america's first national park

yellowstone
america's first national park

ok, dumb title, i know! but i'm typing this as i race against the clock for our check out time here at the yellowstone koa. we're heading down to see stan's family for a week of unplugged time at their ranch in wyoming. i had a bunch of pictures i wanted to post, but dang that time running out! so instead, i am gonna post my pics of the day, and link to albums with the pictures on them. day 1: we stopped at the lewis & clark caverns in montana a couple of hours north of yellowstone. we've driven by them tons of times, but have never stopped. they were so dang cool! click here for day one album.

day 2: we hiked the geyser basin and caught this very cool site of old faithful lit by the sun with the storm clouds in the distance. amazing. click here for day two album.

day 3: we hiked the grand canyon of yellowstone. we started at the north rim and hiked all the way to artists point on the south rim. spectacular! really makes you feel just how small you are in the grand scheme of things. click here to see day three album.

day 4: we took a bike ride & hike to fairy falls. all i can say is WOW! we were blessed by a secluded little place where we could picnic and play in the cold water. click here for day four album.

day 5: we hit west thumb geyser basin, fishing bridge & rented a boat on yellowstone lake - all things we'd never done in the park before. click here to see day five album.

i better get off the computer before we get charged for an extra day here! lol. we're now heading down to dubois, wyoming for a week with stan's family. i'm sure i'll have a zillion pictures to post as soon as i'm back to an internet connection. have a fabulous week!

one crazy awesome week

one crazy awesome week

birthdays, parties, holidays, celebrations, visitors, fun & vacation

holy moly! it's been one crazy week of fun and business. so i'm going to do a little backwards recap of the week as i type this from a hotel in montana on our way to yellowstone. stan got a new truck last week to replace our minivan. he's feeling very manly now. lol. so we got our annual pre-trip picture with the car all packed and ready to go. i will say, i am liking how little it makes the girls look. :)

we had some old friends visit for the weekend from out of state & brought their four sweet little darlings with them. this was our first time meeting their youngest two. tons of fun, lots of laughs & bbq'ing. the kids all bunked out in torrey's room (except baby maximus). i'm pretty sure they didn't get to sleep before 11:30pm any of the nights. too much giggling going on.

i got some runky red streaks put in last week too. just to change things up a bit for fun. we spent the 4th of july at a big bbq at the fuentes family's house. i think it's our first year we haven't camped there too. (just too much stuff to try to squeeze that in too). next year! they, of course, know how to throw a fabulous party. tons of families, fireworks and celebration of our great country.



on friday, after the jewetts rolled into town, we all turned around and went right to a wbc staff reunion bbq. the kids put away some hot dogs and hamburgers while the grown ups visited. it's always fun to see lots of families and kids you don't get to see very often all playing together. emmy, the jewett's youngest girl, was so dang cute sporting her little jane fonda 'do...

i loved that we had all of the party bag making supplies on hand at home! hurray for scrapbook supplies & lunch bags!

on thursday, we had back to back parties. from 12-3pm we had a bunch of fabulous 4th graders over for torrey's 9th birthday. i'm not really sure how she's 9 years old now, but she assures me she is! lol. we made a homemade 50' slip & slide out of clear vinyl, and a soaker hose, and had it going down one of the hills in our backyard. we even grabbed a couple of bottles of baby oil to really make sure they'd fly down the slip & slide. the girls had a blast, and went home with oily, grassy bodies... hopefully with not too many bruises to remember the day. :)

then after a quick clean up we had a 60th anniversary party for my grandma & grandpa. how cool is that? 60 years! the whole family was there. they brought their high school year books (yes, they started "going together" in high school) and their albums of pictures. we all took turns looking through the pictures while they told us stories about them. what an amazing legacy... plus they're just so darn cute. darn that none of the pictures turned out well. when we get back from vacation, i'd really like to do some portrait shots of the two of them. just a reminder of the blessing they are.

ooo! stan also took down a beehive that morning, i've got a couple of pictures of that, but i'll have to post them later. i'm trying to be speedy so we can get back on the road, and i may get in trouble if i take too much longer. lol.

wednesday, we spent the entire day running around trying to get all of the last minute things done before the parties & company came in... then we bought the truck. i'd left my camera at home, and it was the first day i nearly missed getting a shot for project 365. but as we tucked the girlies into bed, i snapped one of torrey's last day of being 8. loving her big eyes & silly look.

