Finished For Now...

Hi There!

It sure feels like it's been a long time since I posted, but I guess it was earlier in the week. My dad left on Tuesday and the girls and I have been keeping ourselves pretty busy since then. Add to that our internet has been going down intermittently. I think it's good we've been busy (and out of the house) so I haven't gotten too grumpy about the internet part.

I thought you might like to see the results of the moving and cleaning up of my "new again" craftroom. Remember I used to be in here, moved into the house (not all this stuff got moved into the house though) and just moved back out to the garage room because I was feeling too cramped in the corner I was allotted in the house. With my dad's visit, I wasn't able to finish up until yesterday. Well, I don't think I'm completely done yet, but it's done for now. Good enough to start creating again, anyway...

This is what you see as you walk into the craftroom.

Here's what you see as you step in and look to the left. You may notice I've done some shifting of things. I put two bookshelves back into this room, so I could have a place for books and things. You can see one of the shelves at the end of the table. To make room for the other shelf, I moved those tall modular shelves onto the table. I also moved the bulletin boards up to accomodate the shelf shifting. I'm hoping to get some shelves on the wall eventually. For now the bulletin boards fill up the space.

Here's the view walking to my work area.

What it looks like at my work area.

This shelf unit is what you see to my right as I'm sitting at my work table. The garage has a large window which lets in good light during the day.

And here's what I see from my seat. I've deliberately cut off the doorway into the little office (to the right of the metal shelf unit) because it's crammed with Steve's stuff. I need to move things around to be able to close that door. The shelf unit needs reorganizing(maybe even some fabric to make it prettier), but it'll do for the moment.

The other door on the left opens to the rest of the garage.

I'm relieved to have this heavy moving phase done and can modify and adjust as needed from here on out.

I even did some creating today...come back a bit later to see what I made.

Still Crocheting...

Wanna see the latest projects? LOL

I just finished this bathrobe this morning. It took a few days to make the body part. It's 7 1/2 inches long/tall. It took a bit of time (and I had to rest my wrist a couple of times) to get enough rows crocheted to reach that amount. The rest of it went fairly quickly.

And, yep, there was a pattern for slippers! Jessica picked the colors and specifically asked for the slippers to be made first. LOL

This is not a great shot of Jessica's swim suit cover-up. I haven't pressed it at all yet and you can tell. The girls also asked for a tote bag and a beach ball.

The tote bag was fun, but I couldn't find the beach ball anywhere when I was taking pictures. I used a variagated thread (that you can see on the handle & top row of the tote bag) to crochet the beach ball. If I find it, I'll share if you want.

We took Grandpa with us for swim lessons and lunch this morning.

He was quite impressed with both girls' abilities.

After lunch we headed back over to Adventure Golf because the girls wanted to play another round. We didn't bring the camera this time. It turned out to be good that we didn't, because 1/2 way through the course we were caught in a thunderstorm and got a good soaking for about 10 minutes!(there really wasn't any place to get shelter and the camera would have gotten pretty wet) We continued to play since we weren't going to melt...LOL The sun came back out before we finished the last hole. We tried a different course this time and weren't overly thrilled with it. It was a tougher one, full of obstacles. The girls were a smidge frustrated, but soldiered on very well. It was still a lot of fun and we've got the story of getting caught in a rainstorm! Oh and Amy got a hole in one for the first time! Yay, Amy!

That's it from me today. We'll be taking Grandpa to the airport in the morning so he can continue on to Minnesota. He's going to visit his mom, who is turning 98 later this week! She lives in International Falls, and that's where my dad grew up.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Til next time...

Lakeside Amusement Park...

Today's adventure was a trip to Lakeside Amusement Park in Denver. They are celebrating 100 years in business this year! I'd never been, although Steve took Amy a long time ago. So long ago she didn't remember it. What a great day it was. Our friend Dave went along with us and so I can officially call this An Adventure With Dave. (Anytime we go somewhere with Dave, it's always an adventure. He knows lots of great trivia and just what to do to have a great time)

First up we took a train ride around the lake. I can just imagine how pretty this would be at night.

Jessica really wanted to try this ride out.

The girls wanted to go on the Spider and Mommy was happy to ride along. This was right after Steve and I rode the Wild Chipmunk, a roller coaster ride where you felt like you were going to fly out of the car or the car was going to fly off the track. I loved it. Steve...not so much.

