i make things

Co-Ed Softball 2015

Co-Ed Softball in Owatonna, Minnesota is serious business...well mostly. My team plays hard but also has a ton of fun. We joke around, tease our teammates and even our competitors.

Here's some pics from one of our games this summer.

This is Courtney. She's played on our team for quite awhile. Her dad helps sponsor the team too. :)

P.s. this was definitely a hit.

This is Danelle. She joined our team this year. This was a nice hard grounder.

This is Christles, my brother aka "The Blowhole". I gave him that nickname because he can't keep his trap shut. LOL The back of his shirt says "The Big Show". That should tell you something about him. :) He's our backup pitcher tonight but normally he plays a mean left-center.

This is Nicky, Nick or Nicholas Matthew (Mom calls him this.) He plays short-stop normally.

I'm pretty sure he missed this ball. Ah well. Jason out in left got it and threw it back in.

Wait...these aren't players. This is Karen and Ashton. My brother's girlfriend and my nephew. They come to watch quite a bit. Ashton likes hanging out in the dugout trying to sneak out onto the field.

This is Tara getting a runner out at first. Nice throw Chrissy.

 

"Hey Squirt-o, where do you think you're going? LOL"

This cutie love his Daddy. A lot. He tries to sneak out onto the field to see him.

This is Tara, my cousin, catching an infield fly. Good job!

This is Sam, a friend of the family, getting a nice hit and making it to first.

Kimmie warming up. See the ball. Hit the ball. See the ball. Hit the ball.

 This play was hilarious. Sam trucked it over to third and the outfielder threw the ball into the 3rd basemen right as Sam got to the base. She ducked right under the tag. SAFE!

This is Kimmie, my little sister getting a nice hit. She's got a nice swing.

 This is my brother Chris at bat. You can see the ball sailing out of the picture in the upper left-hand corner. He likes to either hit pop ups or line drives. Like a penny machine you never know what you're gonna get.

Somebody batted my brother Nick in. Woohoo! Honestly he probably just kept running from second because he's fast and they never throw him out.

This is my cousin Tara, getting a hit. She used to play fastpitch softball and now she plays slowpitch for us. That makes my mother very happy.

Nick. Again.

Nick again. The concentration. It looks like he's going to chew off his lip or something. LOL

Aaaaaand. He got it. Notice the yellow ball in his hand? Yep. He snagged it.

This is Traci and Al. Al is a bit of a goofball. He's a friend of the family. Traci is my cousin and usually plays catcher for us but...

Both her and our other Al injured their feet in the same week so they were warming the bench up for us. Technically the bench is already warm because it's freakin' hot out but whatever. I have to use the old baseball terms. :)

Here's Chris throwing someone out at first.

That's all I've got. I didn't get pictures of everyone....because it's hard to get the people in front and behind you when batting but I did my best.

Have a great day!

 

Project Life 2012

I decided to try Project Life by Becky Higgins. I got the idea more from Ali Edwards though. She did it last year and is doing it this year too. 

Basically you do a two-page spread about each week. Initially I thought it would be a lot of work and just too much to add to my already huge pile of projects, ideas and STUFF that I have on my plate. I mean really? You have to do a 2-page spread every week! But if you look at the set-up of the pages it's not so bad. It's less like a traditional 2-page spread and more like a mini book. Just grab some 4x6 or 2x3 images and grab a couple journalling blocks and you're done. No need for excessive embellishment.

So, at the last minute, I decided to give it a try. I already do the December Daily and that's a layout every day during December. Surely I can do this? Plus I'll actually be getting something done. Getting a handful of pictures and a notecards worth of journalling down. I need to document this stuff because I'm getting more behind even as I type this. That's what really sold me. Getting something down every week. :)

I bought a 
12x12 leather binder from Archiver's in red because I couldn't get the Becky Higgens package. She has a whole package you can buy with the binder, page protectors, journalling cards, date cards, etc. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to use  my own stuff (to save money). Although her stuff is already set up for you, so it would be a tad bit easier but...I bought my own.

These pages protectors (not all the same because I wanted some variety): 4x6 and 4x4

9 4x4's

One 6 x 12 Eight 3 x 3 Inch

Four 6 x 6

After I had the products I had to decide on a first page. Some kind of cover page that would be cool, would set the tone for how my album was going to be, something that would say "Turn the page and look through this gigantic book it'll be interesting and fun and loaded with awesome pics!" LOL

Well at that point I stalled out. Yep. So instead of sitting around looking through all my stuff I went to the internet and started looking at other people who had done Project Life. I started with Ali, then went to Becky's blog and found a whole host of ideas which led me to other blogs, to a Studio Calico discussion post which led me to several pinterest sites with ideas.

