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Oops, I thought that I set this to post on Christmas but apparently I didn't. Anyway, here's the last of the 2011 Christmas cards. This is the one I made for Bill...
I created the large tag with my Cricut and I used the Papertrey Ink alphabet die to spell "Merry."
Ingredients:
I hope you all had a great Christmas. We sure did. It's always great spending time with family.
Next up in my 2011 Christmas card series is the card that I made for everyone on our Christmas list...
I punched out the berries with a circle punch and then added crystal effects and chunky glitter. This was a fairly simple card but I really like the end result.
Ingredients:
I hope you all have a nice Christmas Eve. Be sure to check back tomorrow for the last card in the series.
Since I gave it to her in person, I didn't have to worry about it being too lumpy to mail. Good thing because this card certainly is lumpy...hee hee hee.
Ingredients:
Be sure to check back tomorrow for the second to last card in the series.
Next up in my 2011 Christmas card series is the card that I made for my mom and dad, and Lisa and Randy...
As soon as I saw the felt accessories in the @Stampin' Up catalog, I knew that I had to order them. How adorable are those little mittens? And what is even more adorable? The picture of our sweet baby Greta!
Ingredients:
I'm still not finished posting all of the cards for this year. Check back tomorrow to see yet another card. :)
Next up in my 2011 Christmas card series is the card that I made for Josh...
I just love this stamp set from Papertrey. It's hard to see in the picture but I added Crystal Effects to each of the Christmas bulbs so that they are shiny. I think this card is perfect for a teenage boy, no frills, ribbon, glitter, etc...hee hee hee.
Ingredients:
Check back tomorrow to see another card. Until then...
Next up in my 2011 Christmas card series is the card that I made for Amanda...
The bird and mittens were actually from a card I received last year. It was adhered to the card with dimensionals so I removed it and kept it for future use. Since Amanda loves birds (and has two; Belle and Peeps), I thought that this was just perfect.
Ingredients:
Be sure to check back tomorrow for another card.
Today is the first post in my 2011 Christmas card series. First up is the card I made for Sarah...
I love the stocking punch from Stampin' Up. I also have the coordinating stamp set but for this card, I just punched the stockings out of patterned and red sparkly paper. The card base looks white in the picture but it's actually ivory. Also, the heel of the first stocking, the toe of the second stocking and the top of the third stocking are all gold but it doesn't show up very well in this picture.
Ingredients:
I started baking cookies this weekend. I made 5 kinds so far and I have at least one more to make this week. Yummy!
Well, I finally finished this post about our Hawaii trip. I actually started it about 10 weeks ago but I just never finished it. Don't get me wrong, we had a great time while we were there. We relaxed on the beach, ate great food, saw beautiful scenery and took over 250 pictures. It's just that I wasn't sure how I was going to blog about it without getting all emotional about baby Greta. Now that Greta is back to her usual spunky self, here's a recap of our trip:
Saturday, September 3 - We arrived in Honolulu at about 2:30pm local time. As is our tradition, we checked into the hotel, the Moana Surfrider, and then headed down to the Beach Bar for our first mai tai. We did a little shopping and I bought my first pair of yoga mat Sanuk flip flops, THE most comfortable flip flops I have ever worn. I bought an orange pair like these...
We ate dinner at Duke's which is also our tradition. They have yummy crab & macadamia nut won tons and macadamia nut encrusted mahi mahi. Sooooooo good.
Sunday, September 4 - We ate breakfast at Duke's and then headed to the beach by 8:00am. We're always up pretty early the first day since we haven't fully adjusted to the time change yet which is great because we get to maximize our beach time. We spent 4 hours relaxing on the beach and then we ate a light lunch at the Beach Bar followed by another hour of beach time. We then cleaned up and headed to Punch Bowl National Cemetary. It is very very windy but the view is pretty.
We decided to eat dinner at Kona Brewing aka Koko Marina Pub in Hawaii Kai. It turned out to be one of the more expensive dinners, not because of the meal but because of the cab ride. It was over $40 each way! Hee hee hee...it really didn't look that far on the map but the taxi driver did say that it was 12 miles. Apparently she doesn't have too many fares to this part of Oahu because she had to call her brother to confirm the location. Anyway, the food and beer were great. We had eaten at their other restaurant, Kona Brewing, in Kona 5 years ago. Anyway, here's a picture of the marina...
