It's been one of those days...

November Prima Sketch Challenge

It’s November – strawberries are in season, the sun is (usually) out, the days are really long and best of all I get a whole day to myself.  Many people are shy of celebrating their birthdays.  Not me.  Bring it, I say.

November BAP is out at the Prima blog, such a gorgeous sketch I couldn’t wait to give this one a go.

I loved everything about this one, the colours, the swirls, a few small photos, just gorgeous.  I also loved that it was the kind of sketch just begging for masks & texture paste.  Some of my favourite stuff right now.

Out came the pile of masks, the texture pastes and the coloured glimmermists.  Out came some of my favourite photos, transparencies, different flowers. 

And this layout was born :)

Totally enjoyable process.  This is the layout I created and then stood back and said to myself “why don’t I scrapbook more often?”

This sketch was fun.   Why not give it a go?  You can see it here – enjoy your week :)

Laters

The boy they call Ninja

My son could make wicked money as a Ninja.  Seriously.  We’re not talking about Jacob, we’re talking about Brady.  The son you probably don’t even know is there, because seriously, no one ever knows he is there.

He has the ability to walk into a room, sit down beside you, heck he could even open a packet of potato chips and eat the whole lot without you detecting him until he’ll say something and you’ll jump a mile because you didn’t know he was right beside you.

It’s this kind of insane stealthiness that has gained Braden the nick-name ‘Ninja’. 

The boy is so sneaky I had trouble finding a photo of him & I.  I must take more. 

Journaling: “Braden with his quiet and humble nature has recently earned himself the nickname ‘Ninja’.  You don’t know he is there until you turn and he is standing quietly beside you”.

I loved the opportunity to put this layout together for Prima recently.  As a scraplift of the gorgeous Felicity, I enjoyed using the same colour palette as she did, as well as that controlled grungy she does so well.

You can see the whole Prima blog post here with Felicity’s version of the layout along with other scraplifts.   No more Ninjas though.  Nope, the ninja is all mine.

Happy Wednesday everyone :)

Laters.

Tips for Kiwis (and anyone else actually) on their Anaheim holiday… PART 2

Disneyland & California Adventure tips.

Yep, part 2.   It was a LONG holiday with lots of saving & planning. It deserves to be at least a 2-parter, right?.   So here we are – part 2 in our personal log of our California Adventures.  You can see the first part (general travel tips) here.  Scroll down for the fun Disney stuff…

 

See how to WIN toys like this Mickey toy in the tips below.

Disclaimer: This is a massive post with lots of info.  These tips are derived from our personal family experiences from our October 2013 family holiday to  Disneyland, California Adventure, Universal Studios, Seaworld and other small Anaheim destinations.  We appreciate that it will differ from other’s experiences, however we are a typical kiwi family of five so you might find our tips helpful for your own family, kiwi, Aussie or otherwise, as you head off on the same adventure.  If you love our blog post,  please take the time to ‘pin’ this post to Pinterest.  We appreciate it, thank you!

Disneyland & California Adventure tips.

Our kids are nine, twelve & fourteen.   While there were plenty of younger kids, for NZers who may only do this once in a lifetime, I truly think my kids were the perfect age.  I wouldn’t have liked Abby to be much younger.   The age of the kids meant we spent a lot of time at Disney.  Those with older kids or those that don’t do the spend-the-time-by-the-pool thing might spend less time. 

Tips:

1. There is a 10-day Park Hopper ticket available only to Kiwis and Aussies.  it needs to be pre-purchased so ask your travel agent or look online.  It goes for about the price of a 5 day park hopper pass.  We visited the two parks about 11 times spread over the 9 days so they were well worth it.  AND we would have liked more time.  (I would seriously hate to do these parks in less than 3-4 days since for most Kiwis/Aussies it is a once-in-a-lifetime type trip).

2. The two Disney parks, our preferences & our experiences.

Disneyland was magical and reminiscent.  It bought back more memories for us as adults than for the kids.  It has an unexplainable magic that settles in and gives you warm fuzzies.  Small moments of wonder & awe from the kids were amazing rewards for us as parents.  As adults we related to it more than the kids especially as a lot of the rides/sounds/sights bring back memories from our childhood.  Rides ranged from mediocre to jaw-dropping stunning.

California Adventure was exciting and modern & the kids related more to the content.  Based around movies such as Cars, Monsters Inc, Bugs Life etc, they related more to this park.  Our favourite rides were here.  While less magical than Disneyland, we had the best times in this park. 

3. Get an app.  I used ‘DLR Lines’ constantly on my phone.  It gave current wait times at each ride, fast pass times, crowd levels at both parts as well as a crowd level forecast for the following 10 days.
Note: I continued using my telecom phone using data roaming.  It cost me $10 per day which I was fine with paying for the ease of using whats-app (free texting), my Disney app, emailing and google-maps & googling.  Research your own phone & fees.

