Here is another mini book I just finished. Some feedback I was getting in my classes was that people wanted a summer themed album, so here it is. I LOVE this line of paper - there is also a sheet of matching punch out embellies that goes with it - so cool!!!!

This class will be taught at Precious Memories

Today is my sister’s birthday and she is way across the country from me in Toronto. My parents have gone out there to spend some time with her, I wish I could have gone too. It’s hard to be so far away and only get to see her and my nieces once or twice a year. She is an amazing person and I admire her a lot.
I found this picture of us when we were little so I had to post it up - I just love it!!  I think I was about 2 and she was about 7 in this pic.  Happy Birthday Alix!! I love you!

I have a serious addiction to mini books!!! It’s been ages since I’ve actually done a 12 x 12 layout…. it’s just that the little books are SO much FUN to make Here are a few I just finished off. A couple for classes and…. AND….. I actually made one just for us!! Wow, that doesn’t seem to happen very often anymore - creating something just for pure fun, not for a class or for a gift. Something I will actually get to keep for myself - amazing! lol

First up is the book I made for us - this is a humorous one - based on all the mishaps we have had on vacations over the past year (to Hawaii, California, & Northern BC). Anyone who knows me & Brent will know that we don’t have the best of luck when we travel, but it sure makes for some funny stories later on!

The front reads: “Good company on a journey makes the way seem shorter” … well there were a few times I think we would both agree that we weren’t exactly good company…. lol

Jess & Brent’s Little Book of Travel Advice

Journaling: Road Trip # 1 - When you decide to take a 20+ hour road trip - bring lots of snacks. Most places close early when you are in the middle of nowhere.

#2 - Find a hotel rather than sleeping in the car at a rest stop. Or if you do have to stay at a rest stop - find one that doesn’t have a huge loud refrigeration truck running all night.

More driving for a couple hours, we were both very tired all of a sudden. We decided that enough was enough and we needed to pull over to get some sleep. Ok, so where is a rest stop when you need one? Of course, no where to be found. We drove and drove looking for a rest stop and nothing. More grumbling about how we should have taken the I-5. Then finally we spot a sign that said “Rest Stop - 14 miles” RELIEF. I think it was the longest 14 miles ever but we finally reached it. The only problem with being at a rest stop was there were lights everywhere shining right into the car. We solved the problem with our large navy blue blanket we had with us. We strung it up across the windshield, tucking it under the visors, and with the help of one of my hair clips, we managed to block out all the light. Another small problem, or rather annoyance, was this huge truck behind us had its motor running all night - must have been a refrigeration truck.

#3 If you decide to take the “Scenic Drive” to drive along the coast, do it in the daylight. Otherwise you will be driving in the pitch black and you will not see a thing. …you will however see a ton of stars..

We were going to continue driving down the I-5 to California but at the last minute we had a change of plans and decided to drive through Oregon to the coast - to see the beaches and then drive down the coast to CA. We thought it would be a nicer drive. Well it probably would have been it if hadn’t been DARK!! Lovely. We didn’t realize the drive to the coast was so long and by the time we finally reached it, the sun had gone down. We couldn’t even see the beaches.

#4 If you have car problems, take the car to a repair shop. Do not try to fix the car yourself in the hotel parking lot.

For the past couple days we have been hearing some grinding sounds coming from one of the back wheels. It was getting worse and Brent thought it was the brake pads and insisted on fixing them himself. After a trip to the auto parts store to buy some tools and new brake pads, back to the hotel we go, where Brent proceeded to take the car apart in their parking lot. He was right, it was the brake pads, they were completely worn down. He had the car hoisted up on the jack and then problem… he couldn’t get the new brake pads in - they just would not fit in properly, they were too thick. Brent worked for hours on the car and he even put it back together - TWICE - with the old pads to make trips to Walmart and Home Depot to get another tool he needed. He was so frustrated - they would just not fit in. The car even fell off the jack twice! We also couldn’t get our internet working in our room so while he was working on the car, I was trying to get our internet working. It was wireless so there I was sitting in the parking lot with the laptop on my knee, beside the car with the wheel off. I bet the hotel staff just LOVED us. We ended up taking the car to Midas the next morning and waited 2 hours while they fixed it.

