8 days to Vegas

Well, I am completely obsessed with 2 things right now...First, preparing for my trip to Vegas for the geek fest of all time - the Star Trek Convention. I keep hoping that Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes and William Shatner (can you name the characters these actors played??) will get signed up to come to the convention - there are after all, 8 more days for Creation to make it happen! I check their website daily - at least a couple times a day to see if there have been changes. I'm hoping this lives up to my expectations and that I'm not disappointed. My sister, Kim, and I have a 5 fabulous days of all things Star Trek to look forward to. We purchased the "Captain Chair" package with gets us into 2, that's right 2, parties. We will get to hang out with Star Trek celebs - but we can't take pictures. Do you know how wrong that is for a scrapbooker?! I think I can take pictures during the panel "discussions" so it won't be a total loss. We'll be able to ride the Star Trek Experience which Brian and I went to about 8 years ago and they've added a 2nd ride since then. FYI - they are closing down the Star Trek experience at the end of August I think so I'm glad to get to go one last time.

Okay, now my second obsession - The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer. I started this series about 2 weeks. There are 3 books currently out - Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse. The 4th one comes out on Saturday. I'm going to hold myself back from buying it right away so I can read it on the plane to Vegas (won't happen if I buy it Saturday b/c I'll read it before then). Anyway, I read the series in about a week and then started over! CRAZY, I know! Can't really say why I love it so much - it's about a vampires and werewolves and teenagers - not my usual type of book!! But there is romance. The main character is a human who has fallen in love with a Vampire that doesn't suck the blood of humans but animals. Wow, I'm not making it sound very good - but it is!! It really is!! If I was a suavvy internet guru, I could find a link to the first chapter of Twilight so you read for yourself how good it is, but I'm not that person and if I can't find it in 20 minutes, I give up! They are making the first book into a movie which comes out on December 12th. Okay, just now saw a trailer for the movie and so far, hate it! If a book is a #1 best seller, why do they change stuff?? AND the guy they have playing Edward (which is the actor who plays Cedric Diggory from the Harry Potter movie Goblet of Fire) is not very good looking and Edward in the book is described as beautiful and could be a model. So, where as before I was totally looking forward to the movie, now...not so much! Maybe if my obsession with the book wears off by December then I'll be more inclined to enjoy the movie - we'll see!

Coming soon: Obsession for the scrapbook convention which is in October - I have too much other stuff to occupy my mind (and my money) right now so sometime in September I will agonizing over what classes I should have signed up for but didn't and now they're not available anymore and should "volunteer" to help a vendor get set up and get paid $10 cash an hour (which I can then spend at the convention) or do I help Creating Keepsakes the sponsors of the convention and get vouchers that can be used at their booth...hmmm, not obsessed yet, but on the verge!!

Before I sign off - I saw "The Dark Knight" and it was AWESOME!! I'm one of those gals who LOVES a good action flick. Of course, having Christen Bale (don't think I spelled his name right) in it doesn't hurt at all. Ever seen "Newsies" (Disney musical which stars him - he can sing!)? Go and rent it if you haven't yet! Heath Ledger at the Joker was really great. I can see why they are talking Oscar for the part. I do wander if "they" would be talking Oscar if he was still alive. It's not the type of movie to ever have Oscar tied to it. Guess we'll never know, but it was one great performance! Tried to see "Mama Mia" but it was sold out and on a Monday night if you can believe that?! I thought I had seen more movies, but I guess not! There are a lot out there that I want to - X-Files: I want to Believe (and I do want to believe that it will be a good movie!); Step Brothers; Get Smart; and the $2 theater has Baby Mama which just looked funny!

Well, I don't have pictures to add at the moment which feels weird so that means I'll have to come back to my blog this week and get some added! Elizabeth's hair seems to be getting so long so I'll have to make sure I have some long hair shots.

Until I blog again....
(thank goodness for spell check - everytime I spelled obsession and beleive, I spelled them wrong!) Probably just spelled them wrong now, but I'm not going to do spell check! So ha!

Okay - found a website in regards to Twilight - http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilightseries.html I didn't notice at first but some of the books have the first chapter available to read or at least blurps.

Down by the Lake

Well, surprise everyone, I'm doing two entries in one week!!

We went to the dock to feed fish, ducks, geese and birds this evening. Elizabeth just loved watching the birds trying to fly in and steal the bread from the fish and ducks. They didn't have much luck so we took pity on them and threw some specifically at them. There were a ton of fish and ducks to feed, except Elizabeth kept eating the bread herself. She had a good system though, feed a piece to them, then eat a piece herself.

