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Meet Amy
I have struggled with the answer when asked, "What do you do?" and it isn't work-related. Ultimately, we settled on that I find things and untangle things. But I also read (a lot), pretend to wake surf, and watch Hallmark films.
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Two years ago, when I started this blog, I started it with the intent of creating a journal for my family. The first year, it was primarily pictures with a few words here and there. There were the occasional posts that were wordy, but there weren’t many of them. The next year, I decided to share a little more about our family and our experiences. There were fewer posts the second year, but I shared more of us. This next year, the third year of my blog, will have more sharing about our lives, our trials, our lessons learned, our faith and our thoughts. It will be we for the first time. I don’t know how often there will be posts that aren’t by me, but there will be some. I’m so excited!!!
While this journal has evolved, it is still my journal and now, I have a printed copy of the first year. I am so excited to share with you the first edition of the Sanford Family History. I went through lulu.com. It was easy and fun to do. I copied my blog to a word document, where I was able to edit it and put it in chapters (or months). Once I was done, I went to lulu.com to determine the size of book I wanted and to get the recommended margins and paper size. Then I re sized my document and made sure chapters started at the top of a page and that as many pictures could fit on a page as possible. After saving it I uploaded it to lulu and picked out the cover and published it.
The only negative I have to say about my lulu.com experience is that their cover options weren’t fantastic.
Here is my 505 page book of our family in 2008….
Why did I go with Lulu.com? I tried Blog2Print and Blurb but ran into problems with each. Blog2Print can only do a limited number of pages- not 505. That meant I’d have to do 2 books for the first year. For Blurb, I didn’t like the formatting. But I have since learned that they can take a pdf that you have formatted the way you want it and create a book that way. Since I haven’t tried that way, I can’t speak for or against it. But, Lulu.com was super easy and I only got frustrated when I couldn’t get the margins perfect in word.
Oh, by the way, a 505 page book will run you about $115. Worth it? for my kids to have a full color hard back book of their childhood- ABSOLUTELY. I can’t wait to get 2009 started.
This week I read a blog entry that really made me think. You should read it too. Sometimes you learn important things by blog stalking.
Mickey’s Fun Wheel is really a thrilling ride. It’s one of those rides that leaves little ones wanting more (it was one of Ivy’s favorites). It leaves adults looking for the “barf bags” on the side of the carriage.
Anne and my dad took all of the kids on the ride. The ride is vicious!!!! Anne was calling my mom during the ride letting her know that Dad wasn’t doing well. Ivy would be “weee–ing” and giggling and would stop to check on Grandpa. By the time the ride was FINALLY over, Dad was not doing well. Anne hurried up to let us know that dad was really bad. I went over to him first. He was as white as a ghost, ice cold and soaking wet. By the time Tom got over to dad, he was doing worse. Tom grabbed my dad just as he went out. Dad went out two more times while Tom walked him to the bench.
Mom went and told someone that dad wasn’t doing well and needed some help. No one came. She went back and said that she could call 911- so someone came and checked on him. Minutes later there were two nurses running up to take care of him.
Disneyland cast members formed a barricade around my dad and the nurses.
After the paramedics had come and been sent a way, the took Dad to the first aid room. He spent the next couple of hours resting.
Disneyland really does everything they can to maintain the happiest place on earth.
Oh the things to know…
1. If you need help- ask with panic and fear in your voice/actions. If you go calmly, they won’t hurry.
2. In California it is against the law to take pictures of someone being medically administered to.
3. The first aid room is up above the tortilla factory.
4. If you are going to die- it won’t be at Disneyland.
5. If you get as sick as my dad, they will give you a free wheelchair pass.
6. If there is a barf bag in the ride, and you get motion sick, get OFF the ride before it starts.
Over at Travel Gem, you can find out other great tips about your trip to Disneyland.
My Mom and sister did a lot of work preparing for our family Halloween festivities. One of the special activities that they did was the story of “The Greedy Witch.”
The image below, shows some of Mom’s props and the scrolls that she “found” in the basement of my grandparent’s condo.
(Kat is going to post the whole story, but here’s a summary. I’ll post a link to Kat’s post when it goes up).
The story was about a witch who was very greedy and prideful. She wanted to have all of the riches and all of the glory. So she captured some mice and turned them into perfect black diamonds. Every night they would turn back into mice, so she had to make sure to only show them during the day. She would brag about them and show them off. One day she didn’t realize the time, so she hurried and sped off on her broom before the sun set. Something went wrong with her broom and she dropped her bag of jewels. The bag was found by an owl that lived in the corkscrew willow. The owl ate all of the little black mice. The next morning, the mice turned back into diamonds. So the owl had to cough them up one by one.
My Mom took the kids out to her corkscrew willow where the kids were able to search and find 3 black diamonds. But they had to be careful about the other little creatures that they mind find. (The each found 2 creepy crawly bugs).
If the diamonds are found by a kind and caring soul, they will stay diamonds, but if they fall into the hands of someone that is greedy, they’ll turn back into mice.
Later Halloween night…
Ivy and Jade were each enjoying Smarties from their Halloween stash. Jade asked Ivy if she could trade a pink for a yellow. Ivy wouldn’t share and jumped on her pile of Smarties so that Jade couldn’t reach them.
“Ivy, do you want your diamonds to turn into mice?” I ask her.
She let go of her stash and jumped on the couch. A few minutes later she says to me,
“Mom, do you think my diamonds turned into mice?”
“I don’t know sweetie, are you being greedy?”
“No, I’m being nice. So will the mice be diamonds again?”
I love when stories have lessons that kids can relate to and want to follow or learn from.
Melissa and I ventured out and tried the Blue Lemon in Highland. First impressions were very good. The decor was very fun and very beautiful. Then we looked at the menu and it was so enticing- there were so many amazing looking choices. We narrowed it down to the Chelle’s Famous Vegetable Lasagna and Blue Lemon Portobello Burger with Sweet Potato Fries on the side. We wanted to try the soups but knew that we had more than enough food, so we just sampled the Tomato Bisque and the Butternut Squash. Oh my goodness, the Butternut Squash was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.
Everything about the meal was fantastic. I would really recommend going to the Blue Lemon for a wonderful meal.
After the meal we walked over to the Bistro and enjoyed a cupcake and an eclair. The treats were fine, but not my favorite. But, their specialty drinks looked wonderful and next time I’ll finish my meal with one of those instead of a baked good.
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