4. Pre-plan your Disney time according to known events in the area.  Some events you can research and find out about (like the annual gay days at Disneyland while we were there, apparently the first weekend in October every year).  Some you can’t find out about (like the busy Monday caused by the Anaheim Firefighters annual take-your-family-to-Disneyland day).

5. Check this calendar before you go and bookmark it for when you are there.  Be aware that the parks are open shorter hours at different times of year.  They will also shut down some attractions for refurbishment during the quieter times.  We missed out on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Mark Twain Riverboat because of this, but we were aware ahead of time as we’d checked this calendar. 

6. Busiest times were Fri, Sat, Sun & mid afternoons.  Mon, Tues, Wed were quietest and the earlier you get there the better. We avoided the weekends except for the night-time shows and fireworks.

7. Make a plan before you go to the park each time.  Listen to what each family member wants to do and make a strategic plan instead of cross-crossing the park at random once you are there.  It’ll take a day or so to understand the crowds, the busiest areas and how you can save time via the fast pass system but once you have that sussed, it’s much easier.

8. If you are a first timer or celebrating a birthday or similar, go to the Town Hall as you enter Disneyland to get a badge.  Sometimes you get special treatment from cast members when wearing a badge.

9. Make special time for each child.  Do one thing with each child to make them feel like they had special time with you.  For example lunch with the princesses at Ariels’s Grotto or other character dining at Disneyland. 

10. Use the ‘Fast Pass system’ and use it well.  This is a FREE system.  Read tickets to see if you can hold other fast passes at the same time.  Get new ones once those ones expire.  If waiting in a long line, send someone ahead to get the next fast pass and re-join the line later.   There is plenty of info online about how this system works.

11. If you find you don’t want/need your fastpass tickets, gift them to someone in line before they expire.  We were able to do this and the grins on the face of the recipients were well worth it!

Remember, this is a free system.  I overheard some people expressing their disgust at Disney for making money out of people not wanting to wait in lines, perhaps because you enter your Disneyland tickets to get a fastpass and maybe it looked like a credit card.  Not so - It’s all free.  Enjoy it!

12. If in doubt, ask a ‘cast member’ (staff).  New Zealanders are naturally shy of asking anything of anyone.  Get over that.  They have all the answers and are so incredibly helpful and it’s such a relief to get an answer quickly and easily.

13. Favourite rides for us:

• Abby loved Goofy’s Sky School, California Adventure. (5 times!)
• Braden loved California Screaming, California Adventure
• Jacob loved California Screaming, California Adventure
• Paul loved California Screaming, California Adventure
• I loved: Radiator Springs ‘Cars’ racers & Soarin’ over California.  California Adventure.

14. Most un-favourite rides for us:

• We all found the Storybook Canal ride (Disneyland) a complete waste of time. 
• A small world.  Disneyland. We did it because it is iconic.  But then we got ‘stuck’ just as we were exiting.  We waited for around 10 minutes under the system screaming the ‘small world’ theme over and over.  I think if the lines were shorter and if we didn’t get stuck in the torturous exit, it would have been lovely.  One of those ones you have to do to appreciate Disney of the olden day.
• Peter Pan was raved about but I think we’d have been disappointed if we waited in line for hours for it.  As it was we got a ‘front of the line’ pass for getting stuck on another ride so we used it here. 

15. If you watch the window above Snow White’s Scary adventures you will see the evil queen appear & disappear.  If you touch the golden apple as you enter, you will hear her laugh.

16. Jungle Cruise at Disneyland is an oldie but a goodie. I’d seen this ride 30 years ago and while it hasn’t changed much, the cast members riding the boat had.  They were hilarious, making this ride super fun for all of us. 

17. Give Innoventions in Disneyland a miss , unless you are looking for an airconditioned area for a quick nap.

18.  Be prepared to get wet in Grizzly Rides in California Adventure.  We were fine with it, it’s a super cool ride and it was hot!

19. Radiator Springs at California Adventure.  We found this to be the busiest ride.This often has a line to gain a fastpass and the fastpasses are usually gone by mid-morning.  It’s well worth lining up for that fastpass though – this is an amazing ride.  As you walk the lines, look for iconic racing souvenirs lining the walls. 

20. Look all around you.  Disney is clever.  Like the grizzly bear mountain right near the “Grizzly Bear’ ride at California Adventure.  Or all the cars-like rocks (just like the movie!) at Radiator Springs.

21. Find out the secrets of Disney before you go.  For example the “Adventures of Pooh Bear” ride that is now in Frontierland, if you look upwards and backwards while going through one of the doors you’ll see the characters from the old “bear Jamboree” there.  You won’t see it unless you know to look.  Research these types of things before you go – there are hundreds of them.  A cool way to find out about them is this type of DVD.  While we found this DVD long and a little tiring, we loved the tips included and it made our trip fun. 

