Flyboys

My boys, my boys, and one little girl . . .

They may be off and living on their own, and some of this is just old memories coming up from the past, but I do love them. Think of them and wish I saw more of them.

My first flyboy is headed back out to work tonight after almost 6 months off work following an unfortunate back breaking accident. The accident, yes, from flying--not airline flying, (which is what he is finally headed back out to do) but a paragliding accident.



This one knew from the age of 2 he wanted to fly. I thought he might have forgotten during the elementary years, but then came Jr. High Career Day--
First career on his list: Get married (I know--how funny is that!)
Second thing on his list: Pilot.


The second flyboy, is still doing just fine, still working the Cloud9 shop and launching paragliders whenever the weather permits. He wasn't flying today -- or, well, unless you consider flying downhill (along with a few other tumbling incidents) as flying.



In Justin's defense, it was a heavy spring rain/snow day (you can see that the weather wasn't the best) and he really did do some great spins that I took as well, it's just this one keeps cracking me up. And, it was the first video I captured of the day. Great way to start.

(Lex is the one in purple. This is her first year of actual skiing and snowboarding.)

Yes, we like to have some good old family fun.

Yahoo... some family pictures!

It's only been over 2 1/2 years.

...and one of just the kids

...and in the middle of it all - a vacation

Oregon

Peace

Amy, Lex & Brian / Ecola Beach

Thai

Brian & Jason playing Frisbee, me in the middle and Lex in the front /  Seaside Beach

Young Love - Jason & Thai / Ecola Beach

Father and Son, Jason and Brian / Gearhart

Cleaning up...

Whatever do you do with OLD pages that you just never quite finished...

And when I say old, I'm talking at least 5 to 10 years since I started them. Hey, there weren't any such thing as rub-ons, bling or glitter paper back when I did some of these.

With the ever useful-can't-waste-a-single-thing attitude that I inherited from my Depression Era grandparents I've decided I need to match up some of those half-finished pages with photos that have been sitting oh-so-lonely-and-unappreciated in my files - and here they are:








Of COURSE I had to add a little to them, play with them and in general just spiff them up enough to pass the mustard. I don't think they'll make my 'Cream of the Crop' list, but hey, they are done, they are in albums and I've got a few less projects in my to-do stack.

..and one that I never quite liked and had to change up a bit...



Sheesh - this has made me want to create some NEW pages, something up-to-date-less-embarrassing-and-a-little-bit-more-hip!

Crossing my fingers...

I am HOPING that my computer is finally FIXED!

I've been having such troubles since I got a new system and moved to Windows Vista - sheesh!

My computer has been in the shop more than it's been home lately. Talk about crippling! And I thought that ankle surgery was bad! LOL!

So, look foward to some updates here! I'm off to get pictures all set to upload today - I did a Mother's Day mini album done that's kind of a cool idea,

stay tuned...

Okay, before I get the album up (I'll start a new post for that) here are some photos...

My garden! Jason was so wonderful, within 3 hours of us bringing home the boards and supplies he had made my garden boxes! AND... it was in between rain storms! How easy it would have been to just say 'it's raining, let's wait', but no, not my for my boy, he just gets to work and keeps on working until it's done. Way to go Jason!



Lex had to pose too..


... I've got photos of Lex at her Spring School Program, but those are going on her blog :)

I'm getting on a Jet Plane...

And I'm leaving....

Yahoo!

Lex & I are packing our bags and heading out EAST in just a few days!!!!

Yep, we are goin' on a trip to the beautiful, green, and - oh so different than Utah - Eastern USA!
From Washington, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York & Connecticut, with a possible side-trip to Jersey :) We are going to take Lex's spring break vacation and really go on a vacation :) how's that for something to keep us busy while that DH is off doing the military thing?

Actually, that's the side-trip to Jersey, if he gets a free moment in from the FOB, we might be able to see each other. Not pinning our hopes on that one though.

In any case, we're planning all kinds of sight seeing - I've not been to DC since just before my dad left for a year for the Vietnam war. Needless to say, I was a bit younger than I am now.

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to seeing my sisters and their families, my scrapping friends - wahoo! - and just taking my sweet ol' time playing and NOT working!

I'll be online, my new phone has Internet, but I can't really say how often I'll be able to post.

So, today, it's packing, laundry, cleaning (got to make it easy for Thai & Amber - Jason too, if he wants ;) LOL - to come play with all my supplies while I'm away - there's got to be SOME reward for house-sitting) and putting together a travEl JourNal to take along with me :)

...watch here, I'll post a photo ...

Oh, before I go!

Take a look at these FAB photos from last night - yep, we PART-AYED! My dear friend threw a Prom-themed Birthday party for her awesome DH and, I tell ya, it was AWES!

Jason & Thai


Lex, doing what she did ALL night, asking every man to 'dance' with her - it's those eyes, and that face - she can get them to do almost anything for her.


And.. after all that - time to go home...


NIGHT ALL!

