Sisterlines Space in Time

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got." Mark Twain.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Who Knew??

The kids and I decided to watch the movie Up last night. I was ready to laugh until my face hurt. Well...there were a few funny parts in the movie, but it was not a gut-buster like I thought it was going to be. It was a good movie and I was glad I watched it, but if you are looking for a good comedy to watch, don't pick this one.


We are still going through Ines withdrawal. She fit into our family so well, it was like having another family member. Joe sits in front of Jade's laptop just hoping she will come online. He and Ines formed a special bond, and I think he misses her ALOT! We have heard from her and she got home safe and sound so that is the main thing.


A couple of weekends ago when all my stamping girls got together Vicki brought us a plastic bubble thing and challenged us to make a card or a 3-D project with it. I wasn't sure what I was going to create, as my creative mojo seemed to have mojo'd away....but I ended up coming up with this creation. I'm relatively pleased with how it turned out, and since today is Halloween, it seemed like a good day to post it. The image is from Stampotique.


Have fun trick-or-treating tonight if that is on your agenda.
Boo!
Jacqui



Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Auf Wiedersehen to Ines

We knew that today was the day that Ines had to go home but the hours just seemed to fly by so quickly. The departure time from the school was initially 11:00 however, it was changed to 3:00 the other day. This was good for us because we got to spend a little more time with Ines.
I remember reading the itinerary when we agreed to be a host family, and there were some comments on there about make sure you bring Kleenex to the farewell for all the tears. I remember thinking 17 days is not a very long time to get that attached to someone that you are going to be overly upset when they leave. BOY WAS I WRONG. Ines definitely worked her way into our hearts and our family.
It made me smile the other evening, Joe made steak and baked potatoes for supper. Before I left the table I said "thanks for supper hon, it was good". Then Jade and Joel both said "thanks Daddy for supper". Then a little voice said "thanks host daddy"! I thought Joe was going to burst. You should have seen the smile on his face when Ines said that. Joe made it his mission while Ines was here to make sure she had lots to eat and that she has food she liked. He sent cheese and crackers with her for part of her lunch one day, and quickly the Bacon Dipper cracker became a German favourite!!!!! I think their might be a couple of boxes tucked in Ines's suitcase!
Here is Ines (the bacon dippers) and Jae standing by the bus that is getting packed with all the luggage to take the German's to the airport.
I could not believe how hard today was. We got all of Ines bags packed and ready to go. We then piled in the car and went to Joel's school to bring him with us to the departure site. We jumped out of the car and got Ines's bags out of the trunk.....well then the tears started.
How could 17 days have gone by so fast. It was so hard to believe that we had only known this beautiful girl for 17 days and now she was on her way home.
I'm not sure if this was a school newspaper article or if this was an article in the Woodstock paper, but the Germans all had a copy of this when they got on the bus.
After the bus left the school and everyone had said their tearful goodbyes, we decided to follow the bus for a bit.
At one point we got up beside the bus, and one of the windows was open and we called out the window. Ines jumped up and yelled "that's my family!". (yep more tears then....)
I cannot say it enough.....we were so blessed to have Ines come and stay with us. We are certainly much more comfortable with knowing Jade will be staying with her when she makes the return trip to Germany. I am so glad we agreed to be a host family. This was definitely an adventure we will treasure forever.
Wir verfehlen Sie, Ines
(I hope that translated right....It's supposed to say "we miss you, Ines")
Chow for now,
Jacqui

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Technology Rocks!

I remember when I was growing up we would write letters to my Granny and Poppa when we were not with them. We spent a lot of time with them, but when we were away from them, we would write them letters. We would also write letters to Mum when we were with Granny and Poppa. I still love to receive mail - preferably not bills, and I have tried to teach my kids to do the same. I'm not succeeding as well as I had hoped. I gave the kids writing paper and envelopes already addressed with Granny and my Mum's addresses so they could write them letters whenever they wanted. I'm not certain they wrote more than 1 or 2 - but I tried. Now in this age of computers, look how all this has changed. Email gets from here to another province within minutes. You can do a video chat with your friends, play games with your friends and family that lives hundreds of miles away; and you can do this all online. For this we are thankful. Last Sunday we tried our hand at Skype. I have never used it before, but basically it is an application that allows you to have video chats with people. So we put it on Jade's laptop and we had a video chat with Ines' Mom! It was fun. We had some minor technical difficulties. We could see and hear Ines' Mom, but she could only see us, she could not hear us. So we ended up calling her on the phone so we had the verbal thing going too. It was fun for all of us. I think Ines' mom was happy to see that she was safe and happy and it was nice for us to see Ines' Mom. She picked up the laptop and gave us a tour of their flat. It was comical to watch Ines' reaction, as they are getting a new kitchen and so it was completely bare and everything was piled in Ines' bedroom. Seeing Ines' mom made us more comfortable with Jade going to Germany in July. This has been a great adventure so far, and an opportunity of a lifetime. I think we were blessed when Ines walked through our door.

