Off we go!

Well, I didn't get a chance to catch up on the blog yet - but we are off and on our way to see our oldest up in the U.P. It is a 10-12 hour ride, and we are camping, so lots of things to do to get ready. Here is hoping that we have good weather! See ya later (gulp - how am I going to live without my blogs? & how many thousands will I be behind in reading posts???) Oh, I wanna throw in one or two pics here quick too......well, maybe more .......

Here is the kiddo we are going to see ....... this was his mode of transportation up until recently.

Doesn't this look like PINK LACE????

Okay, I will get back to packing!

Bye!

Are You Ready for This???

Wow - very sorry for the long absence once again! So I am ready tonight - so hope this one won't be TOOOOO long!? But I do have tons of pictures to share, so we will see how far Miss Chatty Diane gets tonight! And thank you to everyone who left comments - that is so much fun hearing from everyone! THANK YOU!!! Ah, where to begin? Well, I can't believe the end of July is coming up soon! Where does summer go? But it has been a lovely summer here in Michigan! Mostly in the 70's with no humidity, which I LOVE! And we have been able to enjoy quite a few sunsets over the Lake Michigan too! And there HAS been crafting going on around here too - don't let me forget to add pictures to this thing! The first I wanted to show you are our visit with friends Tom & Char who come up this way every year and treat us to a wonderful meal at some nice restaurant! Years ago when they lived in St. Joe, Char would be my travelling buddy to the fertility doctor way up in Grand Rapids. We made that trek many times, and then she got to be the lucky one to give me shots at a later point also! Anyway, it was a fun visit - I am always thankful for "old" friends! And here is a first showing of some of my trying my hand at crafting - I have PhotoShop, but really don't know how to use it too well - but check this out - we sat along the bluff in town to watch the sun go down, and the picture on the left is what was taken, and then I "removed" the couple sitting there to the right of us. Looks fairly well, don't you think? Still haven't figured out how to put the pretty boarders around the pictures tho. Now I wonder what you do if you want to get rid of double chins? Hmmmm??

















Oh, and I also finally got my new scanner working.... I am having so much fun! So here is a picture of me in my younger days! I always thought I looked like a little chick here - with yellow fluffy hair!






I am guessing I was around five or six here - but don't you love the dress? I remember it too!
Anyway - I am taking old slides and copying them before they are all gone.....to age. I have all my old Vruwink family slides, so there are a TON of them, but I will try and do just a little at a time. They bring back so good memories! Sometimes tho they don't copy of jpeg, but to some Microsoft Office Document Imaging File, which I have no clue what it is, but people can't see it and I can't too easily either. Oh well, live and learn!

Then here is my first attempt at actual crafting - but don't laugh! It is my first try at antiquing, which is harder than it looks! It was a brown frame to begin with (I forgot to take a pic of that) and then I painted it white, just like you all said, and then I sanded it, so what do you think? Does it look old?

Well, I hope so. So do you put white on top of dark then sand, or dark on top of white and then sand? And then aren't some people buffing (and rubbing) stuff too? Just how do you know? Also having a bit of a tough time getting these pics to go where I want them to go. Oh well.....


And then there are the pics of what my daughter is sewing!!! I am so excited - she is making a t-shirt quilt, of all her old high school and a few first year or two of college t-shirts! She has never really taken an interest in sewing like I did (I used to be a voracious sewer - one time I came home from spring break, with ten days off, and I went back to school with 14 new pieces of clothes!) So here is Emily dearest: I am very proud of her!










And then I have tons of pictures of flowers to show you all - and I want to be sure to tell you all about: (list to myself - so I won't forget, or lose it!) frustrations of new dvd player - and digital junk, pics of grandpa on Father's day, flowers in the garden, and ones that didn't come back, going to Houghton - and Helen's book........etc., But since it is 2 AM I think I will finish up another load of laundry and then hit the sack. So thanks to everyone for their patience - Hugs from Diane (for now)

-----anyone know any tricks to getting the pictures to go where you want them to go? I have re-edited this thing like six times and it looks good on the "table" but when published to post all the pics are out of place! And what is with all this wasted space on the sides? I don't know how to add any of those fancy buttons anyway!

And don't forget you can always click on a picture for a better view!

How About A Blog A Month Group?

I have just spent the evening looking at a lot of just incredibly lovely blogs - and been inspired to do all kinds of crafting, sewing, gardening, etc., etc. There is an awesome world out there in these blogs - just tons of other ladies like me - all with different stories of things going on in their lives. I had about 50 (slight exaggeration) sites open because I wanted to go back and check the whole blog when I had more time, but my computer seemed to be running slower and slower, and guess what. I needed to get out of all those sites! So that is what I worked on tonight. One of the last ones I read had a hugely long list of all people who were committing to blogging every single day for a month - holy cow! Now that is a commitment! So I am thinking I should start a group of people who commit to blogging once a month! (smile!) (And I am only kidding here - I would have no idea how to set up something like that - have you noticed I have nothing on my blog?!)

