Camping with the Girl Scouts

So I never got to be a girl scout as a child. Maybe that's because I was the youngest of four kids (or six depending on the weekend) in my family. My family was very busy with sports whether it was soccer or baseball season. You can imagine a family of our size owning only one car, with all of the kids with different practice times, of course each practice field miles apart. My mom always joked about having "mom's taxi" on her license plate. Well, I can guess that's why I was the one who missed out on the girl scout thing. Have you ever heard of living through your kids??? Well, this weekend I went on my first Girl Scout camping trip. I must say it was so much fun. We were at Camp Wi-Wo-Ca in Cherry Valley. We stayed for two nights. I was lucky to be one of the parent volunteers.

All of us were surprised to have hail and snow. It happened as we were having our flag ceremony at the end of Sat. We were mid flag folding when hail started coming down. In a matter of minutes everything was covered in white. The girls, well really all of us, were so so shocked. We had the best time playing in the snow. We had snowball fights and even made a snowman. What a blast. The whole trip was great and I can't wait to take Megan's troop there. No, I never was a girl scout, until now. Now, I get to enjoy the scouts from the mommy/leader side of it. Well, cookies are a bit stressful but over all, I'm having a great time.

I've trained her well...I think. Alyssa used up her entire "throw away" camera on the way up to camp. I kept on telling her to pace herself so she wouldn't use all of her pictures on the first day. Funny how about an hour after we arrived at camp Alyssa comes up to me sad because she has used all of her film. I can't wait to see what she took picturs of. Some how I think I'll see a few repeats as she seemed to take multiple photos of the same thing. I guess the apple doesn't really fall far from the tree. I took a fresh 2gig card to camp so I wouldn't have to decide what photos I should take off of my other card. Funny how my camera decided not to work while we were there and I ended up using Kim's (one of the leaders) camera to take the photos that I had to take. In the short time my camera was working I managed to take 53 pictures. I took a ton on the loaned camera. Luckily Kim was cool about me grabbing her camera when ever I had an urge! Because I know how the photo bug feels, I held my breath and let Alyssa use my camera (it was still working at the time) to take a few shots.



Well, I haven't had time to figure the video thing yet but when I do I have some great video of camping.



On my mind right now...my little guy is getting ready to turn two. WOWWEEEEE Kinda freaking me out how my children are getting so big. Alyssa will be nine and Meg will be seven. Where in the world has time gone?? And may I add, why in the world do I still have "baby fat"? Maybe after nine years I just call it fat, leaving the baby out. Technically it's only been two years since I had Evan so maybe I'm still good. Well, not good with the fat thing but oh well, working on that one.



I hope scrap all day on Thursday. I have new Basic Grey staring at me and I can barely think straight. I just want to push paper!!!!!!!!

CHA was a blast

Some photos from CHA. Here is our first look as we entered the showroom. We had a full day a great people and cool product ahead of us. Thanks for the ride down Ally.






Meeting Heidi Swapp was a great way to start the day. She had a make n take available to do along with Epson. You were able to take the photo of you with Heidi from your camera and print out a Hybrid layout with Heidi stuff and then have her sign it. For me the line was too long to do the make and take. Too much product to see to actually sit down and make anything!



Me in Elsie's booth. Elsie was at lunch our first time through so we were alble to take in the booth without feeling any star buzz. Loved the kitchen and all of the photos. Her recipe book looks amazing and I can't wait to get my hands on it. Very cool.



A look at me with Elsie, Mel, Ally, Mel, Lisa and Amy. Elsie was quite a bit more shy than I expected. Very soft spoken and mellow. Hard to imagine that looking at her work and her photos

OK so if I could have been at CHA for every day of the convention I might have had a chance to see all that there was to see. I felt very happy that I even got to go because as other fire wives know, the hubby is usually at work on the day something cool is going on. Yes, I know they only work ten days a month, but they are usually the days you need to be somewhere. So, the highlight of my day at CHA was my chance meeting with Ali Edwards. I hoped she would be there but saw nothing on her blog leading up to it or any post saying she was going. I think in my mind I just kind of gave up the idea of seeing her. Funny how a quick stop to the ladies room would be my best choice of the day. There she was. I felt silly as I stood there waiting for her to finish her phone call but I guess my embarrassment didn't out weigh how totally cool it was to see her. Let me just say, love her! She was so down to earth. Very personable. I have followed her blog for some time and it felt awesome to meet her in person. So I am a happy girl. Really, this week was great. I'll post more photos soon. I think I'm tired. This post is my first lesson in photos in the posts. I know it needs work but I'll work on it when I have more energy.

G'nite!

Lauren >> LaLa

First I met Donna Downey at It's About Time, where she taught a class. I didn't actually take the class but I worked in the store all day so I was able to hang out with her. It was fun to meet her and her ultra mellow hubby Bill. They were both very cool and put up with all of us with our FLIP cameras and our bazillion photos we took. Here are a few from that day.

So here I am

OK, I thought it was time to finally jump into the blogging world. Here's a test post to see if I can even get it up and running. If I do, I will repost and add some fun pictures I took @ CHA yesterday. Here goes....