San Antonio Anniversary Mini-vacation!

This year for our anniversary we decided to actually go somewhere. I had been bugging Chuck for months now  take me to Sea World, so it seemed like the perfect time. Unfortunately, even with all the planning I did, I didn't notice that Sea World is closed during the week in the winter until the day before we left haha! This might be a super long entry by the way, with lots of pics!

 ~Here's some pictures of our suite with Chuck relaxing already!~

 ~This is the Drury Plaza Hotel lobby. It had beautiful gold molding and marble everywhere.~

We splurged on the hotel and decided to get a jacuzzi suite. It was totally worth it! The room was HUGE and the jacuzzi was amazing! We were on the 12th floor in the new San Fernando tower at the Dury Plaza Hotel. The main portion of the hotel used to be a bank and is 23 stories tall. We went up to the very top to where the pool was and got to look out over San Antonio. Too bad it was too cold to swim! Our tower had its own pool too, but it wasn't quite as neat. It had its own tower as well, over looking the San Fernando church.

 ~The view from the very top of our hotel.~

 ~Chuck by the Alamo Tower pool. he really wanted to swim but is was super windy and cold!~

 ~The Drury from the street, and a picture of the old vault that is in the basement.~

The drury used to be a bank a long time ago. It still has several parts of the old vaults down in the basement. As you walk out to the river walk you can see lots of them on display, as well as pictures of the hotel when it was a bank. We were able to walk directly out onto the Riverwalk and were very close to the busiest part.

Our first full day in San Antonio we went to the zoo. I was super excited because they have a new area called Africa Live! My most favorite animal in the world is an African elephant, but most zoos don't seem to have any. I assumed Africa Live! would have African elephants, but alas they were Asian elephants. They did have an absolutely awesome hippo area. The hippos were under water when we went through and it was so awesome to see them! The San Antonio zoo turned out to be HUGE! But they really didn't have a whole lot of spectacular animals.

One super fun thing we did was go into the butterfly house. There were hundreds of butterflies fluttering around us and we were the only ones in there! I got to test out my new camera on some pretty little ones posing for us.

The Riverwalk was undoubtedly my favorite part of the trip. It was charming and oh so pretty. We went down at night and took a boat tour after our day at the zoo. Everything was beautiful all lit up.We then went and ate our official anniversary dinner at Saltgrass Steakhouse. It was so delicious! I don't really love steak but I certainly did that night!

The next morning we got up bright and early (11:00am lol) and went back to the Riverwalk. We took another tour so we could see the city more clearly in the daylight. I could probably sit on one of those boats all day and look around. It is just so pretty there!

Now one of my favorite pictures of my Granny and Papa is of them at the Riverwalk. I really wanted to get a picture of Chuck and I at the same place their picture was taken at. Well the only problem was it was a restaurant but we didn't know which! One our night tour I found what I thought was the correct place. Chuck study my picture and looked around the restaurant a ton to make sure it was the right place. We sat and ate in almost the exact same place they had almost what I think was two decades before. The only thing noticeably different was the table tops. The restaurant is named Casa Rio and is famous for its colorful umbrellas at the Riverwalk, and is the oldest restaurant there. It meant so much to me to get this picture!

~Casa Rio from the boat cruise.~

~Papa and Grandma years ago at the Riverwalk~

~Chuck and I at the same place!~

Then we went to the Alamo. We couldn't go to San Antonio without going to the Alamo right?! I didn't really expect much out of this potion of our trip. We did go inside and look around and go to look at a lot of the artifacts recovered from the Alamo. It was definitely a good piece of history to see.

 

 ~The Alamo~

After the Alamo it was time to head home. I was sad the vacation was over but we had a wonderful time. Little did I know we weren't done yet! Chuck had made reservations at our local Melting pot for when we got back to town. It was an awesome surprise! It's my favorite restaurant but we never go since it is so expensive! 

