Be My Always

The Day of Love is coming this week (aka our anniversary).

Our 21st anniversary.

Man, that's a long time. And yet so short.

Through all the good times and bad, he is my anchor. My love. For always.

photo from the 2012 Day of Love

Palm Springs Blurb Book

Happy Monday everyone!

I wanted to share my first Blurb book. I decided to do something a little different than my usual scrapbook mini album for the Palm Springs trip. I had stumbled across Blurb a few times in other blog posts, and decided it was time to create my own book.


Front cover:

Back Cover:

I wanted to start small for my first try. I went with the small square (7x7inches), 20 page, softcover book. I did upgrade the paper though. So my final cost was $12.50 plus shipping. Not bad for your own book. The hardest part was waiting for it to arrive at my house. And I love it!


Inside pages:

It did take me some time to figure out the layout for each page. If you like to keep things simple, blurb will create the book for you. But of course, I have to obsess and tweak each page a million times! Yes, some days it is hard to be me.

I chose not to add words to the book, but that is definitely an option. I wanted to add my own handwriting to some of the pages to make it feel more like "me".

Bottom line is that I adore this book. It makes me smile every time I see it. I will definitely make another one, but bigger next time!

Anyone else out there used this company ? Did you totally love it too?

Boston mini-book 2011

Yep. That title says 2011. I have a ton of unfinished projects around here (head nod, you know you do too). So I'm trying to tackle some of them. And today I finished the Boston album.

Last October, work wanted me to use some of my PTO (paid time off). So I thought I would visit my brother and his fiancee (now wife), But he has a life now, and a rather busy one, and the timing wasn't the best for them. So what's a girl to do with some approved PTO? Go visit her besties in Boston. By herself. Even though said girl (and her husband) were in Boston 4 months earlier for her Day of Love v.19.0.

So, for 4 days, I got to enjoy time with the boys (Freddie and Warren). And had a fabulous time.

Yes I did.

So here is a peek at some of the mini-book pagers:

Front cover (back cover same with map print). Album is actually a rectangle shape (see below).

Inside of front and back covers (paper with paint around edges).

Inside pages are black (book came that way). I added some bright pieces of paper to about half the pages. This is the only embellishment in the book, Otherwise just my awesome white gel pen sharing the stories.

 

I tore half the pages out of the book, then reattached them with that polka dot washi tape. That way, each page folded out for a bigger layout. So, when you flipped out both sides, it was really like looking at 4 pages at once. Pretty cool! (striped background is my desk, not part of the book)

Some pages have photos, others quotes.

And some just have journaling.

I like how this book came together. Simple, yet cute. And I have really been trying to work on the journaling part of my mini-books. To record some of the unique, little moments along with the bigger ones.

And in this book, I even included some research. Yes, I'm nerdy like that. I walked around Harvard when we went into Boston for the day, so I added some history of the school to one of my journaling pages.

Hope you enjoyed. Hope you are finding time this summer to document some of your favorite memories. Either fresh ones or even ones from your past. It's never too late!

Palm Springs Recap

Here are a few photos from our Palm Springs getaway. It's really hard for me to narrow down which photos to post. And I change my mind from day to day (I've been thinking about this post for a few days now).

My view from the bed (after I jumped into the fluffy white cloud and made some happy noises.) The bed had these enormous throw pillows that I'm sure I need to get for our bed!

My artistic self portrait.

Mark enjoying a drink in the heat before heading out for Greek food.

 The Day of Love. Waiting for the tram to take us to Disneyland.

Riding the horse drawn carriage down Main Street.

Cars Land opened the week before our visit. We only went on 1 of the 3 new rides (long, long lines). This ride had a 2 1/2 wait, but if you went as a single rider, it was only a 45 min wait. That's why Mark is sitting by a stranger. I was in the next car, with a stranger. That's OK. Remember, we have been together for  20 years. We'll sit together another time. The ride was super fun. 

When we got to the park we made reservations for dinner at the Blue Bayou. Hey, it was a special day, and no kids, so we thought a $45 meal of steak and lobster sounded like a nice treat. But after a few hours we decided we really didn't want such a big meal. It would just make us tired and sluggish. So we cancelled the reservations. Later, we heard that you could purchase reserved seats for Fantasmic and get drinks and desert included. We were told it was expensive, but the best seats to enjoy the show. So Mark bought us tickets. $60 per person. It was ridiculously expensive. But it was great having a chair to sit in and the snack box was yummy. Cheeses, crackers, grapes, cheesecake, key lime pie, cookies. But it was awkward to juggle the tray and a drink in your chair. We probably won't do this again, but it was a nice treat. And the view was perfect!

I have more photos of the swanky hotel to share later (didn't want this post to be too long),

And if you want to travel to Disneyland with us sometime, just let me know. We're always up for a little Mouse lovin. (Mark says no more visits in 2012, but that's only 6 months until another visit could happen :)

Day of Love

We're in sunny Palm Springs enjoying some one on one time for the big Day of Love.

Yep. Today is 20 years since we said our "i do's".

And we still want to spend time alone together. I guess we must be doing something right!

image from pinterest via pinmarklet