on tuesday the fuentes family came over for some relaxing fun in the sun. the kids played in the hose while jennifer and i visited. man, time gets so busy sometimes. when the kids were littler we would get together 3-4 days a week in the summer... now we're lucky if we get a couple of times a month in. thank goodness for good friendships that can handle the ups and downs and time constraints of real life.


there it was... a quick (or maybe not so quick) recap of our crazy week of fun. i better get this posted so we can get back on the road for our crazy week of vacation madness. hope you are having a fabulous summer! {{hugs}}

he loves me...

he loves me...

oi! i'm a little behind on getting my pictures up and going. we've had a crazy busy week, with a few more packed days ahead... then VACATION! woohoo! anyway, to catch up on the past few days. (i still am uploading today's pictures.) yesterday torrey walked the yard with me in the evening after a full day of work, dropping off scrappy projects & a little party at torrey's friend's house. we just chit chatted and took a couple of pictures by these pretty pink flowers in our yard. they look so bright next to the pale sage leaves and stems. anyway, she started picking daisies and doing the he loves me... he loves me not. and man, that was just too darn cute to pass up. :)

she stopped to smell the flowers

then cracked up laughing because it suctioned to her nose. :)

and speaking of "he loves me" who wouldn't be thrilled to be loved by a handsome guy like this? at least he loves his veggies! hee hee

over the weekend we camped with a family we know from the girls' school. we had a blast, of course. torrey did some fishing with stan. it was kind of windy, so mostly they caught rocks and seaweed.
emma and i went for a little hike together saturday afternoon and found this very cool shaped tree that she climbed. later that night she climbed another tree that she slid down and ended up with a fat lip. poor little girlie.




hope you're having a fabulous week. we're getting ready to celebrate torrey's birthday & my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary this week. we're also having some friends stay with us from out of state before we leave. so we've got a super fun busy week ahead.

4am, where did you come from?

4am, where did you come from?

i was just down here in my scraproom, scrapping away and looked over at the clock. yipes! 4am! getting the girls up at 6:30am for an early dentist appointment tomorrow is gonna be a caffeine loaded endeavor, i think. :) guess that's the beauty of not needing too much sleep - you get to spend lots of family time and scrapping time.

but i figured i'd get my last couple of pictures up before i hit the hay for a couple of hours. just a couple of shots of the girls on the lawn. they love rolling down the hills. and now as a mom i understand why my mom never really liked it when we did that as kids. thank goodness for stain sticks! lol. but hey, a couple of grass stains aren't worth spoiling the fun of being a kid, right?

well off to bed before that alarm doesn't have to wake me up. lol. i psyched for another camping trip this weekend. oh, and i clocked another few miles on my bike today... not very many, but i did some minor hills. oi! i am really enjoying riding around stan. maybe one of these days we'll get good enough to go on a date ride somewhere. well, we've got aspirations of it anyway. :)

hope you're having a fabulous friday!

just a quickie

just a quickie

went on another great bike ride today with my mom and the girls. we went 11 miles today, and started at the opposite end of the trail we'd been riding. i realized that we were pretty darn close to the end on our sunday ride... makes me wish we'd gone just a bit farther. now i need to figure out a way to bring my camera on the bike. any ideas?

so the picture of the day was a quickie of emma in her tie-dye shirt she made at school.

do you hula?

do you hula?

after work this morning, the girls and i headed down toward my lss (lasting memories) for a design team interview. we got there a little early and decided to kill some time at toys-r-us. so we walked around and looked at all of the toys, and walked away with two new hula hoops. torrey is the hula hoop master. she can whip that hula hoop around, and it hardly looks like it's moving. she's gone more than 25 minutes straight hoopin' it up!

emma took a little longer getting the hang of it, but man did she have fun. there was a lot of laughing going on...

especially when i got going. (forgive the sweat pants, i was in process of getting comfy. lol) surprisingly it did come back to me after a bit, i think mostly from watching torrey, though! on one "contest" i even kept it up longer than the torrey-master! lol.

when stan got home we went on another bike ride. we only went 8 miles, but did it in the rain. so there were 4 soaked culbertsons at the end of the trail. we were feeling pretty tough when we got back to the car. hee hee. we need to pack our little camera for the bike rides, i think...