22. Be aware of 4D effects in rides.  You could smell gingerbread cooking during the Haunted Mansion ride (at Halloween time), and you’ll smell a sweet orange smell while soaring over the Orange Groves during “Soarin over California” ride.  4D is a wonderful and unexpected thing for those of us not used to big-money adventures like Disneyland.

23. Research ‘Hidden Mickeys’ before you go.  We had fun looking for these while we were there.  Doing this type of thing will depend on the age of your kids.  Ours were perfect age but older or younger might not appreciate it. 

24. If you are a geocacher, there are caches at Disneyland and California Adventure.  We got the one at Disneyland :)

25. Some rides are completely different at night time.  For example my boys all loved California Screamin at night and during the day.  Radiator Springs is best at night. Actually it’s just cool all the time. 

26. Rides don’t close when the parks close.  This gives you extra riding time if you get in a line just before the park closes.  For example we got in the ‘Radiator Springs’ line just before the 9pm close at California Adventure.  The line was an hour long but we we still went through.  Score!

27. ‘PhotoPass’ cast members are there taking professional photos but if you hand them your camera, they will happily do that for you too.  I have a few pics taken on my iPhone that the cast members took. 

28. Even if you can see the fireworks from your accommodation, make time to go down to Main Street Disneyland to watch it one night.  It has a story that goes along with it, something you can never appreciate from your room.

29. Some rides are most quiet while the night time parades are on.  Be strategic about this.

30. Personalise your time.  We quickly adopted the daily practice of “A churro a day”.  Sometimes it was a whole one each, some days we could only stomach one split between five of us.  It was a fun family Disney tradition added to our day though.

Churros – a donut-cinnamon stick of sinfull goodness from Disneyland.

31.  Don’t buy expensive soft-toys at the Disney stores – win them instead.  We allowed the kids a $10 ‘pay to play’ card each to spend on whatever games they wanted at the California Adventure “Games of the Boardwalk”.  This was their haul – easily won, between the 3 of them.  Those are BIG toys with fair dinkum Disneyland tags on them, perfect for gifts and a super cheap way to gain them. See the main photo of this post to see how big Mickey is -  Score!

32. Use the shops as thoroughfares when there are crowds outside.  Sometimes it’s quicker to go through the shops instead of battling the crowds.  This isn’t true for the end of the day when all the shops seem busy. 

33. Disney isn’t perfect, rides do break down.  In fact it became a standard joke while we were there, “Brady did you break another ride” as we were stuck in “It’s a small world” or something else.  We got ‘stuck’ for extended time in about 4 rides, turned away at the last minute from about 3 more due to break-downs and Abby & I even had to be escorted out of a ride on foot – by several people saying “Watch your head, watch your step” under strict protocol I imagine.  It all added to the fun and the good news is that you get a “front of the line” pass to any ride for up to 6 people if this happens. Make sure to ask for it if they don’t offer it. 

34. Don’t do “just one more ride”.  It will only end in tears.  Always leave the parks when you are ahead and in good spirits. (thanks Sue, great tip!)

I know there are hundreds more tips, but these are all I can think of right now.  I’m avoiding finishing this blog post because I just want to be back there!  We really didn’t want to leave Disneyland, it was hard consoling a crying Abby as we walked the pathways out of there for the last time.  The sound system plays Disney music, the people are all happy and it is so hard to leave.  Knowing that this was probably IT as far as being there with my young family was tough – we did this trip under budget and won’t be able to afford it again anytime soon. 

The good news is that we all left wanting more and wanting to be back there – that has to be the perfect holiday ending though, right? 

Note: I didn’t take a camera on this trip.  I didn’t want to be weighed down by a camera bag, especially on the rides.  Not everyone will feel the same but I was perfectly happy with the pics that my phone can take. 

And of course the memories.  They'll last forever.
Laters

Tips for Kiwis (and anyone else actually) on their Anaheim holiday… PART 1

A holiday to the USA is usually something of a once-in-a-lifetime event for many kiwis and Aussies. Our recent trip to Anaheim was one of those for us.  We had wicked fun, we did it within budget and took home piles of awesome memories.  I enjoyed posting our successes and discoveries while we were away so much that I’ve decided to combine those and many many others into one blog post for those trekking off on their own Anaheim Adventure sometime soon. 

I’ll do this post in several parts due to the huge amount of info – please check back soon for other posts outlining Disneyland, Universal Studios and other cool Anaheim places.

Yea I know, This is a massive post with lots of info.  These tips are derived from our personal family experiences from our October 2013 family holiday to  Disneyland, California Adventure, Universal Studios, Seaworld and other small Anaheim destinations.  We appreciate that it will differ from other’s experiences, however we are a typical kiwi family of five so you might find our tips helpful for your own family, kiwi, Aussie or otherwise, as you head off on the same adventure.  If you love our blog post,  please take the time to ‘pin’ this post to Pinterest.  We appreciate it, thank you!

