Harry Potter is in the House

Here's my layout on the recent Harry Potter release. I hope you all enjoyed reading it! I know I did. I'm going back and reading the older ones and I'm on Goblet of Fire right now. I love going back and tying in all the pieces after reading to the end! (I also love using this old Paper Loft paper with the book spines on it. I really do still love most of the old scrapbooking supplies I have. And it's fun to find something old and use it on a page!)



Here's the text of the journaling:

In July 2007, the final “Harry Potter” book came out. It was quite the to-do, with midnight parties and people reading into the wee hours of the morning. Charlie went out and bought the book on Saturday afternoon at 1pm. He finished at about 2am. I had started reading the previous book early that day, so when I got up on Sunday I was able to start “HP and the Deathly Hallows”. I finished at about 11pm.
I didn’t get into Harry Potter until I listened to the first book on tape. Then I was hooked! I finally started reading them when I was on a business trip to Singapore. I was in the hotel all weekend alone, so I bought the first and finished it, then the second, then the third! When I went back to Singapore a year later I was able to get the fourth book, but I still want to get the matching set (meaning I have to get the last three there). I like that I have the “British” version of the books. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to complete the set, but I certainly wasn’t going to wait for that to finish reading them!

Some Scrapbook Layouts

Goodness, I haven't posted in over a week. Let's see...

Margaret lost tooth #2. The tooth fairy brought her a dollar coin. She was disappointed that she only got one quarter...had never seen a dollar coin before.

We have been at the pool a lot. The wading pool. That's good enough for the girls and it is close.

I finally did a few more layouts. It's been a while since I've posted any. Those of you who go to Tally Scrapper have seen these...but for my other readers...here they are!

Camp Like a Girl

That's the theme for Girl Scout camp this summer. I got a great T-shirt. Amelia and I just got back from Camp. It was nice. Amelia loved hiking. She hated the beds. I hated the beds, too.

Of course we did S'mores and Pudgie Pies. Mmmmm.

Ghost stories were told.

My main disappointment was no singing around the campfire. Darn. How can it be camp without that?


I'm tired. Two nights of sleeping on camp cots is not refreshing. But I did have so much fun watching Amelia explore camp and camp life. Looking forward to sleeping in my Serta Pillow Top bed. (With a bathroom in the house) Sounds dreamy.

A lovely weekend

We all had such a lovely weekend. We drove over to Merrill, Wisconsin on Friday afternoon. (About 20 minutes north of Wausau, if that helps you). We stayed in a hotel with a really nice pool and hot tub. In all, we spent about 3 or 3-1/2 hours in the pool this past weekend. The girls are not big on putting their faces in the water. But Amelia finally figured out how to "swim". Yep. It's classic dog paddle, arms and legs flailing with head held above water. But she figured it out. And she was sooo proud of herself (as she should be) I heard "Mommy, look at me!" more than 100 times this weekend. The girls both did a maneuver called the "flying squirrel", which was basically pushinng off the steps in the pool into the water. I pretended to be a dolphin (and they would be baby dolphins and I would give them rides) or a whale (and I would jump up and make big splashes). Both moves would be met with claps and glee and asking for more. Even with just the pool experience it would have been great.

But the reason we drove four hours was not to go to a pool... it was to go to a family reunion. This is an upbeat, fun, organized family. We had a horseshoe tournament (my cousin Todd and I won) a water balloon toss, a pinata, a craft (glue tissue paper on glass votives), a campfire with lots of singing, and lots of motorboat rides with tubing and skiing. It was cold there on Saturday (I'd say low 60s with a 20 mph wind off the lake), but that just meant we sat up near the cabin and talked more. I got to spend more time with family. Very nice.

Margaret went tubing with 3 other 6-7 year old girls. Cute factor off the scale!!!

The girls are 1st or 2nd cousins and they really had a blast playing all weekend. Margaret especially enjoyed playing with Madeline, my cousin Kathy's daughter.

My brother Mark's family from Missouri was all there. No small feat since their boys are a 9th grader, a 12th grader, and a college junior.Let me tell you, they ate half the ham all by themselves! I don't know how you can afford to feed three young men those ages. It is amazing to see how they have grown and their areas of wisdom and their areas of silliness and immaturity.



Amelia also enjoyed the motor boat rides this year. She is a bit more timid than Margaret and I don't anticipate her tubing anytime soon. She also hasn't liked riding on the motorboat in past years. This year, however, you couldn't get her out of the boat! Fun to see her grow up, too.

At the campfire, there was a lull in the songs at one point and Amelia plunged in with "My home's in Montana, I wear a bandana, My spurs they are silver, my pony is grey" Three verses. She knew all the words and everyone sat and listened to her. She got big claps at the end. She has a pretty voice and it was fun to see her using it.

Speaking of singing, Sunday morning my Uncle Bill set up for the family to sing at their church service. I wasn't really that interested in getting up for church at 8:15, but I was glad I did. It was fun to sing with my Aunts and Uncles and mom. There were only 3 of us "cousins". My cousin Anne is a music teacher and has such a lovely voice. I could tell that my mom was very happy and grateful that I came and sang...that was worth it all by itself. I guess we were on the radio. Hah! My brush with fame.

After that, we went back to the "lake" for another afternoon of boating and tubing. Margaret went out again.

It's hard to watch, because I'm always so scared they will fall off. That would really scare her, but no incidents!

After our drive home, we got into the cities just in time to take the girls straight to choir practice. A woman at our church is a music teacher and is having a choir over the summer. The girls are performing at the Episcopal Church home this coming Saturday and at church next Sunday. They were sooooo tired. Margaret looked like she was going to fall asleep on her feet. Amelia has a speaking part and sounded good talking into the microphone.