So happily I perused the internet pinnning ideas as I went. In case you are wondering what I found here's a link to my Project Life Pins.

Then I sat down and just did it. Just did my cover and the first two weeks. It was fun. I loved it. I didn't overthink. I just grabbed my favorite pictures, some ephemera I collected and got down to business. Here are the results:

(if you click on the images you can enlarge them)

My Cover

I used some pictures of my from the last month. I was going to take some special ones but I figured I might as well use what I have.

This is the 4x4 9 picture template. I cut out some 4x4 squares from some scrap paper and used 3x3 pictures.

I love this center square. I used a combination of thickers foam letters 2 and 0 and used some american crafts letter stickers for the 1 and 2. I used some Karen Russell phrase stickers (very old) and stitched on the heart with red floss. (I drew it on with a pencil and just went over the drawing with the floss). Then I just drew a thin line around the box to emphasize it. Simple. Easy. Not too much digging for supplies involved (in reality that can be the biggest time drain).

I wanted to do something with numbers, so I used the numbered cut-out and glued that on a white 4x4 piece of cardstock then cut out the 5 and 2 from a piece of travel paper and added weeks with some small letter stickers.

This one just shows what I'm documenting. My Life (rub-ons). I used a Martha Stewart butterfly with some stitched on red/white striped floss. (I think Doodlebug).

I did a little stitching around the picture of me sewing because...well, I just thought it would be cool and ironic. LOL

and obviously I'm a dork. LOL

I stitched red on the corners on this one because I had some leftover red floss from the heart on the 2012 and I thought it was a close up of me and Jacob so it made it feel even closer and more cuddly. I didn't mean to include someone else on the cover besides me but I liked this picture a lot.

Here's Week 1: 1/1/12 - 1/7/12

See, it's nothing special. Just a bunch of pictures and a handful of journaling. Just enough to get something down.

I am going to always, well, probably mostly always put the week date on the top left corner of the layout just so that there is some consistency.

Page 1 using the 9 4x4 page protector. I like this one because you can get a lot of images on here.

I didn't do the pictures in any particular order except the food. Figured I'd keep that all in one line.

Piece of red paper, a white tag with red heart, glittery 1 number sticker from Making Memories, thin strip of white cardstock with date stamped using red Tim Holtz ink.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy LOL

I love this picture! I put the address on the bottom. I used remington noiseless font and printed it on a piece of white cardstock then cut that out and glued it on.

Here it is again. I messed around with it in Photoshop. I love this picture. :) It's right downtown Minneapolis next to the McCormick and Schmick's

I typed up the menu of Jayde and I's dinner at McCormick and Schmick's. I just went to their website for the details.

Page 2 of Week 1

The We Bought a Zoo square I just copied an image from Google of the poster, resized it in Photoshop and printed it on cardstock. Then glued the ticket from the theatre on there. I think that is something I'm going to do continually this year just to document the movies I go to. I would like to add some journalling about the movies but only if I have room.

My journaling page. I used some notebook lined scrapbook paper and cut it up into 4x4 squares. I just joted some notes down for each day as to what I did. I'm just recording the basics. If there is a bigger story I want to tell I will but I didn't have one for this week.

Note that on most of the pictures I wrote something about what the picture is or a short sentence or phrase about it. I think that will also be something I do weekly. Write on the picture itself, add a phrase or word sticker, create something in word and print it on cardstock or print the picture with words on it.

Week 2: 1/8/12 - 1/14/12

This week was an excercise in using all the cameras I own. I have pictures from my Canon DSLR, my Canon point and shoot and my camera on my Droid Bionic (used several different apps for the images)

Page 1 of Week 2

Jayde and I went to bingo with his mother and her and I won, hence the blank bingo card (one of my non-winners) with the amount in letter stickers of what I won.

I made this 4x6 page with 3 images, so there is a 2x4 and 2 2x3's of the pencil case that I sewed together and gave to Michelle. I made a tag (top left image) of my initials kind of like branding. LOL

A 4x6 with our names on top and some letter stickers on the bottom.

This next page is the 8 1/2 x 11 insert I added for this week because I had so many pictures that I wanted to include. I made this using the Pocketbooth app on my android. I took several pictures of my nephew that come out like photo booth pictures. I downloaded them to my computer and made a 8 1/2 x 11 blank canvas in photoshop and dropped the images on there. I centered them because I figured it was easier to center instead of having to cut them out and put them on a piece of cardstock. That would have been more work than necessary.