Here is a picture of us all chatting!

Chow for now
Jacqui

Friday, October 23, 2009

Punch cards

I followed a couple tutorials on Andrea Walford's blog. She has some great tutorials on her blog.

I want to try the bears with mulberry paper to see if I can get them to be fuzzy!
Chow for now,
Jacqui

50 years of marriage

A very good friend of mine asked me if I could make a scrapbook for his parents who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last weekend. He purchased a beautiful black album and then provided me with all the pictures to put in the album. I have never scrap booked for another person before, so I'll admit I was a little stressed. I was certain he would like whatever I made, because I have taken in many projects I have created before and he has liked everything I have shown him....but come on....50 years - I had to make sure it was great!


The pictures he gave me were awesome. Some beautiful wedding pictures, pictures from cruises, farm pictures, family pictures, house pictures, and his mom and dad in their younger years. It really was a very interesting challenge for me. It's hard to scrapbook for someone else. You look at the picture and you try to think what the story behind it is....that's hard. Even though it was hard, it was fun too. It was fun to see pictures of my friend Rob when he was a little boy, and he was so stinkin' cute!


This is page one of the scrapbook.

The funny thing is...I guess Rob's mom was wearing a dress that was almost the same material as the flower on this page!!!!
Chow for now,
Jacqui

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Rookie Stamper!

This past weekend I was so blessed to get to spend time with my stamping girls. Twice a year - at the VERY least, we get together for a big stamping weekend. In the spring we travel East to participate in Victopia at my BFF's house, Vicki Garrett. In the fall we participate in Jactopia which is held at my house. We had a very special guest this year, Ines, our German Exchange student. She had never stamped before, but you would never know it! She created some awesome projects. Here is a picture of Ines and Jade working away at some projects.
I believe this card was the first one that Ines created.
Then she whipped up this awesome Knobbly Gnomes card. This has still got to be one of my favourite sets - and she did a great job with this card.
She then moved on to create this beauty using Baroque Motifs and lots of purple - which just
happens to be my favourite colour.
But this - this is just beautiful. She made a beautiful name frame for her sister Maya.
The colours are so rich, and I'm sure her sister will love it.
We are so very much enjoying our visit with Ines. We are going to be very sad when she goes home. She is a beautiful person and she has a good heart and a great sense of humor!
Chow for now,
Jacqui

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Halloween Hedgehogs

This has got to be one of my favourite retired sets. I love the little critters. I wish Stampin' Up! would come up with a critter. I wish they would then make different sets using that critter. I think we need a critter - what do you think?

This particular card was one I taught to some ladies that came to one of my classes. The special part of this card is the bow, which was tied by using a fork. It makes the cutest little bow when you use the fork! Who knew?


We are having an amazing time with Ines, our German exchange student. She is so much fun. She and Jade are getting along great, which is nice to see since Jade will be going there in July. We managed to download Skype onto Jade's laptop on the weekend so we could have a video chat with her mom. They are 6 hours ahead of us, so it's been hard to get in touch at a reasonable hour for everyone. But the weekend worked out great. Ines' mom walked the laptop around the house so we could get a view of their flat! They are getting their kitchen renovated, so all of the items from the kitchen are in Ines' bedroom! And the kitchen was totally empty! She was surprised to see it like that! It reminded me of how the people must feel when Ty Pennington is showing them blowing up their house before they do the extreme home makeover!

Hope you had a good weekend. I am trying to catch up on my sleep after my Jactopia weekend.....oh maybe 10 hours of sleep over a period 4 days..not enough for this old body!

Chow for now

Jacqui

Friday, October 16, 2009

Time is flying by....

Wow - the time is certainly flying by. Ines has been here 5 days already!
We are having a great time. She is so sweet and so nice and she has a great sense of humour.
Thanksgiving Monday, Joe took the girls over to a friends place who has alpacas, llamas, deer, donkeys and turkeys. Then for a quick tour around Woodstock. The weather has been very cold and we are making sure Ines dresses warm wherever she goes!





And then when they returned from seeing the animals, we were treated to Ines cooking dinner for us. I'm not certain what the dish was called, but it was delicious!

She has been to the Stratford Festival, Ska-Na-Doht Iroquois Village, Laser Quest, the Eaton Centre, the Legislature Buildings, MuchMusic, the CN Tower and a Raptors basketball game. She has some family in Ontario as well and will be spending some time with them.
This weekend also marks JACTOPIA!!!!
This is the little invitation I made for this weekend. It's quite simple, but I thought it was cute with the little Penny Black hedgehog running with the envelope! I added some flower soft along the bottom where the flowers are. It's a fun product to work with.

