Stunned by fire

Wow this is one of those things that is 'Never going to happen to you' Well it did, my Father-in-law and Mother-in-law lost their home in a fire this morning. They are both fine, PRAISE GOD!!! Everything else is just stuff. This is what we saw from our house this morning, it was actually much darker when we 1st saw it, but this was after we were there and came back to our house to pick up some stuff. Such a shock! We were having our coffee at about 5:15 when Paul spotted the fire and firetrucks in the vicinity of my in-laws home. Man we have never gotten dressed and out the door so quickly!

This is the TINY window they crawled out of. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE learn from this and check your smoke alarms & your escape route TODAY! My FIL is 82 and my MIL is 76 and I am AMAZED they could crawl out thru this little opening!! THANK YOU LORD!
They heard an explosion and my FIL thought something had fallen on the roof, he headed out of their bedroom and saw the glow of the fire and the smoke so he quickly went back into the bedroom and shut the door. The firefighters said tires make a huge explosion so that is probably what woke them up. Thank Heavens the car was in the carport.

The furthest window to the left of the ladder is where my office used to be. So besides this being my in-laws home it is also the main office of our business. Oh my gosh, what a mess and once again I am Praising God for all he as done for us. I think the insurance is going to be ok and we did not loose all the computer data. My Sil has been working on recovering hard drives and our Daughter spent the day helping out.

It is going to be a LONG road from here to get everything back in order and to get everything running full speed at our business, but it just could have been a very different story. Thank you LORD seems to be my mantra today. Please check your smoke detectors and your escape route!

Huge Pink Birthday Horse!

Love these photos of Kaylie, she pets her huge pink horse, kisses it on the nose and says nice. She is a pretty quiet kid most of the time, only once in a while jabbering up a storm! More FUN with FLERGS!!









Credits
Studio Flergs @ scrapbookgraphics.com

Flergs Kit Kaylee's Kaleidoscope: paper - Ribbon - Wire - Charm - Flowers

Flergs Kit Deacon's Closet: Tag

Flergs Grab Bag - Fairy Wings: Butterfly - Girly Swirl - Boy stitches

Flergs Photo Curl Action

Weeds & Wildflowers: Word-art

Chere Nordstrand: Clearly Hearts Alpha

Fonts: Smudgers & SBC Love Mom

Cute enough to Kiss!

This one is done with more fun stuff from Flergs kits. I used both Chasing Ryan and Denim Blues. I have to say this one just went together so QUICKLY, I think I did this in under 2 hours and if you know me that is WAY-WAY-WAY fast for me!! lol
Can you believe it 2 layouts in less than a week! WOW are you all shocked!!! lol

Credits everything Studio Flergs @ scrapbookgraphics.com

Chasing Ryan:

Bracket - Frame - Glitter Splat - Flower & Button - Paper for strips

Denim Blues:

Background Paper - Stitches - Star - Staples

Fonts:

Marcelle Script

BeanTown

2 Peas Scrapbook

Charles S.

Girls Night Out and Margaritas!

A few of my dearest local friends came over Wednesday evening for a girls night with Margaritas and we had a great time. I really did a lousy job of getting pictures though! Laura would have gotten some great ones for me but her battery died. Started out the evening with light but it sure got dark quickly, we had a bit of wind but it was still a beautiful evening. I think we ended up with 12 of us and my margarita's turned out pretty dang good for my 1st try! lol
Amber brought all her Body Shop Goodies over to display for everyone to play with, everyone knows I am a HUGE Body Shop fan!
Ok, this last one just cracks me up, I totally took Amber off guard in this photo but it is pretty darn close to the look I used to get from her when she was about High School Age! Sort of the 'Oh MOM' look! lol Sure am glad we are past the Parent/Child stage and are now on to the FRIEND stage! :) Love you Kiddo
Thanks to everyone who came and made it a great evening! To those who missed the fun, hope you can make it next time!! Also sure do hope a certain someone gets that private jet soon so they can pop in from time to time! lol

OH and my Margarita Recipe:
1 can of Limeade then use that can to add
1 can of Beer (I used Corona cause that is what Paul drinks)
1 can of Tequila
1 can of Water (cause they would knock you off your feet otherwise)
Salt the rims of your glasses and pour the mixture over ice - YUM

Good thing these are just a once in a while thing at my house cause they were really pretty tasty!

