More Nashville

This is what happens when a few friends from far-apart places get together. First they go to the scrapbook store, where Jules pays an arm and a leg for some new goodies, then they go check out the Christmas decorations in some tropical gardens (where the magic of Christmas lets Jules grow her leg back), then they get together with another friend, who just happens to be hosting her rehearsal dinner. Hmmm...don't tell their husbands about the guy these two were picking up at the Wildhorse Saloon! Of course my husband was there, so we just sat and chatted with some new friends. Finally: what a day! Jules is asleep already!

More from our weekend in Nashville

While in Nashville, we saw the Veteran's Day parade that went right by the hotel. There were groups of veterans, high school bands and all the usual sorts of groups. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the parade, including some of the Civil War reenactors for a friend, Gail's husband David, who participates in this also.

Pictures from a Wedding

Just a few pictures from the reception after the wedding of my friends Anne and Ken. I have more to come from our weekend, but they are on film and need developing first. One from the church also.

A Week in Provence

My husband Marcel and I just returned from a lovely week in Aix en Provence. We were there with a group put together through McGill Alumni Travel and some other Alumni groups. The tour was run by AHI (Alumni Holidays International) and was very much fun. We had talks about the history of the area, about art (especially Van Gogh and Cezanne and their contemporaries), and about modern day France and went out on daily excursions to various places in the area. We ate great food and discovered local specialties. Here are a few pictures. They are (top to bottom) a fountain and street in Aix, Cezanne's family home, Mont St Victoire (painted often by Cezanne), Pont de Gard (Roman aquaduct) near Avignon, palace of the popes in Avignon, hilltop village Les Baux, a 17th century street in Aix, Camargue horse and cowboy getting ready to perform for a traditional wedding procession in Arles, Roman amphitheatre in Arles, me in Gordes, spices in the market in Aix, colourful houses in Roussillon, lion on the castle of Ansouis, some of our group having coffee in the castle which is still lived in by the same family since the 1300s, the seaside village of Cassis, where we were supposed to go for a boat ride, but it was too windy. These are only a few pictures from the trip of course.

Five weird things about me

Colleen tagged me to do this so here goes:

1. I can't eat eggs. I'm not allergic to them, I just can't bring myself to eat them. On their own, that is, like fried eggs or scrambled eggs. I've never liked them as far back as I can remember. When I was on the South Beach Diet for a bit, they kept telling me to eat eggs for breakfast. No way! I ate chicken. Figured it was the same thing only more mature.

2. When I'm working on something I like to have it all out and visible to me. If it gets put away I tend to forget to do it! That's my excuse for a messy scrapbook room.

3. I have a horrible memory for people's names. So does my husband. We rarely introduce people to each other because, while we know who they are, we can't remember their names.

4. Unlike many women, I don't enjoy shopping for the sake of shopping. The exceptions would be shopping for scrapbooking, art or stationary supplies. I don't like shopping for clothes or shoes and especially not for gifts for other people as I have a hard time figuring out what they would like. I like to GIVE the gifts, just not figure out what to buy.

5. I love to have bare feet. If I only lived in the right place and in the right climate I would never wear shoes. Sandles are a pretty good alternative and closed shoes and boots come in a distant third. Unfortunately, living where I do, a good part of the year requires my feet to be enclosed a good part of the day anyway. Poor feet!

Okay, now, Gail, Anne and Clare...let's see what you say! If you don't have a blog, feel free to post your reply here and I'll reference it so others will know to look for it, or post it anywhere else you feel like.

Our new garage and deck

We have an 86 year old house and the garage was probably about that old too! It had a wooden floor and the roof was starting to leak. This summer we had a new (normal) garage built and in the course of re-organizing the back yard area (which is really a small courtyard) we had a new and larger deck put on, the dog run moved in behind the garage and a new fence built. Here are a few pictures. It is quite a change! In the picture of the deck, the structure at the back will be to shelter the BBQ when we get one and the pumpkins are resting on the covers of what will be planters in the spring. We are very excited because we can actually put a car in this garage and raise and lower the door electronically. Okay so it doesn't take much to make us happy!

Especially for my friends in the south

A few fall pictures from New Brunswick.

Creative Escape

I recently returned from a great new scrapbooking event called Creative Escape. It was put on in Phoenix, Arizona by Heidi Swapp and Bazzill Basics Paper and was an amazing success. All the classes were great, with wonderful teachers and all the class kits were prepared ahead of time, with all papers cut and ready, by the wonderful staff at Bazzill. Everyone took all the classes and there was a great variety, from complete albums, to layouts, to photography, to using Microsoft Word to format text. We even made a clock and a decorated box. Here are a few of my pictures from Creative Escape.


Not especially in chronological order! The first picture is of the cocktail party organised by some members of the Yahoo group on Thursday afternoon. It was really fun and a good way to start off the weekend. The sponsors even came through with some prizes for this! Here's Shelley drawing some names for prizes.


Next is the opening ceremony, with Heidi Swapp and Doug Jones (a.k.a. "Mr. Bazzill). Following that we had the "Technique Boutique" where we went around to tables and did various techniques we would have to know for the classes, and got more stuff from the sponsors!

I had a chance to meet some friends at Creative Escape that I hadn't met before in real life. I roomed with Jodi (Odio on the CKMB) and was in the same series of classes with her. Here we are with the box we made in Tena Sprenger's class. I also got to spend some time with Janet M, and here we are together at one of the suppers they gave us.


On the last evening, we had a sit-down dinner which started with desert first! Then Stacy Julien gave the keynote speech about creativity which was very inspiring. Here you can see the centerpiece which was on each table and one person got to win this by drawing out the straw with a green-tipped end. There were so many prizes drawn both Friday and Saturday nights during dinner. The sponsors were oh-so-generous! The large group picture is the Yahoo group, with Heidi and Doug joining us of course.

On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning prior to CE, a tour of the Bazzill warehouse followed by a trip to Scrapbooks etc., a scrapbook store owned by Marti Jones (Doug's wife) was organised for members of the Yahoo group who would be there on time for the tour. I went Wednsday afternoon. The rows of boxes of Bazzill paper of all colours is a scrapbooker's delight! The staff were all very welcoming, the same staff who had worked night and day to prepare our kits. Amy Totty (who works with Bazzill, taught at CE, and was our "tour guide") and Doug Jones seemed glad to pose with groups of us before we headed in for our tour. They also opened up their warehouse sale a week early for us. Amy gave each of us the cute CE visors.


On Thursday morning, a desert hummer tour had been organised by Shelley, one of the Yahoo group organisers. That was so much fun! We went out in 2 hummers and drove up and down some steep hills in the desert, stopping to see cacti and some wildlife. I have loads of pictures from this trip. Here is a view of the desert with a very old Saguaro cactus, me and a cactus, and me with the hummer before we started out.







We were provided with meals during CE. Breakfast on both days was buffet style (here is Saturday's set-up) and we had a choice of several box lunches each day. Supper on Friday was a Mexican buffet, and Saturday the sit-down dinner. We also had pizza as a late-night snack on Thursday and ice cream on Friday. The last picture is from breakfast on Saturday and is of my room-mate Jodi and Kathy (AKathy from CKMB). Kathy had convinced Jodi to come to CE and they finally got to meet at breakfast. What a great time!