So as I sit here typing, my BFF Vicki is sitting behind me working away on cards! I'm hoping just spending time with her will get my stampin' mojo back on track! I have a number of things to prepare for - craft shows, classes, etc. My other girls, Tami, Kim, Donna and my mom will be here tomorrow! I can hardly wait!
I love the time we get to spend together. It's so fun and comfortable!
Chow for now
Jacqui

Monday, October 12, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out in blogger land!
This is NOT what our turkey looked like yesterday!!! but I thought it would give you all a little chuckle on this very very chilly day.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with my family yesterday. The food was delicious and the company was even better. We were blessed to have my Mom and Dad with us, as well as my sister Courtney, my Uncle Mel and Aunt Brenda, Aunt Anne, my two children, my husband, and our German exchange student Ines.
We had the pleasure of visiting with my parents friends, John and Barbara, for a quick visit as well. It was an interesting visit as Barbara is from Vienna, Austria, so she and Ines were able to speak to each other in German.
We also went in to the nursing home to visit Granny for a quick visit before making the trek back home. Granny was pleased to meet Ines and was happy to see us all. She continues to do well in the nursing home.
This is just a quick post, as I am frantically trying to complete the scrapbook I am making for my friends parents.
But I wanted to post this quick picture for my Dad!!
I had asked my mom if she would make turkey for Thanksgiving dinner as it is the more traditional meal for the holiday and I thought it would be nice to keep it traditional since we had our German guest. If you have ever met my Dad, you know he can be a smart Alec and he likes to crack jokes and tease people. As a beef farmer, he was giving us a hard time that we were having turkey instead of beef for dinner. I LOVE beef, but I must say I do enjoy a nice feeding of turkey as well. So this little picture is just for you Dad. Love ya!


Chow for now,
Take the time today to remind all those you love how blessed you are to have them with you and how thankful you are to have all of your loved ones around you.
Jacqui

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Back in the saddle....

Wow - that was a long time away from blogging. I just couldn't find the time. I hadn't done much stamping either so I didn't have any cards to post and I didn't think you would just want to read my ramblings...anyhow....I think I am back in the saddle.
I have done some stamping, so I have some cards to post and I am working on a scrapbook for a dear friend of mine, so I will have some pages to post....and I did 2-page layouts so I can stretch them out over a couple of days right!!!
So yesterday was exciting. We have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our German exchange student, Ines (pronounces EEEEE - ness). We have been calling her EYE - NEZ as we weren't sure of the proper pronunciation, but now we are!
She came walking through the door with Jade, Joe and Joel yesterday afternoon at about 5:10 pm. They are 6 hours ahead of us, so that put it at 11:10 pm her time. I'm sure she was pooped! But like every new thing everyone was excited and the kids wanted to show her everything and tell her everything, it was actually quite comical!
She is so sweet she brought us presents!
She brought Joe and I a book about her home town. She brought Jade a CD and she brought a bunch chocolate and candy treats and some foodstuffs from Germany!


She is tall and thin and very pretty. Her English is quite good so we are having no problems communicating at all. I think that is where some of our anxieties were - "would we be able to communicate?" But it's all good. Every once in a while she has to think of the right word to say. It was cute last night she was trying to think of the word "crazy". She could not think of the English word, so she said the word in French. Both Jade and Joel were standing there saying "oh I know this one we just talked about it in school". Then Joel said the word in English and she was like yeah that's the word. It was cute and it's nice to see the kids working together to figure things out. I know that was just a tiny little thing to work together to figure out, but it was still interesting to see. Now if the world could work together...baby steps... just think how great we could be!

Another little comical moment last night was when she went in to have a shower. She timidly came out of the bathroom and stated "your neighbours can see me"! We forgot to show her how to work the mini blinds in the bathroom!
We have never travelled or went anywhere that people do not speak English, so this is a very interesting experience for all of us.
Today we are heading up to the farm to visit with Mom and Dad and Uncle Mel and Aunt Brenda, Courtney, maybe Jay and hopefully Tim too! I always love it when Aunt Brenda's nephew Tim joins us. He is one of the funniest people I know and when he and Aunt Brenda get together it's the best! We are also going into the nursing home to visit Granny and to introduce her to Ines.
I'll post some more pictures after our Turkey day at Mom's!
Chow for now,
Jacqui



Saturday, October 10, 2009

Today's the day!

I know I have been absent for the last little while - I apologize for that!
Just a quick post to let you know they have gone to pick up the German Girl Ines!!!
I'll try to post more frequently and keep you up to speed on what I have been working on and how our visit with Ines is going!

Chow for now!
Jacqui