Copics, anyone?

Having a heck of a time uploading pix from blogger tonight! I'll keep trying!
Oh, and if you want some copics, check out this great blog candy!!

We are state champions!

I'm off to church, but I wanted to let you know.....by the grace of God, WE ARE STATE CHAMPIONS!

Well co-champions actually. Our girls played (and we cheered) for 3 hours in pouring rain to end 4 overtimes with a 0-0 tie. Thank the Good Lord they have done away with the final "shoot out", so we were declared State Co Champions with Marathon school....which is to say we have two state champions! I told the girls that they are heroes for playing soccer for that long soaking wet! The pouring rains never let up...but they were troopers! We finally got home last night at 11 pm.

The County sheriffs escorted our girls' bus from the expressway exit with sirens and lights to the school (about 15 milies) and the surrounding towns' fire trucks joined the escort from the town line to the school (about 5 miles). It was so sparkly and bright! At the school, they had fireworks and of course all the parents and community members clapping like crazy! It was a three hour ride from the championship site to home and we all rushed to get to the school before the bus (safely in the fog and rain, of course!) It was a great weekend and a tiring night, but all is good!!!

Pictures later!!
O Happy Day!

It's the people who really make it special

The cruise was really nice...being waited on, sitting around on deck, food 24/7, sunny and warm temps, gorgeous landscape and of course all the WONDERFUL stamping opportunities...but if not for the people I met and hung out with? No chance of living one of life's greatest memories. Here's a final salute to those who made my vacation so very wonderful! And to new friends, some of which will be in my life from now on--I just know it! ;) Here's me and Mo one more time :)

Then our wonderful hostesses, Gina, Nichole and Emily and Nicky (did I mention my great love and respect for these independent wonderful women??)

Then there was our amazing and sweet as can be waitress, Imelda who did a different trick or two at dinner time to entertain us (her giggle at her own jokes is what made us laugh so hard!) and our host for our Mexican Cuisine class, Chef Luis who promised to "light our fire" when we asked...and along with him, the "partners" we shared our griddle with in the class, Russ and Doreen. It was such a fun time on that beach in Cozumel!!

And then there were our nightly dinner buddies, whom we were honored to call friends by the second evening. What fun it was to review the thrills and excitement of our daily adventures! I think that has been the biggest adjustment back to real life: not seeing these ladies every day! A big shout out to {back row} Pam, Barbara, {front}Cara and Carol!!And finally a grand salute to two of my new BFF's...{that means "Best Friends Forever"}, Jolene and Danielle. We met these wonderful souls in the hotel we stayed in Saturday before setting sail and we were blessed to connect with them every day of the trip. These new friends are more than special :) Love you girls!

Trying to stay in the Carribbean as long as possible...

Finally, some of the sights of my cruise....some are labeled, some not :) Here are the carvings and swan ice sculture that awaited our welcome luncheon. It's all food :) And the ice serpent on the last day at sea.

Port Canaveral from the ship (above) and as we sailed away (below). Also some pictures from the safety drill we had to do before leaving port.

And some deck pictures including the "exercise deck" (Deck 12) and my perfect view from the deck chair on deck 11.

And then there were the dining room (s). I say it that way, because it was actually a THREE LEVEL dining room. We were in "Top Hat and Tails" the middle level room, but above us was the "Sound of Music" with these beautiful scultures and mural on the stairs. So wonderful!

Here's the promenade where all the shops were and where we had to cross at times to get to the back of the ship from our room in the forward section!
And although we saw most of the Shows on board, I only took pictures of the ice show. The show's theme was Under the big top, so here are some of the Circus performers :)

And here are some of our projects made with the stamp sets especially designed for our cruise adventures. Bellas are in back, PTI is on the lower left and Gina K on the lower right.

More pictures to come, but as I said...I want the cruise to last as long as humanly possible; especially with snow falling outside :)

Happy week!

Some favorites and HERE WE GO AGAIN!

