All good things must come to an end I’m told. The same holds true for vacations as we are all back to the old grind today. My trip and time “off” was uneventful and it was nice to get away from things for a bit. I did take the laptop with me and responded to some emails and stuff while I was away, but I didn’t do any real work… no website stuff, no nothing! It was refreshing.

We came home late in the afternoon on Friday and from that point forward spent the rest of the holiday weekend working on the outside of the house. With the inside all done the way we want we have started to really focus on the outside. Denny wants to get as much done as he can before our annual end of the year bash. Thats on the 7th of June, so the clock is ticking. Other than outside clean up and a few tiny things, the party is really all taken care of. The magician, cotton candy machine, and inflatable unit are all booked. I reserved the McDonalds “Orange Bowl” yesterday while I was out and ordered the cases of silly string this morning. Really all that is left is stuffing the pinata and then buying the food, and that gets done at the last minute. Ethan took his invitations to school today so the rsvps’s should start rolling in this week I hope. (In years past it has become obvious that the art of the rsvp has gone by the wayside so I’m crossing my fingers.)

I’m going to start working on my article for the next issue of Michigan Scrapbooker over the course of this week I think. I need to sort through some photos to see what I want to work with. I promised Dilly I’d use some with him in them for the next publication so I’ll be digging to see what I can find that works with my theme.

Besides all that I’m wrapping up the preparations for my annual scrap retreat. We leave on June 12th for Scrap Palace of Romeo. All the planning for that pretty much got wrapped up today with my last email going out with the food information. Feels good to have that done and I can now focus on what I’m bringing. That task alone could take weeks, lol. I need to get some photos printed to work with. I have already done some online supply shopping and I’d like to make a stop at Paper Tales before we leave also. We’ll see what I can fit in. For those of you that need to order prints… coupon code PRTFREE08 at snapfish.com for free shipping on your prints. Offer ends May 29th.

I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday weekend!!

~j