{twenty ten}

it's 1:35am and i'm sitting here in my chair with my fuzzy lamb slippers on. the fire has died out, and my contacts are telling me it's time for bed. before i hit the hay, and hopefully before i need to hit the ground running in the morning, i wanted to get a quick post up.

first and foremost, it's a day of celebration. at 10:59pm on january 7, 2002 the world was blessed to welcome my sweet baby girl. HAPPY BIRTHDAY my precious little emma... eight years old today. please don't ask me where the past eight years have gone because i could not tell you. it's been a whirlwind of wonderful memories, crazy moments and lots of lovin'. happy birthday bubby-doll! i love you more than ever {and maybe even more}.

secondly, at least as of now, i'm continuing on my project 365 for 2010. flipping through the pictures from last year, i almost can't imagine not doing it again. there are just so many little moments that would have been forgotten without it. not to mention watching the girls grow before my eyes in pictures. it is an amazing process.

since i've managed to make it 6 days already, i'm guessing i'm all in. last year at this time, stan was laid up from getting hit hard by a drunk driver. looking back a year later, you can't help but shout, God is good! this year on january first, stan is overseas and the girls and i were out visiting my brother in colorado. a million miles and about 100 degrees fahrenheit apart. we were tromping around in the snow, and he was tromping around in the sand. and i'd wager to guess that our day was a little more fun-filled than his. all that said, we all are tromping toward homecoming just as fast as we can!

we spent the day at the garden of the gods in colorado springs with my two brothers, sister in law and dad. it was the last day my brother dave & his wife were in town from japan, so tromping around in one of america's amazing wonders was the perfect way to spend the day.

january 2nd we had breakfast with my brother and headed out for the long trek home. 1300 miles, or there about. i would have said about 20 hours of driving, however, we had a little hiccup along the way...

just over the summit of vail pass in the rockies, i hit an icy patch and went for a disneyland-esque ride that ended in the snowbank. as we were spinning and costco dried mangoes were swirling around above my head, i somehow knew it was going to be alright. and as we plowed to a stop under the curl of a snow wave... we were alright. what was that about shouting God is good... maybe i should do that again! my dad hopped out of the car and said, "um, we have a little bit of a problem." it wasn't that we were pointing the opposite direction of traffic with our behind buried in snow.

nope! notice in the picture how the truck canopy hatch is open. oh yah! our luggage was back there. guess where it ended up after our deposit in the snow bank? oh yah, again. it shot out of the back of the canopy, landed about 50 feet away then was buried in the large amount of snow we displaced with the truck. hot dog! or more like... cold fingers! my dad and i jumped out into waist deep snow (ok, for you "normal sized" folks it probaby wasn't that deep... but for the "fun sized" among us, well, it was waist deep.) we hobbled through the snow in a not-so-graceful manner and started hucking the bags back toward the truck. i'm pretty sure i was running on adrenaline at this point because it took me a minute to realize a critical mistake i'd made... "packing" all of the ski coats, snow pants, goggles and my heels in a laundry basket. yah, that didn't go so well. the laundry basket contents had exploded like a firework, except that the evidence was all covered as if the snow had always been there. oy! there was a puff of pink snow hat here, and a dash of brown snow pant there. but, oh man, was it cold out there.

back into the truck for those heated seats to work their magic, and a little belated call to 911 to request a lift out of our current predicament. once we had an officer and a tow truck on the way... i went searching for gloves so i could finish the job of finding as much of belongings as possible... and my dad went to snap a few pictures of our misadventure. all the while, the girls sat in the backseat, happy as clams, playing with their american girl dolls. ah the simple joy of childhood! i threw the last of the items i managed to find in the back of the truck, and waited for our rescuers.

the state patrol officer got there first. a very cheery navy veteran who enjoyed the humor of the moment as much as we did. it is a blessing to be able to look at a near miss, to laugh and be grateful. just a few minutes later we were joined by a tow fella who amazed us with his skills of getting a backward angled ginormous truck out of the snow and on the right track, without blocking traffic and all in about 10 minutes! and with a quick swipe of my card, he had us back on our way... completely unscathed from our crazy little ride. God is definitely good!

after 22 hours of travel, we finally arrived in town, quickly hit the drive through car wash to wash away 1300 miles of road grime and snow pack. and figuring i might crash as soon as we rolled into our driveway, i decided to snap a picture right there in the car wash. clean and simple. :)

monday was filled with cleaning and doing an inventory on the items we donated to vail pass. i kindly donated one shoe two different pairs of shoes. so my super cute naughty monkey heel is now missing it's partner. poor cute shoe! but all things considered, we survived the whole thing and only lost 2 shoes and two gloves. (read that 2 pairs of shoes and 2 pairs of shoes... one item from each pair was eaten by the snow.) lol

tuesday and wednesday life rolled back to its normal routine. school, homework, lunch making, house cleaning and all that jazz. it is those normal moments where you can sit back with a cup of coffee, and laugh at the crazy life that is swirling around your head like costco dried mangoes, and know that God is good.

new goodies & a giveaway!

new goodies & a giveaway

had the heart monitor on again yesterday-today. no episodes, so i'm pretty sure it didn't catch anything. but we'll turn it in and see. all of my other test came back fine... so guess we'll see where it goes from here. when i opened this pic full size in photoshop, stan and i got a laugh out of how much my neck looks like a piece of raw chicken with the skin on. something to ponder on cold winter'ish night. :)

this was my runner up for pic of the day. i'm thinking now maybe, this is the one i should have chosen. the girls were playing little red riding hood. and i caught this one of emma knocking on "granny's" door. :)

ok, now for the fun schtuff! i got a box of goodies from the fabulous glitz girls with all of their new goodies from cha! whoo hoo. i worked on making a couple of quick projects with some of the new stuff this afternoon. this layout is from the rebel line. totally loving this edgy, man-style line of goodies. i figured the tire tread paper was perfect for scrapping one of the pictures of stan's smashed car. the layout felt overly red in the end, but hey... i'm stickin' with what i've got now.