Monday, September 5 - We had a repeat of yesterday only this time, after the beach, we walked through downtown Honolulu and did a little shopping. We also walked the grounds of The Royal Hawaiian Hotel. It was my grandma and grandpa's favorite hotel on Oahu and I stayed there with my mom and dad back in 1982.
We ate dinner at Ocean House and although they lost our reservations, we were still seated fairly quickly and the food was great. Crab stuffed mahi mahi, need I say more? After dinner, we had one last drink at the Beach Bar.
Tuesday, September 6 - Our shuttle picked us up at the hotel around 9:30 and we headed to the airport. The flight is only about 20 minutes and we arrived around 12:30 or so. We checked into the Sheraton Kauai and then ate a light lunch at Lavas, the new restaurant/bar in the hotel. We walked on the beach and also checked out some of the shops. We had reservations at 6:00pm at The Beach House, one of our favorite restaurants that definitely has one of the prettiest sunset views. Here are a few photos we took during dinner...
Wednesday, September 7 - We got up extra early because we had to be at the pier by 6:00am for our Napali coast tour. This was seriously the best tour we have ever taken. We even saw a bunch of spinner dolphins following us. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous.
We snorkled before lunch near a rock outcrop just off the coast of Ni'ihau called Lehua Rock. Now, I had never really snorkled before, not in deep water anyway. I'm not afraid of water and I am a good swimmer, however, the whole "not knowing where the bottom is" kind of freaks me out. The thing is, we had to snorkle in pairs so if I didn't do it, Bill couldn't either. I knew he really wanted to snorkle so I put on my fins and mask and jumped in the water. They had swim noodles that we could use but wouldn't give them to us until we jumped in the water and could prove that we could swim. I guess it's because they're not approved safety devices and could easily slip away from you. Anyway, after I got the noodle and put my face in the water, my fears quickly vanished. It was so cool watching the fish swimming around. The water was about 15 feet deep within 20 feet of Lehua Rock and then it quickly dropped off to 90 feet. We snorkled for about 20 minutes and then got back on the boat and ate lunch. Typically the ride back to Kauai is pretty rough but it was really smooth this day. In fact, the captain said that it was one of the smoothest rides he has ever experienced. We got back to the hotel around 3:00 and decided to do a little shopping before dinner. We ate at Keoki's Paradise. We had eaten there 10 years ago and I remembered how good the Mahi Mahi was. Yum!
Thursday, September 8 - We ate breakfast at the hotel and then spent a few hours on the beach. It's a beautiful crescent shaped beach and they have covered lounge chairs and a great pool. We stayed at the same hotel 10 years ago and the beach was one of the things that made us want to stay there again.
After enjoying the sun and sand, we cleaned up and then headed north towards Princeville, stopping at Coconut Marketplace in Kapa'a were we had yummy Lappert's ice cream. Afterwards, we checked out all of the little shops and I bought my second pair of Sanuk yoga mats, this time in turquoise. My sister, Lisa, called at about 2:20 Hawaii time to let us know that she was at the vet with Greta. She said that Greta wasn't eating and the vet suggested that she bring her in. At that point, we were hoping that she was just lonely for us and that the vet could give her something to make her eat. We continued our drive north and Lisa called about an hour later and said that the vet wanted to talk to us. He said that her heart rhythm was irregular and her blood pressure was low. He suggested that Lisa take her to Veterinary Specialty Services (VSS) so that they could watch her overnight. We then continued to Princeville, stopping to take a few photos of the famous taro fields.
We then walked around the shops in Princeville although I don't think either one of us were very interested in shopping at that time. The admitting vet at VSS finally called to say that Greta's low blood pressure was caused by too much amlodipine. The vet had prescribed one 2.5mg pill twice a day and it should have been no more than a 1/4 of a 2.5mg pill twice a day. They were monitoring her and said that she was resting comfortably and would call us in the morning. We felt a little better but were still concerned, of course. We ate dinner at Hanalei Dolphin in Princeville and while the food was good, our minds (and hearts) were with Greta.