Flerg's Guest CT for August

I am a Guest CT for Flergs for the Month of August and yes this is the 1st layout I am posting, I am almost as slow Digi scrapping as I was with Paper scrapping. I LOVE Flergs (Megan) style and have since before she ever started selling her fabulous goodies :) So I feel more than honored to be able to say I was on her CT for a month.

I love to watch Paul interact with Kaylie, while Justin and I are always playing and entertaining her, Paul just quietly plays with Kaylie. Sometimes I think it is a welcomed break from the shenanigans Justin and I are always pulling! lol

Since it is the middle of August and this is my 1st layout it might be part of the reason that I was not chosen for a full time spot on Flergs CT. Ha ha
I love that she gives you the option to use her shadows or not to. For me it just makes things so much easier, which in turn makes it much more fun :) Plus she includes a screen shot of how to set your shadows like she does, totally cool if you ask me!

Credits everything by Flergs

Deacon's Closet: paper

Rough & Tumble: Staple

Kaylee's Kaleidoscope: Button, Flower and Tag

Chocolate Berry - Bling & Frame

Denim Blues: Tile Letters
What Dreams May Come: border
Font: Rebecca

I won!! WOO HOO

You might have noticed the big blue blinking circle over to the right, well it was more than worth it to figure out how to put that on my blog cause I won!! WOO HOO I entered Kayla's (The Legacy Lady) giveaway and her daughter drew out my name!! (what a great kid) :)

This is in the mail and zipping to my house as I type!

I am so excited to get this, mini albums are so fun and you feel such a sense of 'accomplishment' when you finish one. - Thanks again Kayla!!

4 Daughters Irish Pub

We had a great evening a couple of weeks ago at 4 Daughters Irish Pub downtown Medford. Good food and Great entertainment, I am not a huge Jazz fan but I do like this sort of rock Jazz. The group is called Razzamojazz and our friend and neighbor David Bolen is the drummer. He was playing with legendary Sax man Brandon Fields and it was awesome!

Had to shoot this one fast cause I sort of snuck in behind the gal who was taking photos! lol and the piano player said his knees were killing him :)

I love doing things like this that are way out of our normal 'box' and totally enjoying them.

Longwood Gardens

This is where we spent the day yesterday. Beautiful old gardens that are extremely well tended. This is the Bell Tower and I am ever so grateful that we were not to close when they chimed cause can I say LOUD! OH MY GOSH I think it might have given me a Heart Attack! lol They do a fountain show about every two hours, it was sort of erie. Kind of looked like a ghost, I think in the evening it would be even more so. ha ha You all already know what a chicken I am! :) But it was outstanding
My cute honey-pie, this conservatory was HUGE with so many different rooms which all held different types of plants. But it was a bit humid inside in places.
These are so beautiful, I love the mottled patterns, they put a black dye in the water to hide the pots so it looks more pleasing to the eye and it cuts down on the algae too.
I love these big platters, they are grown from seed every year! We sat at the table on Wednesday morning with a gal from Tilley's Nursery who actually goes on expeditions to look for new species of water plants. They have found a new one and have not even named it yet as they are in the process of negotiation with the Brazilian Government. Pretty interesting to listen to her talk and see her passion for water plants!
It was a great day, we rented a car and didn't even make a wrong turn! Now to get to the airport and head home today :) My new shoes were wonderful to walk in, I have been bragging on this brand J-41 which is from the Jeep company!! Funny I know! When my strap broke yesterday at the garden I did not feel like bragging anymore! We will see how they are at customer service when I get home!!! I purchased them at Macy's but this was an easier link for the photo :) Cute and Comfy, now that is my kind of shoe. More than I usually pay for a shoe but I knew I was going to be walking a LOT and needed good support.

Ok we are headed out - Chat at ya when I get home!

My favorite thing from the vendor fair

For me the #1 thing I want in a glove is COMFORT then the second thing needs to be durability. A HUGE added BONUS is if the glove is actually a NICE LOOKING glove. We have been carrying this glove for about a year and it is a FABULOUS glove! (Sorry for the blurry photo) They just keep making it better and better, now it is being made out of RECYCLED bottles! How crazy is that, the fabric is now even better. It is stronger and softer, what more can you ask for??? Love that this company is so innovative with the design, content and COLORS!

