Scrapbooking Disney

Stuff...

I just realized that my 3rd year Blogging anniversary just passed by -

Happy Anniversary Dear Blog :)

I've been trying to get my life a little more organized since school has begun. My summers aren't the time to breathe let alone get my act together. I have Girl's Camp at the beginning of summer and then I teach sewing & cake classes all summer long. So now that all that's over for the time being (still always lurking in the corners of my mind), I can get some things done.  Yesterday I felt all tech-savvy and installed more memory on the iMacs in our house. I love the speed it has given me - I'm a little giddy about it all! I'm in debates with myself on purchasing iMac #4 for the house - I don't know the excuse for another one but I'm trying ;)

Summer Trip 2011

We did the killer four days at Disney - a different park a day! I would never recommend doing it that way unless you love Disney - which I do. I guess attending high school in Florida and then living in So. California ignited some kind of Disney obsession in me ;)  We had a ton of fun even though it's always hot and humid - not as bad as we live with daily here in Texas though.

 Ryan with the Test Track car at EPCOT

 Monkeying around in the Toy Story ride!

 The New York City Subway??!!  Just a movie set at Hollywood Studios

 My Disney expert friend, Nicole, recommended taking this drawing class at Hollywood Studios. We loved it so much that we did it twice - learned to draw Pooh Bear and then Woody from Toy Story. Don't you love the cute desks? Disney details - they're awesome!

 Tess trying on a Yeti wig after the Everest Roller Coaster at Animal Kingdom - our favorite ride of all the parks (at least us girls - the boys loved Rockin' Roller Coaster)

 Toy Story ride - really cute and clever - we were rockin' the 3-D glasses :)

Jose and kids on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom - 

We heart Disney!!

After our Disney marathon, we went to visit my Dad in Sarasota. He lives near to Siesta Beach (voted #1 in the US this year) so we went everyday. Jose let Marisa and Ryan go parasailing one day - that would seriously give me a stroke! I don't know how they braved something like that?! 1,200 feet in the air - yikes!

 The crew would bring them down and dunk them a few times - they loved it!

 View from the air

 They had about 10 dolphins playing around their boat

 Marisa, Jose and Grandpa playing in the water

Tess and Ryan taking off on the boogie boards - they loved the clear warm water. It was nice because we didn't have to keep an eye out for jellyfish like when we go to Destin's beaches. It was a great trip!!

Lelands & Boondocks!

We ended our Utah trip with a bang by meeting up with our dear friends, The Lelands. Ryan and Tess had so much fun with Cater and Callie again - we've missed them so much since they moved to Amarillo last year!

 Rebecca suggested going to Boondocks and that was the best time! The kids loved the go-karts, bumper boats, laser tag and especially the 4-D movies. Rebecca and I got to catch up and giggle at all of her funny stories - loved it!! :)

 Cute girls!!

Utah 2011

We had such a fun time in Utah this summer. On the day we arrived, we went hiking up to a pretty waterfall with my brother Tim's family.  Marisa with her cousin Katie.

Ryan's best buddy, Parker, came up to Utah with us. My nephew, Tyson, dared the boys to dunk their heads into the freezing cold water - you can see the results below... 

This water was killing their feet because it was so super cold!

 Still alive but now they are freezing like the water - crazy boys!

 They had to lay against the warm sunny rocks to keep from getting hypothermia!

The next morning we took Ryan and Parker down to BYU for a week at football camp. They loved it even though they were in the old yucky dorms at Heritage this year. They said their room was the messiest around but I think they had the most junk food and snacks too!

 All their practices were at the huge indoor facilities this year - saved on the sunscreen and burned skin of last year.  This was the last day of camp when the parents got to come see some drills, etc.

Ryan's favorite thing to do this year was Airborne in Draper. It's a new trampoline place that had a huge foam pit to jump into. He mastered his double flip while there. We ended up going twice - loved it that much!

 Tess getting the hang of her front flip - 2nd bravest jumping bean in the family after Ryan :)

 Marisa - our least brave child. She only did twirls - forget any flipping! Still had a ton of fun :)

Girl's Camp 2011 - take 2...

We started the first day of camp with my YCL's (Youth Camp Leaders) fluffing up all the pom poms we had made (about 50 of them). We then hung them from the ceiling of our main meeting room. They looked so festive and fun!

 Then we started off on our Amazing Race. Here are some of the "detours" and "road blocks" they had to perform (in Egypt they had to mummify one of their teammates)

 When traveling from one country to another, they had to travel in different ways such as piggy back, walking backwards, leap frogging each other, doing the Laverne & Shirley walk, etc.

 In India, they had to identify 10 spices just by smell.

 Our 1st team to come to the Pit Stop on the first day - we awarded the daily winners and then had a Grand Winner at the end of camp.

 My YCL's in the shirts I got them and put YCL on the sleeve in glittery black - they looked so cute and they all loved the shirts. We had 27 awesome YCL's this year!

 Making one of the crafts - rolled rose headbands. These were so cute and the girls could totally customize it to their taste. They also made initial pendants with genuine pearls hanging on a cute ball chain.

 Fun at the lake - jumping and being bounced off the BLOB! Some girls got seriously flight time!

 I asked two my YCL's to teach a Zumba class. We always try to put a fitness class in at camp. We've done yoga, pilates and now this year was Zumba - don't be fooled by the faces..they did really like it ;)

 Rock wall climbing - these girls are brave! We also had high ropes with a zip line at the end - scary!

 One night we had a Super Jam - World Tour (lip syncing show). I didn't know if they would like it but the girls got totally into it! Here's one as Justin Bieber - and the cute little one in black was the "rapper" - so awesome.

 A little of Enchanted - How do you know that she loves you? Loved it!

Girl's Camp 2011 - take 1...

I just got back from Girl's Camp - it was incredibly wonderful! The girls are so sweet and fun to see accomplish hard goals, learn, and try so many new things.  As Camp Director, I spend many hours during the year putting together camp but every second is worth the look on these young faces during the week.

This year our theme was

"My Amazing Race - to become a SOUL Survivor".

It came about because of the love I have for the Amazing Race show but it was really about the challenges we have in our lives. There are diversions at will attempt to lure us from our path. But it's our covenants that are the road signs to eternal life ~ becoming a SOUL survivor.

I just wanted to share a few of the goodies and things I put together for the girls. I'll post more in the next few days.

 These are the things each person got as they came to camp - 

Their lanyard with their passport & cute world charm, name tag, and song lyrics in it. They also got a bag of gumballs with the different level names, the daily schedule, and their Secret Sister envelope with her name.

This shows the passports inside. Each girl had their picture and info printed in - that tooks months to collect but was worth it. They had pages in there and they got stamped at each country they went to during our daily Amazing Race contest.

This was the Pit Stop carpet I made for the race each day. The teams ran to the pit stop to be checked in and awarded points for the day.

These are the nightly "pillow treats" we'd place on their bed each night. Those are always so cute to put together for them. I was influenced on the deer one by my cute friend Rebecca L. I love the chocolate animal cookies - I just told everyone they were deer cookies ;)