the edges of the layout are stamped with glitz's new acrylic distressing stamps. i used the distressed grid (layout edges) & grunge (ace card and journaling strips) stamps on this layout. the distressed polka dots (my new fave) are on brown cardstock the owl card, although i'm not sure you can see it in the pictures. i'll have to do another project with those. they're so cool!


the rhinestone wings are by prima, thickers by american crafts and the transparency is by hambly.

this one is all goodies from the sparrow line. there are a ton of very cute/cool papers in this line too. lots more projects i have formulating in my mind with these. totally loving the spring colors! (especially since it's not feeling much like spring outside!)

i think this owl rubon is so stinkin' cute. there are bunches of these cute birdies in the rubon pack.
more sparrow line fun. these new patterned cardstock border stickers are too fun. they've got them to match each new line, too. how cool is that?


ok, now for the giveaway! i've got a big box of glitzy goodness for one lucky winner. all you have to do is tell me your very favorite spring time activity (can you tell i'm needing a little spring here), and i'll choose a winner on wednesday, march 18. good luck!!!

project 365

what is project 365? a photo a day for a year. i started on jan. 1 {along with a bunch of other scrapbookers & photo junkies} taking a photo a day. we'll see how well i can keep up, but for now i'm 3 for 3! yea.

001 - torrey comforting stan as he's icing his back from his car accident injuries. not the best picture ever taken... but captured the moment well enough for me.

002 - our first look at stan's car after the accident. i know i just posted these yesterday. but, hey, it was my pic/day from jan 2 (yesterday). so there you go. hee hee. :)

003 - i have two for today. i have a good excuse {at least in my book}.

#1 - i got my new camera in the mail from b&h yesterday evening. yes, a brand spanking new nikon d300. a big thank you to stan's grandma!!! so i took a pic of my new camera with my "old" camera (nikon d80). i got the body only, since my lenses are interchangable. and so far... with only just a few pictures under my belt on the new big daddy camera... i'm in love!

#2 - i HAD to take at least one with the new big daddy camera!

so this is one of the very first pics with the new camera. there are so many new features to learn and love. i really like the 51 focus points, and being able to choose which one {or several} you'd like to use. i got this one of emma as she was walking back in from picking up the mail. had the focus point set on her eyes, since they seemed to be almost glowing! i added a slight vingette around the photo - my friend janet phillips has this great site with the tutorial here.

thanks for all of your prayers for stan. it's meant so much to both of us. he's doing his best to take it easy and just recover. :)

{{hugs}}

the car - post accident

the car that's seen better days

we went up and got our first look at the car today, and wow. all i can say is that we are very thankful to God that stan is alive to tell about it. we read through one of the police reports today, and found out that the drunk driver hit stan at about 55mph.

we are grateful to the engineers at ford for designing a car that did exactly what it was supposed to do when smashed by another car. we were both so impressed with how well the car protected the passenger area of the car.


stan holding the bumper & exhaust pipe of his car - smiling because he is happy to be standing and walking away.

what the rear end of a cougar looks like when someone hits it at 55mph from a dead stop.

what the rear end of a cougar is SUPPOSED to look like. (the pic is from some random car site, that i forgot to keep track of... sorry random cougar owner!)

a good shot showing where the rear end of stan's car used to be.

what it looks like when you have airbags deploy. stan says he'll never forget that smell. he says it smells like burning hair. and that he'll never own a car without them now.

thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers over the past few days. they mean a lot to our family. much love for a happy & safe new year from all of us.

another day - another trip to the e.r.

another day
another trip to the ER

well, the day after the drunk driver hit stan, we went by the chiropractor... but before we could even stan on the table he blacked out. so one firetruck and two aid cars later. they loaded him up and took him back to the ER for the second time in two days.

well, we'd been planning to take some pics of the car for the insurance today. so lucky for us i had the camera in tow. in our half a day spent at the hospital we got some fun pictures.

all of the major tests came back ok. now i'm just trying to keep the do-it-yourself man resting and recovering!

there's us being goofy while waiting for the doc. stan's still strapped to the back board. poor guy was on that baby for a couple of hours.

we just thought it was funny that when they wheeled him into the CT scan they gave him a hall pass.

apparently pain meds make stan's pupils REALLY small! i took this pic in the hospital so he could see how small they were. and a quick shout out to the amazing {and very funny} nurses in the the providence ER {and really, nurses everywhere} thanks for making our day there full of laughs... being great about our constant caravan of visitors... and taking such good care of stan! you guys are great!

the car that is no more

the car that is no more
thanks be to God that everyone is safe & sound

GOD had his hand on stan today. he was heading home from work, stopped at a stop light when a drunk driver slammed into him at 40mph. the airbags deployed. he ran into the car in front of him then that car hit the car in front of them. they took stan via ambulance to the hospital. he's in a lot of pain, but is generally ok. i'm just so thankful that no one was seriously injured, and the drunk driver is behind bars.

stan says, "my car has gone to the place where all good cougars go when they are no more... but then it's probably the same place bad cougars go when they are no more." the goofy picture is a couple of years old, but it's the only picture we had of that car. goodbye cougar... we will miss you.