I punched out a heart then cut around it to get the frame then lightly glued it on and stitched crosses to hold it in place. Peanut Baby is two different kind of letter stickers. the baby has flocking (I believe Making Memories).

I have to say I love this page. I really do. I loved putting all of those pictures on there and highlighting my favorite and putting the nickname I have for my nephew.

Here's a close up. (p.s. I will be having pictures of my other nieces and nephews too it just so happened that Jacob came to visit on Wednesday)

This is the second page of the insert. I used the same heart punch and then added the descriptions of the people using the Remington noiseless font again on white cardstock.

Here's a close up.

Page 2 of Week 2:

My journalling. The pink cow on the right is something I got from the Burger I ordered from Burger Jones in Burnsville.

Another movie. I copied the poster from the website, resized it in PSE (Photoshop) and then printed it on a 4x6 piece of picture paper. I added the ticket stub and some words to describe it.

Two pictures I love. The one on the left is from my phone the BeFunky app which allows you to change to b&w and added the black border. The second is from my DSLR. I added the cute and fat because that's what I call him sometimes. LOL I figured it was good to get some of the phrases down that I call him.

Chicken Fettucine that made from PW. I turned the image from my phone into a polaroid hence the weird looking image but I didn't care. I liked playing around with the app, Poladroid.

Stuff from Auntie Sheila's house. I just had to include it. LOL

So that's about it. My cover and the first two weeks. Honestly, it took more time to take pictures of the pages, correct them some and download and write this post than it took to actually make the pages. :)

Here is the full album Project Life 2012

 

Halloween Mini-Book 2010

Last year I made a Hallowen Minibook based on the Ali Edwards project. I used her book as a guideline for doing mine. I really liked her format. 5x7 photos in a bare binder album that I could paint on, put paper on, or embellish any way I wanted and it was small. Something that wouldn't take a lot of my time. She started with a plan, some pictures and some embellishments and went from there. That's what I did. Grabbed some of the product she suggested and grabbed some of my own then went to town (figuratively not literally).

Here is a link to her Halloween Minibook Project. It is a project you have to purchase. You don't get supplies but you do get step by step instructions via a pdf. document and several videos you can watch. I found it very instructive and learned some new techniques and I didn't think it was too expensive.

This is a silver rub-on.

Try it yourself you might like it. She had a list of supplies that she used which I mostly utilized because they looked pretty darn cool. My two favorite products were The Girls Paperie Halloween sticker pack (a great combination of 3 different letter stickers, word stickers, sticker charms and sticker trim) and the Maya Road 5x7 album (the perfect size for 5x7's and not too big that the pages took a long time to make).

I didn't spend a whole lot on those supplies. You only really need a binder, 3 sheets of overlays, a sheet of rub-ons, 3 sheets of paper, some ribbon trim, a silver paint pen, the halloween sticker pack and some paper embellishments. She used other items that I didn't use (charms and bingo cards). Also she did sewing to bind the pictures together which I did not but found I wished I had. The glue stick I used was perfectly fine but the stitching would have given the book a bit more texture.

Here are the pictures from my album.

 

The front page. The inner cover is black flocked paper that I glued onto the chipboard. I used hambly screen prints for the overlay pages. I know you can see the picture behind it but I kind of like that. You can place your embellishments to cover or enhance the image behind it.

The page behind the cover overlay. Just a pic of a jack o' lantern I carved with a border I drew on with a silver paint pen. This is glued directly on the chipboard tab page.

I started with a journalling page on the left to describe carving pumpkins. Then I do several pictures in a row related to carving pumpkins. This is the pattern of the book. The first page is a journalling area that describes the subsequent pictures. There are three sections. 1. Carving 2. Costumes 3. Trick-or-Treating.

Each journalling page has some silver rub-ons for decoration, a title using either word stickers or letter stickers, it's edges are inked with Staz-On Black ink and there is a border around the journalling hand-drawn with a silver paint pen.

All of the tools we used. Ice cream scoops, knives, scoops, small tools, large tools, saws, etc.

Next set of pages. The left is a picture of me carving a pumpkin and Jayde is on the right digging out the guts of a pumpkin. Between the two pages is a transparency.



For the border I used a combination of patterned paper, a sticker border and actual ribbon with some black rub-on stitching on the edge and a word sticker.

This is patterned paper on the top with a journalling embellishment which I just put some words related to the project.. The top and bottom of the overlay have a sticker border.