 

 

Part 1 - General tips:

1. Take time to plan.  I don’t mean just looking for cheap airfares/package deals and make a  list of where you want to go.  I mean talking to those that have been there, those that live locally, search the internet for tips from locals, forums and one of the best investments we made was this book: The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2013 which we bought from Amazon along with this fun little book, Hidden Mickeys, a few months ahead of time.

2. Find accommodation with a great pool.  We stayed at the Howard Johnson Resort which was only 7 minutes walk from Disneyland.  It was perfect.  We spent until about 2pm every day out and about, back to the accommodation to spend 2-3 hours relaxing and swimming and then hit the theme parks again in the evenings until late.  It’s a truly Kiwi thing to do but it worked so well.

3. Check your rooming.  If booking a package deal, ring the accommodation direct to see what type of room you are booked into.  Despite booking through a travel agent, five of us were booked into a room with 2 x double beds.  I emailed direct prior to travel and upgraded to a 2 x Queen beds with rollaway, top floor & Disney view for $15 extra a night.  Well worth it. 

2. Use Amazon in the USA to order items you might need over there and get it delivered to your accommodation.  Place your details in the 2nd address line for example: “For Nic Howard – Guest 29 Sept – 8th Oct”.  Some places may charge a small fee to accept deliveries.  Our accommodation did not.  We used free super saver shipping which meant ordering at least 10 days ahead of time and it was delivered free in most instances.

We ordered the following:

• Toaster – use away from smoke alarms.
• Electric Kettle – as most U.S. accommodation have coffee ‘pod’ machines and I like to boil a kettle for my favourite hot choc, research where you choose to stay to see what is available in your room.
• BodyGlide – the BEST anti-chaffing stuff EVER.  Take with you around the theme parks, especially in summer. This was a lifesaver.
• Polaroid type camera – with a selfie mirror :) for those instant snaps to put into the kids journal.
• Extra film for the camera -
• SPF50 Waterproof sunscreen.  Since I found sunscreen hard to buy in New Zealand in winter. 
• Blister protection.  Amazon has a katrillion different cool medical supplies.   Search through to see if any benefit you.  Like these blister plasters. 
• Far Cry 3 – playstation game for Mr14.  Not all games for all consoles work here in NZ but if you do your research and it all seems like it’ll work, then Amazon is a fabulous place to buy them a lot cheaper than here in NZ.  (great pressies!)

4. Take food with you.  As long as you declare the food you take, US customs are pretty good at letting it in.  We took:

• Cereal, nuts & dried fruits for breakfasts
• Rolled Oats, cinnamon, LSA & containers to make overnight oats for Jacob.
• Muesli bars, fruit bars, homemade scroggin for snacking.
• Favourite hot chocolate sachets
• Vegemite
• Crackers
• Plastic dessert plates
• Plastic spoons & knives.
• Duty free NZ butter.  You can buy a ‘can’ of NZ butter on your way our of the country.  At $9 it is pricey but SO worth it since we ate toast & fruit many nights for dinner.  USA butter isn’t often liked by NZers. (Be aware you will need to take a can opener!)

5. Think about your meals and your budget.  A family of five can eat a fortune if you eat out for every meal.  We ate home-bought cereals etc for breakfast in our hotel room, snacks bought from home while out and about,  and we purchased either lunch or dinner.  The other meal was usually toast or sandwiches.  Some of our more fun dinners were toast & fruit in our hotel room after a few hours in the pool before heading back to the Disney park for the evenings. 

6.  Be clever when eating out -  Meals in America are huge.  We saved money splitting meals and once or twice I ate from the kids’ menu too.

Meal from ‘Bubba Gumps’ on our first night.  Brush up on Forrest Gump Trivia before visiting this very cool seafood eatery!

7. Go to Target as soon as you can.  It was an $11 taxi ride to Target.  We bought water ($4 for 24 bottles, we drank 90 bottles in our 10 days!).  We also bought food (yoghurt, milk, cheese slices, fruit, vege, bread, beer, coke, etc).  It was also fun to browse for fun presents to take home and the selection of cheap candy/chocolate is INSANE.  Wine & beer is also insanely cheap.  I swear I’d be a raging alcoholic if it was that cheap at home.

Most of these were $1 boxes from target.  We wish we’d bought way more.  They are such cool pressies.

8. Take a permanent marker/vivid.  As you open a bottle of water, write your initial on the lid.  We often had 8-10 bottles of water open around our room.  Initials on the lid were a blessing.

9. Antibiotics: For those with children that can get ear infections, ask your doctor for a course of antibiotics “just incase”.  Ask the pharmacy not to add the water to the bottle so you are taking the antibiotic powder that you can make up yourself, should you need it.

10. Take Swimmer’s ear drops.  Purchased from a pharmacy, these preventative ear drops saved Abby an ear infection when she started getting pain in her ears.

