puerto rico

We arrived in Puerto Rico! Yeah! Our flight was long, and we'd been up for almost 40 hours straight, but we got here. We had this massively huge-muscled taxi driver with corn rows take us to our hotel. The drive was interesting.. and Curtis thought driving in L.A. was hairy!
Our hotel is a quaint little boutique place in Condado beach. I guess the area is going through revitalization. You can have a Gucci shop right next to a slummy mini mart, same with the hotels, etc. My first impression was....Scary! But after a local Puerto Rican dinner, sweet plantain stuffed with crab, (yummmmmmm!) we walked a bit and saw that in P.R. everyone is out. Either running, walking or just hanging out.
We felt much better about the area's safety so....
We stoped to look in a few other hotesl and found some cool ones. So far our favorite is La Conch, right across the street. The boys would have been in heaven. Way cool. We also stopped in at the Marriott, which as a hotel was not so cool, but they had all of these middle school kids playing the violin. Wow, were they good. Not only did they play they did dancing etc, while they played. Impressive, most impressive. Their shirts said Allegra string perfomance something... Wonder if they put out a cd?

vacation

finally!

I finally finished this challenge layout. I started it several days ago and just couldn't get it right. I set it aside and came back today and started over. The technique was for fading photos.

adventures with Tadhg

Yesterday, Tadhg and I had an adventure. I was able to go with him and the 6th grade classes on a field trip to Hearst Castle. I opted to drive, as opposed to riding the bus with 90 eleven and twelve year olds. Hmmm... hard choice. Tadhg decided to come with me and it was really nice. We stopped half way and got McDonald's breakfast. We had a nice drive. I got several "I love you"s and at one point he even reached over and patted my shoulder and played with my hair. He hasn't done that since he was a baby! Everything is really green right now and the mountains were spectacular. We say Morro Rock in the distance and the minute we came to the ocean both of us opened the windows as if on cue. Tahdg said, "You know what I love about the beach? The smell. I also like to play in the sand." That's my boy!
The tour of the castle was fun. It was a different tour than I had taken, oh 13 years ago, with Curtis and Gran on a CA visit during college. I took tons of pictures. Now I'll have to devise a page, or two. Tadhg was taking notes on what he saw that he wanted to duplicate at our house. Funny boy. I loved the pools and the grounds. I was surprised that he was so into the tour. He said we needed to come back with the whole family to take the other tours. Cool.
After the tour and the other kids were getting on the bus, Tadhg and I took off across the highway to W. R. Hearst state beach. You can't drive all that way and not play in the sand! The water was so clear and blue, not usual for California coast. It made me really excited for my beach vacation next week. Tadhg found all sorts of rocks on the beach that he said we just like the ones they were trying to sell at the gift shop. "They must come over here and get them, then shine them up." he said. He also found a ginormous piece of seaweed that had washed up. It was comical to watch him trying to drag it. With help he was able to budge it and then decided to set it free and tried to get it back out into the surf. The best part..."I'm really glad you chaparoned." Yeah!

long time been....

It's been a while since I last posted. Been busy with stuff. Little bit of scrapbooking, lots of other.

Finally, after about 3 years, we(Curtis and I) finished putting up the rock on the front of the house. It looks really nice now. One of about a dozen unfinished projects, done!

Cooked dinner last night. Amazing, I know. Found some recipes in BHG that looked good, Chicken thighs with artichokes and asparagus-leek risotto. Let's just say I made a big mess and burned the prosciutto and turned the risotto to mush. Caden informed me that the risotto was horrible and then Brock decided to agree and did the fake gag thing. Nice.

We went to the driving range to golf for family night. I had all of these grand ideas of taking some cool photos. I got down there with my nice camera, ready for business, except...Dun,dun,dun..no CF card. Bummer. No pictures.


Okay, to the scrapbooking...I spent almost all day yesterday on the phone with mom while I was working on this layout. We had fun working "together" 800 miles apart.



Brock was so funny this day. If you can read the journaling it kind of tells the story behind the pictures. I think it is so funny that Brock writes "letters" to tell you how he's feeling. Normally, it is a cute picture of him and me with a heart between us and then both of us circled. But as you can see here, when he is mad at you, you get crossed out! and there is definitely NO heart! Funny boy.

This other layout was my last lesson with Up & Running with Photoshop class. I have really enjoyed the last month of classes and I can't wait to take the next class in June.


I have found that I am seriously lacking in the picture department recently. I have mostly had to scrap from 2006. UGH! I need to get back behind that camera lens. I had to dig way back for this picture of Curt & I. 16 freakin' years! :P
who are those people anyway? I hardly recognize them!

This last layout was our Wednesday challenge, making a comic book-esque photo block. It was one of those pages that you just do. Not really excited about how it turned out, but at a loss on how to make it any better and at the time really couldn't have cared less. Loved the pictures of Brock He was so cute playing with Woody & Buzz. It's neat to see him as into them as Tadhg was. (note his name written on their feet, just like in the movie. He must have dug through the whole toy box and pulled out all the Woodys and Buzzes we owned. Gotta love it.