December so far

Well, it's been busy.  But who isn't busy this time of year, right?  We're trying to get in the Christmas spirit around here, so here's a few photos and a video to prove it.  Hope you're getting in the spirit too!

Our little decorator busy at work.

 The elf Sparkleheart is back this year again.  She's a party time kind of girl.

 

 

AND...Harper has a solo in the school play.  Here's a practice run before bedtime (with a little yawn intermission).

Link to her YouTube video ----> Harper singing Christmas Is Love

 

 

 

It was summer. Now it's fall.

Other than the subject line, I won't even talk about how long it's been since my last blog post.

SO, here's what's been going on around here (besides the usual work, work, work stuff):

I carved out a studio space in the basement (again).  Harper was taking over my art space in the dining room on a regular basis, so I flew the white flag of surrender and gave her the whole room.  Now I just have to figure out how to keep her upstairs with Daddy for longer than ten minutes so I can make something.  And maybe someday I'll take photos of the rest of the room.

 I got at least 45 minutes, so one journal page made it this far.

 Harper is still funny.

OH, Harper ran away once.  Before you call social services on me, I was at the door the entire time.  She kept looking back, and made it to that mailbox before she came back.

My Mom and my friend Sheila made this amazing Halloween costume.  (Sheila made the hat and my mom made the shirt and wings.) Harper loved it! (And everyone else did too!)

 I had my birthday.  At the beach in SC with my dear friend Judy.  It was sweet.

 I doodled in SC and on the airplane.

 Harper and I doodle in there sometimes too.

Only about 50 million other things happened too.  I just didn't take pictures of me sitting at a desk coding all day.  OHHHHH... one super cool thing happened a few weeks back!  I found out that one or more of my journal pages will be in Dawn DeVries Sokol's book!  Super excited!!  Dawn's book 1000 Artist Journal Pages really is one of the major reasons I got started journaling, so I'm so thrilled.  (We'll have to wait until sometime in 2015 for the book to be published though.  Gives me an opportunity to practice patience.)

Oh, You Poor Little Blog!

Poor Little Blog gets neglected while facebook and instagram (and work, work, work) get all the attention.  Poor little Blog.

My recent art stuff (which is minimal unfortunately) seems to only make it onto instagram because I've barely picked up my real camera lately.  Here's are a few shots that managed to make it though!

We managed to keep our tradition of chasing hot air balloons.  We have a great festival, and for one weekend there are hot air balloons all over town in the mornings and evenings.

 I got a wee bit annoyed with my husband though because our tradition is to jump out of bed and chase in our pajamas.  Ummm... he is showered and fully dressed.  We are not.  (insert eye roll here)

 Harper started kindergarten this year.  She's loving it so far.  We're all exhausted though!  Glad for a three day weekend.

 The week before school started, Harper was home with me for the week.  Lots of arts and crafts time (for her).

 I did sneak in some art time though!

Miss you

Enough with the great vacation already... Part 4

So the vacation was nice.  Got it.  Scenic.  Got it.  Lots of family quality time.  GOT IT.  But I feel like my life cannot move on unless I finish this one last blog post about the vacation.

Our last big stop of the vacation before returning to Olympia was Yellowstone National Park.

So here's a (sort of) funny story.  After spending the night at the RV park, we got up extra early and headed out to look for wildlife and to see more of the park.  Doug looks to his left and says, "Hey, what are those birds?"  "Pelicans", I say (not terribly excited... it IS about 6 AM).  Doug says, "Give me the camera.  We have to have a picture."  "Ok." I say (again, not so thrilled).

So the pelicans start to fly off, Doug is taking pictures, and I look over at the riverbank.  "BEAR!" I yell.  We proceed to get all excited and snap a bunch of photos of a bear running up the riverbank.  We're knuckle bumping, laughing, saying, "A Bear!  We saw a BEAR!"  We keep driving across the bridge.

Then TWO bears (somehow I only got one in a shot at a time) are booking it across the road in front of us.  Seriously speedy.  Pretty sure they were running so fast because I kept yelling, "BEAR!"  And all thanks to my husband's excitement over two pelicans.

 Ok, onward.  A thermal feature.  This one was dragon's breath cave at the Mud Volcano, I believe.

 There were bison everywhere.  We even saw some calves.

 Artist Point, I believe.

 Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces

 And, we're out.  I just spared you approximately 489 more photos.

You didn't think you'd get away without seeing one more photo of my kid, did you?  Relaxing with some ice cream in Missoula, MT.

Whew!  We made it.  Onward to the next adventure... whatever that may be.

Even more epic vacation... Part 3

Can you stand even more vacation photos?  Oh my... I took a lot of them.  681 to be exact.  Well, probably even more if I look at my phone photos.  Ok, onward to Wyoming...

 First mission in Jackson... RODEO!

The next morning, Doug found this Alpine Slide thing at the Snow King Resort.  Harper and Doug decided to give it a try.  Ok, you'll have to indulge me a bit... there are more photos of this part of the trip than really necessary, but do you see the GLEE on that girl's face?  Oh my goodness, she loved the slide.  They went way, way, way up on the hill on a ski lift and then rode (practically flew) down on a wheeled sled.

100% PURE GLEE

See them way up there?

 So happy. :)

THEN... just to make sure the day was memorable enough, she got to bungee trampoline too.  She loved that too.

 Pretty worn out now, and it's only just past lunch time!

There aren't any photos of the rest of that day because I was doing laundry for what seemed like hours.  I'll be honest, I didn't mind the break.  Jackson was busy!
To continue the adventures, we woke up early and hopped on a Snake River raft float ride.  Our tour guide Scott was awesome.

 See!  I really was on the vacation too.

 We saw a pair of eagles and their nest.

And there is a moose in those trees.  Right in the middle.  Ok, ok... it was hard for us to see too!

And because we hadn't done enough in Jackson (haha), we went to a covered chuckwagon dinner that evening.

 Harper made friends, of course.

That's probably enough for that post.  See, I told you Jackson was busy!  Next up... Yellowstone!