Girls Only Trip #1 of 2011

The other day I was catching up on my "Office" episodes and couldn't stop laughing about a part when

 Darrell is talking to the camera and saying that he decided to make 2011, "The Year about Darrell".  

He stated he was going to do what ever he wanted.  

I found it so funny because my girlfriends Krista, Amy & I have been calling 2011, "The Year of US"!

Last fall was our first GIRLS ONLY TRIP together and we had so much fun, 

we have 3 more trips planned this year.

Last weekend was Trip #1 and it started with them flying into Phoenix.  

We got a hotel room and spent 4 days shopping and making things.  

Day #1 

We headed down to 7th Ave. and did the Melrose Crawl.  

We checked out all the fabulous boutiques like Melrose Vintage, Frilly Frocks, Paris Envy, Frances and Smeeks.

We had so much fun at Smeeks Photo booth.  

Day #2 

We went over to CAD Smithing for a class on silver clay.  We had so much fun learning from Thomas, Rose & John.   

If you want to learn how to make your own silver charms, this is the place to go.  

They will give you private classes at their location or in your own home.  We had a blast!!!

Day #3 

Another soldering class with Terri Brush, put on by the lovely Diane & Wendy of Melrose Vintage.   We have officially become Terri's groupies.  Art Camp in the Fall will be Trip #3, unless of course I can talk them into flying to San Diego for one of Terri's class in June (hint, hint)

Day #4

A banner class with Melissa (love her!!!) from the Scrapbook Barn.

I can't wait for TRIP #2, New York here we come!!!

I also want to give a big thanks to Rita for my beautiful new blog design.   I love it!

Goodbye Jungle

Ivan is a minimalist and Garrett is a collector and I think I am somewhere in the middle.  

I like to have items sitting around as long as they look nice and fit with my decor.

Garrett's favorite show right now is American Pickers, 

he got the collecting gene from my side of the family (sorry Ivan).  

Both of my parents are collectors, in fact the only thing I things my parents don't collect is thimbles, spoons and plates.  

Today when I picked Garrett up from school, he wanted to go look around an antique store.  

We went over to Merchant Square in Chandler and spent 2 hours looking around.  

We would have stayed longer but they were closing for the day.

 This summer, Garrett had asked for a jungle room, so while is was in Oregon with my parents

 I turned his room from this:

to this:

 It took me a whole week to finish (I hand painted every plant in there) but I love it!!!

So today he told me that he is done with jungles and would like to have shelves all the way around his room for his collections.  

He also asked if his collections became to big for his room, if he could bring them to other parts of the house. 

(that is a big fat NO!!!!!!!)

I think our only hope now is that Dual Survivor or Survivor Man comes up with new episodes, 

so we get him hooked on outdoor adventures again.

Happy New Year

We had a great holiday season, 

New Year's Eve was blast, watching"Despicable Me" (love it) outside with some of our neighbors and friends.  

Garrett got to make an elf size snowman from some snow that Mr. Ken brought home from the White Mountains.

And we finally got our thermostat working so no more waking up to this in the morning.

But now it is time get back on track.  

I'm not one for making resolutions because I end up breaking them within the first week

 but this year I am going to try to focus on two words: 

SIMPLIFY and ORGANZINE

I feel like my house has been a disaster since Halloween and I have had enough.  

I feel very blessed that my business kept me busy last year 

but I really need to figure out how to balance it and our home.

Now that the Christmas decorations are down and almost put away

 (will get the rest done when Garrett gets back to school tomorrow, yeah!!!)

I am going to focus on getting rid of the things that just add clutter to our lives 

and start organizing the things we need to help turn this messy house
back to our comfortable, relaxing home again.

I have no doubt 2011 is going to be an amazing year and I am ready to get working on it!

What are your goals this year?