Boot camp graduation.
A friend of mine pointed out to me that I hadn’t shown any photos or written any adventures on here about when I traveled to Georgia in December for my nephew’s boot camp graduation. I thought she was crazy, but after looking back through the blog I realized she was right!
There really weren’t too many adventures, unless you can call absolutely horrible bumper to bumper traffic an adventure, which for me it was because I am NOT used to that where I live.
I drove 6 hours from where I live to Nashville, Tennessee and stayed overnight then drove another 6 hours the next morning in the final lap of the trip to Columbus, Georgia where Fort Benning is located. I spent the night in Columbus very close to the base and headed over the next morning for graduation. Graduation was pretty neat. The speaker talked a lot about the history of the infantry, and some chosen soldiers put on a “show” of sorts. Here are some photos of that:
There were flags displayed for every state.
The show or demonstration started by them throwing out some canisters that smoked in different colors.
Then the “strikers” drove in loaded up with soldiers and they ran out and got into formation.
It was a little scary, because they were walking toward US, the audience!
And then out of the woods appeared the graduates.
There were MANY. This is a small portion. I couldn’t get them all in the photos!
My nephew didn’t want to hang around too long after graduation, as you can imagine, but he did let me make a few stops to take photos and we made a visit to the National Infantry Museum on base.
I think this is fairly new, and it’s beautiful. We didn’t go through the whole thing because he was just wanting to hit the road, but I saw some really cool stuff.
There was this beautiful walkway that I saw as soon as I pulled into the parking lot and knew I wanted to get a photo of it. I’m not sure what the flags represent, perhaps one for every state? I didn’t count them. As I was trying to find a place to stand where I could get them all in the frame, I thought it appropriate that the 2 soldiers chose that moment to walk down the path and I like the photo even better because of that.
The walkway is lined with bricks engraved with the names of soldiers.
Inside the building, this is the entrance to one of the most amazing museum displays I have ever seen.
Behind that wall you enter the exhibit. There were scenes depicted from 8 different battles from all the different wars we have fought. There were glass display cases full of different uniforms and gear from the different wars. The statues used in the scenes were so lifelike it was crazy. Like this guy:
Sometimes there would be a video playing of the actual war from that scene. Like this one. That’s an actual full-size helicopter with the doors open so you could see all the way through, but in the opening of the door in the back there was a “movie screen” for lack of a better word with old Vietnam footage playing on it.
Lots of history here. I would have liked to have had more time to go through the exhibit slowly, but that nephew of mine was in a hurry to leave. ha ha
Then there was the lovely Birmingham, Alabama 5:00 p.m. traffic. Oh. My. Lord. If you look closely at the photo below, you’ll see how the line of cars kind of curves to the right and then goes up that big ol’ hill and then curves to the right again. Yeah, bumper to bumper the whole way. And yes, I took that photo from the car IN that traffic because I was SITTING STILL. And let me just tell you…..for some individuals such as myself who live with stupid anxiety disorder, sitting in a car and not being able to move for long periods of time (hell, even short periods of time)….. is NOT GOOD. But I was okay and made it through, even though that same stretch from Nashville to Georgia that only took 6 hours this time it was 8 hours on the way back from Georgia to Nashville. Lesson learned. Time your trip before or after rush hour traffic.
I also learned that due to my neck troubles (disk spurs in my spine) 6 or 8 hours is TOO LONG of a drive all at once, and I will not be able to do that ever again.
Of course, after we arrived back at my house we took time for a photo shoot. I don’t know when I will see this young man again, and he’s going to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan in August or September, so I wanted to document it. Here he is in his “dress greens.” Is this “kid” handsome or what?
This one is my personal favorite:
Please go check out all the photos I took of him in his dress greens on my photography site here. I couldn’t be more proud of this kid.
Filed under Photography, Life | Comment (1)Practical Scrappers.
This week our mission was to use a white pen or marker on our projects. This was good for me because it’s not something I do a lt. I have a Signo Uniball white gel pen and I absolutely hate it so I don’t ever use it. Here’s a sneek peak at my layout which is shown today (Tuesday)
and you can go to the Practical Scrappers blog here to see the rest of my layout and the other girls’ projects.
Filed under design team stuff, Scrapbook Layouts | Comment (1)Shutterbugs.
Yesterday Edie and I posted our photos on the Sunday Shutterbugs blog. We are doing E again this week and our word was EEK. Good Lord, that was a hard one to come up with a photo idea. My photo is creepy because it’s DEAD. Edie’s is awesome as always. Go here to check it out. Show us yours!
Filed under Photography | Comment (0)Shutterbugs.
Yeah, so it’s Thursday and I’m just now getting around to mentioning that Edie and I have put our photos up this week on the Sunday Shutterbugs blog. This week our theme is EARTH. Go on over to check us out and shows us your photo that represents the earth!
Filed under Photography | Comment (0)My latest project for Practical Scrappers.
Tuesday is the day my project goes up on the blog at Practical Scrappers, so today’s the day! This week’s assignment was to use chalks or inks. Go here to see the layout that I did this week.
And now that last week is over, I can show you what I made for my design team assignment. Our mission was to use stamps, which is not something I do very often. Instead of just stamping one image to use on my page, I decided to use it to make my background on my paper. Here’s my page:
I used a Unity Stamp Co. circle stamp and ink in every color of the rainbow to make te background!
