Playing pool for the first time and he won. Must be beginners luck. 
Harry interviewed a remarkable octogenarian for a paper for school. 
Volunteering to help organize the library at my son’s school reminded me of my childhood obsession. I couldn’t get enough of these Nancy Drew books. 
Don’t ask. Seriously. This is somehow Harry working on his paper for school. hmmm..
He is so funny. 
Drawing a mean, angry squid.
The purple colored squid doesn’t look so scary and mean.
Something is wrong in the universe. Raja is on Moomba’s tower. This is just pure trouble.
Enjoying his favorite drink – a Fanta at our favorite Burger joint.
We created a list of things Harry needed and wanted to accomplish over the weekend (along with a little Hangman). Please notice his “Drive Mom Crazy.”
Wondering what to do with all those Fourth of July photos? Cubes are a great way to go. These cubes incorporate Fourth Of July’s over several years.
You might also add photos of:
You can pick up 2″ blocks at Michael’s, print some photos, find some red,white and blue paper, and adhere it all the blocks. Quick, easy and a fun decoration to add your summer decor.
Hello!
Harry hiding at the slight mention of a haircut. Seriously?
Sword fights with friends.
My boys singing to Johnny Cash’s ” Ring of Fire” at a karaoke party.
Making “Magic Mud” for a science experiment at school. Extracting the starch from the potatoes.
The leftover starch which creates the mud.
The mud.
Adding the quinine so it can glow in the dark.
Bending glow-in-the-dark magic mud. 
Harry’s own Rainbow Loom design of Rath from Ben 10.
Summer is here. School is out. It’s time to relax a little.
But with summer comes the “I’m bored.” Several years ago, I created a book/binder for my son filled with ideas, inspiration, how-to’s, anything that came to mind to stop the words “I’m bored” ever being uttered out of his precious mouth. The book was a huge success so I decided to update and expand it.
My goal was not to tell him what to do, but rather to inspire him to make, to do, to try, etc.
Here are some possible ideas to include:
1. Reminding them about toys/kits that are in their closet.
2. Pinterest has a wealth of ideas for projects/art – zentangles, cork art, recycled art, string art, paint techniques, duct tape creations, rainbow loom creatures, fuse beads
(perler beads) patterns, bubbles
3. Websites with great projects:
4. Try new things – make a comic, play in Garage Band, Art Rage, Sketch Up, Scratch Programming, learn Adobe Photoshop, Khan Academy, Geocaching, learn coding at www.code.org, learn to play solitaire, Pokemon or Magic the Gathering, a random act of kindness
5. Learn – about an animal, a place you want to go, a time in history, Harry Potter spells
There are so many ideas you can put in a book like this – it is limitless.
Here is a little of what Harry’s Book of Summer Fun looks like:
A list of 100 Ideas:
Added tabs for items with more information or photos.
How to make a Zentangle. (doodling)
pattern examples.
Inspiration.
More inspiration.
Something a little different with doodling.
Examples of what to do with old trash and broken branches.
Science experiments.
Reminding my son about the cool stuff in his closet.
Yes, even Minecraft but with challenges!!
String Art.
Fuse beads (Perler Beads).
Pet Rock.
Admitting the embarrassing amount of corks my son insists on collecting.
Combining recycled objects and robots.
Paint ideas.
Duct Tape.
Shadow Puppets.
A shadow box with Lego guys.
And here is Harry already creating from his new book. He has already admitted there is no way that there is enough time to create, discover, learn all the fun stuff in the next 3 months.
Enjoy summer!!!
Jump.
Harry took this one.
An incredible sunset (unfortunately, much of its beauty came from the skies of the nearby fires).
To really get the feel of the car, it is important to get in the trunk when car shopping.
First karate tournament.
He sure looks big compared to Harry.
Lots of kicking. 
He placed silver in Kata and sparring. 
Swords.
A typical day rainbow looming a dragon with Raja looking on.
Rainbow Loom Toothless and Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon (via Courtney Nicole).
Harry with his plethora of dragons. Oh my!
Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. – Maya Angelou
Being someone who loves to takes photos and document everything, I have to stay organized or I will go insane. After various attempts with numerous programs, I think I am finally at the right place – Adobe Lightroom. It does everything I need it do (and a little more).
Now everyone has a different system to organize their photos and I have certainly spent hours upon hours researching the best solution. Wedding photographers organize by weddings, baby and family photographers tend to organize by client, but how do ordinary people organize? After many attempts at consolidation by event, date, people, place I finally resolved that organzing by date is the only way to go for me.
First I organize by year. I have scans back from my birth and beyond.
Within each year I organize by month.
And within each month is the date followed by a title (or brief description) of the day.
I “keyword” everything so I can search my photos by specific people, events, places and/or details and then create a “collection” of these photos for photo books, projects, etc.
Now I have been documenting our lives every day for the past 5 years and that is A LOT of photos. I am currently at around 200,000. There is no way I could keep all those on my computer or even half without my computer crashing, so I use external hard drives. And not only are they all stored on the external hard drives, I am also currently using CrashPlan for my external back up of my hardrives. You can never have enough back up!!
Whatever you do, stay sane and find a path towards the zen of photograph organization.
Welcome to another week!
A Picasso inspired piece for Mother’s Day.
And a lovely poem. My heart melts.
My Mother’s Day present to myself – a trip to Safari Park. A selfie
Almost as big as the gorillas.
Acting like a gorilla.
Hanging with the lemurs.
Lemurs are cool.
Me as a lemur.
Harry was the lorikeet whisperer.
They really liked him.
Love the colors.
A 5-month-old lion cub.
Isn’t he cute playing with a big box just like a kitten? ( but much, much bigger)
Loved watching all their antics.
Just incredible.
Brother and sister.
Brother and sister playing.
They really liked to play.
Just couldn’t get enough of the cubs.
I swear he is smiling.
Mommy and baby elephant. What could be more appropriate on Mother’s Day.
Couldn’t take the drive to Michaels every couple of days so I decided to open my own Rainbow Loom store. Harry has to buy them from me. Saves a lot on gas money.
Lunch date with my best friend.
Harry showing off his new shoes to the cats. They look fascinated.
On a journey with a bucket full of Rainbow Loom dragons.
Life is beautiful, as long as it consumes you. When it is rushing through you, destroying you, life is gorgeous, glorious. It’s when you burn a slow fire and save fuel, that life’s not worth having.
D. H. Lawrence
Tara Moore / Getty Images
Do you think our great grandparents, our grandparents or even our parents had any idea what we (as women) would look like today? What do you imagine they would think?
Getty Images in conjunction with Leanin.org assembled thousands of photos of women with the idea of documenting powerful women in our contemporary world. These images hope to change the way we look at women.
The images made me swell up with pride. Look at who we are and what we can become. We are not limited. We are a force. We are to be celebrated for our uniqueness and our accomplishments. What a powerful project!
And another week goes by….
We celebrated Arbor Day by planting a tree in our town.
At our designated area we started the digging.
And kept digging. 
A giant rootball thwarted our efforts, leaving us with a twisted shovel (which I forgot to take a photo of.) After walking back, trading out shovels and moving our spot a bit, we started again.
Sucess (finally). Here is the newly planted Hong Kong Orchid tree.
The Hong Kong Orchid has these gorgeous flowers.
Found this funny sign on our walk around town.
Dragon origami.
Chess club.
Raja lovin’.
A surprise early Mother’s Day celebration. (Patrick forgot the last 3 years so he had a little making up to do.)
Hope you are having fabulous week!
surf and sea design 