Cute Stuffs

My site was down for a couple of days because we switched my domain registration from Go Daddy to another place.  Hopefully everything is good to go now.  That’s part of the reason I haven’t blogged the last few days.  The other reasons are due to being super-busy with both work and personal life.

It has finally cooled off here in San Diego, but the last couple of weeks has been SO hot!  This was Friday night, 9/14, at 8pm!

It was so unusual for San Diego to STAY hot after the sun went down already.  During the day that day, even the wind was really hot.  It was weird.  I’ve lived here for 13 years and I’ve never experienced such high temps and such a long heat wave before.  This was Sunday on the drive back from Los Angeles!

Fortunately, this was driving on I-15 through Escondido.  Once we arrived into our neighborhood, it was down to 85 degrees.  I love that we get coastal breeze!

Two Saturdays ago while we were watching Ohio State football, Noodle decided to climb into the box of clothes that I’m donating to Goodwill.


He stayed in there for a long time!  Later I found him like this.  He’s such a funny cat!  :)


On Sunday 9/16, I went to visit my friend Sally.  I hadn’t seen her twin babies in a couple of months!  They look so much bigger and older!  Here’s Johnny.


And Nina.


Sally and I got to have lunch out while her mom babysat the twins.  We had a nice time chatting!  It was the first time we went out alone after the babies arrived in March.

That same Sunday afternoon, we picked up Madeline, a friend’s daughter, and went to La Jolla to see the sights and for dinner.  Madeline is a new hire at my company.  I used to work for her dad.  Can’t believe she’s old enough to start a career now!  (And THAT made me feel old, LOL!) 

As usual, La Jolla was gorgeous.

Please Don’t Feed The Sea Lions

On Saturday 9/8, we got to go to Sea World for free via Todd’s company picnic.  Funnily enough, my company picnic is also at Sea World later in the month.  I had signed up to go way back, then we found out about Todd’s company doing a Sea World picnic as well.  We decided to go to Todd’s, so I gave my tickets up for someone else to use. 

Thank goodness it was not an incredibly hot day. We got there around 12:30, after watching the Ohio State Buckeyes beat Central Florida 31-16 at home. Parking was free for us and we got in pretty easily without any traffic.
The picnic was at the Garden Plaza. 


They had chicken fajita tacos, hamburger, potato salad, regular salad, cookies, soft drinks, and beer. We found a table where Roby and Dejah were sitting and sat down to eat.  Todd's friend Molly and her husband Preston was also there at the table. 


After lunch, we walked over to the sea otter tank to see the otters.  There were only two of them swimming around.  The sea otter exhibit is my favorite at Sea World.




They played and we saw them eat shrimp while swimming on their backs. A while later two people came out and fed them more food, looked like abalones.


Pardon the reflection.  It was very tough to take pictures through the glass.

We went by the baby otter nursery and didn't see any babies.  :(

We saw the dolphin tank nearby as well. 




We went to see the sea lion feeding area, but there was no feeding at that time.


They were just frolicking.


I saw an eagle, which was cool.


This napping pair of sea lions cracked me up.


As did this trio.

After that, we went to the Pets Rulez show.  It's our favorite show at Sea World.  Every time we go we have to see it. 




I can't believe they can train dogs and cats to do so many tricks!  Well, and pigs even!


The most amazing being the cat who climbs up way high and jumps down onto the woman's shoulders.  And the cat that walks the high wire.


After the show, we walked around a little bit and left for home around 3:40.  It was the perfect amount of Sea World.  We used to have season passes to Sea World and we would just go for a couple of hours each time, see a show or some animals, and leave.  I really like Sea World, but only a little at a time, LOL!  :)

Paper Layout | Jump For My Love

On Saturday I got to play with my new Studio Calico September kit, "Central High", which came last week.  I unpacked it into my melamine tray from Target.  The papers and bigger sheets of embellishments go directly into the tray, while the smaller embellishments go into bowls so I can keep track of them and access them easily.


I'm taking a class at Studio Calico this month called "Pop Off The Page".  It's a month-long class about layering techniques on a layout.  Layering is pretty easy on digital scrapbooking pages.  You don't have to think about sequence because you can move the layers around in Photoshop to your liking, whenever you want in the process.  In digital, there's nothing to glue down.  However, layering in paper scrapbooking is a whole different animal.  You have to plan ahead and think about what is going to be on top of what.  The main thing I learned about layering in paper scrapbooking is that you need to put the adhesive somewhere in the middle of your papers and not on the edges.  I used to adhere things down by putting adhesive on the corners or edges of the paper.  Well, that doesn't allow you to tuck other papers and elements in behind it.  So now I've learned to put the adhesives in the middle of the papers.  I also just lay things down and move them around the page first, without gluing anything down.  Once I get a feel of where things are going to go, I take a photo of it so I don't forget.


Then I start adhering things down.  Sometimes I work from top to bottom.  Sometimes bottom to top.  I didn't take any more process photos of this page, since I was engrossed in it.  Basically, after I took a photo of the general layout of my page, I took everything off and put my chevron mask down and sprayed with Mister Huey mist in Bonnie Blue.  Then I glued some papers down, leaving the edges clear so I could tuck more papers in.  The layers behind the photo I adhered tops down, with the photo first.  Then I tucked in more embellishments and did my title and journaling.  By the way, I adore the blue tandem bicycle paper on the left.  It is called "Encinitas" from the American Crafts Shoreline collection.  Encinitas is a seaside town right north of San Diego, and I go running there along the coast quite a bit.  One of my favorite towns on the coast around here.


Here are more detailed views of my page.




I had so much fun creating this page.  It took about 2 hours from start to finish, including unpacking my kit and cleaning up my work surface so I could get started.  It was a nice creative break on a Saturday afternoon.

Supplies Used:

InLinkz.com