So how stinking cute are these!! We have wanted to carry a kids glove for quite a while now but so many of the kids gloves are made for one size only. Usually with LONG skinny fingers that would almost fit a small lady. West County now has 2 sizes one for a 3-5 year old and one for a 6-8 year old. This is probably the only pair of gloves a child would ever need cause they will last so well they can be passed down to the little brother or sister. I am so dang tickled!!! Ya they are about a $20 pair of gloves but how much better to spend that once on a good pair verses $7 3 or 4 times on a crappy pair? WOW can you tell I am HAPPY! :)

We are headed to Longwood Gardens today and need to rent a car to get there so wish us luck! lol

Tour Day

The tour was great, I won't bore you with the details but it is always good to see what other Nurseries are doing that we might be able to implement into our Nursery! This is Oranges and Lemons Gaillardia or Blanket-flower, sometimes I wonder about who in the heck comes up with the names for these flowers! This bee was really working for his nectar.
This one is a Sunrise series Echinacea or Coneflower. Not the best photo of this flower but I was enjoying watching the bee and I LOVE coneflowers! Two of my favorite flowers are coneflowers and gaillardia, long blooming easy growers so what more can you ask for??
Lunch was FABULOUS provided by Conrad Pyle which is a big grower out here in the East. Thank heavens we had a shade cloth because it was pretty darn hot.
This is a close up of what was sitting on each of our place settings. How nice is this! I love it.

We ended the day with a dinner and visiting with some great people, lots of good times with some great business discussions mixed in. A long day for us West coast people who are still trying to adjust to the time change! I don't think it was this hard for me when we went to Europe to adjust to the different time. :) But then I was not drinking wine or coffee and kaula for the last 2 hours of the day. lol

A good day all in all, I will post some great stuff from the show in the morning before we head out to Longwood Gardens, well that is if I don't oversleep!

The Kellogg's gang are taking us out to dinner this evening so I had best get moving. - Later Gators :)

Sunrise in Cherry Hill New Jersey

Here we are in Cherry Hill New Jersey and this is the sunrise out our window of the hotel. This is over the town so I just need to let ya know it is not quite as beautiful a view as this makes it look. I know I am totally spoiled because of the view from home! lol I am sure there are many beautiful views out here, just not from our hotel window! :)

It is 6:45 and we are getting ready to head down to breakfast before we go on the Nursery tours. A little early for us west coasters since it is only 3 stinking 45 in the morning! Oh well we are up and ready for an adventure. I just picked up a new 4GB card for my camera so I should be set!

I love having Internet in the hotel, makes me feel like I am closer to home.

Kaylie talk

I started this post a couple of months ago because I want to get these words down before I forget.

One of the 1st 'big' words Kaylie learned was Fleeta, she loves Justin's horse and would stand at the window hollering Feeeeaa. She is ALWAYS ready to go take Fleeta a few carrots. :)

Instead of saying yes she says yashhhh, when you ask her 'Can you say' (insert any word you want) 9 times out of 10 she will say Yashhhh instead of the actual word!

She now calls Justin Dadeee instead of DaDa, it is so cute.

Sometimes she will say ha-low instead of hi.

She calls Auntie Amber Ah-mor, but mostly I ask her if she can say Auntie Amber and she says Yashh

She got so excited to see Amber's little dog (who wants NOTHING to do with Kaylie) Morial, she starts patting her leg and calling Morn-yal.

When you say something is ouchie she always wants to kiss it. I was telling her the star thistle has stickers and is owie, so she leans over to give it a kiss! Luckily I caught her quick enough!! I had her lightly touch the sticker to see it was poky but I am not 100% sure she got it!

We are starting to put her in a chair for time out, she will sit there and say no no no no. It makes it hard to not laugh so I usually have to 'work' on something to keep my face turned away. I don't want her to think it is a game but oh my gosh she is so cute!! lol

She started saying love you back to you when you tell her you love her, which is something she hears often! lol I about melted the 1st time I heard it. But she says it like zaaa zoo and not z like zeee but z as in Zia Zia Gabor (Thanks Amber for helping me figure that one out)

When she sees and Airplane she says airpne, sometimes when she sees a big hawk or vulture she will say airpne too! lol