The other side of the overlay describes the next picture and you can't see any of the other side because I mirrored the paper and embellishments. This wasn't too difficult being that had a nice round journalling embellishment I could place on this side to cover the back side of the other page's embellishment.

You can use the paint pen to frame and describe your picture. I like that because you give the picture a little bit more description without having to do a whole lot of journalling.

This is one of the pumpkins I carved. I loved it. It was so evil looking and perfect for Halloween. Kimmie said I was taking it easy because I didn't do something harder but this pumpkin is perfect.

Patterned paper with a black lace border and some word stickers and a star embellishment.

Jayde's pumpkin. Gene Simmons. Initially he was pretty reluctant to carve pumpkins. I think he thought it was a kids thing but once I showed him his pattern and the tools we got to play with he dug in and was excited to carve a pumpkin. He even did two.

I used a Halloween overlay and positioned the title "Trick" in the middle so I could add "or treat" underneath it. The edge has a glued down piece of decorative ribbon. To glue this down you can either use double-sided tape or staples or you could even sew it on there if you wish.

Jayde and I did the Ghostbusters pumpkin.

Here's the start of the next section which I marked as Costumes. It shows our costume, my brother's and sister's costumes, my niece and nephew's costumes as well as my friends.

Start of the next section.

My favorite costume of the night. Kimmie went as her husband Thomas. Thomas always wears a white t-shirt when he goes out and everyone asks Kimmie, "Where's Thomas?" and she always replies, "He's at home sleeping." LOL So she went as Thomas. It was funny especially because she had a pregnant belly that rivaled Thomas's. LOL

This embellishment is a black picket fence sticker with a papaper circle with some journalling lines covered by a haunted house sticker and a "party" word sticker.

Traci on the left. Party girl tag on the right. I tried to somewhat match the phrase or the stickers to the pictures if I could.

I used a large black patterned journalling sticker with some word stickers and I outlined the box with a black pen.

This is a large sticker with a word sticker on the top and a green star sticker on the bottom. I tried to make sure that the embellishment from the other side of the page didn't interfere with this side. So I used two larger rectangle embellishments that were similar in size.

The next section is "trick or treat" which was actually on a Sunday this year. So there are pictures of my family and some friends trick-or-treating.

Detail of this page.

One of my favorite pages of this album. My niece and nephew getting ready to trick-or-treat.

I made  a mistake on this one. She is Cinderella not Princess Aurora. These two lined up like this for me. It was so cute. It looked like a police line-up...or what I like to call American Halloween Gothic. LOL minus the pitchfork.

I loved making this embellishment. It was fun to mix and match different letters, stickers and colors. Also, I didn't really mind that you can see the whites of the stickers on the otherside of the overlay. I think that just helps you see this embellisment better.

I love Gracie's look of shock opening up her bag of Halloween goodies from me. I just basically threw a bunch of candy in there and some stickers, pencils and a pad of paper. She loved it.

The backside of the American Halloween Gothic is a combination of border stickers, word stickers and a postage stamp sticker.

Jayde's cousin Maddie and her friend from school came to visit Jayde's mom's house. I went there first to pass out some candy to the neighbor kids and give Maddie her bag of goodies.

I used a piece of patterned paper that I chopped up to get this piece, added some stitching rub-ons and a date sticker.

Just a picture of my candy dish. I like to load it with different types of candies. I believe I had snickers, 3 musketeers, twix, kit kats, milky way, reese's peanut butter cups, butterfingers and m&m's. ah, I don't skimp. LOL

One of my other favorite pictures...probably because it's so not posed. I just took it while Dad was walking, jack was trying to run and Gracie was trying to not trip over her dress en route to the first trick-or-treating house for Hallowen. I love it.

A piece of ruler ribbon with a journalling sticker covered with letter stickers and word stickers

Jayde's neighbor kids. They were pretty cute. Michelle borrowed them the Flower Skunk costume and the Piglet costume.

Monsters...that's what my friend Beth calls her kids. LOL. This is a piece of patterned paper with a circle journalling sticker with a word sticker on top.

The three kids. They were cute. Left to right is Haley, Evalyn and Brayden.

The last set of pages is the end of the day after trick-or-treating when me and Jayde lined up our pumpkins and took a picture of them.

Just kind of a summary page of the costumes.

Last page.

Trick or Treat instead of The End.

 

Amanda and Myas's Wedding 9/17

Here are a couple of pictures I took for Amanda and Myas's Wedding. I helped out Jimmy with setting up the shots and giving suggestions for different poses and angles. These pictures are what I took with my own camera not Jimmy's professional behemoth. :)

Amanda getting ready and her dresses

Her Aunt Debbie

Her shoes. The bridemaids had similar shoes but in Red to match their dresses.

