Phew!

We are in Los Angeles! We arrived yesterday, after a looong flight. A flight not entirely without incidents. At our hotel (in Philly) yesterday morning, my middlest thought it would be the best to be spun around in the office chair after he had consumed a strawberry frappuccino. His brothers spun him around and around, and he giggled and giggled. Then he got off, and mentioned that he wasn't feeling too good. Uh, no surprise there, buddy! (See where I'm going with this story?) We catch a cab to the airport, and as soon as we get there (a 20 minute ride), middlest tumbles out of the car, and wants me to rush him to a bathroom because he's about to barf. We barely enter the terminal, when he turns to me, and throws up. All over me. Then he just keeps going. I drag him to a trash can but he's chosen to barf all over the floor and himself instead. Some people come over to offer paper towels and a seltzer. Thank you City of Brotherly Love! I was just thankful this happened before we checked in our luggage. So I pulled out some clean clothing for him and for me, dragged him to the bathroom, told him to wash his hands, face, hair, anything that was covered in yuckyness. Then I tried to clean myself up as good as possible. But for the rest of the flight, my hair smelled barfy.  The only saving grace for me was sitting in first class by myself while Bryan hung out with the kids in the back.

Yes, he's an awesome husband! Yes, middlest barfed again. Yes, first class can be very relaxing, especially in a 6 hour flight.

But all is well that ends well. We had some In-N-Out (by then that barfy kid was no longer barfy, of course!) drove to our new house, which is not as terrible as I feared (hubby rented the house, I have never seen it until last night). The kids love the house, the yard, the street.

Our plans for the rest of the week include exploring our new surroundings and relaxing. We'll go see movies, buy some warm weather clothing, and eat out. Maybe meet some neighbors, drive the kids past their new school, hit the beach. We might go hiking, and meet up some scrappy friends.

I don't have any photos to share yet, and I'll make sure to post some this weekend.

I'll leave you with a layout that I haven't shared here. I created this one for Lily Bee's CHA booth. I love this layout. Not only does it have tiny photos (which is my favorite thing to scrap with right now), but it also features photos of food! I don't know if you've noticed (har har), but I love food. I love buying, prepping, cooking, and eating food. And I love the This & That line of papers. The colors and patterns are fab, and it's a really easy to use line. This layout uses my favorite go to scrappy design, the grid. And this week's Lily Bee challenge is to scrap using a grid!

Alrighty. Off to get our new adventure started. We are happy, excited, and scared. But a little scared is good! It makes me feel alive. I'll report back later this week with some photos.

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Goodbye Pennsylvania

The packers were here, and quickly stuffed nine years of lives into boxes. The movers came and shoved all those boxes into a semi, including our car. And today, we are flying off to California. So bittersweet. On one hand, I'm glad to finally go. But I love this little village we've called home for so long. I love the people here. I love the schools. I love the four-seasons weather. I love the pizza. I love Philadelphia.

I thought I'd share a layout I created a while ago about our little town.

As seen in the March/April 2008 issue of Simple Scrapbooks magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

This little town is old, adorable, and quirky. You can click on the layout to get a bigger picture, in case you want to read the journaling.

And a few photos that I love about our lives here.

Rare foggy snowy day. It's foggy here all the time. But not usually while snowing. (The view is from my backyard deck.)

My middlest being his usual goofy self at our favorite park.

My husband and the littlest taking a walk at our favorite hiking trail, next to a creek in Valley Forge National Park.  We'll miss that trail and park so much. We go there all four seasons. It's fun in the sun, in the rain, in the snow, in the ice. I love seeing how different it is throughout the year.

Our backyard after a big rainfall. Have I mentioned it rains a lot here? It makes the area beautiful and green, and our (former) yard very waterlogged. We are going to miss that yard so much. It's huge and flat and has great shade in the summer. Our yard in California is smaller than a postage stamp.

Me, walking my favorite shrimp nigiri sushi to preschool for his Halloween parade. The kids come out, and walk around the church in which the school is housed. The school is right in middle of our downtown area, and the parade attracts everyone around. So cute. All three of my kids went to preschool there. It's a special place for all of us.

So there you have it. Nine years in five photos and one layout. Tomorrow, I'll be posting from Los Angeles. Crazy!

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I know I said I was going to stay off the computer...

But I'm still procrastinating. So indulge me here.

I went through my medicine cabinet, cleaned it out and packed it. I went through my makeup clutter and cleared that out. I've hosted several dozen children for playdates. And I've finished all my scrappy assignments. I realize some people do these things on a daily basis, but we are talking about me. As in, me, the lazy person. So woohoo, go me!

OK. Enough self-praise. Moving onto Friday random fun.

1. I posted about Julia Stainton's studio on the Lily Bee blog. Holy cow! It's amazing! A dream space. So organized, such beautiful light. I want to move in.

2. Jillibean Soup has a mid-season release! So stinkin' cute. I love that the Yellow Bell Pepper paper is all red. Go by the blog,  and leave a comment to win it!


3. Creating Keepsakes and Big Picture Classes have joined forces (of good!) and are hosting a National Scrapbooking Day online crop with challenges, chats, and giveaways. I'll be hanging out there all day. You can sign up by clicking here. May 7th, peoples! Be there.

4. And lastly, a card I created for Jillibean. I'm not a huge card maker, but I noticed that if I include lots of paper piecing, it's actually really fun. I even inked the edges of the clouds!