#5 When walking more than a couple miles at a time, do not wear uncomfortable shoes. Better yet, do not wear NEW uncomfortable shoes.

If #5 is not followed, be sure to bring lots of bandaids.

#6 Bring your own snacks to Disneyland. Unless of course you don’t mind paying $3 for a small bottle of water.

#7 Use the fast pass at Soaring Over California & California Screamin - these are must see rides.

We get into the rollercoaster and guess where our seats were? in the VERY FRONT!!! The first sears are obviously the scariest since they see everything first. The only thing I was thinking was YIKES!!! but then everything happened so fast - we started off in the water and accelerated at a super high speed. It actually felt like we were the only ones on the ride as I couldn’t hear anyone else screaming except for myself. When we got off the ride I thanked Brent for making me go on it and I said I wanted to go on it again!

We had fast pass tickets to see Soaring Over California, it was a simulated ride where you are sitting in ski lift type chairs and they get raised up high right in front of an Imax screen. Your feet are dangling in the air and the seats move and sway as if you are flying through the air. Ok so the rollercoaster didn’t freak me out but this one did!! No one else seemed freaked out but I sure was. I glanced around briefly and saw people swinging their legs, sitting back looking all relaxed and there I was, clinging for dear life to the arm rests with a white knuckle grip - for the entire ride! It was just too real for me. It was cool and very well done, but it still freaked me out.

8. Take the plunge and ride the Tower of Terror. This is the best ride in the park.

Wow, the Tower of Terror is the scariest ride I’ve ever been on! 13 stories tall and you’re in an elevator that takes you up to the top and then drops you all the way down! Then back up and drops again and again!! I was screaming so loud and clinging to Brent. So unbelievably terrifying but FABULOUS!

# 9 Never sit in the front of the boat on Pirates of the Caribbean. …unless your clothes need to be washed while you’re still in them…

#10 Visit the Animation attraction at California Adventure Park. You will get one of the best souvenirs - and it’s free.

#11 When renting a Jeep, do not leave anything in the vehicle. There are some issues with thieves…

When we got back to the condo, we realized that someone had gone into the Jeep and stolen Brent’s fleece, my favorite Aldo sandals and a beach towel that was in the back. And these were stolen from the parking lot of a high class resort while we were inside at a wedding reception! We were really upset and from now on we won’t be leaving anything in the Jeep.

#12 Trust No one! (see #11)

#13 Two words: Wear SUNSCREEN!!

That night after we returned from out day of snorkeling Brent wasn’t feeling well. He got badly burned from snorkeling without sunscreen on his back - silly boy!! He came to me and said “I think I got burned” then turned around and his entire back was bright lobster red. Plus he had sunstroke too. We spent the rest of the night rubbing Banana Boat After Sun Lotion on each other. That stuff is the best for burns. Brent didn’t sleep well that night and several times I heard him moaning “ow ow” in his sleep.

#14 When traveling by airplane, if you plan to sleep, do not take a seat n the emergency exit row. The seats do not recline at all. You do however get a ton of leg room. It’s a toss up - leg room or sleep?

#15 When camping in Northern BC in the Fall, be sure to bring lots of warm clothes. In the morning it is likely that the tent will be covered in ice.

#16 When inflating the air mattress for the tent, make sure to inflate it INSIDE the tent. You only make this mistake once….

We have this great tent - high quality, light weight and meant for when you’re backpack camping and its tiny. It’s supposed to be a 3 person tent but I don’t see how on earth you’d ever fit 3 people in there. It’s tight enough with us 2! We can barely sit up inside let alone stand. We have these mattress pads called Thermorests for when we hike cause they don’t take up much room and they’re light. That’s cause they are like half an inch thick! You can still feel every rock underneath the tent when sleeping on those things. Because of this, we brought a blow up mattress to make things more comfortable. It does help somewhat. Must remember to inflate the mattress INSIDE the tent. Yep, made that mistake once - Lol! The door to the tent is so small, we couldn’t fit the mattress inside it once it was inflated.