~Yummy!~

Well that's it for our trip. It was an amazing 2 1/2 days and the best anniversary I could have asked for. I took a ton of pictures and they can be found here: Ashley's Smugmug Gallery

Piggy Bailey

I've had this picture for awhile and been wanting to scrap it. This is the picture that I saw in an add on Craig's List that the adoption center had posted along with several other animals. I immediately fell in love with this sweet little puppy. We had been searching for just the right dog for over a month at the time. We drove over an hour to pick her up from Fort Worth and were crushed when another lady was about to take her home. Fortunately for us the lady wasn't 100% sure she wanted the pup, and we got to bring her home. Bailey changed our lives as cheesy as that sounds.

For the layout I used Basic Grey's line Max and Whiskers. I just love the colors and prints the line has, and they go perfect with this picture. The line has some cute little clips and fabric brads with little animal embellishments. Basic Grey never disappoints me!

Dog Park

 Today we decided to take Rylie to our apartment dog park for the first time. We have never really taken her on a long walk yet, since she was recovering from being spayed until recently. She was so excited to be out and about. Running everywhere and sniffing everything. Once we got to the dog park and let her loose, her and Bailey ran all over. It was great to see them get to let loose and play and jump.

Bailey hasn't been running like this in a long time. When it gets so hot here she really can't stand to be outside in the heat more then a few minutes. Her hair just makes her way to hot! She ran laps around the park and Rylie couldn't keep up at all!

I took a few pictures of some sunflowers that were close by while the pups played. Once beautiful thing about Texas is that there are always flowers blooming randomly everywhere. Around Carrollton there seem to always be sunflowers.

Rylie was very interesting in the branches from a huge willow tree that hung over the fenced in area. When Chuck had a branch she kept jumping up to grab it. She eventually won the game and successfully ran off with the branch! She is quite a jumper!

Fall

For one of my AGC daily challenges we have to write about our favorite fall activities. Fall is my absolute favorite season of the year. The air cools down enough to wear cozy sweaters and jeans, but not quite cold enough for a winter coat. Football season starts and fans come out of the walls to cheer for OSU even here in Texas. There are bonfires and smores almost every weekend at someones house. Festivals of all sorts are around! In Ohio we had the Oktoberfest. Here there are festivals just about every weekend for each of the small cities surrounding Dallas. There's trick-or-treating with all the cute kids dressed in their costumes. But my absolute favorite part of fall only happens for a few days but once a year. The changing of the leaves. Unfortunately that doesn't really happen in here in Texas, and it is one of the things I miss most about Ohio. Galion has so many trees, it is just beautiful during the fall. I remember each year as a kid looking out my bedroom window everyday at the trees, waiting for them to start changing. I knew as soon as I saw the hint of yellows and oranges, I just had a week till the leaves would be gone. I love the pretty colors that seem to be everywhere in the fall, with the leaves on the ground and in the trees. I always loved how our street looks in the fall. My mom took this picture of out street last year I think. Always makes me a little homesick looking at it. :)

Balloon Festival

This weekend is the Plano Balloon Festival. They have it every September. Twice a day several balloons take off from a local park. There is a live band playing and booths of neat items and carnival food all around. We figured we would arrive an hour before the balloons were set for their evening take off so we could find a good seat to watch from. Well we got off the highway and slowly made our way to the parking area. The traffic was awful! It took us 45 minutes to make it to the first parking lot. We then had to walk 2 miles to the launching zone. We had no idea it was that far! So we missed the take off obviously, but I did get some good pictures of the pretty balloons anyways!

After walking through the booths and getting a lemonade, we noticed there was one balloon still getting ready to take off. So I got a few pics of the take off. We had a great time and got lots of exercise walking around.

Suprise Storm

Yesterday I came home from work and the sun was shining. it was beautiful out! As I took the pups out for their routine walk I do everyday when I get home, the wind started picking up. And by picking up I mean blowing like crazy! Clouds came out of no where along with lightening and thunder! I looked over and saw this sight. It looked so odd with the clouds swirly above it. I ran inside and took this pic from my balcony right before it dumped rain on us! I was a bit worried it would rain too much for the Balloon Fest, but it only rained for about two hours then it stopped and the sun came back out. Gotta love Texas weather!

Introducing Rylie!