11. Take a travel hand-bag.  I had an over the shoulder small bag with 3 zippered pockets.  Larger one held my passport (ID) and phone. Middle one for medical essentials.  Small one I used like a wallet; with cash & credit card and our Disney tickets.  I took it on every ride, never had to let go of it, it was small and I could ‘buckle up’ over the top of it when riding rides.  It was only about 15 x 20cm and purchased from a cheap middle-of-the-mall type place.

13. Take a back-pack.  All places we went allowed a backpack with essentials. Be prepared for it to be searched as you enter each theme park.

14. Use your phone.  I continued using my telecom phone using data roaming.  It cost me $10 per day which I was fine with paying for the ease of using whats-app (free texting), my Disney lines app, emailing and google-maps & googling.  Research your own phone & fees. Other options include tracking down SIM cards to put in your phone to use USA services.  For the ease of my own phone etc, I opted to pay the $10 a day.

15. Take water & snacks to the theme parks.  We took water bottles with us each morning, each bottle marked with our initials on the lid.  We drank out of fountains at Disneyland and filled them up where we could. Snacks, we took homemade scroggin, nuts, muesli bars etc and snacked through the day.

16. Don’t underestimate the sun.  We were surprised at how resilient we were from the Anaheim sun.  While we were careful with sunblock etc, we felt we didn’t feel the burn as much in Anaheim as when we are at home.  However we were caught out BIGTIME when travelling to San Diego.  We were a little relaxed and got fried.  Does the smog in Los Angeles make the sun burn less?  We don’t know.  Just don’t let your guard down. 

17. Make the most of your last day.  Often the last day is used up with travelling to the airport etc but with most NZ flights leaving at night, there is a full day to be used.  We checked out of our hotel at 7am, they stored our bags for us, we hit Disney for the day, used the hotel pool from 2-5pm using swim-wear and an airport change of clothes strategically put in just one bag, and left for the airport close to 7pm.  We used our last day and we were all suitably shattered to sleep on the way home.

Part 1 – the boring basic stuff has been covered – keep an eye out for the fun stuff - I’ll be back with DOZENS of Disney tips and other tips from our time away soon. 

Laters.

ArtVenture wrap up 3–Primalicious

I’ll never forget the time someone came along to one of my classes with family photos where she’d had everyone wear teal, because she knew I would use teal products in my class.  It’s true I go through phases and the teal one stuck around for ages.

My latest love though, is cream & brown.  Splashes of gold and vintage thrown in.  I confess it’s seeing Frank Garcia’s work that has inspired me, that and Finnabair’s newest releases have me revelling in the creamy goldness of new grungy Prima lines.

And so my first class at ArtVenture was this one:  Primalicious.
(I have done PrimaLicious classes many times before, updated each time it’s basically a double layout, or two singles, using my very favourite Prima products at the time).

 

I originally did a page like this for the Prima ArtZine.  I loved it so much I updated it with newer products and some Imaginarium titles, new resin frames and used it for one of the pages.

This is the second one made with the class:

The leaves are made with a Prima Sizzix die called ‘Arbor’.  The layers, flowers and swirls are all Prima.  The pics were some taken by Vicki Gibson, a talented photographer from Hamilton. 

Put the pages together and they looked like this:

So that was my first class. *loved it so much* and there was some very cool layouts came out of there.  I don’t teach so much these days so tend to forget the buzz of seeing everyone with wicked-cool pages created.  This was one of those classes I left on a real high at the cool pages produced.

I do have another class to show you – will save it for the last blog post about ArtVenture though.  It has some cool images of, well, my students all sitting in a bar lol.  How'd that happen? 

Laters.

Prima ArtVenture – part 2, the people.

They say an event is made by the people that attend and in ArtVenture’s case, it’d be true. 

Here’s the group of ladies that (minus quite a few, they either flew off home before the photo, were hiding under their table or more likely in the bar!).

Thanks to Andrea Ray for taking this pic, she always does a fabulous job.

As I look at this pic I remember a whole lot of  fun times.  From the ladies that watched the America’s Cup races with me in the bar, to the ladies I sat down and chatted to (some for hours!) during the weekend, to quite a few faces that were in that now infamous Saturday morning “4 weeks of December” class.  They all got way more of an education than they bargained for, but as I’ve mentioned before, what happens on tour, stays on tour, right?!

Except for this:

Doubled over in tears at Louise Nelson’s antics.  Not only did Louise put on some star quality classes, she kept us all entertained the whole weekend. 

Here’s the more serious ‘Crew’ picture.

Lucy, Shelley, Kate, Tana, Nic, Lianne, Louise, Rachel, Janine & Trina.

This is basically the same group of friends we have working with us at every retreat.  I’ll never forget one of the delegates telling me that my employees were amazing.  I had to let her know they weren’t employees, they were friends.  Some of the best friends a girl could have.  COuldn’t do it without them.

