Pride in Progeny

By the time I had posted here last week, grandson Ty had already distinguished himself in a video published by the Cowboy Lifestyle Network for the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado January 14th and 15th. He had qualified for this (in steer wrestling) in December when he and his dad made a run over to Denver. His run of 6.4 seconds was good enough to get him in the top 15 and we were over-the-moon proud! Here is the video. Watch closely at about :27 seconds in for Ty Allred right before Trevor Brazile, a 13-time PRCA All-Around Cowboy World Champion! Our grandson - right up there with the big guys!

So darn cool!

Although his two runs in the show Saturday and Sunday didn't get him in the money, it was super awesome that he was competing at this level at age 18. He has hooked up with a couple Texas steer wrestlers who rodeo in the PRCA and this gives him a wonderful opportunity to not only hang out with the pro's but at the same time gain valuable experience in what hard rodeoing is all about.

Two of our grandsons, Ty and Tee, are at Odessa College in Odessa, Texas on rodeo scholarships and Ty's desire is to be a professional cowboy. He seems to be well on his way.

Photo taken by Ty's mother from the stands at Sunday's performance of the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo.

That weekend, granddaughter McKenna (Ty's sister) was home from college (Utah State in Logan) to dogsit while her mom and dad were in Denver. Grandpa invited her to saddle up the two horses left here at the ranch (the grandsons have six horses in Texas) and go for a ride at the Deseret Peak Complex arena. Here she is with Tigger.

Pretty cowgirl.

Grandpa truly enjoyed being back in the saddle and, when he has the chance, he will take the ponies out for afternoon rides.

A couple weeks ago, about the fourth of January, I started an online class called Digital Project Life: 2017 Edition, offered by jessicasprague.com. Although I have a room full of physical scrapbooking stuff, I just couldn't get myself motivated to scrapbook, especially since I take far too many photos and would need to get them printed, etc. I had done some digital scrapbooking from 2006 to 2011, I stopped, did a few paper pages, stopped and began pursuing other paper crafts, particularly stamped cards. Project Life, a concept developed by Becky Higgins, is "a simple system to document your story while still living your life." Jessica Sprague has taken it a step further by creating an easy digital method (although there are other classes/kits/apps available from other folks as well as Becky Higgins). Since I take so many photos that essentially record daily life, I figured I'd give this a try for 2017, and so far, I'm having a ball!

Here's how Week One looks.

I have almost finished Weeks Two and Three and by February 1st I will have January pages ready to send for printing. Then, I'll put them in a photo album for daily perusing. Stay tuned for my progress!

In other news, daughter-in-law Jennifer is putting on a baby shower for granddaughter Brittany in a couple weeks. Clare and I are giving the new parents a pretty nifty (and rather pricey!) stroller; it has a detachable carrier/car seat and so I am making a couple neat blankets for it. Here is a picture of the pattern found and "pinned" onto my Pinterest board, For Grands and Greats.

From here.

I have leftover fabric from this quilted blanket I made last October for them and so will use that, plus I bought some adorable baby dinosaur fabric at Joann's to make another. Sadly, I haven't started them yet as once I cleaned up and organized my craft/sewing space, I am reluctant to mess it up!

More later. Hope you're having a great start to 2017!

Additions to 2014 Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt

Summer is still upon us and a HOT one it's been! Today when I got back in the car after spending a couple hours at the office, the temp read 105 degrees! Of course, I realize (as my sweet husband pointed out) that the car had been sitting in the sun but, yikes! Anyhow, I hurried home to the AC and a tall, cool glass of water . . .

I've managed to get three more photos for the Scavenger Hunt and this evening plan on getting at least one more, maybe two when we go to the first-of-the-season Tooele High School football game. In the meantime, here are three photos of #19 on the list, a public garden:

As you can see, this is the Master Garden; it is in front of the Tooele Health and Utah State University Extension Service building on Main Street. Local Master gardeners planned and planted it and although it's just one short sidewalk worth, it is quite lovely.

New day - Saturday, 16 August. Right as I added the above photos last night, my laptop decided to shut down and update! Gotta' love Microsoft! Anyhoo . . . by the time we got back from the game, I was more in the mood to get in my jammies and settle down with a wee bowl of ice cream and my latest read. 