Grandpa's day was complete when he rode the Tilt A Whirl with his girls.

One mustn't leave the park until one rides the 100 year old Merry Go Round.

We waited quite a while for this next ride, but Amy and Jessica insisted we had to ride it, Bumper Boats! It was pretty close to being worth the long wait. There were only 5 boats being used and a ton of people in front of us. Of course, most every one wanted to ride alone, so you can imagine this ride didn't move along too quickly. But we (Amy and I) got a few good bumps in once we finally got into the boat. (hee, hee)

Before we left Grandpa wanted a picture with his girls.

While the park is showing its age and not all the rides were open, one can definitely see where this was a happening place in its heyday.

We are all glad we went and we had another fantastic day.

Fun Times With Dad!

Hello there! I hope you are doing well this fine Sunday morning. I thought I'd pop in and give you a quick (or not) update on our time with my dad.

Hi Dad!

We had lunch at Gunther Toody's one afternoon. He turned 79 on July 13th.

Looks great, doesn't he?!

One of the things Amy most wanted to do with Grandpa was go miniature golfing like we did last summer. As part of the Summer Reading program we are doing, we had free passes for the kids and two adults. So, after paying for Dad, we had a fun couple of hours.

For those that don't know, my dad has macular degeneration and can't see very well. But he sure can see well enough to play the pants off of us at miniature golf! LOL

I'm trying to hit the ball down the center lane so that we can see the flames shoot up out of the head. Unfortunately, this time, none of us was able to do it, so we got shot with water instead. LOL We all had a great time and then went to lunch at Gunther Toody's.

We took Dad to the Museum of Nature and Science so he could see the Expedition Health Exhibit and the Space Odyssey as well as Prehistoric Journey. He loves this musuem almost as much as Amy does. No pictures, though. The lighting sure is tough to get good shots there.

Yesterday, we went to a place that I keep hearing being advertised on the radio called The Wildlife Experience. It's an interactive museum dedicated to the conservation of animals and their habitats. It's located just south of Denver and it was pretty darn cool.

This is what you see as you walk up to the entrance. So pretty! The building inside is equally beautiful. There is a lot of rock and artwork as you walk through, plus great inspirational nature quotes on the walls. You go through an area designed for kids to be hands-on and you travel through several biomes.

Amy and Jess thought walking around in the flippers was pretty cool. There was lots to see and do here, but I didn't want to post TOO many pictures.

This painting was huge and it was gorgeous, so I had to take a photo of it. So did Amy. LOL

Next we walked through the exhibit called Globeology. This was REALLY cool. I took a bunch of pictures of the different areas (or biomes) but this area was of particular interest to the girls because it "snowed" as we walked through it.

This is what the "snow" actually looked like.

Again, I took a bunch of photos, but don't want to bore you with too many "what I did on my vacation" shots. LOL It was a very neat experience and one I'm glad I thought of doing.

I'm not sure what's on tap for today. I'd kind of like to head over to that City Pool so Steve and my dad can see it first hand. The girls have been asking to go swimming every day and we haven't gone yet. We'll see how the day plays out.

We are having a great time, that's for sure!

Thanks for stopping by. Dad leaves on Tuesday morning and hopefully not too long after that I can finish setting up my craft area and do some creating! Until then, have a great day!

What a Blast We Had!

We just got home a few minutes ago and I HAD to share. What a wonderful time we had at this city pool. We had never been there before...never seen it (and it's only about 10 minutes max from our house), but I had heard good things about it. We were supposed to meet up with some friends there, but they backed out when they got there and saw how long the line was. They felt they'd have to wait an hour just to get in and decided to go elsewhere to swim. There was NO way I was going to convince the girls to go somewhere else because they saw the fun stuff at the pool. It only took 15 minutes to get through the line and we were in like Flynn.

I even went into the pool and couldn't believe how comfortable the water was. Not cold, not hot, but nice and lukewarm. Awesome.

Not the best picture of Jessica, but she was HAPPY.

Amy was equally thrilled.

Just take a look to see why!

The pool is a zero depth and gradually gets deeper so the little ones have a great place to splash around. Jess liked that little blue slide and all the water splashing everywhere.

How totally cool is this?! Since the pool isn't deep, there's no diving allowed, but who would want to with all this fun stuff? See the slides? The blue was for going down in a tube, and the yellow for going down yourself. Jessica thought the yellow slide was awesome and rode it at least 5 times. And guess who else rode it a lot? Um, yes, that would be ME! Way too fun. Amy loved it to, but really wanted to try the tube slide and she was patient enough to wait her turn for a tube twice.