But the teachers?  Trina, Louise, Janine & Rachel.  I think the classes they created worked for the widest variety of people we’ve had.  From mixed media, home decor, mini albums, altered books and piles and layouts. 

These were some of the images from the classes.

Janine Koczwara teaching her masculine class which had ‘with flowers’ or ‘without flowers’ options!   Alongside is the ‘Shabby Chic Wonderland’ class, a lot of work but very cool techniques involved.

Images from Trina’s classes, the ‘Pandora’s Box’ was an altered book, mini album and mixed media piece all in one, using the wooden icon box as a embellishment piece for the front cover.  Very clever.

Teaching, Rachel styles.   Gorgeous Project Life pages behind her, ‘Gather & Glue’ was a sell-out for a second time. Apparently standing on a chair to teach is the new substitution for a mic. Project Life meets Prima. 

Note the apron – we made one of these for each of our crew and teachers and there was one on the prize table too.  Gorgeous Prima, right there.

And then there were Louise’s classes.  I’ll show you the sneaks because it’s the best way to get across to you just how stunning these classes were.  As a Prima Educator very different from those around her, Louise introduced a style that floored so many people.  I was told so many times just how she’d changed their whole scrapbooking style and the passion adn heart she puts into her classes was something that we all enjoyed.

I taught as well – two classes but I’ll show them in a different blog post.  They were some of my favourite Prima classes in a long time.

Leaving ya with one of my other favourite pics of the weekend, this one taken when we picked up Louise & Janine from the airport on the Wednesday night.  I think the people, the teachers, the friends are really what makes these retreats.  This is shown in this fun pic, taken at a fish n chip shop while we waited for Louise’s newspaper wrapped NZ treat for dinner.  Yea we offered to take her somewhere a little better, she really did want just fish n chips!

Janine, Louise, Nic, Lucy.

Until next time, girls.  Thank you for all that you put into making the retreat so special, all of you.

Laters.

Prima ArtVenture wrap-up Part 1. (pictures galore!)

This time last week I was in Taupo.  I’ve always loved that place so it’s wonderful to go back twice a year to Wairakei Thermal resort.  After 7 retreats this place is super familiar now and that adds to the charm.  It’s kinda like the Cheers theme … “where everyone knows your name”.  The barman even remembered what I drink.  I don’t know if that is a good or a bad thing.

So – ArtVenture was AWESOME.  No bias, just the happiest kind of proud satisfaction that it all went as planned! (It helps when you have amazing friends helping!).  Thursday is always set-up day before the delegates arrive.  I think the little touches around the room were some of my favourites of all time.

This was one of my favourite things.   I had a vision for a vintage white chair, a backdrop and a chest of flowers and Rachel Tucker (the amazing visionary that she is!) created this beautiful photo corner with all those special little touches and vintage furniture pieces.  It was so lovely & tidy to start with.  Then this kind of thing started to happen:

Lucy playing “flower shower” with Karen.  The rules are that you got to keep what you catch.  As long as you didn’t use your hands or open up your clothing!

Then Louise Nelson & I got a little silly in the flowers.

Then it was a free-for-all, really.  Literally.   There were flower angel photos, ladies rolled in the flowers, had photos in the flowers and of course if you were stuck on that perfect embellishment for your page there was always a flower as delegates got to help themselves.

Back to the decorating though, because Rachel Tucker had more gorgeousness up her sleeve.

Our candy bar.  We’ve done this since the start, even since before candy bars were the done thing, and it’s always super popular.  All the lollies were pink/white/black, we went through about 40kg for the weekend. IS that bad?!

Then we had other pretty touches:

Vintage doilies gathered from garage sales & op shops, along with Rae Cooper designed chipboard trees.  Prima flowers set everything off beautifully.

Goodie bags for each delegate, decorated with themed ribbon & a Stampin Up stamp.

A hand-stamped bag full of fudge for everyone.  These were waiting on the bed when they went back to the room on Friday night.  (Stamp by Stampin’ Up, I’ve been asked that many times!).

Along those same lines were everyone's registration bag with a little kit to make a bag tag or name tag. Delegates always get spoiled.  Coming up with new ways to do this is always a mission.  It requires lots of Sunday afternoon brainstorming sessions.  That’s code for drinks in the sun. Someone’s gotta do it.

Another touch to the themed gift giving were these little hand-decorated packs of gum.  It’s ‘Extra’ gum.  Get it?  Extra?  We loved the idea so much we made one for everyone and left it on their desk on Saturday night, a gift for the when they arrived to the crop room on Sunday morning.

More Stampin’ Up! Stamps used here.  Love the way they design their new stamps to layer. 