The football game was really just a sort of practice, show-the-community-what-we've-got deal. It's an informal game called the Purple and White (Tooele High School colors) and pits all four grades (Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, and Varsity Seniors) against each other. Half were dressed in their white uniforms and the other half in purple and/or black. Our grandson is a Junior this year playing on the Junior and Varsity team; hence our attendance. Not only did I want to go to see my grandson (what self-respecting grandparent would not! :) ) but I thought perhaps I could get a picture of the mascot (white buffalo) and even the band "parading" on the field at half-time to fulfill #'s 12 and 14 for the Photo Scavenger Hunt. Well, firstly, as noted above, it was not really an official game so there were no cheerleaders or mascot running around and secondly, there was no half-time so no band, no parade, no dancing girls . . .! My granddaughter tried to foist this picture of she and her brother taken the 23rd of March on me for the mascot but I cannot cheat! (I am showing it here though because it is pretty darn cute!)

Ty is such a good brother; he dressed in the Tooele Buff costume so McKenna could use this photo as part of her campaign for Student Body Officer (which she won). Here are a couple photos I took last night at the football field just so you know I made an attempt!

Okay, so on to the other photos taken for the Hunt. 

#6 - An urban street scene. Taken Wednesday, the 13th, in Sugarhouse, a suburb of Salt Lake City.

#6-02 - An urban street scene. Taken same day looking south down State Street, Salt Lake City.

#20 - A bus with a picture painted on the sides. This photo is of a Utah Transit Authority (UTA) bus in downtown Salt Lake City. The quite obvious signage is advertising a gambling hotspot 100 miles southwest on the Nevada State border.

You will notice that all three of these photos also feature #17 on the list, a lamp post! So did the public garden photos above, but I am not going to split hairs.

So, with five weeks and two days left until the Autumn Equinox, I have four photos left to find: #12, a mascot; #14, a parade; #15, a juggler; and, #18, a waterfall. Since I am pretty certain that I'll never find a juggler (although one never knows!), I spotted this today: Alternative B, a bird house!

Clever, no?!

A couple days ago, I holed up in my messy craft area and produced a scrapbook layout using a photo taken back in May. I've been quite inspired of late by a couple You Tubers who do fabulous scrapbook process videos - like I don't have anything else to do! Anyhow, one of them, Gretchen at Stamping Rooster, uses lots of fun mixed media and her general style appeals to me. I was not real brave but I did use a paint dabber over a 'stencil' which was the negative space of flowers I fussy cut from this Studio Calico paper. I also did some layering which is more new-to-me and dotted around sequins and enamel dots. Here is the result:

There's a little black pennant missing in the upper right hand corner; it appears to have fallen off when I was wrangling the page about to photograph! It's on there now though, nice and stuck down. This was fun to do and I've got a couple other pages in the works.

Time for gathering up the laundry and putting together a fruit salad for tonight's meal. 

Ta!

More Summertime Photos Hunted Down

Hello, hello!
Saturday morning, hot outside, cool inside. Breakfast eaten, dishes done, load of laundry wishy-washing away. Go wash the truck, pick up stuff at Home Depot, move slowly. . .
I have two more photos to add to the 2014 Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt  and here they are!

#2 - Garden Gnome. These little "people" kind of creep me out generally speaking but my next door neighbor loves them! So, I steeled myself and snapped a picture of hers; all in the name of fulfilling an item on the list!

#11 - A horn. At first I thought, "How can one photograph a sound?" but then, duh, I re-thought and here ya' go! These five players did a ragtime number aside from the whole band's performance. Marvelous!

Okay, six down, 15 to go! This is pretty darn fun!

This last week I got around to (finally!) the May 2014 Studio Calico Scrapbook kit and made this layout commemorating our 28 year wedding anniversary. Really like the gold rub-ons and wish there were a whole lot more . . . hehe!

P.S. The black button thingys are magnets holding the page to a magnetic frame - not part of the layout.

So, I think that's all I can muster for today.

Laters!

My April Month in Numbers

Whoa Nellie! I am ever so late in posting my MinN for Julie's meme! Fact is, much of April I spent in a bit of a funk and even into the merry month of May. Okay, so you don't want to hear about that especially since I myself can't really explain it!
So, moving on to a few memorable numbers for April:

Three inches of snow on the third of the month. The next day, not surprisingly, it was gone and the lawn got mowed!

Here are the two doggies - Riley, our grand-dog, reclining after a roll in the snow and our border collie, Tip, nosing around. 