This bucket fills up and tips over. It makes a noise when it is close to tipping over so a bunch of people (Amy included) race over when they hear it to get dumped on. LOL

This is a way bad picture, but it's Jessica coming out of the yellow slide. They come out way too fast to get a good shot.

There was also a short "lazy river" you could go through riding on a tube. We all enjoyed that, too.

All in all, I am super happy that the girls got to enjoy this little adventure. I'm glad we stuck it out and waited in the line. It was busy, but not too bad. Most every one was in great spirits, which made for a very pleasant afternoon. Yay!

Thanks for checking out our afternoon fun!

Swim Suit Cover-Up and Schtuff...

Hello Friends!

Thanks so much for your supportive comments about my "move" back out to the garage. For those who are new to my blog, when I was a CTMH consultant I was all set up out there and held classes there. Then I thought it'd be nice to move into the house to have better access to the potty and to not have to heat up the space in the winter before I could work out there. My girls share a bedroom, so we have an extra room. Unfortunately, hubby wasn't as keen on the idea as I was, but agreed I could use the corner of this extra bedroom. It also houses a twin bed, a computer desk and a love seat. While it was super nice to be across the hall from the potty, I couldn't bring in all my goodies and what I did bring in soon overwhelmed that little corner. All of a sudden last weekend I felt the urge to spread out more and so began the transition back out to the garage room.

As much as I wanted to finish up out there and start creating, my house looked like a wreck (as it tends to do after the weekend) and with my dad's impending visit (he arrives on Wednesday), I had to be responsible and get the house in shape first and get the laundry done. LOL My dad lives in CA (in the house I grew up in) and visits for about a week each summer. The girls are WAY excited for his arrival and have been counting the days several times each day. LOL

Remember when I said I was going to start working on Amy's one piece swim suit the other day? Well, at the last minute she changed her mind and asked for a cover-up for the swim suit instead. All righty then! She picked the colors and I set to work. Her Barbie is currently nekkid, so I used Jessica's as the model. (and yes, Amy wants the one piece now and Jessica wants a cover-up, it's so hard keeping up with their requests...at least I know they appreciate my efforts)

So here's the cover up...which was pretty easy to make, except the getting the scallops lined up right... that took the better part of an evening because I had to keep making adjustments.

Thanks so much for the visit! Who knows...I may be back later with Jessica's cover-up...all I have to do is get the scallops stitched. LOL

Have an awesome day. I'm hoping to surprise the girls with a visit to a "new to us" swimming pool, one with stuff to play on I hear. Shhhh....they don't know yet!

Feel Free To Call Me Crazy...

...because I decided to move my craft stuff back out to the garage! I know, I know, but the cold hard truth is, I've been extremely cramped in that corner in the bedroom. To the point of almost feeling claustrophobic, so I decided to just spread out again in the garage room. So guess what I've been doing today?? LOL

I'm going to be REALLY brave and show you what my corner looked like this morning before I started and also what the garage looked like before I started.

Isn't that awful? I'm embarrassed but now you can see I never completely fit into the corner and Steve didn't want to add shelves. Just getting my cardstock or pattern paper has been a pain.

Now here's the garage room, which became a dumping ground. I had to take a bunch of stuff out from the living room when we had the mice issues and other stuff just got dumped. I had to clear that up before I could rearrange tables. I finally broke down a glass top patio table and re-set up another banquet table. I also moved the chest of drawers so that I could create a U shaped set up.

Here's the table I was working on after I pulled off most of the stuff on it.

And here's how the garage room looks as of a few minutes ago. I've been working on this all day! And sadly, I'm still not done, but I feel better knowing I can spread out. I'm hoping to use the table with the ink pads on it as my Cricut/Cuttlebug/Sewing table and the other table for my papers. It was really hot today and that a/c on the wall worked GREAT!

Those white chairs are for the girls. The tv is still hooked up and they watched tv for a while, keeping me company.

So, yes, I'm nuts, but I'm going to deal with the fact that my crafting space needs to be in the garage. At least I can spread out a bit!

So, I guess you know what I'll be doing if you don't see any new artwork for a bit.

Thanks so much for stopping by. And for not making me feel too bad about how horribly messy I let this become.