Hi all! I know you have patiently been waiting for my cruise pix....we due to technical difficulties at Wally World...the CD's I need to show you pix of my adventures is taking a few days longer...but no worries! I can show you my favorite projects we did! The 3 companies prepared almost 40 projects for us to do while we were cruising...I really don't think I can show them all, although I may throw in a few here and there now and then...but I wanted to show you some of my very favorites.

This first one was a "satchel" project we did with Gina K's stamps. We used a scor pal to score the two pieces of DP we glued together, scored then folded. The cards were simple layered notecards. We colored a bit of the flowers to coordinate with the paper and voila! I did not yet color the last two cards. The flap on the satchel closes with a button magnet that Gina K sells! It was fun to make and so pretty! :)

This set was designed by Nichole Heady of Papertreyink. She is all about the simple and elegant. We used her Floral Frenzy set and the wonderful Kraft cardstock she sells. It was definitely more complicated a project, but not hard. Just lots of steps, which she walked us through beautifully. We also used her Polka Dot Basics set. I don't have either of these stamp sets, but now they are on my Christmas wish list! The little purse holds the cards and the folder has a note pad in it. How adorable is this set!?

This little set was designed by stamping bella's Nicky and she is such a sweetheart! The box was already punched and scored and we just put it together and layered on the flower. Then we made these little adorable cards using Stamping bella stamps...they were all simple and fun to make. The cards go in their little cellophane envelopes and fit in the box. Adorable, yes?

The images from Gina K and Stamping Bella were all included in our goody bag! Oh and did I mention they also gave us a score pal?! Scor pal donated one to EVERY ONE ON THE STAMPING CRUISE! How wonderful it was to get my own!!

My girl is #14.
Now, for some really really exciting news!! We have been going to games and games and games of soccer...our girls' team won their division, their class and their regional game and now

My daughter's team is once again GOING TO THE STATE SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIPS!!! WOO HOO!!!

We have been there 3 of 4 years, going to the final game twice before and winning it all once, two years ago. What a joy to be able to experience this with our Danish daughter too, as she is playing on the team as well. God is so so GOOD!

It's gonna be quite a week!

Enjoy yours! Off to church!

Be blessed!

A winner! and Home again from an Incredible adventure!!

Hi all!

First, I want to congratulate Doris on being the closest guess to how many pieces of "stuff" was in my kit for my travel book....the answer was 122 (all those brads!) and her guess was the highest at 65! Email me with your address in Poland, Doris and you will be receiving a Gina K stamp set and acrylic block, both part of my goodie bag!

I will post the pictures of all my stuff, projects and fun when I get my pictures back from processing...

Yes, I said processing. Well, Kim Marie, why didn't you use your digital camera, you ask....well........that's a different post in itself.....

I do have a few cruise pictures to post, though, sent to me by my new friend Pam, who was one of my delightful dinner companions and stampers that I met during one of the best things I have ever done in my life! This is Maureen and I at dinner one night. Maureen is the friend I went with on the boat. She was not even close to being called a hobby stamper...she enjoys the fellowship of stamping, but was just content to watch other's enjoy the craft. Now, I have to say, she is quite sold on the whole thing!

And here are Maureen, me and Barbara, another dinner table friend....why we even ate breakfast together! This pic was snapped by Pam as well...she had come in from taking pix of the sunrise...we are sitting in the Windjammer restaurant...a 24/7 food fest! Isn't the sea scene just so lovely??

The best part of the cruise was meeting kindred spirits...here are the women we spent time with every evening.....sweet, wonderful woman of strength, creativity and fun! Here are Cara and Carol in the pink and black, and Pam and Barbara in the suit and dark top

Makes you think all we did was eat on this ship, huh? Ha! More info to follow...I promise!

Next post, I hope to share some pix with some new BFF's of mine....and some superstars :)

Love you all!

PS My girl's team is once again going to the state playoffs....omigosh...so exciting! Pray for us! No injuries!! :) Game is Tuesday night!