Friday, September 9 - We ate breakfast at the hotel and then received a call from Greta's cardiologist (who knew that cats could have cardiologists). She confirmed the amlodipine overdose and said that she didn't feel that it was something that would be considered fatal and that the medicine just needed time to work out of her system. We decided to head to our planned outing which was tubing on a sugar cane flume. The water was cold and I mean cold. It was also cloudy (it's the rainest spot on earth) so that made it even colder. It was fun but again, our hearts just weren't in it. I did take a few pictures with the water camera but I still haven't gotten them developed. We ate lunch after the 1 hour float at picnic tables set up by the side of the flume and then we headed back to the tour office. We drove back to the hotel and spent a few hours at the pool/beach, trying to assure ourselves that Greta was going to be fine. We talked to the vet again and everything seemed ok. We ate dinner at Brenneke's Beach Broiler. The food was ok but I don't think it was a reflection on the chef, it's just that we weren't really in the mood to eat so at that point, nothing would have tasted good. We went back to the hotel and had a drink at Lava's after dinner.
Saturday, September 10 - Bill woke up early and talked to the cardiologist. She was much less optimistic this time and didn't know if Greta would be ok or not. I woke up and Bill told me about the conversation he had with the vet. He said that if I wanted to leave, he'd call to see if he could arrange it. We ate breakfast at the hotel and discussed our plans. We decided to try to fly home so we went back to the hotel room and called AAA to see what arrangements we could make. They could get us on a 9:00pm flight from Kauai to Honolulu and then a 10:50pm flight from Honolulu to Phoenix and a 9:00am flight to St. Louis, arriving at 2:00pm on Sunday. The only problem was, it was first class on all 3 flights. We hadn't really planned on flying first class but we wanted to get home so we booked it. I then called the vet and told her that we were flying home and she said that that was probably a good idea. OK, that didn't do much to reassure us. We called Lisa and told her our plans and she said that she and Randy would go visit Greta and call us. By this time, it was almost noon and we were hungry since we really didn't eat much breakfast so we headed to Keoki's paradise again for a few appetizers. While we were there, Lisa called and gave us a report on Greta. They were able to pet her and talk to her which made me feel a little better. We spent the rest of the afternoon back at the hotel room just watching TV. I know, the beautiful beach was just steps away but neither one of us were in the mood to go to the beach and we were basically just counting down the minutes until we could head to the airport.
Greta had her checkup with her cardiologist on Wednesday. She is 100% recovered. The vet tech, Carrie, was so happy to see Greta. She said that Greta even hissed while they were drawing blood and Carrie loved it. She said that it was so good to see her back to normal.
We're planning part two of our Hawaii vacation for May 2012; three nights on Oahu and six on Maui. I can't wait.
We saw "Christmas with the Rat Pack" at The Fox on Saturday. We had seen The Rat Pack back in October of 2007 and really enjoyed it so I was especially looking forward to it this time since it included Christmas songs. The actors who portrayed Frank, Dean and Sammy all did a wonderful job. Of course the lobby of the theater was all decorated for Christmas and it looked so pretty and festive.
We decided to eat lunch at Six Row before the show. We don't usually eat lunch out before the show but we had to taste their limited brew, Killer Whale, so it was the perfect opportunity since Six Row is only a few blocks from The Fox. Anyway, Killer Whale is a hoppier version of their Whale. Oh yeah, I also had the bacon mac and cheese which is just love! After the show, we ate dinner at Modesto, our favorite tapas restaurant. By the end of the meal, we were too full to even think about dessert!
OK, I know I've mentioned it several times but I really do have my Hawaii post just about ready to go...finally. I've got it set to post on Thursday so be sure to check back.
Albert Pujols signed with the Angels today. I am now adding the Angels to my list of baseball teams that I hate. In addition to taking Albert away, they have a stupid name...The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Dumb, just dumb...hee hee hee!
OK, I guess I shouldn't be mad at the Angels, I should be mad at Albert and actually, I am. He kept saying things like "It isn't about the money" and "I want to stay in St. Louis" and "I love St. Louis" and "St. Louis is my home" and "I love the St. Louis fans" and "I want to spend my entire career in St. Louis" and "I want to follow in the footstep of Stan Musial" but apparently, in the end, it did come down to the money and all his talk about loving St. Louis was, well, just talk. Sad.
OK, that's fine. Go where the money is, Albert. See if those Angel fans appreciate you as much as we did. Don't expect a warm welcome the next time the Angels come to St. Louis for an interleague series.