Their Cake

The back of her dress

Cake topper

Kelly and Korby. He's so cute. Look at that Happy Face!

Jacob sleeping with Thomas

Waiting patiently to get the show on the road!

The ceremony

Exchanging rings

My brother trying to be sneaky

I messed around in Adobe with this one. I really like it. :)

A pic at Mineral Springs Park

 

 

SCFF 2011 Day 3 Part 1-6

 

1| Tristan's Jr. Champion Dog Project

2| Tristan's Jr. Champion Photography

3| Tara's Clothes You Buy Outfit. I totally love this. It's too cute!

4| Tristan's Clothes You Buy Outfit

5| A Peacock feather from Tristan's project.

6| Tara's Tetanus project

7 & 8| Tristan's Star Wars Project. He got a purple on this as well. I knew this was his right away when I saw it. I thought it was cool and I looked at the name and sure enough it was Tristan. Shelly said he was super excited about taking this project. I guess sometime after I took this picture some of the legos were stolen and they had to put his project in a case. How sad is that?

 

1| A mixture of vegetables that a 4-Her took. I just love fresh veggies.

2| Organic apples. Don't they look tasty?

3| Corn on the cob with melted butter and some salt. It doesn't get much better than that.

4| Jayde's favorite. A donut burger which is basically a Krispy Kreme cut in half to make a sandwich drizzled with glaze.

5 & 6| A fine art project. From far away it looks like the U.S. Flag but look up close and it's made out of bottle caps.

7| Daniel's Fish 'n Chips. Oh yeah! did I mention they have homemade tartar sauce? If you want fish you get it here. Anyplace else you'll just be disappointed.

8| Black Forest Cupcake. psst. it has cherries in the middle, buttercream frosting and a real pitted cherry on top plus a chocolate drizzle.

1| the Human Torch! This man lights himself on fire, naturally he's wearing a flame retardant suit and jumps 30 feet or more into a pool of water. Crazy isn't it?

2-4| Divers from the Human Torch Show.

5| The Gooseman...he just walks his geese up and down the fairgrounds chatting with people as he goes. Today his geese were wearing race car ensembles. They walked ahead of him and even knew to stop when he stopped to answer people's questions.

6| me and Jayde on the Ferris Wheel

7| Some of the Gooseman's walkers

8 & 9| View of the fair from the Ferris Wheel: all of the rides and the race track and this isn't even half of the fair. You can't see all the barns or the other project buildings from these pictures or even the 4-seasons.

 
1| Went through the Hog barns a/k/a the Swine barns to see the piggies. They are usually just laying there sleeping/resting/daydreaming? I think this one is giving me the evil eye.

2| They were being judged so here is a 4-Her leading her hog back to it's pen.

3| Let sleeping hogs lie, that's my motto

4| Miniature Donkey...not as cute as Sofie though (that's Jamie's animal)

5| Little calfie...that's what Dad says

6| The whole calfie

7| Cute little Alpacas...they make some very nice wool for socks.

8| Kangaroo. Looks cute doesn't it? I think so.

9| a big beefer

10| A strange, eye-balling, llama looking at me. Kind of creepy. If this llama were a human I'd call him the creeper nieghbor who always seems to be outside when you're outside or you come home.

 
This set of pictures is everyone that I ran into during Wednesday evening that I knew and stopped to talk to. There were a handful of people that I ended up not taking their pictures though so this is only a handful of the people I talked too. LOL

1| Traci in the Horse barns.

2| Drache loitering in the Horse barns. He doesn't like it when I take his picture but I snuck this one in anyways. ha ha

3| The Albers: Brian, his Mom, Beth, Evalyn, and Brayden just getting started down by the horse barns near the campers

4| Amanda. Chatted with her, Myas and Jimmy at the 4-H Grill about her wedding pictures.

5| Michelle and Pita Sandwich down by the smoothie stand. Jack and Guy were somewhere else. LOL

6| Max, Brian and Maddie (Jayd'es cousins and uncle) Saw them by the Greek Gyro stand on the west end of the 4-Seasons.

7| Linda and Louie, our racin' buddies

8| Alan from softball. He's being a dork. LOL

9| An even bigger dork is this man...Gary Wandry. I like to pick on him...A LOT! ha ha

10| Angi and Nicki from softball. She doesn't like her picture taken either.

