new good stuff from Krystal Hartley

Krystal's new Moody Hues: Zen kit is just my color and style!

Father's Day

We are so thankful to have been able to spend Father's Day with Ken's father. He is suffering from cancer in his lungs as well as his brain, and in April he was grimly told to expect only a couple of months to live. His health is declining, but he is hanging in there. I managed to get a group shot of the papa and nana and the kids.

The elements are all free from Summer Driggs at her blog, which I found through Beth Swann's blog.

vacation over

We had a wonderful time at our annual family vacation in Myrtle Beach. We went home for a day and then headed north for a whirlwind tour. On Thursday we headed to Perkasie, PA for Cheri's eldest daughter's graduation party. On Saturday we drove to Abington, MA (just south of Boston) to spend father's day with Ken's extremely ill father. On Monday we drove to Albany, NY where we dropped off the oldest 3 kids to spend the mother with their bio mother, and spent the evening at the home of my college roommate. Today we are driving 862 miles home - with any luck, we'll be there in time for a good night's sleep!

So I'm digi-scrapping while Ken drives, and listening to "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett on my ipod.

Our house feels empty in the summers, so we look forward to school resuming in August.

The layout above contains elements from "Sun Porch" by Amy Teets, downloaded at ShabbyPrincess.com

vintage layout

Lots of time driving on the road from Myrtle Beach home, then to Pennsylvania, now to Boston (did I mention in a van with 5 kids???) I used my kodak scanner from Heritage Makers to scan a box of really old pics, and have been enjoying digi-scrapping them. I'm planning to digi-scrap them all and order a photobook for me and my sister, although it will take me a while to complete. Anyways, I took some time to organize my downloads I've been collecting, and found this perfect kit for my photos, I just wish the kit was bigger!! It's by Pam Lefors Designs and it's called "Blog Party Freebie", and I got it a while back at digiscrap Boutique. So this is a pic of my and my little sis, I'm 6 and she's 4 months in the photo.

photoshop woes

I updated acrobat "reader" on my laptop . . . and somehow it hosed my photoshop. I've uninstalled, reinstalled, everything I can think of, and nothing is working. Going to have to take a visit to my favorite computer guru. Meanwhile, just thought I'd offer an explanation for the total lack of digi layouts for the last month. All I can use is Memory Mixer, which is great for assembling photobooks, but not as good as photoshop for control of elements.

So, working on our 2004 disney trip, which is already partially paper-scrapped. Just debating whether to print my digi pages for an old-school album, or scan the paper pages and order a photobook.

Today was our "veg" day at the beach. Everyone but Nate ended yesterday with some degree of sunburn, and tomorrow we want to go to a water park, so today was "shade mandatory". No one wanted to go to the shaded pool, so we laid low in the condo. Tonight we had dinner with an old friend from Scrap In A Snap, Darcel Blake and her husband Dan. They have a beautiful new house here in Myrtle Beach, where they've lived for the past several years, and we hook up whenever we come down. At least I can still say, companies that go under owing consultants thousands of dollars are still good for something - long-lasting friendships beyond their control! Salute!

sunny side up

Time for some R&R with our annual Myrtle Beach vacation. Did the classic family beach photos the first night, already viewed my proofs and ordered and they were amazing. The photographer spent 1.5 hours with us, he rocked. Ken snapped this one as we were waiting for the photographer. So hard to get a "tween" to cooperate. Jordan (11) and Kyle (14) would really like to have the option of refusing to be photographed - but of course, our home is not a democracy, and I am the photo dictator. They do manage to screw up quite a few otherwise-woulda-been-decent photos, but we still get them in the end. They cooperated with the professional at least!

After the shoot we let the kids play in the surf, and the photographer came back out and started shooting again.

Fun fun!

Worst Movie Ever

Ok, not really a bad movie, but it had me bawling within 15 minutes and NEVER LET ME STOP. The word "tearjerker" does not do justice to this movie. Holy cow! Ken just laughed at me the whole time - but his eyes leaked as well!! I don't know, maybe it was just me, but it had such an effect on me. I can't imagine losing him!