Nov 6

Today, we went to Appleton for Luka's dedication ceremony at my sister's Unitarian church. She and her husband are the godparents, so they got to choose the venue, and I was so happy with this. Not that I express my religious views on my blog, but if I did, I would explain further that this would be my choice if I lived in the Fox Valley. Anyway, it was a day trip there and back, and my mom lead the caravan of 3 cars. She is an aggressive driver, and that is putting it mildly.


We stopped at a gas station to get coffee, and my grandma got a huge ice cream cone. I guess this is her ritual whenever they drive to the Fox Valley. She is such an interesting lady.

After the ceremony took place, we did this group photo of everyone who attended. From left to right: The minister - Dottie, nephew Oliver, Yusuke and Ailin, Grandma, my mom, Godmother Michele with Luka, Godfather Christian, my dad, Aunt Cindy, my godfather Ray, godmother Rosita & me. My brother had classes that day and couldn't make it.

A Photo a Day - Nov 4

The first morning after we arrived, the two kids were sound asleep until noon. Then, jet lag kicked in that night.

Later that day, we were tricked into going to meet my grandma at her favorite hang-out because she had something important to give us. Little did we know, it was a bar. Well, my whole famiy said that of course I should have known, but I really didn't. Notice the baby in his car seat on the bar. That is OUR baby. How much more WT can you get?

Ailin took no time at all to warm up to her grandparents that she has not seen in over a year. She sees photos, so she was excited about meeting them again, but I wasn't sure until we got here.

November 5 - Now that Ailin has no problem staying home with her grandparents alone, Yusuke and I used the opportunity to steal away and get some shopping done at Antigo's biggest store, Walmart. Again with the WT! The sun was setting just as we were leaving and took this photo with our little bear baby.

October Chrono Album

These are my lay outs for October 2009. All were done digitally this time. I would have liked to do half of them the traditional way (with paper & rhinestones), but since I am leaving for the USA on Nov 3, I knew that I wouldn't have a chance to make any of those pages until I return to Japan in December. I don't like to get that far behind with this album, so I created the pages as throughout the month, either in my classes or on my own. Enjoy!

My first page of each month always showcases "the details" photos, and this month, I decided to represent some photos that I am sure will be the stuff of great memories later in life (like my mom's Sunday dinners and sleeping over at Grandma's house are a couple of my best childhood memories.) Actually, this page was done for a Monthly Challenge on an egroup that I belong to called Scrapbooking in Japan. We were asked to use a song title in our lay out. The template is a freebie from Manda Girl's web site / blog. This is from her Vacation collection. The papers are from Crystal's September 2009 kit and the buttons were also designed by her. That amazing title font is called Ma Sexy.

October had 2 main events, and this was one of them. The Sports Festival at Ailin's daycare, where we showed up, she did her two events (one alone and one with Papa), and then we left. This lay out was actually an assignment for the Up & Running with Photoshop.

Omg, can I just brag here and say that this is one of my all-time favorite pages ever? It is. I used a template designed by LivEdesigns, but I changed it up a bit to accommodate the journaling. The absolutely gorgeous background paper is from Jessica's Windsong kit. In the TW2 class, we were supposed to list 3 things each day that we were grateful for. At the end of two weeks, I had quite a list and I wanted to use it! This is a good way to show my husband how extremely happy I am in our life right now.

This was the final assignment for a class called Up and Running with Photoshop on Jessica Sprague's site. It doesn't really belong in my Chrono album, but I took the photo this in October and thought I would show it here anyway. I have an album where I put lay outs for or about my husband and me, so it will probably go in there for now.

Because I am so extremely proud of all I accomplished in the Oh Shoot! Photography with Candice Stringham class, I just had to do a lay out about. I really want to remember this experience. This is a Jessica Sprague template using all papers from her Festa kit. I love how these papers work together.

First of all, here's to my sister Michele who made this gorgeous quilt in the selective recoloring portion of the photo. How awesome is that? I made this lay out for an assignment in Now We're Rockin' with Photoshop, the 2nd in Jessica's series of Photoshop classes. I just love this lay out with the torn page look. The morning after I made this lay out, my husband comment at the breakfast table how kind & charming looks when he is smiling, and I just had to laugh. "Hey, I just made a lay out about that yesterday. I'll email it to you!"

We had the best Halloween party ever for our Bilingual Kids Club, and I whipped this lay out up that very night. I tried using some of the typography techniques I learned in TW and TW2, and rather than spooky Halloween motifs in orange and black, I chose pink colors to match better with Ailn's costume. This one is called Crystal's Sweet & Scallopy Template. Crystal is a designer who works for Jessica Sprague. The papers are from Jessica's Strawberry Lemonade kit.