scenes from the beach : day 1

Our first full day in Florence I wanted to take the kids out to my favorite beach while the tide was out. This little section of rocky beach has the most incredible tide-pools and if you're adventurous enough to step lightly along the rocky formations you'll be rewarded with one small pool of sea creatures and crustaceans after another. I'd be likely to say that there are well over 100 tidal pools in an area that stretches maybe a quarter mile. It's quite impressive! We found starfish, sea anemones, mussels, barnacles, and a few tiny hermit crabs. The kids walked along the beach collecting sea shells and I started my own collection of drift wood sticks - I have a project in mind for those later on! Today we're heading out to the beach again and maybe a little shopping in town. I'm taking in as much of this cool ocean air as possible while we're here!

Great Grandma Judy and Great Grandpa Howard drove down from Washington to meet us at the house and spend a few days with us! I need to make a point to take lots of photos with all of the grandparents while we're here!

on the road again

You know when I mentioned being really excited for a roadtrip in the previous post? Well, I think the word excited may have been slightly overrated - 9 hours of sitting isn't as fun as I remember it being and I've never been so grateful to be out of a car as I was yesterday afternoon. Holy-moly that was one long drive!

I wasn't able to take alot of photos, I ended up taking over driving through the middle of our trip but at least I was able to take a few and one of Chase stretching at our very last stop before arriving at Great Grandmas house.

If I can talk my mom into driving back I'll be hanging out the passenger side window clicking away on the camera. :)

I have a whole bunch of ocean photos to post tomorrow - the kids and I had a blast at our favorite beach today!

the first couple of days,

of vacation in California. Grandma and Grandpa took us all to 6 Flags/Marine World on the 4th and the park is just too big to fit everything into one day so I think I may attempt to take my kids back sometime after we get back from Oregon. Speaking of which, we leave in the morning for an 8 hour road trip through Northern California and on into Oregon first thing tomorrow morning. The last time I made the actual road-trip trek to Florence was 9-11, so I don't really remember much of the trip - we were glued to the radio news the entire time. I had flown into San Fransico the night before to pick up one of my sisters before heading up to the OR coast. So this time, I plan on taking advantage of the goofy tourist role and stopping now and then for photos. I love roadtrips! Getting to see anything other than the rough desert terrain we call home is a welcomed change!

See you in a couple days!

vacation mode

yep. in a few hours. that will be me.

but for right now, it's packing for vacation mode. An unexpected virus settled into my throat last week and it totally tossed a wrench into my plans for the week. Now I'm running very behind on everything it seems and a vacation is starting to look like alot of extra work when really all I would like is a nap.

I'm at that point in packing, where you just toss stuff into the suitcase and I figure, if I need something, I'll just have to make due without it. Tomorrow should be a very busy day with traveling, family and getting the kids settled but I am really looking forward to nicer weather! California, here we come.  

and we have a few winners!

congrats to the following ladies: 

 brooke. said...

LOVE!
I just moved so this summer will basically be spent getting settled into my new city. :

 Viv said...

Ahhhh gorgeous kits, love them by pieces! No travel plans this year...we are having a baby on the way :) But last year we went on honeymoon to Italy....so beautiful!
Thanks for the chance!

23.6.12

 

 Janna Werner said...

Hellooo Tara,
I adore your projects and love stalking you :-)
I am not sure whether we will be going on vacation this year. If not, I would love to scrap away with this giveaway. If we do, then I would love to scrap away our holiday pictures with this giveaway :-) See, there is no reason to not use any of those supplies ;-)
Hugs and thanks
Janna

Please send along your contact info. to me at rosas07@msn.com so I can get some scrappy packages off into the mail! 

and because you can't have a post without a photo! 

travel pages

 

Hi! Just popping in today to say hi and to post the photos of my travel book! It's only a 6x6 mini, so these pages are small and layered with lots of paper! I have a couple more ideas of things to add to it but will have to wait until I return home. I may end up adding some white paint to a couple of the pages, some of them don't look completely finished to me. :) 

So, here they are. I only photographed 16 of the pages but I promise to rephotograph the entire book once it's completed and filled with vacation photos! 

There are lots of inserts throughout this book, transparencies, envelopes, bingo cards, flash cards and I plan to add 4x6 photos as well as a few post cards!

I'll be back tomorrow to choose a winner from the giveaway below!