fatherly light

fatherly light

boy oh boy are my girlies (and me) lucky to have such a great daddy! they worked really hard toward the end of school to make him a couple of projects in their classes, and i helped them make him a t-shirt they thought up. they'd planned it a little more colorful, but due to budget cuts, they had to pick only one color of fabric paint. :)

so they picked out the saying, and i helped iron it on for them.

and they hand-printed the back & signed their names. (they even posed him for this picture!) i thought it was pretty dang cute. they were so sweet giving it to him this morning when they got up. and being the wonderful daddy he is, he wore it to church this morning, too. he was pretty proud to be sporting their handiwork. :)

then there was this piece of work... i think i mentioned awhile back that we had converted our old dining room light fixture into a chandelier for torrey's room. well, i finally finished stringing the last of the beads onto it last night. i didn't have a "before" picture, so i had to go searching for this one online. but this was it...

stan took it all apart, removed the glass & trumpet style lower light, spray painted it, and reassembled it. i picked out some beads with torrey from michaels, strung them and hung them on the freshly drilled holes. then stan hung it up today in torrey's room. i think it turned out really cool! and not too shabby for just the price of a few strings of beads!

anyway, this was the finished project. torrey was super happy with it. i'm thinking now that we'll have to install a dimmer switch because you could land a plane in her room. :)

oh and an update on the new bikes. we went out and got some of those padded bike shorts. (if you've ridden on a bike very far, you'll know why!) we took the kids out riding again today on this very nice local trail and they went 20 miles! it was such a fun day. we went with another family and just had a great time zipping down the trail. i'm loving this new family hobby.

cutie, funny & pouty

cutie, funny & pouty

cutie
the super sweet jennifer evans, the brains behind create well - create often, also has a darling etsy shop with lots of cool handmade scrapping embellies. she sent me a fabulous package of goodies as a thank you for the being a guest designer for her site. how sweet is that? being the fabulous lady she is, she even threw in a couple of these cute little handmade headbands for the girls! thank you, thank you, thank you jennifer!!!

funny
because i'm me, i think life is best filled with lots of laughter. and i'm pretty darn lucky to be married to one funny guy, who can take a joke. we made some hello kitty waffles for breakfast this morning, and the whip cream just happened to be handy... so i gave the girls and stan little whip cream smiley faces. it's definitely not the best picture, but it reminded me of the daily fun we have in our life... just one of the many, many things i'm thankful for. i'm one lucky ducky!

pouty
little princess pouty face made picture of the day with this one. it just kind of sums my baby girl up. she's got such a soft heart that breaks so easily. reminds me a lot of me as a kid. sometimes it's a little maddening, but not something i'd ever want to change about her. she can go from happy to sad in 2 seconds flat, but she can make the trip almost as fast. gotta love how God made each one of us each so US! :)

family night & some cards

family night
{and some cards}

after helping some fellow moms do some setting up for a local soap box derby event tomorrow, we decided to grab pizza and head to family night at the local sports club. the girls played like crazy on the bouncy house, the kidz circuit training, racquetball & the pool. i even tried out that gravity thingy that spins you upside down. i've never been on one of those, but MAN! that was fun! i wish i had one of those babies at our house. the girls were too enamoured with the whole thing to snap a picture, so this was my only memory of it... this and my nice tight ab muscles. lol.


and while i was at the posting, i thought i'd post a few of these cards i made the other day from an lss kit i picked up. :)

**oh! and i had an article on DSLR camera post at tsr {the scrap review} the other day if you're interested. **

lasts & firsts

lasts & firsts

last day of school - first day of summer vacation! wednesday the girls had a wonderfully fun last day of school. i'm still kind of wondering where the whole year went. it was nice that stan had to work a little later, so we were able to take the girls to school together, and go out to lunch as a family when they got out.

it was one of those days where we got to think back on all of the events of the year. i am so thankful for all of the new friends they made this year, and how welcoming the families and staff were to our family. it always makes you a little nervous for your kids to make all new friends in a new school. we were so blessed to meet so many wonderful families and teachers... not to mention starting all of the fun new traditions at the new school. i love it when a plan comes together!

after school we went to the pet store and picked up a few more fishies for the pond just for kicks. emma made sure to explain to torrey exactly how she should go about the releasing process. pretty dang funny.

