Love Long Weekends & My First ScrapTiffany Challenge

I took Friday off so we could have a nice long weekend, filled with family time and lots of cooking and grilling.  So I stayed up late Thursday night finishing up my first ScrapTiffany challenge.  This week's challenge is Self Portraits.  There are 18 ladies on the design team, so the DT reveal's are on Monday and Friday.  Mine is up today, so I can share it here.  I like to do pages like this a couple of times a year and it had been a while since my last one.

Making Me Happy Now

On Thursday this week I will be hosting Thrifty Thursday over on the ScrapTiffany blog, so make sure you check it out.

We started off Friday with a quick breakfast out at Mimi's and then headed to the new SeaLife Aquariam at Arizona Mills.  It was crowded but it didn't matter too much.  Nicholas had fun and even touched some starfish.  We got an annual pass so we could go back several times.  If you live locally, it is probably the better way to go.  It is kind of pricey to just go for the day. It only takes about an hour to walk through one time.

We had lunch at Rainforest Cafe then headed back home for the afternoon.  I finished up The Short Life of Bree Tanner, (the Twilight novella) that afternoon.  Mike's been doing all the cooking lately, so it was my turn.

I took this....

And made this....Smoked Salmon Pasta,Tomato Bread Salad and garlic cheese bread.

The salad is definitely going to be a repeat recipe.  The salmon pasta on the other hand was just okay.  Just as I was about done making dinner, we heard a horrible noise coming from one of the A/C units.  So we had to shut it down and got to sleep in a warm room (thank goodness for ceiling fans and more than one air unit, or it would have been the couch again).

On Saturday Mike made us pancakes for breakfast.  Nicholas and I went to see Toy Story 3.  He fell asleep half way through and I cried like a baby at the end.  On the way home from the movies Mike called with the news that the compressor had gone out on the A/C, at the price tag of $2K.  So we are now up to $4K in the past month in A/C repairs. If it would have all blown out at once we could have replaced the unit for $5K.  So hopefully the A/C gods will be nice to us the rest of this summer and we can budget to start replacing our units next year.  You would think you shouldn't have to replace your A/C units after only 5 years, but I have concluded that Carrier stinks (and that is the G rated version).

Mike grilled us steak, asparagus and pineapple for dinner Saturday night and I conked out early that night after starting a new book.

The 4th for us was spent at home making breakfast, swimming, making cheesecake, grilling hot dogs and potatoes and playing outside in the evening.

I also kicked off my new scrapbook organization blog - Michelle's Scrapbook Studio.  I am starting off with a tour of my room and features on how I organize my stuff.  After that I plan to feature organization tips for organizing our creative spaces.

After a quick bath for the boys, we finished up our 4th by watching the fireworks from a nearby park (Tumbleweed) out on the greenbelt across the street from our house. It was great to avoid the crowds. It was a quick walk home afterwards, which was a good thing, since Nicholas fell asleep during the fireworks and I had to carry him home to bed.  Mike and I had the chocolate chip cheesecake I made for dessert and again I crashed pretty early.

This ended up being the best fireworks shot.

Of course at the end when I was trying to get a good picture of the finale two cars parked down the street from us to watch too, and left their headlights on facing us.  Thanks neighbors! :)-

Today we slept in, me after waking up at 3:30 a.m. and not going back to sleep until well after 5:00 a.m..  We had made a breakfast casserole last night, so breakfast was easy and we spent the rest of the morning in the pool.

This afternoon I was tackling scanning of a bunch of old photo's from my mom's boxes.  It's fun to look at so many of those old pictures. I think I spent the age of 3 with my mouth open, because I found several pictures where I looked like this.

Tonght Mike grilled steak tacos topped with his yummy Pico de Gallo (which ended up way too hot for me this time) served with a tomato, corn and avocado salad.

 

Now that I have to go back to work tomorrow, I wish I had one more day.