Everything Jillibean Soup, except, pink polka dot paper is Lily Bee, cloud punch is Fiskars, heart punch is Marvy, font is p22 Typewriter, ink is Clearsnaps (those Cat's Eyes things. Love those!)

Now, I'm off to work on what has to be done. Really. I am. (I haven't taken any naps this week! Are you proud?)

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Ohmigosh

I'm so stressed out. But it's all my own doing. I've known about my move since, uh, last November. And did I start de-cluttering then? Or a month ago? Or last week? Or today? Uh, yeah. I've said it before, I'll admit to it, I'm a major procrastinator! I deal with big stresses by taking naps. But I don't think that's an option this time.

So you won't be seeing much posting from me the next week or two. More like two. We move next week, and then we'll have to hole up in a hotel for a week or so until our furniture shows up. Not conducive to anything that takes effort. But my children tell me that it would be good for going to the beach and Legoland. Since next week is their Spring Break, I'm going to agree with their wise assessment and do their bidding.

However, I thought I'd share a layout before my crazy cross-country trip. This is quite appropriate because it's about the food my husband and I ate when we drove from here to Los Angeles back in February. Usually we eat a lot of McD's and junk like that. But this time, we made a point of doing a little interwebbing before hitting each city, and finding a good local place to nosh at. We also got lucky, and drove past places we love, like Taco Cabana (brings back sweet memories of college) and Rudy's (love me some Texas bbq).

A few things about this layout. One, the road-esque washi tape is actually plain tape stamped with a journaling stamp. The title made up of tags ("YUM") is actually punched out of an October Afternoon paper. And the B&W paper at the bottom is my favorite Lily Bee from this season's release (Teacup from the This & That line).

OK. I reeeeally need to go pack. No more naps! I'll do that at the beach next week. It better not be raining in LA when I get there.

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Weekend In Photos: The Washington DC Edition

As we count down our days on the East Coast, the kids are getting more and more frantic about the things we "must" do before we move to the left coast. On top of their lists: eat a last cheesesteak at Tony Luke's, eat at Banana Leaf, eat at Classic Diner, and go to Washington DC. To eat. Of course. These are my kids after all.

So off we went to DC. Although I was sneaky, and managed to get a girls' day out for myself with Cindy and Keisha. So fun. And so bittersweet.

Keisha was pretty determined to get some Georgetown Cupcakes. They have their own TV show! Who knew! Well, apparently everyone but me. They had moved from their teeny storefront on a small side street to a much larger location on M Street. Again, I had no idea. But we could tell where it was located from the ginormous line wrapping around the block. NUTS! No, we don't love cupcakes that much. Especially after having some really nice pizza for lunch. Add to the fact that it was raining and hailing. So we ducked into Paper Source, and bought more paper goods than we needed. Then into Lush and got very nice smelling bath bombs. Then, and only then, we went to brave a cupcake line. Not at Georgetown Cupcakes. Not at Sprinkles (I mean, one can get Sprinkles anywhere else in the country, even if they are good.) But we went to Baked and Wired, which was pretty amazing too. Plus the place was just cute. And the lines were shorter. I'm going to recommend the Fresh Strawberry, the Cherry Blossom, and the Razmanian cupcakes. Not that I ate all three by myself...

And then we had to say goodbye. I'm going to miss Cindy and Keisha so much. We will see each other again. But the get togethers won't be as spontaneous anymore.

My family and I stayed overnight, and we ate ate ate. We did take a little eating break to go visit the zoo (they had baby lions) and say hi to the pandas. And visited Mt Vernon. Of our 20ish trips to the DC area, we had never been to Mt Vernon. It was about time. So fascinating to see where George Washington lived. And to learn more about his accomplishments. Everyone knows about him as the father of our country, but I knew very little about the farmer and husband.

And now we are back to school, work, and packing. At least I won't have to clean the house this week. YES!

Food paparazzi!

Crazy line just for cupcakes. Look past the end of the line. It wraps around the corner down the other street.

We had to settle for a photo on the outside.

Inside Baked & Wired. So cute. So yummy!

Stumptown coffee? Please. And yes, I tipped really well.

RED VELVET! It was good too.

Love those girls!

There was this and a huge thing of Korean bbq. The kids ate it all. I had to fight for a few scraps.

Those cherry blossoms. So pretty. So allergy inducing.

I couldn't stop thinking "someone needs to wash those panda butts."

Love how they pose nicely for photos.

We do love Thai food. Can you tell?

A super nice Japanese lady forced us into a family photo, and then praised my children to the skies. I love her already. Oh, that is George and Martha Washington with their grandchildren Washy and Nelly behind us.

The mansion at Mt Vernon. The other building to the right is the kitchen.

And thank you for the love re: house sale and Jillibean. You guys are awesome. I mean that.

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This is exciting stuff!

I must confess that I fell for, at least, three pranks yesterday. I'm a sad fool.

My news aren't as exciting as Lisa's, but then what is? (Do I have to mention that I fell for that one too? I know, I know, a fool!)

Exciting news #1:

Exciting news #2:
We have sold our house. I'm so glad to have that big stress off our shoulders. I'm planning to not clean it at all until our moving date. Now that is exciting news.

Exciting news #3:
Going to see Keisha and Cindy later today. Pizza and cupcakes are in our future. Nothing like carbloading with my girlfriends. I'll have photos to share, don't worry.

That's probably enough excitement for me for one weekend. I'm off to eat some carbs. You know, gotta train for later today.

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