Let's just say we were all tired. I downloaded pictures from my camera to my computer (I will put some on this post tonight) and then we basically went to bed. I'll have to do laundry tonight.

It was a perfect night to sleep with the windows open. We have windows on two sides of the bedroom, so we get a nice cross flow. With the big elm tree overhead, it feels like sleeping in a tree house sometimes. I woke up this morning just grateful for everything... my family, safe travels, my house, my job. Everything.



That, my friends, is what a weekend is supposed to do for you.

I wish I had a camera phone today...

I saw a Hummer with an E85 sticker on it.

Unbelievable. I suspect the owner has an attitude about environmentalists and did it to stick it in their faces. Or maybe the owner is just stupid.


OK..I thought of two more possibilities.

1) Some environmentalist tagged the Hummer with the sticker.

2) The owner of the Hummer owns an Ethanol plant. (Charlie thought of that one).


But I really wanted a picture of it.

Southwest Minneapolis Playground Tour

The girls have been wanting to go to the playground or wading pool every night. We have been going around to new parks to try them out. Most of the playgrounds in the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation chain have a community center with a bathroom and a wading pool. Very nice. Here are our stops so far:

Fuller: 48th and Grand. Our "home" park. We go here most often because we can walk there.
Lynnhurst: 50th and Minnehaha Parkway. Our other "home" park. It's right by the girls' school and has more equipment for older kids. Fuller is kind of a "baby" park.
Linden Hills: 42nd and Xerxes. A drive around the lake. The girls love the "pirate ship" play area. The pool is round, which is kind of cool.
McRae: 47th and Chicago. The coolest play equipment. Neat climbing stuff. Lots of unsupervised kids there, however.
Pershing: 48th and Chowen. Almost Edina. You can tell. The playground in next to the tennis courts and there was a lady playing in a pink tennis outfit and pearls. When she was done I noticed she climbed into her Lexus SUV to drive away. Why was I not surprised?
Lake Harriet Play area by the bandshell: No pool. Old, old equipment like the kind I used to play on as a kid. Great memories for me.


We still need to hit the following:
Martin Luther King: 41st and Nicollet.
Pearl Park: Diamond Lake Road and Portland Ave.
The one at 40th and Colfax/Bryant near Lakewood Cemetery... Can't recall the park name.

I'll have to pull out the map and find a few more. Kind of fun to visit new parks.

Tagged again!

This tag comes from Minda. Per my standard MO, I will not be tagging anyone else. Feel free to answer if you are so led!

This seems much harder than answering questions. Plus I think maybe I did this one once..maybe tagged by Scraploft?

1-post these rules
2-each person tagged must post 8 random(... hopefully interesting) facts about themselves
3-tags should write a blog post of these facts
4- at the end of the post 8 more bloggers are tagged and named
5-go to their blog and leave a comment telling them they're tagged

My ranDoM fActS:

1) I like to watch baseball on TV. I even recorded games at one point to watch off season (sad, I know). I am waiting for the last game before the all-star break tonight. I'd be willing to have a TV in my scrap room just for this. And I could record games to watch off season. You see, I don't really watch the games in any detail. I don't remember the scores, the inning, or even the teams sometimes. It's just a comforting background noise to me. I do remember watching a pitcher for the Cubs throwing a no-hitter once. During a day game. I remember his last name started with an S... now I'll have to look that up. I kept score during the Twins' world series games. I still have the score sheets. It's the only way i can pay attention to what's going on. I also keep score when I attend games.

2) We are trying to decide on whether to get a dog or not. I think about the mess and the cost and I say no. I think about the petting and the walking and the protection and how much Amelia would love one and I say yes. First I have to buy a new car and a new couch. (And why would I get a dog if I had a new couch? Another mark in the "no dog" column.) Oh. And we need to have the trim on the house painted. And the elm treated for dutch elm disease. Our neighbor across the street and one down just had one marked with the "ring of death". I'd hate to lose ours.

3) I grew up in a house a LOT like the one we have now. A small boulevard between the sidewalk and street with a big elm tree, a built in buffet, house built in 1920s.

4) I was terrified of tornadoes and lightning storms growing up. I was always afraid the lightning would hit the elm tree and the main branch would fall on my room. The main branch on our elm tree is right over our bedroom now. I don't even think about it falling on the house.

5) I love sitting in a tent or cabin in the rain. With no other noises except the bugs and the birds.

6) I am basically lazy. I am always willing to leave stuff for the last minute. Read #2 for examples. I can't believe I'm pre-approved on a loan for a new car and I haven't spent another moment looking for one or thinking about it. Except when I'm driving the piece of crud car I'm driving now. Then I think about it.

7) I just bought a Silhouette! I used the proceeds from the rummage sale at the local store to finance my new "digital craft cutter". Hah! I wasn't so lazy about picking that up, was I? I had it up and running within an hour after getting it home. We must have priorities here, eh?

8) I just hand wrote TWO letters this past weekend. To my Great Aunt and my Aunt. I think they both have e-mail addresses, but not sure how to find them out. Now I'm remembering that I didn't ask for their e-mail addresses or tell them mine. Well, that was silly, wasn't it? Handwriting a letter was weird. I used to do this fairly often? Not enough. I remember getting a letter from my dad every Wednesday when I was in college. He wrote me every Sunday night and I would get them on Wednesday. I think I didn't keep them. Very unlike me...and I wish I had them.

Tag to.... whoever wants to answer these. And now I have to go off and find out what 8 random facts I used last time I did this.

Enjoy the rain! I know I am.

It's July

Goodness, I've been neglecting this blog. What do you do when you sit at the pool for two hours? Read the manual on your camera and snap 100 pictures. Of course, the first and the last were the best.




Oh. And I took 100 at the fireworks on Wednesday. Here are two I liked.