# 17 If a {logging} road states it is 4 x 4 only - do NOT take a Mazda Protege 5 down it. Especially in the pitch black.

Mazda + Logging Road = FLAT TIRE

The next journey was our drive back to the campground - this time all on 2 hours of logging road. Oh yeah, and in the pitch black. I thought Brent was driving quite quickly and it was freaking me out cause I was so worried some animal was going to jump in front of us. And a) we’d hurt the animal and b) we’d probably get in a huge accident and kill ourselves. So it was a bit of a terrifying ride back. The road was very bad in some areas and really bumpy. Of course we got a flat tire.

#18 Don’t bring instant mashed potatoes on a camping trip. Just trust me on this one.

It started raining right as we were making dinner, and then it poured. So we made a mad dash for the tent with our bowls of food. That was funny, all 4 of us (us and the dogs) sitting in the tent - practically on each other’s laps cause it was such close quarters, eating crap food. I don’t think we’ll ever eat instant mashed potatoes again.

This little mini book is what I will be teaching at the Vancouver Crop for Kids next fall.

Ok, that’s it for tonight. I will post the other album tomorrow. I have come down with a nasty cold and my head is just pounding right now. I also barely have a voice today which SUCKS.

So I am off now to find my 3 new friends: Tylenol Cold PM, Otrivin, and Halls. Gotta love them right now.

For those who are interested in putting a slideshow up onto your blog - a real cool one is at www.rockyou.com. It’s totally free and there are some cool things you can do to customize your slideshow. Below is an example of a quick one I did.

You can even get games there to put on your blog or myspace pages and other stuff like glittertext.

Another cool site that can get addicting is Facebook You can go here, register for free, and connect with all your old friends. I am still learning my way around there, but it’s pretty cool. You can join various networks and groups depending on your location or interests.

There is lots going on at Scrap Galaxy right now! We have a new contest that just started that’s being sponsored by Tilano Fresco - if your layout is chosen, it will be transferred to a canvas and will be displayed in scrapbooking and art stores across Canada and the USA!

Another contest has just been started by one of our Creative Team members, Nancy Wilkins. She is giving a RAK worth $20-$50! All you need to do is submit a layout with the subject of how much fun you have at Scrap Galaxy. Each layout will get an entry into a draw and Nancy will randomly draw a winner. Thanks for this contest Nancy! Did everyone see the awesome blinkies the Creative Team made for the winners of our crop last weekend? Speaking of the crop - I want to say a huge thank you to all the organizers - they put a tremendous amount of time and effort into preparing and implementing the crop. Thank you Dea, Carla, Jamie, the Creative Team, and all the Design Team members that helped. You all did an awesome job - the crop was a huge success! Elsie Flannigan herself even submitted a challenge to us just for the crop!

We have a Design Team call and a Creative Team call out for SG right now - for the new term starting June 1.

One of our current Design Team members is Allyson Bright Meyer, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Scrapbook Projects Illustrated and the BRAND NEW just released The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Altered Art Illustrated.
Her first book was amazing and I am so excited to see her new one! (keep a watch out for a new contest starting May 1 for a chance to win a copy of her new book!)

Ok, well that’s it for tonight. Mostly some updates on what is happening around the site. Our good friend Scott is coming tomorrow to visit us for a few days from Texas! He has never been up here before so it’s going to be fun taking him to some of our favorite places. We’re also planning to take him over to the island one day so he can see how beautiful it is there - keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll have sunny weather!

Angus will be thrilled to get back to visit my parents. He was quite upset with us for dragging him away from there Sunday night when we came back home. They have 10 acres and a puppy that he LOVES to play with. I think he would be perfectly happy being there full time with them! He moped around here for a couple days when we got home, what a little grump he was…

And the last news for the night: our poor guinea pig Wheezy had to go back to the vet today. He is just not getting better. It makes me sick thinking about how much pain he is in and has been in from those abscesses on his neck. I just feel so helpless not being able to give him anything for the pain. He’s such a little trooper too, still has an appetite and some spunk to him. He has to go in for surgery tomorrow now. They have tried everything they could to get rid of the abscesses but nothing has worked. It’s been well over a month now and he has just gotten worse. Apparently they are in his lymph nodes and they just go way too deep. So the last resort is surgery to remove the lymph nodes. Of course for such a little critter, surgery is risky. We’re hoping this will help him and that he will pull through the surgery ok.

