I guess I will start with some cards I have been making. My great aunt who lives in a nursing home asked me to make some cards for her to give out. I got the last few made and will ship the box off tomorrow. She asked for some anniversary cards and I hope these will work for her. Both were CASE'd, or copied, with a few changes here and there.
This card was originally created by Connie/MelodyGal at Split Coast Stampers.
The following card is by Michelle Lyon and you can see more of her work here.
It has been a busy few weeks. We had a wonderful trip to Nevada for Riley's 6th birthday. While we were there we also spent part of an afternoon in Minden visiting my best friend, Linda, who has pancreatic cancer. She was having a couple good days which made our visit possible. Hard to believe I had seen her just 6 months ago before her diagnosis. The difference in her was heartbreaking. I am just so happy that I was able to see her this trip! We also spent some time with a realtor looking at homes in Sparks. All were less than 15 minutes to the kid's and less than 30 minutes to Pyramid Lake, which is where Larry loves to go fishing. We found a new construction home on 1/3rd acre that we fell in love with. We found the builder and talked with him about building a shop in the back which they have done for another home on this street. What I really love about this house, besides the size of the lot, is that there is only one living or family room, not both which I really hate. The only issue with this place is that they put the AC unit on the side of the house that we would use to back the boat and trailer into the back yard. The builder said it could be moved though. So lots to think about. Riley's birthday was a blast. She had a "going to the mall" family party. I got her several gifts including a handbag and matching wallet from Justice:
Inside the wallet I put 2 gift cards for her to use at the mall, one from Justice and one from the Disney store. She got to open a couple gifts that morning so she could use her gift cards at the mall. Reagan loved Riley's new pink glitter sneakers:
Then is was off for birthday breakfast at the Black Bear Cafe.
Next we hit the salon for her manicure while Larry and I kept Reagan busy:
After a full day at the mall it was back home for a dinner of French Dips (Riley's favorite) and a fabulous chocolate cake from Whole Foods:
And more presents. Riley loves all things bling, especially jewels. I found this honking huge diamond at Michaels and knew I had to get it for her:
Our drive home ended up being a real headache. About 10 miles south of Bend it felt like we hit a small rock even though we didn't see a thing in the road. Larry pulled over to check the tire and could hear air escaping from it. We hoped we could make it in to Bend and I got on the GPS and found the closest Les Schwab. But about 7 miles down the road it started making a terrible racket so we had to stop and change it. Of course everything we needed to change a tire was buried under a ton of luggage! But Larry got it changed and then we went to Les Schwab. Turns out we hit a balancing weight from someone else's tire!!! Drove in like a knife! The guy there was soooo nice and gave us a studded loner to get us home. Said no way would he let us go over Mt. Hood with a space saver. Good thing too as the roads there were a mess! So then we get home and start unloading the car only to discover a nice dent on the hood. So many rocks hit us on this trip and we remember one hitting pretty good and were just thankful it didn't crack the windsheild.
The car is currently in the shop being worked on. We just switched insurance companies last month so I guess we are off to a good start!! Years without anything too! Here's another clip of the girl's and Sage:
Not sure what happened at the end of the video but it didn't sound good! LOL!


Grammy I think you need to buy Reagan a pair of those glitter sneakers that fit her How adorable is she LOL
Looks like Riley had a wonderful birthday.
That house is gorgeous and it is bran new, can't get better than that Cindy.
Please check with neighbors before you buy, make sure the builder isn't hiding anything from you and check him out first. That is what Bill and I should have done before we bought this house.
Posted by: madeline St onge | March 30, 2011 at 04:57 PM
We looked all over to find her a pair of those shoes Madeline!!! Reagan LOVES everyone's shoes.
We built once before so know we would need to check into this guy if we ever went that route. Swore we would never build again but I guess you never know.
Posted by: Cindy Marchant | March 30, 2011 at 07:12 PM
I am sorry we didn't do more checking here before we bought this house, because I would never have bought knowing what I know now and spending more money than we planned to get it straightened out. I think we were just afraid to loose it at the time because it was a buyer's market and the day after we bought it they got 10 more offers on it.
This house is costing us a fortune, and the builder will lie right to your face and smile like he means what he is saying.
Posted by: madeline St onge | March 31, 2011 at 05:45 AM