So we have been looking for a playmate for Bailey. She's seemed really lonely since our neighbor dog Zoey moved away. So Chuck talked me into another dog. I was really hesitant at first, but I still thought it was a good idea. We decided to get a dog from the West Side Animal Leeague in Fort Worth, which is where we got Bailey. We found a cute little collie mix and drove all the way to see her at one of their adoption clinics. Its over an hour drive one way for us! Well turned out she wasn't at the clinic. Her foster mom agreed to meet us, but we couldn't take her home because she had ringworm and was being treated. Which was totally fine, but that was about 4 months ago. We had trouble contacting the lady to check on the dog, and when we did get ahold of her she gave us attitude. So we decided to just look around.

Then I saw an add on Craig's List for Denton Animal Shelter about there puppies that were in danger of euthenasiau. The pretty puppy was one of them. She can't be but 2 months old! She's super cute! They called her Cherry, but we didn't really like that. Even though she is so young she shows just some small signs of abuse. She is scared to death when you hook her to a leash or if you raise your hand just right. But I think since she is so young, we might be able to make her forget about all those bad times. Rylie is some sort of terrier mix according to the vet.

Bailey gets along with her great. Sometimes she seems a little stand offish about her, but I think that is because she is used to being the playful puppy, when now she is the one being pounced on! The play tug of war with BoBo which is awesome, except they have already destroyed it! Bailey seems a little jealous at times, but I think she'll get used to having another dog around soon. They play nonstop. I'm so glad we got Rylie. I love them both so much!

Lovin' Distressin'

I made this LO for one of my Anything Goes Challenge daily challenges. The challenge was to use the colors black, purple, orange, and green, use a picture with a small child, distress, two different fonts, and to hand cut an embellishment. That just screamed Halloween to me!

So I looked through all kinds of Halloween pics I have hoping to find some cute ones of my nephew or nieces. Well turns out I don't have any Halloween pictures of them! So I settled on this adorable photo of myself and my brother. He was the cat, and I was the mouse. It was my first Halloween! Aren't we a pair of cuties!

I settled on the papers right away. The are My Mind's Eye and I had recently purchased them from Hobby Lobby. I don't usually use too much purple which is suprising for me, since it is my favorite color! So I really didn't know where to go from there, I just kinda stared at the papers for an evening. Then last night I decided I would try burning the edges of some of the green. I really like how that turned out! Although Chuck thought I was burning the house down! I inked the entire border after I stitched the papers together, and then I glimmer misted all over, doing some masking as well. Now, up until last night I wasn't real impressed by Glimmer Mists. Everyone's always talking about how wonderful they are, and how the love them. Well I just had this one color, Lavender Fields. I had won it back on National Scrapbooking Day from scrapbook.com. Everytime I used it I didn't really see the shimmer I thought I would, and I just didn't care for it. So this time, I took a little more time with it. I made sure I shook it up real well and just took my time and went with it. I liked how it looked so much I just ordered some nuetral colors to play with!

I hand cut all the flowers and then inked them. I had mixed some stickles in the ink on my craft sheet first, to give them some sparkle. I really love how they look. Its hard to see in the picture, but in real life they really have a pretty shimmer to them. I love how this LO turned out! It's totally not my normal style and outta my scrappy box, but I love it so much! I'm super proud!

New Inks!

So recently I purchased some new Tim Holtz distress inks, and I was really excited to try them out. Among the colors I got were Broken China, Spiced Marmalade, and Shabby Shutters. I used an awesome sketch I found here http://sketchsavvy.blogspot.com.

I decided each square I used I was going to try a different inking tecnique of some sort. The first one I simple put ink on my craft sheet, and then sprayed it with water. Then I placed my square on the ink and got a neat water color effect. On two of the squares I did some embossing over the inks, as I had also just bought my first heat gun and embossing powder. The light green square I inked with the Shabby Shutters, then I used a Hero Arts stamp with embossing ink to hold water on it. I then stamped the square. My favorite of the squares is the one I used stickles with. I placed ink on my craft sheet and also some stickles. I used my heat gun to dry it and it slightly melted. And the very last one I did some masking.