11| Kimmie and Thomas over by the Fine Arts building

12| little fat Korby eating...so unfortunately I couldn't pick him up and hold him and kiss him

13| Kelly playing bingo? Wait, wasn't she feeding her kid?

14| Me and Jacob the little pig-et.

15| Mom and Dad bingo-ing...I think they were supposed to be babysitting

16| Me and Jimmy, the photography pests. LOL nerds? annoyances? something like that.

 
1| red flower...a gladiola I believe

2| Sunglasses on Sunflowers...I jsut thought this was clever

3| This was beautiful and smelled so good. How can you walk past an orchid and not smell it?

4| a very colorful arrangement

5| a very full zinnia.

6| this is a hawaiian hut arrangement. this was the coolest. #3 is the top part of it photographed from the bottom

7| arrangment with some cards...you know I can't pass this up

8| an arrangement with a huge metal ant. kind of cool

9| purple gladiola. so pretty. Auntie Sheila would love this

 

SCFF 2011 Day 2 Parts 3-7

1| I picked up Jack and Gracie (my nephew and niece) from daycare at 3 p.m. so I could go and get their wrist bands before the big crowds.

2&3| We didn’t even have to wait for the wrist bands. There was nobody in line. The kids, of course, wanted to ride right away but I told them rides didn’t start until 5 p.m.

4| Cherry Hawaiian Icee (psst…I get one of them each day)

5| jack was mad at me because I didn’t get him his own icee. He said, “Auntie Jen, that’s not how it’s done.” To which I said, “Jack, I’m not buying you your own, you can share with Gracie and I.” So needless to say he was mad.

6| Gracie and I shared the icee.

7| I kept telling him if he stopped crying and acted like a big boy he could come and eat some but instead he sat beneath the picnic table and cried.

8| Finally he came around after he realized I was ignoring his tantrum but then he got mad at Gracie because, “Your hair always gets in the icee.” I was LMAO!

9| Then they both decided they wanted a piece of pizza, both Pepperoni which surprised me. I thought Jack would want Sausage.

10| Next stop real Lemonade stand. I got them each their own because they are camels and will drink the whole thing.

11| My Combo pizza. Tasty. With mushrooms and parmesan cheese

12| Jack and Gracie being good drinking their lemonade.

13| Fresh squeezed lemonades, “Just like Grandma used to make.” Says the lady who worked there.

14| Jack eating cookie dough on a stick

15| Cookie dough on a stick, it was new last year and one of my favorite things.

16| Gracie eating some cookie dough too.

 
1| A pen of three bunnies that Gracie liked and said, “Auntie Jen, take a picture of those.”

2| Tara’s tags for her champion 4-H rabbit.

3| Tara’s Florida White Champion Rabbit

4| Just a cute bunny. All white except for the nose and ears.

5| The theme of the SCFF this year

6| A rooster. He looks a big menacing

7| Gracie kept trying to stick her finger in the cage even though I told her not to. I should have let her get bit then maybe she would have figured it out.

8| I explained to the kids that this rabbit on the left was cleaning himself. He licks his paws then rubs them on his face.

9| Jack looking at the rows of bunnies, ducks, chickens, and other fowl in the Poultry Building

1| Jack and Gracie waiting, ahem, patiently, ahem, for the rides to start. They were the first in line for the Carousel which is what Gracie wanted to go on first. Jack just fell in line, which was surprising.

2| Gracie picked this huge horse to ride. She asked that I stand next to her and hold on to her but really I just stood next to her and let her ride by herself.

3| Jack picked this little guy for his horse. He didn’t look as excited as Gracie.

4| Gracie rode behind some little girl and not Jack on the 4-wheel cars

5| Jack was having fun on the cars. Look at his face.

6| The train they both love to ride on. Gracie rides in the cars and Jack likes to ride in the back.

7| Gracie and Jack on the Speedway cars. The cars whip around the corners and they just love it.

8| The fun house. Jack went on this about 3-4 times. Gracie wouldn’t go alone so Guy went with her.

 

1| Jimmy’s lightning picture that I thought should have won Grand Champion but only got a red.

2| Jimmy’s Lightning shots - blue

3| Jimmy’s Fireworks – white

4| Jimmy’s Firework snapshots – white

5| My pictures of Shelby Bucher riding games – white

6| My picture of Tara riding Diesel doing Jump Figure Eight – red

7| My Halloween mini book in Scrapbooking – white

8| My Soccer scrapbooking pages – red

9| Kim smelling the fresh cut hay…my favorite thing to do too

10| Dad’s zucchini – blue

11| Dad’s pickles (technically cucumbers until you had pickling) – white

12| Mom’s snowman made out of two pumpkins – red and grand champion

13| Mom’s scrapbooking of her new grandbabies – white

 

1| Hope butter in Culinary…they have a whole category specifically using Hope Butter.

