Leaving on a jet plane....

So, it's just about time to take off on our much anticipated trip to Europe...6 sleeps left!!

I'm constantly surrounded by travel books and highlighters whenever I sit on the couch nowadays, but I'm really getting excited.

We're planning on hitting Italy:



Greece:



Turkey:



and Croatia:



while we're there and we've got a month to do it in! Yeah!


This is a map of southern Europe to show how they all sit together:



I can't wait! New pictures to scrapbook when I get home ;)

So, I'll try and post pictures and updates here throughout the trip, but in the meantime, if any of you have been and have tips, I'd love to hear them!

Wildlife in our backyard

Living in a national park definitely means we're exposed to more wildlife than most. We are constantly checking to see what animals are on our front lawn as we leave the house or who's been hanging out in the neighborhood when we go for a hike. I've even actually heard a mother tell her two young boys, "if you see a bear, you come straight home."

So, I thought I'd share the experience and show you some of our recent visitors. Pretty cute and cuddly looking, but I like to take pictures like these from the safety of my dining room window, because they aren't always as docile as they appear.



As if that's not Winnie The Pooh there posing for my picture...



They're just fencing us in at the moment, so we may actually lose this interaction with animals to some extent, but it may also save the wildlife from accidents on the highway and too much exposure to people, which usually kills them in the long run. The fence that circles our cul de sac and impedes our view out the back window kinda makes you wonder who are the animals in the zoo.

Hiking in Yoho National Park

Remember I said I did a great hike ages ago? Right after I got my wisdom teeth pulled?

Well, I finally got around to pulling those pics off my camera to show off.

It's a great trail, called the Iceline that runs along the upper reaches of Yoho Valley, right across from Takakkaw Falls, the second highest waterfall in Canada. It's great, because you actually get above the falls and can look across the valley to the glacier that feeds it.

It takes about 5 hours to do the 20 km loop (we took the Marpole Connector back down towards Laughing Falls).

This is Takakkaw Falls close up, from the Iceline Trail.



As we got higher, we travelled farther away from the falls, and it looks so tiny.



This is a line of ice that is there year round, hence the name of the trail. It looks much more impressive when you're actually there than I could capture with a camera.





My hiking partners, Dianne and Timber heading across the rocks. It's almost like walking on the moon or something up there because there are so many loose rocks and you're quite aways above the treeline.





I highly recommend this hike. Can't wait to get these pictures in a scrapbook.

More Scrappy Stuff

I thought I'd show you another scrappy thing I did over the weekend... I actually started out with this because I'd been out of the game for so long, I thought, I need a scrappy project to do just to refresh my memory.

Luckily, I have this great class kit created by Aimee Grenier from my retreat that I hadn't gotten to. What a fantastic project to make me remember why I love this hobby.

So, here's my take on it. I all ready have someone in mind for this...





I just need a few photos to finish it off...

Cute, eh? I loved these rub-ons from Fancy Pants, but they're a little tricky to use sometimes. Not super easy to rub off, but so cute!

Scrappy Stuff!!!

So, I had a wonderful, crafty, scrappy weekend. Who cares that it was kinda gloomy for August Long? I spent it indoors for the most part, and had fun!

I'm still geetting back in the swing of things.... I fell like my craftiness is a little rusty as I've taken sooooo long off. Luckily, a weekend, some inky fingers and fun photos and supplies have gotten me back into a scrappy mood.



This was actually an old photo I had from a photo class I took at SAIT. It's a liitle worn, so I distressed it even more and put it with my new favourite quote which I put up a few days ago.



This here is another wedding layout. I know, just do them all at once. Yeesh. I can't help myself. I like to spread all of my little projects out and work on them when I'm feeling in the right mood. Anyway, I did a basic digital layout



and then stuck it onto a good ol' paper layout with some stickers, metal embellishments, paper ribbon, and great white velvet letters for a little hybrid fun.



So glad we got married in the fall. Love these fall colours.

Summer Reading

I'm a pretty avid reader. I love all kinds of books: mysteries, true-stories, humorous novels, whatever. Anything I can get lost in.

Here are a few of the books I've read this summer that I really liked.

I all ready mentioned this one in a previous post, but I really enjoyed it. Great story about what one person can do to change the world. Really inspiring and if you're interested in the war in Iraq, and all of the current political turmoil surrounding the war, you will like this.



Also a true story, but much lighter, this is a book I've wanted to read since it came out (right about the same time we got our puppy, Bailey). If you've ever had a dog you will enjoy this. It made me laugh out loud more than once.



This series by Janet Evanovich is hilarious. Very light, nowhere near true, but seriously funny. The series revolves around a female bounty hunter who fell into the job when she got fired from her job selling lingerie in the mall. Her sidekick is Lula, a plus-sized, brightly coloured spandex wearing ex-prostitute. Seriously. Just take my word for it. You'll laugh.



Steve Berry's books are quite similar to Dan Brown's writing (The Davinci Code, Deception Point, Angels and Demons). Really gets you immersed in the worldwide hunt for an ancient library that holds original texts missing for thousands of years. If you liked the action of the Bourne series or any of the aforementioned Dan Brown books, you'll like this.



Atonement was really interesting. A look at the fall out of a little girl's lie on all of the character's lives mixed in with war, family ties, and propriety.



So, those are my favourite reads lately. If you're looking for something good to read, I'd suggest any of them.

Quote I love

I was looking for a 'life journey' type quote for a page I'm working on and found this one.

"This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind...let it be something good."

I really like it and it fit perfectly.

I'm actually finding it hard to find my mojo... I took so much time off of crafty endeavours, I forget how to do it. Of course, I know there's no right way, but I'm not a scrapbooking genius at the moment. It's still fun, though.

I'll show you some of the things I've been working on in the next post.