So, the summer is almost over for us and I’m wondering where it went. This is going to be like 20 blog posts in one!!

We did a lot of fun stuff but all the grand plans I had to organize the house (mostly get control of my closet) have pretty much gone ignored. AND my big summer digital surfing adventure was pretty much a wipeout because my laptop decided it wanted to travel for the summer too….back to it’s maker…TWICE!! I was completely lost without it. Strange how it feels like an appendage is missing when it’s gone. And using one of the 4 other computers in our house just feels like using a prosthesis. Designing the rest of the kits for the summer was pretty much out.

The summer began with a trip to New York for the National Stationery show. I turned the big 35 while I was there and had a bunch of fun with an apartment full of ‘girls’. I’m working on a scrapblog about it and will post it here when I’m done. LOVE scrapblog!

Two weeks after NYC was Boston!! We took the whole family to see the family I was a Nanny for when I was 20. The oldest boy was graduating from high school and I wanted to visit before he took off for Wisconsin for school. This trip is getting the Shutterfly treatment using Brian Tippetts’ travel book. I can’t wait to get it all bound and shiny!

I got back from Boston and had to get ready for a 3 day gig on our local Studio 5 morning show. My first TV appearance and it was surprisingly fun and not too scary! Two of the segments are online HERE

and HERE

Right after I finished the TV segments, we had a 3 day strategy meeting for Digital Scrapbooking magazine. I got to do some IRL catching up with long time online friends and coworkers Molly Newman, Renee Pearson, Anna Aspnes, Angie Svoboda, Pattie Knox, Jen Adams Donnelly. With Jennafer, Lynda and Marin, we had a very productive 3 days and have planned some great issues for our readers this coming year! Anna and Renee and Patty had a bit of fun with that Mac photo booth thingy and I’m waiting to see some photos posted from that!

The last day of the meeting was a half day and I took some of the girls to the airport and at the same time picked up my sister-in-law and cute cute nephew who flew in from Portland and we were off to Park City for a little family get together. My mom came from Salem, OR and my Brother Ryan and his wife (excellent choice, I must say) and three beautiful girls came from Portland. My pretty little sister and her super smart husband and FOUR great kids came from Boulder, CO. My littlest brother just sent his wife and little boy and was a party pooper and didn’t come, but having his little boy there was almost as good! We had a nice relaxing (albeit noisy) time with family and got a little shopping in at the Outlets. My kind of vacation!

We got back and went to lagoon the next day…all day. It was HOT and tiring but the kids had fun. And after that….I did NOTHING. For a week or so. It was very nice! But it didn’t last long enough. I took a fun Illustrator class one night a week and learned to be a whole lot more proficient and efficient in the program. Talk about time saving! WOW! And a fun little surprise…one of my classmates was…Rhonna Farrer. I had to try really hard to be a good student and not chatter through the whole class. Even though we live a few miles apart, we barely ever see each other so when we do, it’s talk talk talk. She’s got some cool stuff coming out for Scrapblog and a line of yummy boxes and stuff for Michael’s that I can’t wait to see. I LOVE seeing my digital friends stuff everywhere! Makes me smile and say, “Remember when…”

So my class is over and now we’re back into school shopping and final summer visits and the house still hasn’t gotten any attention. Poor house. Maybe someday. I keep saying I’m going to get a cleaning lady but I just never do it. [GOAL: Hire a cleaning lady when the kids go back to school.]

Tonight I’m popping in on CKU Provo to chat with Rebecca from Scrapblog and Saturday I’ll be helping out in Jessica Sprague’s digital class. That stuff isn’t work to me at all. It’s pretty much like a party. And I like parties! If I get a chance to take some photos, I’ll share. Maybe on the new CKMedia(CK, Simple, Digital and Paper Crafts all in ONE!) beta site. If you haven’t had a chance to try it out…get on over and sign up. It’s growing and changing and morphing into a great big social scrapping site. Check it out.

So…. one last tidbit in closing. With the summer just about over and James (my oldest) out of town, it seems like all Kelsey wants to do is watch Disney channel, go to Disney.com, listen to Disney radio, watch Disney movies (like Picture This with Ashley Tisdale) and Disney TV shows like High School Musical - Get in the Picture (Disney’s version of American Idol). So it’s Disney mania around here! I was about ready to tell her to go read a book this morning when a little Jonas Brothers segment came on and caught my attention. It was called “Musical Scrapbook”. The premise was that the boys feel like the music they write is essentially a scrapbook of their lives. It reminded me that there are a bazillion ways to scrapbook and no matter how you do it - paper, digital, video, music…etc. it’s a piece of who you are and it should be shared however you like. here’s a little clip.I thought it was cute, but that’s to be expected with Disney, huh? Enjoy…and then so some scrapbooking!