2| A cool cake using the fair’s theme.

3| Courtney Hartle’s quilt.

4| Some decorations in the Flower building. Thought it was pretty cool.  A nice mix of old school and metal.

5| Metal corn. Sweet!

6| Dahlia. Beautiful

7| I won $5 at bingo!

8| A neat looking plant/flower…not sure. LOL but it’s cool

9| Jayde’s neighbor Scottie goofing around

10| Stella and Steely, the mascots.

 

SCFF 2011 Day 2 Part 2

1| El Sol Burrito...the only burrito to eat at the fair. Sorry to all those Grace's lovers but this burrito is better. Sorry, but it is.

2| John Deere tractor line-up (just for my Dad)

3| Strawberry smoothie. I mean, The Strawberry Smoothie. OMG it's soooo good! Yes, I focus a lot on food, but hey, I like food and part of the fair attraction is the food. duh. :)

4| 3 kids in the FFA barn. They've always got the cutest little animals.

5| Tristan's duckies (my cousin whom I affectionately call goober)

6| Camel from the camel rides. Don't you think they have lovely eyes?

7| Marc (my cousin's boyfriend) eating breakfast. Notice the two plates? Yep, he's got a breakfast burrito and biscuits and gravy. He's a good eater LMAO. He ate it all too. Wonder where he puts it? Wish I could eat like that.

8| SCFF billowing sign on top of the Horse barn. It was a nice cool but sunny breezy day. Perfect for the fair, in my mind. I'm sure some would disagree

9| Uncle Tim and Goober (see #5)

10| Aubrey on the saddle. Traci is starting her already.

11| Traci holding Aubrey on the real horse, Calvin. She didn't cry and didn't look scared. That's a good start.

12| Traci ratting out Trina's hair (Traci's friend and lives a couple miles from my house).

13| Marc feeding aubrey some food. He's a natural at it. This picture makes me smile.

SCFF 2010 - Day 7

Just thought I'd post some pics of last year's fair....just to get your mouth watering for this fair...if you're into that sort of things. Fairs, that is. LOL

LtoR,TtoB: 1. Old Man "aka lady" driving the mini stagecoach. This one was my favorite. 2. Close up of the dog catcher's catch 3. The dual rings of the draft wedded pair 4. Stagecoach passenger 5. old fashioned couple of ladies driving with a pony 6. The dog catcher and his set up 7. one of my other favorites just because the hilarity of the dress-up and comparison. Old lady hat on a huge draft horse with blow up rainbow thingy...with wife-beater wearing hairy man LOL 8. the wedded pair 9. the mini stagecoach! hey buddy you gonna use that shotgun?

1. Jayde yapping on the phone 2. Auntie Sheila looking a big crazy with those red-tinted glasses under the tent taking a rest break. 3.Kimmie and one of her favorite foods...a strawberry smoothie. 4. Tristan coping a drink of Kimmie's smoothie. 5. The cutest couple at the fair. Ryan Prestegard and Crystal Pfieffer 6. Nick looking surly at the Draft show...he's helping the Pittman's. 7. Tara looking a bit crazy...it's been a long week. 8. Crystal giving me the business LOL. 8. Kim coping a feel of Thomas's tush. 9. Tristan the little runt.

1. Unicorn hitch. All of the feet are up at the same time. Precision. 2. Another view fromthe backside. Pittman's Percherons have a sign hanging on their Stall door. It's very simple but perfect. 3. Herb won grand champion for halter. He's a beauty. 4. Marc driving the team with Emma, his sister, helping out. 5. Marc and one of his horses. 6. Emma. 7. Nick helping out. They even gave him a shirt. 8. Marc and Emma driving the team. Their wagon is so pretty and simple.

Village of Yesteryear: 1. Old hats 2. Jayde sitting in the back of the old school house. I think he would have gotten beat with a stick. 3. Butter was 15 cents a pound...now it's like $5 a pound for Hope butter. 4. An old horse show...they still do it the same way. LOL That hasn't changed. 5. Owatonna map 6. Old John Deere tractor (Dad is probably drooling looking at this.) 7. Old soap...never heard of this. 8. Eggs in an old carton 9. A sketch of the old schoolhouse that's in the schoolhouse LOL 10. Arithmatic books 11. The old church where my Grandpa was baptized. Old Saco Church 12. Some old cannisters in the Grocery store. I think they are sweet. I remember my Grandmother used to have some. Ahhh nostalgia.

