Love Me a Good Icestorm!

Thursday and Friday of last week the Oklahoma City area got hit by another winter storm. Thanks to non-stop,24-hour weather coverage (ug), we knew the storm was on its way and we were able to stock up and get ready for it ahead of time. I love it when you have no choice but to slow down and take a few days off - hate the paycheck that comes along with it, but love the unexpected free time to catch up and catch my breath. Luckily we only got about 1/2" of ice followed by 5" of snow, which was bad enough, but not nearly as much as was predicted. We never lost our power and were able to enjoy the unexpected time off. On Thursday I was very productive. I got up early, made cornbread and stew and thoroughly deep-cleaned the house. That evening Kim and I built a fire and snuggled up to watch two CLUNKER movies. Friday I cleaned dresser drawers and closets, watched tv and took a long nap. Then we watched a good movie "State of Play". Saturday I made coleslaw, cooked a pork roast and homemade dinner rolls and Jenna and her boyfriend joined us for dinner. After they left, Kim and I built another fire and watched another clunker movie. I have to admit that of the four movies we watched, the three we didn't like were all my choices. I'm on quite a roll! Kim picked the only one we liked. I had to go back to work today, but it looks like we may have more winter weather coming our way this week. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed!)

Blizzard of 2009

For the first time in a long time we had a white Christmas in Oklahoma! The blizzard of 2009 won't soon be forgotten! Our family had planned to travel to Nebraska for Christmas with Kim's family. Early in the week we changed our plans because we could tell from the weather forecasts that, while we would have no trouble getting there, we were likely to have weather issues trying to get back home. Kristin was scheduled to fly back to Detroit on December 26th (a scheduling error that we tried to undo earlier but that would have cost us more than the price of the original ticket to change). ANYWAY . . . long story short - thankfully we decided to stay home for Christmas this year which turned out to be a good decision because the mid-west got walloped with a huge winter storm. In Oklahoma City we had 14 inches of snow, 35 mph sustained winds with gusts up to 60 mph (causing the snow to come down horizontally) and extremely low temperatures and wind chills. Power was out in some areas of the city, snow drifted on the highways causing trucks to overturn and jackknife and there were hundreds of accidents (including a 50-car pileup in one area). Cars were stuck in snowdrifts on the highways and had to be abandoned, and eventually all the interstates were closed leaving hundreds of unlucky people stranded in stores and cars all across the city. We felt so fortunate to be spending a quiet Christmas Eve snug in our warm house with our power on, eating a dinner of yummy Mandarin Chicken, and enjoying a quiet family night playing cards while watching the non-stop weather coverage on local television. The best part of the whole deal for us was that flights were so disrupted that the airlines were allowing people to change their flights at no charge so we get to have Kristin home until next week after all! Today Kim ventured out to shovel the driveway and clean the snow off Jenna's car and a guy from NBC news stopped to interview him. He appeared on the national news for about one second and he's totally enjoying his moment of fame! Ha!
What a Christmas Eve this was!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34592139

Creative-Scrappers Sketch No. 75

This is my last page as a Design Team member at Creative-Scrappers. I've enjoyed it. Thank you for the opportunity Kristine!

We used Sketch No. 75 by Allison Cope:



I used pictures of Kristin and her friends taken on their club's retreat near Charlevoix, Michigan:

October Challenge

The October 1-15 challenge at Creative-Scrappers was to use a transparency on your layout. The biggest challenge for me was trying to find the transparencies I knew I had bought but never used! Once I found the two I had, the page was quick, easy and fun to do. This is a picture of Kristin and the girls in her club taken at a weekend retreat at a cabin in Northern Michigan.

Click Here to Check Out Tam's Giveaway!

Go to Tam's blog for a big chipboard giveaway! And while you're there I'm sure you'll be impressed with the beautiful things she made this weekend! Her creations are so bright and fun with just the right amount of "whimsical" thrown in! Enjoy!

Creative-Scrappers Sketch No. 73

Today was another reveal day at Creative-Scrappers! We used Sketch No.73 by Lady Grace. I really enjoyed working with this one!



This is what I did with it. The pictures were taken by Jenna and her friends at a park in Vienna.