Off The Grid

G2 with his new car

I'll be 'off the grid' so to speak this week. We'll be traveling to Texas Motor Speedway later in the week to root for G2 as he competes in his first Southern Sport Mod race. The whole family is so excited for him. This is a new class for him but we know from past experience he'll do a great job.

I have LOTS of things I need to get accomplished before we leave. See you soon!

Spring Is In The Air

                                    

Well, at least these robins think so. This afternoon is a chilly one but AD hollered for me to come look out the back door. The yard was filled with robins! I ran to get my camera (naturally it was in the bedroom instead of in my hand where it should have been) but by the time I got back they'd flown away.

A few minutes later they were back. This time I had the camera.

I snapped away as fast as I could in case the robins took flight again.

Now I ask you - with that many robins around, don't you think Spring is just around the corner?

My Wednesdays

On Wednesdays you can generally find me at my local (35 miles away) scrapbook store cropping with a good friend.

The store has started having layout contests again since Spring is coming. The store decides on a sketch to be used (kind of an outline for lack of a better word), then those who want to participate use that sketch to create a page. The store's customers then vote for their favorite throughout the month. When the voting time has expired, all the votes are tallied, the winner is announced and receives a small prize.

Prize or no prize, I just like entering the contests. It's fun to take a sketch and see what I can come up with. I used to sew a lot and, for me, going from a sketch to a scrapbook page is like taking a pattern (the sketch), selecting just the right fabric (photos and papers), buttons, etc (embellishments) and ending up with a new dress (page).

I created the page above last week from this month's sketch. Although I really liked how it came out, something just seemed off. According to the sketch there were only supposed to be 4 photos used but my page just wasn't coming together the way it should so I added a 5th photo. Now the store isn't really that picky about following the sketches exactly but I like to be as on target as possible. So that 5th photo really, really bothered me.

I just couldn't see where I went wrong. Finally it hit me. I had placed the top photo at the very top of the page and that threw everything else off. The photo was actually supposed to be placed down the page just a bit.

I could have let it go and entered my page in the contest but since entries weren't due until today I thought I'd give it another go when I was at the store yesterday.



The title of the page is "Lions and Rhinos and a Bear - Oh My!"

 This is the page I put together yesterday and it followed the sketch exactly. I like both pages equally well and had a very hard time choosing which one to enter.

In the end I left my zoo page to be entered. I can't wait to see everyone else's entries! After the votes are cast and a winner is declared I'll let you know how my page fared among the others.

On another note and because it does relate to this post - a week or so ago I visited Emmie's Ramblings and just enjoyed Emily's blog so much I became a follower. Little did I know that I would be her 50th follower.

Because of that she sent me a wonderful little package of goodies! On Tuesday there was a card in our post office box telling us that we had a package for pick up (our box is very small). Emily lives in Florida and I live here in Oklahoma so it never occurred to me that the package might be from her. I didn't get to the post office until after it had closed on Tuesday so I had to wait until yesterday to pick it up on my way to the scrapbook store. The package held a sweet plaque, a lovely scented sachet, a little butterfly wind chime and some scrapbooking goodies (brads, eyelets, embellishments and ribbon). Thank you Emily!

NOTE to Emily: The package arrived at the PERFECT time! I'm glad it was Wednesday before I was able to pick it up because it was in my bag when I got to the scrapbook store. The little black brads that were included were exactly what I needed to complete my Zoo layout. How great is that!!!!! I've had another page in mind to do for awhile now. I'm just waiting to get the photos I need for it. The orange ribbon is going to be perfect on the page. It's almost as if you knew what I was thinking. Thanks again!

A Trip to the Tulsa Zoo

L-R (back row) Son, G4, G3 (front row) Girlie and G5

Saturday was a beautiful day in Oklahoma. AD's mother has one big birthday party for all of her kids every February. AD's youngest sister's birthday is the end of January, his and his brother's birthdays are one day apart in mid-February and his sister that is just younger than him has a birthday the first part of March. Now that there are not only grand kids, but great grands too, it's kind of a zoo when the party rolls around.

But this post isn't about that "zoo", it's about the Tulsa Zoo. Son and his kids came up for the party and when it started breaking up, he, his kiddos and I went to the Tulsa zoo for a few hours.

The kids were on the lookout for flamingos and they thought they found some. But these are spoonbills. I tried researching it but couldn't find anything that said flamingos and spoonbills are related. These were pink though and they stood on their legs like flamingos. That pelican (I assume it's a pelican!) in the back on the left was pretty fascinating to watch too.

This alligator was another of their favorites.

That lump of hair is a sloth and his parents were high above him in the trees. I tried taking their picture but they were just too far away to get a good one.

The rhinos are what really caught my eye. They reminded me of another trip to another zoo years ago when Son and Daughter were small. That zoo was a drive-through and a rhino came right up to our car to take a peek inside. It scared the bejeebers out of Daughter!

The lions were sunning themselves on Saturday.

The chimps seemed to be posing for pictures

just like the black bear.

I think everyone had a good time. Next time though, we need to go earlier in the day so we can spend more time. We pretty much closed down the zoo on Saturday.

I hope your weekend was a pleasant one too!