The Demolition Derby! It was sweet this year! 1. A knocked over car. 2. Bump 3. Bam 4. A sweet heavy machine that just picked them up and hauled 'em out. Pretty slick 5. FIRE!!! There were a bunch of fires! Sweet! 6. CRASH! 7. Backed up into the side. 8. Firefighters putting out the flames! 9. Boom

Steele County Free Fair (SCFF)

is next week! woohoo! I can't wait. I have taken pretty much the whole week off so I can enjoy it and get a vacation. Probably not most people's idea of a vacation but I have a lot of fun and for the most part it is relaxing. :) Yeah I know some people think it's not and I could argue all day on why it is and how to get around the "it's not" parts but I won't. :)

Here are some links to pictures from the fair over the last couple of years.

2010

2009

 

Road Trip to Galena, IL and Weekend with the Girls! Part 1

Here are some pictures from my AWESOME weekend with my college roommates (well back in the day)!

I had to drive about 5 hours to get there. I basically drive through Iowa. I was singing...On the road again, just can't wait to get on the road again. LOL This is somewhere between Owatonna and Albert Lea.

  Bye bye Minnesota!

Hello Iowa! Haven't seen you for awhile.

Windmills...energy...cool. They look small far away but when you get close they are gigantic!

Pit stop for Gas. Cheaper in Iowa than in MN.

It looks like i'm going to run into this Windmill

One of my favorite barns of all time. yes I realize that's an odd statement but it's beautiful. The paint job has been that way since I went to college.

Waverly...the town of my alma mater

The OP...best chicken enchilada ever! Smothered in cheese sauce. Oh it was delicious. That joint was right across the street from campus. I could walk there and get it.

Wartburg College...where I spent 4 years of my life that's including summers. It's a private Lutheran college with a beautiful campus and small class sizes. It's what I wanted. I didn't want to go to a state school in Minnesota. I wanted to get away and go to a small school. The price didn't bother me because I got some scholarships and knew that no matter what I'd have to take out student loans. 

Driving onto campus.

view from the Whitehouse Business Center...where I spent a lot of my time because I was an Accounting major.

 

This is the little house where I lived with 3 roommates my senior year. It was a block or so from the Nestle plant where they made hot cocoa...I woke up to that yummy smell almost every morning. Ecstasy. I also lived right next to the bike trail which I could just hop right on with my rollerblades. The trail was an old railroad line that they blacktopped. It was like a tunnel of trees that was beautiful in fall and cool in summer. perfect.

This is where I worked from the fall of my sophomore year through to the end of my senior year. I started as a 10-hr a week bookkeeper handing some accounts payable and some accounts receivable to their full time 40-hr per week Accountant doing all the bookkeeping as well estate taxes and probates. It was a lot of work but I loved it. I learned so much, loved the people I worked with, had my own office and miss them every day. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

This is just an average every day Dairy Queen but it was an escape for me during my freshman and sophomore year. It was a nice walk from campus and a reprieve from school. Grab a buddy and walk down there chatting and enjoying the day then walking home with ice cream. Freshman year my roommate's sister worked there so we'd go there quite a bit. She introduced me to my favorite treat, a chocolate chip cookie dough blizzard with no chocolate and extra cookie dough. OMG so Tasty!

This is a picture of the softball field that a couple of my roommates and I played on during the summer of our sophomore year. Those are some good memories We won a lot of games, had a lot of fun and some of us got drunk (not me LOL) Our first basement stood on first base with a glove, a cigarette in her mouth and a can of beer in the other. She cracked me up. She'd set the can by the base during innings. She actually got better as she drank. LOL I can't stop laughing thinking about the visual image of that.

This diamond also has a fond memory of me plowing over a 7 foot tall guy in the outfield. I was charging for a fly ball into left and I was yelling as I was running, "I got it!" over and over but he didn't listen. I ended up catching it and running him over, doing a barrel roll and coming up with the ball. It was hilarious. I told him afterward that he should listen to me when I tell him I got it. The second memory was an in the park home run that I hit. It was freakin' sweet! I was on cloud nine!

T

Crossing the Mississippi Bridge at Dubuque.

This is the cliffs along the route to Galena in Illinois.

My lovely Erika.

Kristi...looking very sly as she shuffles our Uno deck. LOL What are you up to? LOL

K

Our beautiful pad for the weekend at the Eagle Ridge Resort.

Beautiful flowers