then we headed out to a friend's 40th birthday party. love a party where all of the families are there too. the kids had a great time. anytime you can fit almost 40 people in a restaurant with kids and maintain some kind of sanity, is a fabulous time!

yesterday our new bikes were all done being assembled, and we went on our first family bike ride. the girls made it for a 10 mile ride! i was pretty darn impressed with them. although i can now see why people wear those cushy bottomed bike pants! i'll be investing in some of those very soon!

the last full day

the last full day

i'm not exactly sure where this past school year went, but it is now 2 hours of school away from being finished. yowza! i'm pretty sure the reason time is going by so fast has nothing to do with me getting any older... that couldn't be it. lol. but really, it has been a wonderful whirlwind school year at our new school. the staff & parents have just taken us in and made us feel so welcome. the girls love the school & all of their new friends. and i have to say i'm going to miss this year's teachers terribly next year. i had lunch today with the girls and their friends, and watched the end of year awards assembly. so so much fun! i even ran a quick errand for emma's teacher for next year. i ran to get some pictures developed for her last minute, and since she was nice enough to trust me with her camera... i made sure to leave a few little "presents" on it for her to find later! we'll see if she ever trusts me with it again! lol

yesterday i was laid up with a migraine, and only got a couple of pictures. i did get these from laying on the couch just before i turned the expander in torrey's mouth. this little gizmo is fondly called "the key to the castle" at our house. i get to use it to crank the expander each day. i got such a kick out of torrey's expressions. what a goof!


i also snapped these quick pics of a butterfly on our flowers which i thought was a cool find. the bottom one has the butterfly and a bee about to land. what are the chances?


a couple of side notes from today. i made my first hairdo video for a friend that asked. but since emma went to all of the trouble of video taping, and torrey did such a great job as the hair model, i wanted to share it here, too. :)



**one last note, i was the guest designer on

create well, create often

this week. a fun blog run by the very sweet, not to mention talented, jen evans. check out her site if you get a chance!**

hope you're having a fabulous week!

date days & school days

date days & school days

with some of the expander trauma (see the orthodontist post), i decided torrey could use a mommy/daughter date day. so we went out for her first ever pedicure & manicure. it was pretty dang cute. i had my fixed 50mm lens on, so i couldn't get the whole shebang from the chair next door, but i could get this one. :) we hit the scrapbook store, and picked her up some goodies, and had dinner together. i love these kind of days!

our piggies.

my second attempt at this hairdo. i was much more successful this time around. it's amazing how much easier they are the second time around. i'm trying to speedily get this post up since at midnight (in 30'ish minutes) the power to all of camano island is going out. they're building a new bridge onto the island, and have to move the main power lines. so please don't mind my hurried typing. :)

yesterday was a busy day at school. there is so much fun to be had in the last few days. friday was beach day, 1st grade graduation & summer birthdays bash. emma's teacher did a little picnic on the lawn with all of the parents & had a little ceremony where she presented their portfolios of projects from the year.


i just thought this picture was cool. disclaimer: no child was injured in the photographing of this stunt. although this running somersault looks like it would end in permanent neck injury... it surprisingly ended in a wicked cool somersault. lucky for me!

then it was up to torrey's class for the summer birthdays bash. we brought decorate your own cookie goodies to celebrate torrey's summer birthday with her class. oh yah, you could totally smell the sugar rush coming on! :)

when the girls got home from school, stan filled up his john deere trailer with water and drove the girls around the yard. apparently the water was pretty dang cold... but man-o-man they laughed so hard. those are the kinds of memories that last a lifetime. stan's such darn great daddy! :)

counting my blessings

counting my blessings

i spent the better part of today restructuring a bunch of our financial schtuff after an unauthorized paypal charge came through this morning. what a pain! i was so thankful that it wasn't any worse. we caught it very fast, so the damage was minimal. oi! loads of hours of work with the bank got it all mostly back in shape.

anyway, it lead me to think about all of the things in my life i'm thankful for. my girls, my husband, our house, our faith, and so much more. we really do have so so much to be thankful for in our daily lives.

