!

Hope is up by the red truck pulling the float, looking back at Joe.

Look at this group!!!

Ally was walking in the parade with her gymnastics team, so Mom, Dawn and Annie joined us at the parade.  Ally is on the left doing some kind of tumble that I would never have been able to do in my life.  LOL!

We actually scored a pretty sweet spot in the shade, since we didn't have to sit right on the edge of the street to get CANDY!!!!  LOL!

Then we all went back to Dawn's for some grilled goodies and a dip in her swim spa pool.

On Saturday I was enjoying my favorite relaxing ritual of sleeping in and then enjoying my coffee on our front porch with my fountain on.  Last weekend, the chipmunks were tormenting Taylor by running back and forth.  Here she was trying to track them down, but just didn't have any luck...Whew!

And of course...Joe and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary.  That was a HOT day as well (23 years ago).  :)

We went to church, had lunch at home and then we drove to Winterset to have a few drinks at The Winterset Cidery.  They brew handcrafted hard ciders...and they are tasty!  If you get a chance, you should try it out sometime.  They do have a few beers on tap too, but the focus is on the ciders.

It is also kid friendly; however, they do not have any nonalcoholic beverages, so plan accordingly.  We stopped and got Hope a drink at Hy-Vee on our way.  She loved playing with the owner's puppy...named Lucy.

Later, we went to Joe's Crab Shack and ate on the patio so we could listen to the live music playing by the lake.  It was a great day!

So in honor of LOVE, weddings and Anniversary celebrations...here are some crafty projects to share those joys!

Until next time...

Darla

Check it out!

Ok, I am a little late in promoting this, but it is never too late to share inspiration!

It had been a long time since I had submitted any of my craft projects for publication, but last spring I sent in some layouts for consideration and one was picked up for a magazine.

Here is my page as it is shown in the magazine:

If you want to check out the issue on-line, here is a link to the summer issue (page 67)

  https://scrapbookandcards.com/summer-2018

So, let's see what else has been going on that I haven't shared yet???

Joe and I took a trip to Myrtle Beach...

It was for a business trip for Joe and I just tagged along.  At the end of the trade show, the attendees could choose to go golfing or deep sea fishing and spouses could go too!  (read that last part in a sarcastic voice).  You will understand why later...

Joe had some luck fishing...he even caught a shark!  I did catch a fish early on when we were trolling, but by the time we got to the deep fishing I was, well, busy feeding the fish.  At least I wasn't alone, there were two other guys "feeding the fish" too.  That was after I took 2 Dramamine and a lady gave me a set of Sea Bands to wear and I still got sick.  Well, I can say I have done it now and NEVER have to do it again.  LOL!

Luckily, as soon as I stepped off the boat I was fine and ready to eat some lunch!

Then, Hope went to music camp...on Thursday of camp, they have a contest to dress up in orange.  The craziest costume for boy/girl wins the title of Orange Prince/Princess!

Out of 400 kids, Hope won the title of Orange Princess.  We didn't get a picture of her, but this picture was posted by the camp of her during her showchoir class.  She is the one in the middle in the orange wig!

I had dinner with several of my Alpha Delta Pi sisters!  It was great catching up and we definitely need to do it more often.

Thanks for the pep talk, from all the other title holders of "the worst mom in the world".  LOL!

And finally, we met up with family and friends for some fun at Adventureland last weekend!  It was HOT, but the water park was the perfect place to be!

This was Joe and Hope on the sky glider (before he lost his sunglasses off his head).  On our way back to the front of the park, we saw where they fell off, but no way to retrieve them.  Oh well.  

Towards the end of the day Hope was ready to ride some rides, so we took Kenton with us to have some fun!

Hope snuck her way on this ride, since she was a little too tall to ride it, but the lady didn't say anything to her.

And now, let's see a few creative shares (that is what I do with the rest of my time, or at least some of it)...

Father's Day was a few weeks ago...here are a few cards celebrating DAD!

And then, here are the rest of the Disney cruise layouts I finally got around to making several years AFTER our trip.  I had to stop collecting papers and embellishments and start using them!

While I had a lot of Disney themed papers and embellishments, I didn't want to use something on a page and then realize that I wanted to use it on another page.  So I sketched out each layout and planned what papers and embellishments I wanted to use on each page before I started to actually put them together.

 As you can see, I used a lot of different sized photos.  As I planned out my pages, I would pull up the pictures on my phone and make a photo collage on the Project Life Ap so I could print several photos all on a single 4x6 picture.  I was able to include a LOT more photos this way and get more creative with my layout designs then if I had just used a 4x6 photo for each image.

I had planned to actually use a sewing machine to make the stiched background, but I ended up just doing a faux stitching technique.  I hand drew the mickey ears and use a poker to make all the holes.  Then I moved the template slightly and made the holes again.  And repeated for a third one.  Then I used a thin tip black marker and connected all the dots to make it look like stitching.  No machine required.

AND I definitely had to capture the story below...

I shared this layout a while ago, but it was part of this trip, so though I would include it in this post as well.

The last page was a postcard we received in our room.  I thought it was cute of both characters and wanted to include it.

And that my friends is IT for today!  If you made it this far, then I wish you a happy 4th of July!  Celebrate safe!!!

Darla