How can we resist this cute face? We’re thinking about you Wheezy. xoxo

New friends: Tweak and Ernest playing on the kitchen floor

It’s April 16th already?? I’m still waiting for the nice spring weather to arrive. We had a couple of not bad days but yesterday it rained again and today was rainy on and off. Bleh.

We have a new little critter in our household. Yep another. Well, we had something very sad happen a couple weeks ago. Almost overnight one of our guinea pigs, Stanley, got very sick. We got up to find him lying in the middle of his cage breathing heavy and he sounded congested. Brent got his stethoscope out and listened to his chest and said he thought Stanley probably had pneumonia. He rushed him to the vets and they took him in right away telling Brent they were going to keep him for the day. They called us later to tell us they started him on antibiotics and that they were going to do xrays and most likely were going to keep him overnight. About an hour later they called back and said that Stanley had died shortly after the xrays - and he did indeed have pneumonia - his little lungs were full of fluid. That’s how quick it came on and suddenly he was gone. Brent had been right. We were really upset as Stanley had been our favorite piggie.

One of the other pigs has been quite sick as well for weeks now - he has abscesses all across his neck and has had to go to the vets many times. He even spent an entire week there and we just got him back on Friday. He is still not well - on two antibiotics and we have to clean his neck and wounds with a special solution.

Anyway there was a guinea pig at the local pet shop we go too that was being fostered there from the Human Society. I was in there last week and saw him and was amazed to see how similar he looked to Stanley! I went home and mentioned it to Brent thinking he would say no way, we don’t need another. But he didn’t, he said if I wanted him to get him! But I wasn’t sure I wanted another. I did phone the human society to ask about him and they said that since he is older, they are looking for someone who has experience with guinea pigs who will take him home and spoil him for the remainder of his days. She said if we wanted him, we could have him and she’d call the pet store to tell them. I told Brent and he said “Let’s go get him right now!” LOL. Since we had to go away for the weekend we waited until today to pick him up. Here he is: this is Ernest

We had a huge online crop at Scrap Galaxy this weekend and it went really well! I really wanted to get some scrapping done and participate but we had to go to Victoria for some family stuff. I did get a couple exploding boxes made on Friday ( gifts for my aunt and grandmother).

I’m teaching a class tomorrow night at Precious Memories on how to make these boxes - it should be fun!

Here are a couple pics from the weekend in Victoria - we spent most of it visiting all our family members but I did have a chance to hang out with my best friend for a little while which was cool - I haven’t seen her for awhile so it was fun. She’s hilarious and we always laugh so much when we’re together.

Ok, that’s it for tonight, I better sign off now and get to bed. Have to be up at 4:30am tomorrow cause I’m working the early shift at the gym. Then teaching tomorrow night - it will be a long day!

I got another job today! This one is not scrapbook related but it should be fun - I will be working at a gym/fitness center. It’s the one that I’ve been a member of for over a year now and I absolutely LOVE it there! I start my training next week. Exciting!! So between that, running SG, and teaching scrapbook classes  - it will be pretty darn busy around here. Plus we are working on something else but I can’t say anything yet… it’s killing me to keep it a secret but I can’t say quite yet. Maybe another month or so! And it is REALLY exciting!! (and really huge!)

We took a little trip to the Vancouver Zoo yesterday -  the weather was gorgeous so we took advantage of it. Here are a few pictures from the zoo:

Lemmings….or Cabybaras? These Cabybaras are the largest rodents in the world! They are quite big - the size of a large dog but wider and heavier set bodies. Guinea pigs are actually related to these odd creatures. These 4 were quite funny as they followed each other everywhere- just as if they were lemmings.

We went to a dinner a few nights ago and we were all dressed up - this was the only picture I got of us and it was when we got home so we were exhausted