anyway, tonight i am falling asleep at the keyboard. that long day of dealings must be extra tired today. so i'm going to sign off for the night. hopefully falling asleep won't bring any more of this kind of excitment! lol

why you're glad i'm not YOUR mom

why you're glad i'm not YOUR mom

we went to the orthodontist yesterday to have torrey's expander put in. because i'm me, i had my camera in tow. anyway, they were so sweet and explained everything to torrey beforehand with the mold. i took the mold and lifted the top and bottom and told her they were going to expand her mouth that way. she just shook her head. lol. there is just something fun about talking to your kids with their own mouth. i could have brought that mold home with me for hours of fun...

nothing makes you feel pretty like a couple of cotton sticks shoved in your mouth. she was such a good sport having it put in. although there was one minor breakdown when she tried to eat in the evening. after a special trip to the store with daddy to pick up some soft foods, all was well. today was the game of trying to find the words she couldn't say right. so far i think the winners are research, kitty, and weird.

stan's comment on this one... "hey kid, looks like you've got the blues..." lol. i love my husband!


yesterday we tried out this hairdo. i looked at the instructions the night before, and didn't recheck my laptop in the morning. so really we kind of just made up our own deal here. so maybe i'll have to try to do the actual do sometime. :)

as for the rest of these... just more pictures of my lovlies.

{dream big}

{dream big}

today i had a wonderful visit with my dear friend, doreen. we laughed and lunched and talked about the joys and hardships of real life. doreen is a beautiful person. she has a heart of gold, and loves her family dearly. (her kids are pretty darn amazing, too. they're huge cancer research advocates.) through the years doreen has been a huge encouragement to me through some of my toughest times. i wish there was more i could do to repay her for all she's been there for me on over the years. her life motto is {dream big}.

we talked about celebrating life's little moments, loving someone forever and so much more. we laughed (a lot)... because, what is life if you don't have a lot of laughter. if you're looking for someone to add to your prayer list, i know doreen and her family would appreciate it. (doreen's husband, rick, is also fighting cancer.) you can check out the rest of the pictures here.

so to my dear friend, {dream big} and kick lung cancer in the you-know-what.

something old into something new

something old into something new

i'm all about finding a new purpose for something old. so when we replaced the 80's style plate glass dining room light fixture, i knew we could remake it into something much more fun. we decided to make a chandelier for torrey's "grown up room". so stan took the whole thing apart, and after removing the plate glass & odd cone thing from the bottom, it actually looked pretty cute. now i'm wishing i had a before, before picture of this light.

anyway, we went to michael's to picked up some beads and spray paint. after they sat in the garage for a month or so, we finally got around to making it happen. i strung beads while stan spray painted. i did however, miscalculate my total number of beads needed, so i'll be making one more trip to michael's before it's finished. (i was 4 short on one kind and 6 short on another!) pretty close for a guesstimate, though. :) i love it when a plan comes together!



awhile ago i brought my pin cushions upstairs for a project, and well, since i don't always put things away like i should... they're still upstairs. so today i walked by the counter to find them rearranged (by emma) to this cute little tomato man. i really don't think i could take a pin out of him now. he's too dang cute! i should not put things away more often. lol.

yesterday we were kid central. we invited one of emma's school friends and the cousins over to play. they ran around having a blast & made up dance routines with their chinese jump ropes. how great is it to grow up so close to your cousins. now, i'm definitely not a video professional, and this was shot on my little flip video (which i love!)... but i thought it was so darn funny. they made this little routine up and asked if i'd record it. so here it is guys! :)

chinese jump rope dance from noel culbertson on Vimeo.

oh! and one more side note for today. our family went and saw the new disney/pixar movie UP today. we don't go to the theater often, but this was seriously the best movie i've seen in a long time. the story & life lessons were wonderful. very family friendly, funny, cute, sweet, and even a little sad. i would totally go see it in the theater again! stan and the girls loved it too. just thought i'd share. :)

the last days

the last days

the last weeks of school are always filled with a flurry of activities. friday was the 3rd grade field trip to the zoo. i love that each grade has one special field trip that they get to look forward to through the years. we spent most of the day with the first family we were lucky enough to meet at the school. i met her at weight watchers just before school started. for torrey it was a huge relief meeting someone at her new school before it started. and man, we've been so thankful for their friendliness, and heart this year. the girls had a great time checking out the animals, especially the snakes and nocturnal exhibits. i even snuck in a few pictures (never mind the root beer hard candy torrey's packin' in her bottom lip here. lol)

gorillas, penguines and giraffes... oh my!

then after school... the annual school carnival complete with dunk tank, bouncy houses and carnival games. we ran around all evening watching the girls flit from one bunch of fun to another. torrey got to dunk her teacher (who was such a great sport)! they both came home with bags of goodies and memories to last a lifetime.

