Last Friday...I cannot believe I have been putting my journaling off so much...Sam and I drove to South Bend to pick up Max and Savannah from Grandma and Grandpa camp. While they were gone, we did the "Princess Room" for Savannah. It was a blast to make it over. When we got home, the first thing we did was "THE BIG REVEAL." She was so surprised. She said thanks a million times. Mom and Dad were so great to keep the kids one more day so we could get it just how we wanted. It is awesome...the pictures below don't do much for what it really looks like in person.
I went and worked on my classroom a few days last week and pretty much all this week...plus we had two professional development days. I was excited to get someone's leftover desk at Memorial. I did not have a desk at that building...and there is little space for one, so I had to rearrange some shelf units and tables to make it fit. I am doing a space theme in my classroom this year. It looks pretty cool. Today I spent from 7:45 until 4:15 working on my classrooms and doing last minute preps. We start with kids on Monday.
Last Saturday I spent a few hours helping Cyndi with Andrew's room. She is redecorating his room as well. She decided on a sports theme. It was a great time to do it too. Andrew's birthday was on the 15th so he got all kinds of things for his birthday to accessorize his sports room. Anyway, Cyndi wanted to do baseball stitching in stripes on the top half of the wall which is now white on top, red on the bottom. We tried to figure out a way to make it so we wouldn't have to do it by hand...like using a stamp or something...but nothing we tried really worked well. We ended up drawing lines with a level, painting them with a size 2 paintbrush and stamping the v shaped stitching on top of the lines about every 2 inches or so. We used a box corner for the v stitch...but it didn't work really well, and needed touching up after. By the time we finished about 6 of the lines (maybe a quarter of one wall) it was 12:30 am...and we were seriously thinking about just doing two walls instead of the whole room. Later I went back to see how it came out (because I left around that time) and Cyndi had decided to just finish that one wall and not do the others. Good choice, I say.
Tonight Cyndi and I went to Ladies night out...it was a church event...at the Ganton's. They had pontoon rides, and other outdoor sports set up, stamping stuff, the pool was open (indoor), and glamour shots where we could get makeovers, get our hair done and have our pictures taken dressed up in Judy's clothes, jewelry and hats. There were college age girls up to 70 year old women. They had a blast. It looked like a lot of fun. Cyndi and I made the books described below, walked around, ate dinner, then skipped out on the glamour shots to go see a movie. We had a free ticket for GKC so we went to see Collateral. A good movie...a tad violent though...interesting however because the main character's name is Max Durocher. Cool huh? You gotta wonder how they come up with names for the characters in the movie scripts...wouldn't it be weird if they actually did get the name from Max's birth announcement or something. That would be cool. Anyway, I illustrated the directions for assembling this cool little book...it doesn't have to be for coupons, but I think it is a practical function for it. Maybe it could be a gift, or even a journal.

Last night we went back over to the fair. We went to see Aunt Susie and Uncle Kris...Erin and Ruby were there too. Max, Savannah and Ruby had a blast rolling down the hill behind the Nagle's food trailers. While we were there we decided to get the kids' picture taken at the Old Time Photo Booth. It turned out so cute...but took so many tries because Karson couldn't keep his hat on. It was pretty funny...to us...not the lady taking the pictures!

Last night Cyndi came over and we carved stamps. I recently found out about letterboxing and am excited about getting into it. I think it sounds like a lot of fun. We are planning a letterbox adventure at McCourtie Park soon. But before we go we have to have some stamps of our own, so that's what we were doing. I decided to do a stamp of Cooper...I am not sure if it is the one I want to use for my letterbox adventures...I might carve a different one on the other side. Hopefully we can get some letterboxes placed around Jackson as well. There aren't any at all listed in Jackson.

Cooper was our dog. He died last summer after several bouts with cancer tumors. He was the best. Sam and I got him the day we got back from our honeymoon. He was our buddy. Before we had kids, we would celebrate his birthday, take him with us in the car on trips, we did everything with him. He was supposedly a shepherd/collie mix, but I think there were maybe some other breeds mixed in too. Wherever he came from, he was so cute...and cuddley for a big dog. He loved to shake hands, get his ears scratched, watch for cats out the window (he even caught a couple). We have lots of good memories with Cooper. Last summer we took him to the park and had a special time with him before we had to say good-bye. It was a hard thing to let him go. And even though we have a houseful, there are times that it still seems like someone is missing.