Tonight is Thursday, and tomorrow is my first full week being off for the summer - yippee! I made it! It has been wonderful. My daughter and I have been sleeping in till noon every day, since I am a real night owl, and always have been. But it has been a fun week! Emily is home for the summer and found a job at a cafe downtown and started this last Monday. And we have both signed up at the local racquet club and have been going to that this week, so that has been lots of fun. I see lots of the kids from high school there - but oh well..... and I can't do too much for too long, but I figure you gotta start somewhere. And as soon as I find my bathing suit I will use the pool too. But I was pleasantly surprised that it isn't that crowded at one or two o'clock and it is great having a buddy encouraging me along the way. Sure wish I didn't have a bum knee tho - would love to be able to play tennis again. I would show those high school kids!

So tonight I was on the way to visit a good friend who had surgery earlier this week, and pulling out of the driveway I chat with my "neighbor angel" and find out his wife, who is around my age, has stage four cancer, and 14 spots showing up in the liver alone......... glug....... that sure makes you think about your priorities! This is my neighbor angel who has helped our family out countless times, fixing cars, vans, brakes, assorted other car maladies, cutting down trees, or anything else mechanical that needs fixing. It just shouldn't happen to them! They are wonderful Christian people, and she called to our house while I was gone saying that it all really isn't that bad.... I will have to go visit her tomorrow! Oh my goodness! Please pray for Linda!!!

And right now my living room (and dining room) look like a war zone - and you know this is when some unexpected company will drop bye! Oldest son Ben, has given us the okay to switch over his room. He is all graduated from college, has his own car now (another story) and just moved into his own apartment up in Houghton in the Upper Peninsula! So, since our house is pretty small, with no closets and no garage, in order to get his bunkbed/futonbed and desk out of there to get rid of, everything had to be moved out here. His room looks quite huge now! What do I do with his BOXES of Magic cards? I wonder if he would notice if I threw them out....

And then last weekend we went to go and see my sister and her husband and their new home. We had a great time, and we were treated very royally! We drove to Indianapolis right in the middle of huge storms and threatening tornadoes, which was kinda scary, but we made it. Then on Saturday we went to the Indianapolis Zoo - and I got tons of great pictures of animals - I am loving my new Canon camera with the 10x zoom lens! It has been a long time since we have been at a zoo, it was a great thing to do again! So I will have to include a few of those here too. Then they took us out to eat with their son and family too, so that was great also, hadn't seem them for a long time! We had a wonderful meal and a great time catching up. Then on Sunday went to church with them, and saw all the trees that were blown down in the recent storms. Had a very nice visit! Thanks Grace & Will!

Well, see, once I get going, I just keep yacking on and on..... sorry about that. And it is 2:15 AM, so do I add the pictures to the post now, or wait till tomorrow? Well, maybe just a few tonight....Hugs from Michigan! Hope you enjoy the animal pics - trust me, I did leave lots of pictures out!

Spring is Here!

Want to show you a few pictures of the flowers in our yard. Although I am having a tough time getting the camera to focus on what I want it to focus on. It seems the ground in the background is crystal clear in focus, but the flower is blurry, even tho I had the focusing box on the flower. But one thing I did find tho is that you can't use both the macro lens and the zoom lens! That was a surprise to me, but it did explain why I was having such a terrible time getting close ups. I also photoshopped some flower pictures, but do you think I can find them - NO! And the other day I went through and got all the pictures of my card, so don't know what happened to the zipped up pictures - oh well, if I find them I will add them on later.



I just love this time of year where all of a sudden you are made aware of all the forsythia around you, and then of the cherry trees in your neighborhood, and then all the tulips and daffodils in the different yards. And I love the magnolia trees, just hope they don't get hit by any late freeze here in Michigan. And pretty soon the crab apple trees will be blooming too, they are just about ready to pop at work in the courtyard at school. I have to work on the focusing tho!





Ahh - found the edited picture, I had saved it to Flickr, so getting it over here was a little different.





















And I have also been trying to figure out how to put a border around my pics - I think I might have mentioned this before - but boy this stuff is complicated! How does everyone learn how to do this stuff? Oops, better insert some pictures before I forget...

And then had to throw in these two pictures too. This is Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal, who I think have come back to our house year after year. The picture on the left they see me through the living room window, and the one on the right they don't care anymore! And the bar going across between Mr. and Mrs. is my cafe rod going across the picture window. So it looks almost like two separate pictures, but they really aren't. Oh well, too much info! But we enjoy looking at them!

Borders anyone? And remember you can click on any picture to get a better view.

Gospel Choir Concert the Next Weekend!

The next weekend we came back to Grand Rapids for a Gospel Choir Concert that our daughter sang in. It was wonderful, an hour of singing to the Lord (and us too!). It was great - I took several videos, but don't know if that is quite right to include on these blog things. But I will include a couple pictures of Emily as part of the choir group, and then family, if you would like to hear a few clips, just let me know and I can send them on to you. Emily is the short one in the back row. And unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the whole choir, this bottom picture is only half......oh well, next time.