This layout I made for two challenges on scrapbook.com. The Anything Goes Challenge weekly which was mega challenging for me this week, and then the Use Your Supplies challenge week #4, Something Blue. I used only blue and white to meet the twist requirements for the Use Your Supplies. For the AGC I had to have certain things on my LO, atleast 10 out of 14. I did the bare minimum of 10. I spent all night on this layout! I really love how it turned out though. I love the banner, and I usually don't ever make banners!

Birthday Pics

Chuck and I finally had his birthday dinner with his family last weekend. The dinner itself didn't go to great,but it was a beautiful day out. As we left the steak house the sun was setting so I took the opportunity to grab a few "birthday" pictures. I wish there weren't all those ugly cars in the sunset picture, but what can ya do!

Hello mojo!

This is my first page in almost 4 weeks. I was so excited to finally have some time to scrap! But I sat and stared at the picture for what seemed like hours. Then I finally picked out some paper, and stared some more. It took me forever to finish this page...but it was worth it. I really like how it turned out, and I finally feel like my scrappin' mojo is coming back! I'm getting really into distressing and inking. I think I'm going to buy some more of the Tim Holtz inks to work with, as I only have 4 currently. I did 3 different types of distressing here. The journaling block talks about our experience in Jamaica when our cruise ship stopped there. It was awful! Giant bugs...broken down buses...storms...almost missing the boat! But I guess we have a story to tell right?

Soul Searching

I've recently slumped back into my funk. I had a fabulous vacation with the hubs...and now 4 weeks later I'm mopey and depressed as all get out. So I've decided to stop being a negative Nancy and change my views of life and things. I've decided to make some goals for my lifestyle and my life in general. I'm going to work on a bucket list so to speak as well. So I have things to work towards, to let me know that I'm moving in life, and not just standing still while everyone passes me by. But First I'm going to work on me, and change a few things that I've been wanting to change, and maybe become the person I want to be. Starting with...

Loose the weight I put on after having Kaylie.
- Exercise daily
- Take Bailey for one extra long walk a day
- No more take out!

That is a huge daunting task for me...so hopefully I can at least get in a routine of exercise and eating healthy.

Work on my photography.
-Take pictures of something at least once a week.
- Get to know my camera better.
- Look into classes you could take.

Spend more time with my husband.
-this ones pretty self explanatory.

Well thats it, those are my goals for now. It's time I started enjoying life, and moving forward, instead of dwelling in the past and letting it drown me.

Kennel for Bailey

My weekly AGC challenge was SUPER hard this week! We had to use 10 buttons, 9 stitches, 8 brads, 7 flowers, 6 stickers, 5 papers, 4 rub ons, 3 coloration items, 2 photos, and 1 journal block. No more, no less! All week I'd been thinking about this and thinking about it. Finally I just sat down and found some papers that went together and tried to work with it. It all came together really nicely I think. I'm not too fond of the rub ons, but I had a limited supply to work with. I used some paint this time too. I really really really like how it turned out. I painted the edge of the LO, as well as one of the paper strips, and some of the flowers. I also inked quite a bit. I inked 3 of the papers. One I did the whole thing in red. It really helped mute it down a bit and match the other papers. I really love the effect it had.

The LO is about my puppy of course. We bought a kennel for Bailey to use while we are out of the apartment. She was just chewing through everything! Chuck got in the kennel with her to show her it was her spot and so she wouldn't be afraid of it. She loves it now. She sleeps in it all the time. The hardest part is keeping the cat out of it!

Rainbows and Love

Well it's been awhile since I have posted. Work has been insane! We are getting to the busy season and they still can't get another CSR to help me out! We have gone through two so far in the last month. The first just did not work out, and the second, my friend Jessie, injured herself so she had to decline the position. My manager had some interviews today so hopefully he talked to some good candidates! Luckily I go on vacation in two weeks! So every time it gets hectic I just remind myself in a matter of days I will be on a boat in the Caribbean.