Isn’t my little bunny the cutest?
Easter Egg Hunt.
I figured there were enough cards being shown around here lately, I’d show you a new layout I made a couple weeks ago. I’m currently trying to slog through my 2003 photos whenever the urge to scrapbook hits me and I always look in my 2003 file to find a photo first and see if inspiration strikes. I happened to come across these from the March 2003 section and decided to make an Easter layout.
This was a special egg hunt because it was the first one we ever took Summer to. How adorable was this kid at 3 years old? Oh, I love this kid. That dress she’s wearing with the little cardigan was one of my favorite outfits from that year and I actually saved it to somehow incorporate it into my scrapbooks one of these days.
Of course, you know I had to use Stickles somewhere so I made the title sparkly:
The journaling that’s hidden behind tells about how this was her first egg hunt and how scared all the children were because it was held by our local sportsman’s club and for some reason they thought it was a good idea to have TARGET PRACTICE that day…..Really? With tons of little boys and girls running around you want to shoot your guns? Somebody finally asked them to just stop for 30 minutes until the kids were done, and they did so. Geesh. Yes, I live in redneck country. ha ha
Filed under Scrapbook Layouts | Comments (3)It’s that time again…
Monday has rolled around, which means Edie and I posted our pictures on the Sunday Shutterbugs blog yesterday. This week our theme was EARTH. Go check us out here. Leave us a link to your photo somewhere on the web!
Filed under Photography | Comment (0)Sisters, Ink.
Have you all read the scrapbooking series of books by Rebeca Seitz? They are fabulous! My friend Thea got me hooked on them and I’ve read them all now except the most recent, but that’s only because I’m on a waiting list at the library. I like them because they’re not your typical “romance novel” (they involve scrapbookers, of course!). There’s a little romance and a little real life stuff too, which makes them interesting. I usually start one and then can’t put it down until I finish it.
Here they are:
Anyway, Rebeca has set up this cool website you can join just like the one in the book called Sisters, Ink. You can go there and become a member and find other scrapbookers that live near you to see if you can make new friends and find people you can scrapbook with. I think this is a great idea because I am the only person I know where I live who scrapbooks and there are no local scrapbook stores in my immediate area, so who knows…there could be a scrapbooker who lives 6 blocks away from me and I might not know it! And I know that some of my most meaningful friendships are the ones I’ve made online with other scrapbookers and one of my closest friends is one who lives 3.5 hours away who I met online in one of my scrapbooker groups.
I’ve volunteered to help Rebeca spread the word and try to get new members to sign up. There is a forum over there and a gallery where you can upload your projects too. I think she’s planning some fun stuff like contests. You can check it out for yourself here.
Filed under Scrapbooking | Comment (0)She’s All That…
and a bag of chips. Where did that saying come from? Here’s another project I did for my design team assignment last week for Practical Scrappers. Our mission was to use flowers, so I broke out my Primas. I love my Primas.
And here are some closeups:
See that title? It’s a rub-on from Memories Complete. Now, I don’t know if it was because my package of rub-ons was VERY old or whether they’re all just crap, but I will never purchase these again. My layout actually started on the other side of the paper but due to the crappy rub-on that I tried to use for my title the first time not rubbing on sufficiently and only a third of it ending up on the paper and making a huge mess, I had to flip my paper over and use the smoother side. Yes, I know I could have used Undu or something similar to get the rub-on off of there if I really wanted to……but I didn’t really want to. ha ha Anyway, it was irritating. And I will remember it the next time I buy rub-ons, ya know?
This tag is one of my favorite items in my studio. I got it from an etsy shop called Deejan here. She has got some of the THE cutest tags in her shop and I have others I have bought from her with cats and dogs on them. I love her stuff!
It’s true; there is no one like her……
Filed under design team stuff, Scrapbook Layouts | Comment (0)Look what I made!
I have recently been working on redecorating my daughter’s room. She’s almost 10 now (OMG–it freaks me out to even type that) and her room has been the same since I wallpapered/painted it right before she was born. She was tired of it and wanted something cooler. I stripped off all the wallpaper and painted her walls blue (her choice), got her a new loft bed and new bedding (blue and lime green) with curtains to match, repainted all the doors, etc.
She needed a lamp and I had a pink one in there, which now didn’t match because the room is blue and green, so I just painted that sucker blue. I have no idea what happened to the shade, but it was pink and the thought of redoing it was too much for me so I got one at Walmart for $7 and thought it needed a little something so I opened up my “blue drawer” in my studio to see what I could find for a bit of oomph. I discovered some blue flowers from Queen & Co that I’ve had for FOREVER and some blue buttons from Little Red Cottage (an etsy store I love). I just took my mini glue dots and stuck them all onto my shade with those and here we have my finished project:
and a closer look:
Here’s a warning for anyone else thinking of using glue dots to add things to a lampshade: Don’t. Every damn one of these buttons and flowers has fallen off since then and after a few days of picking them up and sticking them back on I will be pulling out my Mighty Mendit or my super glue and reapplying them. But that’s okay because it’s super cute!
Filed under Projects | Comment (0)
