In the Storm

stories 2015 | roots.

roots.

Saturday's were all about cartoons when I was growing up, even into high school until I got my first job (working in a popular local card and gift shop). On Saturday's we would have to clean the house, which included dusting the living room furniture. With cartoons playing 'in the background' I can remember taking quite a long time getting the furniture dusted then quickly vacuuming during the commercials. I also remember my dad coming home from working a shorter day on Saturdays and him not being too happy that we'd not gotten everything done around the house -- typical kid -- taking as much time as they can to do something else. In my case, watch Saturday morning cartoons. As I look at my kids over the years, they've inherited the same, or at least similar attitudes towards housework, although I don't let them watch television until the work is done. (But, now that I think about it. When John and Jarrod are doing dishes they can be found chatting or listening to music more often than not, taking as much time to get dishes done so they too can do something else. Nuts!)

My favorite Saturday morning cartoons were definitely Superfriends and all the cast and characters of Bugs Bunny and Friends, from the Road Runner, Sylvester and Tweetie, to Peppi Le Pew and Elmer Fudd - all the Looney Toons. Frankly, I still love all the old Saturday morning cartoons and wish School House Rock was the same today as it was in the yesterday's of the 70's.

stories 2015 | whitewater rafting high adventure.

These are the very times I love that I'm a minimalist scrapbooker. When I have amazing photos like this series of Jeff, John, and Jarrod whitewater rafting on the Ocoee River. John is "riding the bull", the center 'seat' of the front end of the raft with his legs hanging over the outside of the raft, and hanging on for dear life. I laid out the 2-page spread with the photos in order left to right across both pages on top continuing left to right across both pages in the middle. I intentionally laid it out this way because this series of photos is amazing with their raft hitting the waves crests and troughs. And sometimes...sometimes only their guide can be seen, while the rest of the raft is tucked under a wave of water - so intense and exhilarating and I wasn't even there to experience. Just giddy imagining the amazing fun and wild ride!

Here are the 2-pages apart:

stories 2015 | life adventures.

While it was expensive, I cannot say enough how thrilled, and grateful I am that we could afford photos from Jeff, John, and Jarrod's whitewater adventures. It has been so much fun putting together scrapbook pages of memories with photos such as this one of John in a Yak on the white waters of the Tuskaseegee River. The waves were crashing hard, water was moving fast, and it was definitely a chilling (pun intended) experience. One John will remember a lifetime.

For this page I let the photo be the center of attention as the 12 x 12 photo enlargement plus journaling along the edges. On the right side I used various elements from various Ali Edwards Story kits, which I am a subscriber.

 

stories 2015 | go.

One of my most favorite pages ever - Jeff and Jarrod on the Tuskaseegee River, in North Carolina. During their white water rafting trip they road three rivers in three different states. Just an awesome trip for them.

stories 2015 | adventure.

When Jeff and the boys came home from their whitewater rafting trip with NO pictures. I mean, we knew we weren't going to get any photos, but, man, I was bummed. But, we found three different photography sites that took river photos and they captured some amazing photos of them on three different rivers.

Over the next few days I'm planning on scrapping and posting page after page of my guys, the white waters of the Ocoee, the Tuskaseegee, and the Natahala Rivers, and a week-long adventure of a lift time!

This one highlights the bravery of John as he 'rides the bull'.

stories 2015 | 10 current little favorites.

I have been putting pages together regularly for our Stories 2015 album. Using, mostly, Ali Edwards' Story kits which I subscribe to; the digital version. I have also been trying to tell some of my story within these pages. This is one of those pages. I took a journal prompt and turned it into a scrapbook page.

I really like how this one turned out.

And I just realized right now I didn't even date this page. Need to fix that before I send it to print. Speaking of print...my plan is to upload a bunch of recent scrapbook pages to Persnickety Prints this weekend and place an order.

 

stories 2015 | spiritual roots

The boys and I headed to Greenville, South Carolina on Friday, the 10th for, drumroll please - a Beth Moore conference. Yep, you heard right! John, Jarrod, and I attended a Beth Moore conference. Months ago I asked the boys, since we've been working through multiple Bible studies by Beth Moore, if they wanted to go along with me and they jumped at the chance.

I purchased tickets, got us a nice hotel room close to the Bon Secours arena and anxiously waited for July to roll around and our short little road trip to arrive. I made sure we got there early enough that we were not rushed in the least and the boys were their typical easy-going sons that they always are. We had some time before check in so we found a yummy pizza place at the recommendation of the hotel desk clerk and she was on point. The pizza was fantastic!

We headed for the Friday evening session with plenty of time to spare. We were blessed to find a parking space right across the street which also offered a pass for the Saturday morning session too. Score!

John and Jarrod were about 2 of 20 men attending the 11,000 women strong Beth Moore conference and they handled it with guy-style and aplomb. My boys just rock! A fantastic conference, hanging with my two gentle-giant man-teens, just all around great time.

I won't even talk about the drive home. It was too painful. I'm serious. People cannot drive!!! Oh, don't get me started.

stories 2015 | museum of aviation

 

stories 2015  |  museum of aviation

Troop 7, our Boy Scout troop extraordinaire, set up a 'go see it' as we used to call it when John and Jarrod were in Cub Scouts, a Saturday day trip to Robins Air Force Base in Macon, Georgia, but, in particular, the Museum of Aviation. Jeff, the boys and I rode together in a convoy with the other families and scouts going and enjoyed a day at the museum. John set off for the day with a group of other scouts and Jeff, Jarrod and I hung together as we visited 'hangar' after 'hangar' of the aviation museum from the history of aviation when the Air Force was still the Air Corp forward to the latest and greatest technologies of today, and even Special Operations Air Force aviation (which Jeff enjoyed). Jarrod climbed into any display allowed for a photo op; my favorite: the ejection seat display with long ago memories of my own ejection seat training. He was also very intrigued and moved by the POW/MIA memorial within the inner circle of the various museum hangars. I was amazed at the plethora of model airplanes on display of each and every inventoried Air Force aircraft. Literally, hundreds and hundreds of aircraft have been built and utilized for one purpose or another, some more successful than others.

Thoroughly enjoyed this unique blend of of Air Force aviation history.  

stories 2015 | go. see. escape.

When I saw Ali Edwards most recent Story Kit, GO, and a scrapbook page she made with her products I knew immediately I would be scrap lifting her idea. It just rocks!

I wanted a fairly simple page showcasing the sunrise photos of our time at the beach but it is the story behind the beach trip - my story - that I told. Sure, there are more pieces to the whole, but this is one of those pieces.

The sun rising out at Tybee Island and me there - well - let's just say I needed it desperately. So glad we went and I love my page.

stories of 2015 | wander here.

During our anniversary weekend to Charleston we hopped on a bicycle taxi, we'd never done this before, and the driver road us out to Battery Park, leaving us his business card in case we needed a ride back to the bustling life of the historic district, where we'd be having lunch later. We walked the waterfront and took a leisurely, and I mean leisurely, stroll through the park, finding an empty bench where we could see much of the park and watching the people, one of our most favorite past times. We did decide to walk back on our own without calling the bike taxi and we were just to the point of hungry when we made our way back into 'town'.