We have been having a ton of rain and windy storms here as of late. The other day there were beautiful rainbows in the sky. It's hard to see in the picture but there is actually a double rainbow. They eventually progressed into two full rainbows. I just love rainbows! :)

Now on to scrapping! I've never tried a vintage style LO until this one. I found this photo of my Grandparents. My mom has a smugmug.com site that she keeps lots of her pictures on, and sometimes I like to just look through the old ones and see what I find. Anyways! I love this picture of her parents. My Grandfather, PaPa as we called him, was probably the best man I knew. I know I'm slightly partial to him, but he genuinely was a good man. Something I always was amazed of was my grandparents love for one another. They always seemed so in love. So I wanted to make sure I did this photo justice. I printed it out and it sat on my desk for over a month until I finally had an idea of what I wanted to do. I did lots of distress inking around pretty much every edge. I threaded the ribbon through the paper twice, it seemed too thin threaded through once, and then I put those cute metal brads in to cover up where I threaded it. The lovely peach flower is a prima, and one of the layering pieces is from it's packaging. I really like how it turned out!

BoBo

I have been so tired from work lately that I have hardly had time to scrap! I finally got a LO done last night about Bailey and her favorite toy. She carries it around with her all over the house, and it is much bigger then her. We are also on our third one of this particular toy lol!



The layout is really simple. I punched out a ton of squares with my old creative memories square punch. I used a ton of scraps I had in my scrap box. I inked each individual square with Tim Holtz's Black Soot. It's my favorite color to use! Then I just layered each square on top of each other a bit. It took a long time but I had fun using all the different colors. Plus I got to use some of the pp that I really loved! I'm such a paper addict!

Hopefully tomorrow night I get a few LOs done. I need to meet my goal for the AGC and I'm very far from my 2010 Volume challenge goal. I need to get scrapping!

A Yummy Scrappy weekend!

This weekend was all rainy and yucky outside! So of coarse I got lots of scrapping done! I got caught up on a few of my AGC LO's even!
Chuck and I took this pic on New Years Day this year. Our first pic of the year! He does humor me with my picture taking sometimes haha! For our weekly AGC we had to go to random.org and have it choose 5 numbers for us, and then use the corosponding tecniques! Mine were to use pink and orange, some type of distressing, use buttons, doodle, and have a family member pick something to use. I asked Chuck of coarse and he came up with beads. So I used a string of block beads I had in my ribbon box. I love love LOVE that background paper from Paper Studios! Thats where I got my pink and orange from mostly, as well as the buttons are pink and orange. I crinkled up the orange paper matting the photo and inked it. And then doodled dots on the big red bracket. I had a lot of fun with this LO, all the bright colors and such. I did find it challenging to use so many techniques at once, but then I guess that's why I joined the challenge, to push myself!

On a completely unrelated not, Chuck and I are trying to eat better and exercise more. Exercising is easy with Bailey needing lots of walks. But Chuck is pretty bad about his eating habits. So I looked up some new recipes and tried a few. Last night we had Gorgonzola and hazelnut chicken with endive salad. It turned out really well surprisingly. It was a Rachel Ray meal and it was super easy to make. Tonight I mad cod with couscous and fresh vegetables. Chuck loved it. So far it seems we are on the right track. We got some scallops and lamb to try cooking even. Although I have no idea how to cook lamb haha! Guess we'll see how that goes tomorrow!

Baily LO

I finally was able to sit down and scrap tonight after such a hectic start to the week. I just did a few simple LO's. Sometimes, the simple ones end up being my favorites.

My sweet husband Chuck got me the best gift ever for my birthday last month....a puppy! She is the cutest thing! He name is Bailey and if you haven't guess, the LO is about her! The LO is also for my Anything Goes Challenge, where we had to use 10 circles, 4 brads, and 4 shape stickers exactly. The butterflies are the shape stickers, and I used the circles to make the two lolipop flowers. After I hand cut the circles I stickled the very outside edge of them. I love how they turned out! I also used stickles on the title, the butterflies, and well just about everything! you can never have too many stickles right?



















I so can not wait for this weekend as I actually have it off! Of coarse it is supposed to rain though. Oh well... guess I'll be stuck inside scrapping all weekend! :)