A RELAXING WEEKEND and AN ANNOUNCEMENT

First, the Announcement
Lori, the owner of Digiscrappin.biz who's elements team I joined a couple weeks ago called me a couple days ago and offered me a new title/position at the new site (Digiscrapshak, opening September 1st). What's my new job?? Well, I'll still be designing freebies for the sites chats and challenges and member downloads. I'm actually going to be putting together entire large kits that can be collected in five parts throughout the month if you continue to take part in some of the awesome challenges they are going to be having. How can you resist that, great inspiration and a fabulous community to learn from and get to know plus great freebies! Plus, as my new position at the site I'm going to get he opportunity to offer other designs I create for sale in their store!!! So if you like my designs, be looking for me, I'll be around!

Edited because I had a typo. Doesn't surprise me, I've been cramming a lot in these days!

There it is, Designer Apprentice. I'm so excited I could pop! This alpha and these elements are just a little sneak peak at a kit I'm working on right now for the site. Keep checking back, I'll have more info on our grand opening celebration and some of the wonderful events that will be happening. And I have some other announcements coming too about some of the never offered before new products that will be in the store and an outstanding (you won't believe it when you hear it) contest that the site is hosting! You won't want to miss it.

Camping at Curlew
We went with our great friends, The O'Connors for a weekend camp up at Lake Curlew this weekend. We were trying to escape the smoke that is all around us still. A new fire started right outside of town tonight but I haven't heard much on it yet. Updates on that one later.

This campsite was so nice. It reminded me of the places I went camping a lot on the Snake River as a kid...green grass, nice bathrooms, clean water, you know, all the important stuff. The kids had a blast. The girls really enjoyed their freedom on the blow up raft, as we let them toodle around all by themselves for the first time ever. We borrowed a friends canoe and Julia and I ventured out on the lake for some bird watching. We saw some Osprey and Eagle and a lot of Eastern King Birds, but we see those at home so it wasn't too exciting. The canoe ride was an experience though, and we didn't even tip over!! Jeff got lots of fishing in but didn't catch as much as he had hoped. He really wanted to try to snag one of these "Tiger Muskies" that the state Dept. of Fish and Wildlife stocked the lake with in 1995 to cut down on the un-eatable fish. We researched a bit before going there and look at this old picture we found of a Muskie right HERE. Talk about creepy. I guess they are not bad eating, but you can't keep one unless they are 36 inches or larger. So that was Jeff's mission while we were there. Unfortunately the bait shop in town was closed and he didn't have any "Muskie" lures so he didn't have any luck. He is certain that he saw a couple though, chasing his lure through the lake weed at the edge of the lake. EEEEWW! Needless to say, I didn't swim this weekend, only watched from a distance.

Jeff made a fun new toy to take along on the trip the day before we left. We'd been seeing these "Ladder Ball" games around and he wanted one, so he looked up instructions on how to make one out of PVC pipe, drilled a few holes into golf balls (thanks Tom and Audrey for the bucket of balls, they came in handy) and melted the ends of some ropes to get them to stay into the balls, grabbed some spray paint and WALLA! Ladder Ball game for $14 (retail $75). Everyone had fun with this one.

The skies were clear and clean most of the time, although our fire is heading north in the state and had kindof caught up with us by the second night. I took this photo last night. It looks like sunset but it was only about 6 p.m. All the smoke in the sky makes the sun this color. Made for a gorgeous photo however. This was my view for two days as I sat in our campsite looking out onto the water from my camp chair, scrap magazine in my lap. Can't beat that, hu?