So that was most of the decorating – actually there was more, the crop room and the whole resort looked so very cool.  I’ll leave it here because that’s a whole lot of pics in one post – I still have the teachers, classes, projects created, the BEST crew ever and America’s Cup sailing to go over.  Told ya it was awesome,

laters

Heading to the USA …

When my Dad was really young he went on a business trip to the USA.  He came home and told my Mum that one day when he had kids he’d take them there.  I can still picture the day, as a 12 year old, that my Mum & Dad told us they were taking us to Disneyland.  They’d saved for years for the once-in-a-lifetime trip for us all.

And so we did.  Our family went to the USA, I was 12.   My younger brother must have been 9 and my older brother was 14.  It’s about now you get to have a little giggle at the 1980’s clothes and how gawky a 12year old kid really can look.

My brothers are not going to thank me for this. 

Here’s one and my younger brother with KIT from nightrider.

That’s an A-Team brochure I’m holding.  Those were the days.

And looking back on the experience, which I can do because I kept an extensive scrapbook type diary thing, it was the best time ever.  In fact I even mentioned how sad I was leaving the USA “knowing that I was leaving a place that I would probably never ever see again in my whole life”.  Little did I know.

Check out the signatures from the flight crew of the plane.  This was back in the days where kids got to go up and have a look around the front of the plane.  Does anyone know any crew that worked for Air Pacific in the 1980s?  They were cool.  The flight engineer even wrote the flight details (how fast we were flying etc) up the top there.  Priceless stuff. I don’t know that they even have flight engineers now.

Fast forward nearly 30 years.   I’ve always wanted to do the same thing for my kids.  I’ve always wanted to take them to Disney and do all that.  We’ve never been able to afford it, paying as much off the mortgage as we can has always come first in our priorities. 

In January I was in Anaheim for CHA.  I sat in a restaurant right opposite Disneyland and planned to go there on the Wednesday night before leaving.  And then this happened, and within 12 hours I was on a plane home with Disneyland, CHA and everything left behind.  It was on that (long, sad) flight home to my family I decided that life is too short, our kids won’t stay kids forever and that even if I had to put money ON the mortgage, I was going to get us to Disneyland. 

Today I picked up the tickets.  In a few weeks the Howard family is calling in the dog-sitters and going off on the holiday of a lifetime. 

Now it’s Abby’s turn to make a little diary.  30 years on.

Sometimes priorities get changed.  Sometimes there is no time like the present.  We can’t wait.

Laters.

The day in the life of a 14 year old, (no wonder I’m broke).

It’s been a few months since I realised how run down Jacob was and sought to figure out why.  Visits to a naturopath, blood analysis and a fair bit of talking later and we embarked on getting Jacob on track for better nutrition. And ya know, I love my health & fitness, my kids have great nutrition anyway.  To the point where I feel sorry for the way they envy others.  It’s a fine line I tred, but a personal choice I make. 

Anyway.  This is what happened.

This day we were told he was eating great nutritionally but none of that nutrition was getting through to his blood system.

The day we figured out a fairly sugar free breakfast, and actually it was quite yummy.

The day I made my own sugar free chocolate.

The day the shared lunch just about broke him.

The day the fish oil just about broke him.

And so it went on. 

Just yesterday I was asked how Jacob was doing and what kind of food he enjoys on a daily basis. He is doing really well.  His focus is awesome, he is more relaxed and he is thriving, growing taller and leaner.  It’s amazing what cutting out simple things, and introducing others can do.

Breakfast:

Jacob loves his breakfasts, it’s usually overnight oats (throw 1/4 cup rolled oats, 1TSP chia seeds, some coconut, bit of LSA, cinnamon, … whatever he fancies really) in a container with milk or almond milk and leave it overnight.

Yesterday though, he forgot and made easy porridge.

Note: No sugar on the porridge.  A very natural yoghurt (no numbers!) with real honey added, AND it’s a probiotic yoghurt which is really important.  Peaches in clear fruit juice.  (Be aware that the ‘no added sugar’ peaches have sweeteners added – no thanks!).  He has different versions of this basic breakfast everyday. Sometimes he adds nuts, takes the peaches away and have frozen berries or whatever.

Vitamins:

Yea, I know.  Some people hate the use of vitamins but I’ve played around with these until I’ve found some I can a) afford and b) think that he really needs.   Jacob’s blood analysis showed the need for all of these and we change them depending on how his blood analysis’ improves each time.

Floradix – natural iron. 
Omega 3 for improving red cell structure.  Helps get that nutrition where it should be.  (admitting that there are some blackmores ones mixed in with the Metagenics ones because I couldn’t afford the metagenics for too long).  Multiflora – Probiotic.  I read this GREAT article yesterday that explained why this is important.
Lastly, a zinc tonic.

Lunchbox

This is tough.  Take a look at your kids’ lunchbox sometime.  Take a look at the ingredients and count the ‘numbers’ on the ingredients lists.  I know I’m at risk of sounding like a preaching-food-hippy here but it’s not until you ban those numbers (only natural here where we can) and you SEE the difference in your kids that you understand. 