{thursday}

thursday stan and i did some more work on our fountain. (by more work, i mean, a lot more work! we redid the whole thing!) he did most of the work getting it taken apart (i.e. moving big rocks) and cementing the bottom. then i came and helped move the rocks back in, and arranging them so they'd cascade the water down. if you want a sure fire way to find out if you're aging... moving lots of big rocks is an excellent indicator. with all of that rockin' fun, we ordered a pizza for dinner, and ate it outside in the fabulous sunshine.

to balance out all of that work... well, a little bit-o-fun. i mean, what else should you do after you clear a bunch of rocks off your tarps, but load them with dish soap and water and turn them into slip-n-slides?! now that's good, clean fun. we're trying to figure out a better sliding surface for turning our "double black diamond" sledding hill into a slip-n-slide hill. anybody have great ideas for making a super long slip-n-slide?

watermelon, watermelon in a dish

watermelon, watermelon
in a dish...

so it's obvious that i'm a big fan of gymboree. (yes, hide that shocked look on your face!) i love that they have clothes for girls that look like kid clothes. i admittedly have issues with my girls dressing too grown up for their age. and dang it all, if it's not just plain cute.

to make a long story longer, one of the things i love about gymboree is their staff. we're on a first name basis (yah, they see me a lot.) anyway, they take good care of me, always make me laugh, and several have girls the same age. funny the places we find friends sometimes. anyway, i'm completely rambling! all this to say that when i got the email with this super cute watermelon dress, i called them to ask if they'd hold it for me until i could come pick it up (that would be 2 matching dresses, size 9.) of course with a little playful banter they did. when i went to pick them up this week, they were held for "the fabulous noel." lol. i'm not sure about that fabulous part, but i'll take what i can get. :)
anyway, now that i've rambled on and on about nearly nothing at all... i'll just shut my mouth via my fingers and leave you in peace. hee hee.

are you surprised... i couldn't keep my mouth shut very long. lol. wanted to give another shout out for my favorite girl's hairdo blog. 'cause mindy is an amazing mom who does some sweet hairdo's on her girls, and shares the easy to follow how to's on her blog. she's even got a little giveaway going right now, so check her out if you've got girls with hair. :)

{life} is beautiful

{life}
is beautiful

several weeks ago i posted about my friend, donna, who was just beginning her battle with breast cancer. this beautiful lady is now in the throes of chemo, more surgeries and all that accompanies the fight against breast cancer. i cannot express how much of a blessing donna has been to me over the years, and what an inspiration she is to me now. her heart is so beautiful. she is courageous and encouraging and hopeful. when she came over today for some baldie pictures, we laughed so hard we nearly wet our pants. she reminds me that through life's toughest moments there is joy that is found in the Lord, and that each moment we have is a blessing.

donna pulled out a bunch of her hats for one of the pictures and showed me this scarf. it had been her mom's. she told me how when she pulled it out of the storage box when she started losing her hair, it still smelled just like her mom. another reminder to cherish my mommy, too.


if you think to pray for my dear friend, it would mean so much to me, and to her. thank you so much!
if you'd like to see the rest of the pictures from the shoot you can check them out here.

children's day

children's day

i love the blogging world! thanks to all of you wonderful blog-friends who recently told me when international children's day was. i remembered on my way home from work today, so i swung by the grocery store & dollar store and picked up some celebratory goods. white hamburger buns (because the girls *never* get those - they say), strawberry shortcake fixins, their favorite chips, new regular & chinese jump ropes and leis (just for fun).

the girls got home from school completely unaware. then they saw the goodies on the table and figured something had to be up. so i spilled it. man, who knew that $10 at the dollar store could bring such joy? we ate dinner outside in the sunshine, played chinese jump rope, they kicked my rear at regular jump rope, and put together a make-your-own doll kit that emma had received as a present awhile back. last, but not least, we topped it off with strawberry shortcake. and of course a little extra fun over-filling their mouths with the canned whipped cream. (who says children's day can't be fun for parents too?!) this is the stuff memories are made of... and all on a random monday evening. life is good.