Rule #1

Amy's Scrapbooking Rules


- wait a minute, did I just say RULES??? In the creative arena are there are supposed to be rules???


Rule #1 - There are no rules


Example:

Many people think that it's a rule that you HAVE to scrap Lignin and Acid free.

Now HOW can anyone think that a scrapbook - a major portion of which is PAPER - can possibly be saved for ever and ever and ever?

If you save your negatives, if you archive your digital files, if you do all you can to safely keep all the original photos, then why does it matter if you have to reprint the photo sometime in the future?

And, lastly, just think how LIMITING it is to eliminate all the found items that come into your life, just because they might be acidic or heaven forbid, have lignin? Do you even remember what lignin is? I've forgotten.

Let's put it this way... If I worried about acid & lignin I would have never created this:



Or this



Or even this



How about you? Is there anything you would not have created? Leave me a post - or, just so we can all see it, upload on IL2C's gallery :)

Let's Hear it for the Boy

How many of you have old photos that really really suck? Sorry for the language. But, seriously now, how many?

I have a LOT. Back in the 80's and early 90's I THOUGHT I was taking a lot of photos, at one roll per month! HA! Can you imagine only taking 24 to 36 photos a month?

Well, with 'old style' (35MM) photography you don't know what your photos are going to look like until you get them back. I was happy if I got ONE great photo a roll! That equals ONE photo per month.

So what do I do with all the non-great pictures? I have them, I have the negatives, I've tried to have them scanned to digital, but technology isn't quite advanced enough to get the perfect results I want. I'm still waiting on affordable high quality negative scanning.

So, in the meantime, I'm stuck. I have crappy photos and they are the ONLY photos I have of my boys. This is the challenge:

How do I create a Layout that uses old not-very-good photos and still create a page that I would be proud of hanging on the wall?

So, take a look, this is my first try:



BTW, there is more to the story on this page - My oldest boy, told me he wanted to be a pilot when he was 2. Yes, as soon as he could talk. Well, now he is on the verge of graduating from flight school. This page is in honor of his determination.

Surprise!

I think I'm going to have to get used to this from now on...

I got a call in the late afternoon yesterday, it was my oldest boy (the pilot)


saying he was thinking of hopping a flight and heading home for the weekend! HOORAY!!!!!! I've not seen Jason since last August - so this is awesome!

Of course this puts a major crimp on my plans for the weekend, but honestly, as much as I love you all here, I have to say that I was thrilled to make that change in plans - after all, why do we scrapbook, if not to record those precious memories we create with our family. Not much to scrap if I don't live a life worthy of scrapping.

I'm using DH's internet connection and for some reason it's having a real hard time uploading I've uploaded only 3 photos and it's taken 90 minutes! ERgH!

Editing and Adding to Photos

I don't know about you, but I just LOVE doing something a little different!

I've played with this before, but I've yet to run into someone else who does this same thing (I'm SURE there are people out there, maybe I just need to take the time to read the descriptions instead of just looking at the photos), please let me know I'm not alone out there!

Anyway, back to the subject (don't get me going off-track, I tend to get carried away easily) ack! BACK TO THE SUBJECT AMY! Focus!!!

Alrighty now, the REASON for this little jaunt into verbosity today:

I love adding text boxes and other little doodlebits onto my photos before I print them! It's like using a white pen without the worry about messing up the whole picture with one wrong swoop! Just bring up the photo in a fairly decent photo processing program (I used Microsoft Digital Image) and add away! In this photo I added dot2dot font text and doodlebats swoop/dotty things (yes, I bought a few series of doodlebats last week - awesome stuff!) from ScrapNFonts.



What do you think? I know, ignore the fuzzy photography please. It's a 20 year old photo of my oldest boy that I had to zoom in on and I don't have access to the original negative until I unpack my house, but I've been wanting to challenge myself to use not-so-perfect photos in a way that I will still fall in love with the finished project - whew, take a breath and SLOW down Amy! LOL! Sorry, I tend to get a little excited!

Tuesday, it's TUESDAY!

Okay, so Tuesday is not a terrible day, it is certainly better than Monday. But it is not yet Wednesday.

I'm just cranky from staying up until 2:00am on a work night to SCRAPBOOK!!

On the other hand, I do love the page I did. I can't post it yet, as I am waiting on photos and I think I might use it as a graduation (pilot school) gift for my son - can't have him seeing it first ya know!

Jason, my oldest

Oh, tomorrow - guess what we are doing!

It will be Lexy's Kindergarten Physical at the Doctors!

She doesn't know it yet. I'm not sure if she will be apprehensive about there being shots or excited because it has to do with Kindergarten. Oh, and they want a speciman sample?! What do I use to collect it? How do I know it's sterile? I don't have a dishwasher. Maybe I can use Hydrogen Peroxide (no rubbing alcohol either)and wash it really hot. I don't even have containers though! I was only supposed to be out of a house for a few months, not over a year - everthing is in storage.

...to be continued