Vashon Sunset

Not much time tonight to work through the 500+ pictures that I took while we were on Vashon Island. However, I thought I'd post one of my favorites. This is the view from the front porch of the house.

Ahhhh...Puget Sound at sunset. Doesn't get much better than that.

Birthday Bash at the "Waage Woods"

As mentioned in an earlier post, my nephew just turned one and his party was held at Erik's parents' new house, located on a beautiful 5-acre plot that has been appropriately named "Waage Woods."

This party had it all - horseback rides (thanks to the neighbors across the street), playground equipment, ATVs, and tons of yummy food.

Here's the birthday boy - love the hat (and it would become the "official" horse riding attire).

Claire taking her turn. She's a natural.

I'm thinkin' we're going to start seeing "pony" on her Christmas list.

Papa with one grandson...

...and the other. I love this picture.

Yee...HAW!

Birthday boy on his new bike. Think he's having fun?

So here's some more experimenting with PS actions. The first is the original (straight out of camera). That's my nephew's boot, by the way.

The rest are as follows:

1. Boost

2. Heartland

3. Boost/Sepia

4. Vintage

1.2.

3.4.

I'm so often behind the camera, that I rarely get a picture of me with my girl. I thought this one was pretty cute. Love that girl.

Aaaand...I'm done with Colorado pictures. Now, on to the rest of our trip (after I take a little nap).

American Idol...Prince Phillip!

So I have to take a brief hiatus from my roadtrip blogging to share something I found in Claire's room last night. While she's with Grandma and Papa, I'm using this opportunity to deep clean and organize her room (and probably toss some stuff, but shhhhhhhh...don't say anything and maybe she won't notice...)

Anyway, I was picking up some of her Barbie dolls, and when I picked up Prince Phillip (Sleeping Beauty's beau), he looked like this.



Yep, he's rockin' out these days, boots and all, on an American Idol electric guitar.


"I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream..." I just love that song, but I'm not quite sure I'll like it as well accompanied by electric guitar. I fear it will lose some of that Disney magic.

Shhhhhhhh...don't tell ol' Walt and maybe HE won't notice.

Dump Truck Cake

My SUPER-cute nephew just had his first birthday, and they had his party while we were there in Colorado! Erik's sister asked if I could do a cake, which I gladly agreed to.

The theme was centered around this cute dump truck that was a baby shower gift and became a focal piece for pictures during his first year. Click here to see a fun picture.

I baked a chocolate cake (always best for those oh-so-messy-face photos) in two mini loaf pans. The extra batter went into a regular loaf pan - couldn't stand to waste perfectly good cake batter! I carved the shape I wanted, stacked it on top of 1/2 of the other small cake, and then cut graham crackers to form the sides. As you can see, one of the graham crackers broke in two mid-cut, but a little buttercream worked wonders to glue everything together!

That picture makes it look kind of like it's sitting on a reflective surface, but it's actually two little cakes stacked on top of each other.

Here are the leftover scraps. Don't remember if they got eaten or not...

On to the icing. I panicked when I realized that I hadn't bought Oreo cookies to use for the wheels (and in typical Camille-fashion, I was putting this cake together at midnight...no stores open) but I improvised by cutting out circles from the cake scraps.

Like this.

I added the blue frosting on top...

...and black frosting on the bottom. TA DA!

For the large cake, I asked them to order a plain frosted one from Costco and I just piped on the truck design.

That little truck didn't stand a chance.

He needed a little coaching, since he hadn't ever tasted black frosting before (or any frosting, for that matter).

But it didn't take long for him to figure it out!

The happy family.

Wanna try some?

A much-enjoyed cake equals...

...a happy birthday boy!

Home again

We're back home now and...surprise, surprise...I haven't posted any new trip pictures, but I PROMISE they are coming. The task is a little overwhelming, frankly. Curse you, digital photography. It's waaaaaaay too easy to take waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many photos.

We returned home to a sparkly-clean house (THANK YOU MALLORY!!!), well-fed chickens, fish, and dogs, and a literal jungle in our garden. The warm weather and daily watering was very kind to both my intended plants AND the weeds that are now threatening to take over. I'll try to take a couple of pictures and post them soon. I'm praying for relatively cool weather for the next few days so that I can tackle those weeds with gusto.

Wish me luck.

More Colorado Pictures

I just finished looking through a TON of pictures...Colorado, Vashon, Oregon...and I realized that I have some work ahead of me if I want to get this trip documented before it's over. (O.K... who am I kidding - I'll be happy to get these pictures posted before the end of this month!)

Since I've been having some fun experimenting with some different PS actions, I thought I'd feature a few "new and improved" photos from our Colorado trip. Thank you again Pioneer Woman for the fun and FREE action sets!

First, the photo I posted the other day, but with the "Vintage" action applied:

This one of Claire uses the "Colorized" action.

Chase in "Sepia Tone"

Josiah in "B&W Beauty,"

then in "Seventies,"

and his cute little toesies in "B&W Beauty" again.

This next one's up for a vote.

Here's the original...

..."Colorized"...

...and "Seventies"

Sooooo...which is your favorite?

36

I'm a perfect square today.

Did I realize it when I was 25? Nope. But I didn't need a quirky, fun reason to celebrate 25. I was in my TWENTIES - newly married, young, future ahead of me. I enjoyed turning 25.

I wasn't as excited about turning 36. Actually, the 35 mark hit me harder. At 35 I had to start checking the next age bracket box on every form I filled out. That association with 35-44 year olds was kind of hard to swallow. I was no longer considered a "young adult" at church. I felt the middle-age monster leering at me over my shoulder.

So this year, with 36 laughing that it was one year OLDER than that dreaded 35, I wasn't in much of a mood to celebrate.

That is, until my sweet cousin, Miriam (well...technically, she's the wife of my husband's cousin, which would make her a cousin-in-law?) at any rate...my COUSIN informed me that 36 is a perfect square.

*smile*

I kind of like that.

Anything with the word "perfect" in it gives it a nice, positive feel, don't you think? So I'm going to enjoy being perfectly square this year. Some might say I'm already pretty "square" and I'm ok with that too. After all, I heard it's kind of hip.