I was disgusted when I realised one popular muesli bar in my house had 11 ‘numbers’.  All artificial colours, sweeteners, flavours, a lot of them banned in other countries.  Actually I don’t care if I sound like a food-hippy.  My kids behave better without that crap.  I'm taking that as a win.

Home-made muesli bar.  This one is Tahini & banana but I make apple, almond, sometimes chocolate, orange & coconut.  Easy to make and the kids love them.  Not cheap. Just awesome.

Fruit.

Sandwich.  Jacob still has a couple of slices of bread a day.  We try and pick one that eliminates all those numbers I hate so much.  Usually has carrot, spinach, some sort of non-processed meat, etc..etc… He LOVES these sandwiches.

Snack – homemade scroggin.  He loooooves this.  Nuts & Quest bar chunks.  I buy the yummiest, most natural protein bars and chop about 1/3 one up into small chunks.  This flavour is Raspberry & white chocolate.  No sweeteners, no artificial crap, loads of protein & a sweet kick for him.

Afternoon snack.

Jacob has a mass of different snacks he chooses from.  Yesterday it was carrot, Vita-wheat crackers (no numbers!) and the most natural hummus I could find.  See if I was a real food hippy I’d be making my own.  I haven’t quite got my brownie badge in food hippiness yet or I would be.  Nope, this is Lisa’s.  Only Ok numbers there.

Ok now I’m getting hungry.

Dinner.

Holy natural-good-for-you-sauces, batman,  yesterday we discovered (thanks to the MotivateMeNZ forum) the BEST recipe for dip/sauce/dressing. 

1/2 avocado, 3 dollops greek yoghurt, 1 clove garlic.  All whizzed up.

Boom. (forum stated you MUST have the garlic, Jacob agreed).

And then this was the rest of his dinner.  Yep, big meal but check out the nutrition.

Home-made venison sausages.  Home-made as in, Jacob shot the deer and got someone to make the sausages. Clearly you don’t have to go to all that effort, just watch the crap that goes into normal sausages or choose something better.

Salad – spinach, grated carrot, 1/2 egg, slice of beetroot, lots of yoghurt dip, and last night Paul grated a little bit of cheese on top.  Just before I slapped him and went “Dude!  I’m taking a pic of our healthy dinner tonight, don’t do that!!”.

Carbs – a few slices of kumara, oven baked at the weekend and heated up.  Also a ‘mountain bread’ made of corn that I chucked in the oven til it went crisp and broke up on his plate.

Finally.  After Dinner.   Seriously, this kid eats a lot when I analyse it like this.  Finally, a snack after dinner.  Because he was still hungry?

A ‘Annies’ fruit wiggle.  OK calm down, this stuff is natural.  Not a number, not an additive in sight.  I met Annie at the food show and fell in love with this product.  Each packet is the equivalent to one piece of fruit.  It’s literally the same as taking the fruit and taking all the water out.  Nothing added.

The bonus is that it is sweet.  And it’s cheap.  And there are two little strips in each pack.  Abby gets one flavour, Jacob gets the other flavour and they swap one of the strips.  Then they spend the next hour seeing who can take the longest to eat it.  Again.  Nothing added.  it’s just a bit of fruit.

And that, right there, is how we roll. 

Doesn’t mean we don’t break out and enjoy the treats we used to enjoy every now and again, it just means we enjoy other treats now.  And Jacob is feeling better.  Our house is calmer.  And that, as I said before, is a win.

LAters.

My House Rules and Helmar 450 on my slippers…

If this blog were into the gym, it’d be having a rest day.  Things are pretty quiet around here lately which is a fine reflection on the fact that I have an event coming up, a fitness obsession to feed and far too much interest in “My House Rules”. 

Which is much like My Kitchen Rules except it has less of the food and more of the “Are you sure we couldn’t do that in our house, Paul?” factor.  Hubby hates it.  Probably for the last reason I just listed.

BUT I’m still here, today has been a fine mix of ordering products, coordinating needs from the 4 teachers teaching at ArtVenture, communicating with the USA, contemplating the eruption on White Island whilst quietly wondering if the Helmar 450 glue will hold my slippers together long enough to see the winter through.

I know. Lots on. 

I’ve also actually got lots of other stuff going on around me which is far bigger in the scheme of things but I’m distracting myself with the trivial stuff.

BUT good news for those that miss the scrapbooking side of this blog.  I still know where to get free stuff.  Like this: Color Me Scrappy!  FREE Color Webinar thingie.  26th August.  It’s actually about the 27th August at 6am here in NZ.  It’s free though, you get access to the replay and apparently it’ll answer all those tricky colour questions.

Nothing like free stuff, right?   Click the link,to find out more.  Costs nothing.  Why not.

And I’ll be back when I’ve pushed all other stuff aside and taken some time to create.  It’ll probably go hand in hand with copious amounts of Rum & loud music.  Perfection.  Laters.