Read four books (only four???! What the heck was I doing, sleeping? :() ) 

Four birthdays this month. Great grandson Lucas turned three on the 5th, grandson-in-law Travis turned 25 on the 20th, and son David creeped up towards the half century mark, turning 46 on the 26th. The fourth birthday was not for a human but for our horse, Ranger. He marked 20 years on the 11th of the month. This scrapbook layout I did after receiving the prints (back in the film camera days) shows not only Ranger at just a few hours old but also gives an idea of how I scrapped back in 1994 (and that's a whole other story)!

I am duplicating one of these pictures below along with what he looks like now. You can see how very much he looks like his mama!

                    

In this now photo I am pushing Ranger's head up because he was very interested in getting at that green pasture grass!

Easter Sunday at First Lutheran was wonderful and the altar looked lovely with the five Easter lilies I put there.

Made 18 bunny dinner rolls for Easter dinner with son David and his family at his mother-in-law's home (my friend Judy). Also made a chocolate sheet cake which was memorable too. But the rolls were a hit!

Can you see their little eyes?!

Attended two high school Junior Proms (as observers, NOT dancers! haha!). The first was on the 25th for granddaughter McKenna. She was Prom Chair and was last of 76 couples to be announced for the promenade dance. Her dress was beautiful, she was beautiful, we were proud! 

McKenna Clare and her date

The second prom was on the 26th for grandson Tee Douglas. I said to him, "Tee, I didn't know you could dance so well!" And he said, "Neither did I, Gramma!" 

What really rounded out the month of April in numbers was this:

From April 28 to May 1, my friend Heather and I visited nine stores, traveling 645 miles, having lovely lunches at four restaurants (two of them brand new to us), and spending LOTS of $$$! The stores each had a theme (each had done cards for the craft, "Make Everyday a Celebration") hence the interesting photo props. This was lots of crafty fun and my stash is really out of control now!

So, there we have it . . . much fuller than I first imagined!

May is over halfway and my mood has changed up a bit. Am ready to tackle some gardening projects and have been inspired to "get into" my craft space. 

Bye for now!

Moving Towards May

The wind has been fearsome today as a cold front approaches but this last Easter week was beautiful; not only weather-wise but in a glad hearts sort of way too! Holy Week was more profound for me than ever before with Palm Sunday, Maunday Thursday, Good Friday and then Easter Sunday services to remind me of the great sacrifice that God has made for us all through his Son, Jesus Christ. Praise be to God!

I have been filling in at the All-Tech Electric office for the past couple weeks and my retired mode has taken a turnaround . . . can't spend mornings in my jammies like I have been leisurely throwing in laundry, having a second cup of coffee (or more), slowly moving into the day! Anyhow, it probably has been good for me to get-up-and-go and I know that I've helped with some catch-up for the company. It looks as though I won't be needed everyday now and so I'm rather looking forward to getting out in the mornings and working in the garden. Now that I've got the raised garden boxes in and a wonderful garden shed to putter in, I'm excited to dish some dirt!

Earlier in the month I carefully cracked my eggs when baking and/or preparing breakfast and washed out and saved the shells so that I could craft little "planters." Here's how that project turned out:

The eggshells with their tops cracked off and the little potted succulents

It was a messy operation but mission accomplished! The little egg holder was not deep enough to keep the now top-heavy eggs upright so . . . 

I transferred them to an empty egg carton! The egg and succulent in the black pot was a goof on my part (a bit too much pressure shoving in the roots) but it looks kind of cute too I think. I kept the black-potted egg and took the others to Easter dinner to share with our son's family - that is, my daughter-in-law, her mom my friend Judy, and my granddaughter. So, what with these planted egg shells and the the little spring dome scene, I got crafty twice . . . hahaha! 

Oh, but wait! I have done two scrapbook layouts so far this month (that sounds like I intend on getting a few - or maybe one! - more done):

This photo I had been wanting to scrap for some time and finally settled on this simple design:

The papers are exclusive from Stephanie Wheeler for Cocoa Daisy kit club. I liked the background paper with the ombre effect; the journaling recalls our neighbor who has since passed away.

The second layout I did for the challenge at CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration, Case File 116. I really like this photo of grandson Tee playing his guitar and wanted to get it scrapped for posterity! The layout inspiration came from the Case File inspiration as well as this layout I liked on Pinterest.

The papers for this layout came from an old Basic Grey collection, Black Tie. I was so happy to use up some of the older stuff I've got in my stash! 

It is a gorgeous day today outside and since I didn't have to go into the office, I think I will pull on my gardening gloves and get out in the dirt. It rained last night and so the digging should be easier! :)

I leave you with this photo of the lilac by the southwest corner of the house. Wonderful!

Laters!