We went bowling about a week or so ago. We let Elizabeth walk up to help roll the bowling ball. She actually isn't bad! I got a spare when she "helped" me. But, I did have an embarrassing episode. She started to run away from me down the lane so I took 2 steps after her and bit the dust. I slipped in a big way. I had no idea the lanes were so waxed!! :) Everyone in the whole place saw me do it! Thankfully, no pictures of that!

I did some scrapbooking last night. I don't scrapbook as often I'd like. Usually by the time Elizabeth goes to bed, I pooped and just veg out on the couch.

I'll end for now and save some more photos for another entry!

Well, I've been a big looser about updating my blog (at least my brother-in-law thinks so!). So, be prepared for sensory overload as I've got a lot to add!

No big news to inform anyone of. I went for a visit to Alabama with Elizabeth while Brian stayed home to work on the house. He built in a shelving unit around our fireplace. The bottom half is for all of Elizabeth's toys - we needed to get them off of the floor. He's going to put on doors to hide it eventually. Also, maybe this year, we're going to put a flat screen TV above the fireplace! Can't wait for that! Brian's 3 brothers came from Omaha to help Brian replace our roof. They did a great job with that.

Elizabeth and I had a great visit with my family. Elizabeth really started jabbering much more with being around Emma so much. Can't understand a lot of it, but one day we will! Emma and Elizabeth are like night and day when it comes to their looks - they don't look like they are related at all! We took them to portrait innovations for pictures (kind of yearly tradition now) and it we did not get a lot of pictures of the 2 of them smiling. It was like they were being forced to be together (which I guess they sort of were!). I'll have to add those another time. We all went to a petting zoo and then went visiting relatives. Mom and Dad watched Elizabeth one night and I spent the night with Kim and Mark. Mom and Dad also watched her a couple of different times so I could go to the movies. Saw "The Incredible Hulk" with my bro-in-law Mark. I liked the movie, I wold recommend people to go see it. Saw "The Happening" with my dad. It was okay. Not super scary or anything and a little bit of a let down for me at the end. And finally saw "Indian Jones and the Crystal Skull with my sister Kim. I liked it for what it was. Elizabeth and I took it pretty easy and mom and dad's. Did only a little bit of shopping and just a little bit of visiting. I was glad that we made it for Emma's 2nd birthday.

I got to visit my friend Leah who had just had her daughter Abigail a couple of days before I got into town. She was so beautiful. Hungry and asleep for most of my visit. :)

We had a good 4th of July. Went to our friends Matt and Chez's house for food and fireworks. Elizabeth did great with the fireworks. They didn't scare her in the least, actually, she got a little bored. We went to a lake near their house for the big city fireworks. Elizabeth entertained herself for the most part with an empty bottle of bubbles. She would take the wand out and put it on the side of her head and then blow. It was so funny! We didn't do anything big for our 11 year anniversary (July 5th). We took Elizabeth to the zoo late morning. There was this bird sanctuary that you could walk through and feed the birds. They would land on your head or shoulders or your arms. They were not scared at all of us. Elizabeth was a little bit leery of the birds, but as long as they didn't get too close to her, she was fine. I had one take a nip out of my ear. Wasn't too pleasant.
I guess I sort of have big news. I cut my hair off today! I took this picture myself so I could quickly add it to the blog. It's short. I had about 10 inches cut off and I donated it to locks of love. I think it's been about 2 years or more since I had a hair cut! Look at the 2nd picture and see how long it was (picture taken at Monica's birthday dinner)!

Here some news to make me sound like a big geek!! My sister, Kim, and I are going to Las Vegas in August for 5 days. Why does this make me a geek? It's for the Star Trek convention. I am super excited about it. I keep checking out the website (http://www.creationent.com/cal/stlv.htm) to see if any new stars have been added. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that William Shatner, Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes get signed on to come. I know, I'm a super geek. To make it even worse, my sister and I keep checking out the Firefly/Stargate/Battlestar Galatica convention going on in November, too. However, can't do 2 conventions in one year so it's just the Star Trek for 2008 (unless Kim and Mark win the lottery, then we'll go).

For those of you interested in my scrapbooking, here are some layouts I've done. I've got more, but these are my favorites. I'm pretty behind on Elizabeth's album. I quit working on it to start on our India/Zurich/Rome trip and now I've quit working on it, to start back on her album. One day I'll get the travel album done and can concentrate on her's.

Well, no promises on when I'll add another entry to my blog!