April has flown by!!

Wow, I can't believe how fast April flew by! I was hoping to post here a long time ago but the time just got away from me!

We had a pretty eventful month, spring sprung up on us a few weeks early, we took a well needed long weekend trip, and I got to meet with a distant cousin and learn more family history, storms, prom, and just everyday busy life!

About mid April my husband and I drove down to Bella Vista, Arkansas to see his old boss and his wife. We spent 4 fun days with them. Friday morning the guys went out and played golf, so I drove over to a distant cousin's house, who I found out a few weeks before only lived 10 minutes from where we were staying, on Lake Windsor in Bella Vista, the 2nd largest lake there.

Margie and I had a wonderful 4 hour visit, going over family history. The Schaefer side of my family mostly lived in Arkansas. There were a few that had come up to this area and lived near Belleville and Lebanon, IL. My great grandmother on my mother's side was a Schaefer. As Margie was telling me about some of the family, she mentioned her Aunt Tillie alot. Also there was an Emma, who was fortunate enough to go the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. Margie had acquired a beautiful glass that Emma had gotten as a souvenir. 

After getting back from Margie's, Robin and I headed over to Crystal Bridges American Art Museum.  The best part about the museum is that I had my own personal tour guide! Robin went through the Master Gardener program, and learned all about the beautiful art that is on exhibit at the museum. She knows so much about the many, many paintings, sculptures and vegitation that are at the museum. Alice Walton decided to have this museum built, and there are many paintings from her personal collection here. One of their newest ones is of a young George Washington. 

Another painting that is one of their most famous ones, is the Kindred Spirits. It is a beautiful and when looking closely at it, there are hidden meanings throughout the painting that the artist incorporated into it. The artist had 2 friends and he put alot of things in this painting about them, one had died, and I think the 2 men in this painting are the 2 that were left of the 3 friends. There is a carving on one of the tree trunks of 2 of their names, and 3 birds, one of which is flying away. It was the most expensive painting in the museum!

This was one of the few sculptures they had. I don't know much about it, but I thought it was very graceful and beautiful.

The museum is made up of pods. This was the pod where the restaurant is. We ended up meeting the guys here for dinner that night after touring the museum and walking paths through the outdoor gardens.

The other pods that have the paintings in them are made the same way as this one, but the inside is enclosed with white walls, to protect the paintings from getting damaged from the light. They also occasionally trade out the paintings with ones in storage to also protect from light damage.



As we walked around the paths and gardens, we came upon this azalea bush. At home the only azaleas you see all over are red, pink or white. Here they alot of bright yellow and orange ones! I hope one day to find some in yellow and orange and plant some in my gardens.

This is the front of the museum. A curved pillar that holds the name of the museum.

After we took a walk around the gardens, we went on to the 3rd pod, more modern art there. This one is the famous Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter! Such a fun painting!!

After dinner, we took a walk outside and it had just gotten dark. The pods are all lit up and make for a beautiful walk in the moonlight, with the reflection in the ponds that surround them.

On Saturday morning, we headed out for a day of golf. We stopped at a little golfers diner and had breakfast, then went to the golf course where Bob and Robin play on a couples league. Its a 4 person scramble on 9 holes and they have fun little prizes and a meal afterwards. The league is called "Golf and Burgers". We didn't stay for dinner, we decided to visit the pizza place where their son works, the best pizza I have ever had!! Before dinner though, Bob's neighbor offered to take us out on the lake in his pontoon boat. It was a really fun ride. Lake Windsor is huge!! it was a cool late afternoon, and somewhat cloudy, but very enjoyable!! Here we started out from the dock.

Bella Vista was originally developed as a retirement community, but alot of other people have moved in. Some of the houses on the lake are just gorgeous! From the street side they don't look very big, but tooling around the lake in a boat they look 3 times bigger! Alot of the homes are very well landscaped and kept up really nice.

We had a really nice time visiting Bob and Robin, and hope to go back again as Bella Vista and Bentonville (Walmart capital) has alot to offer and is such a nice, scenic area to visit.

The following weekend was Drew's Senior Prom. He got all decked out in his tux, and headed out for Prom. I got a few shots of him in the backyard before he left.

Steve followed him over to the city park where he met up with some of his friends he was going with, and took pictures of the group of kids. We have a wonderful city park with a bridge and 3 different lakes and makes for beautiful backgrounds. After Prom they all went back to the high school for a lockdown till 5am. They played games and had great prizes given out. Drew got a base for his ipod, a blue fleece blanket and won $22 playing ping pong! 

That week following prom, I took a walk around our yard to see all my irises that were blooming! I have some really pretty ones! 

I found this one among all the purple and white ones. I have never seen this one bloom before. It's actually a bit darker in real life, but the evening sun was shining on it and made it look a bit lighter.

Last fall we ended up redoing our patio on the side of the garage. It was all bricks and was falling apart, the bricks were sinking after a few years of moles running under them, so we hired a concrete guy and had him pour one big area in a pinkish color and did a random stamp on it. We sold all the paver bricks, but held on to all the windsors (which happen to be my favorite for landscaping) and starting using some of them to landscape around the patio. We hope to get a fountain and small waterfall put in sometime this year that will run down to under the deck.



Towards the end of April, I was at an all day crop in Belleville with my scrappy friends and we got hit by a bad storm with hail everywhere! We were lucky we only got quarter size or smaller hail. A few other places around us got hail as big as softballs!! Alot of cars and homes were damaged. Luckily none of our cars at the crop got any damage that I know of. 

Well, that about sums up the month of April. May has been a bit quieter, but this weekend we get hit with a triple whammy! Tomorrow happens to be the 5th of May, Cinco de Mayo celebrations, Kentucky Derby Day, and National Scrapbook Day! My kit club, Little Red Scrapbook is having a big blog hop in honor of Nat'l SB Day! It should be alot of fun, as we have a few new Design Team members and a few old ones too!! If you scrapbook, come on over and join in the fun here http://www.littleredchronicle.blogspot.com/

I hope to join in as much as I can!!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!!

Spring is definitely here!!

Had alot going on the past few weeks. My 2 sisters that live out east brought mom back after 3 weeks at my older sisters house, and we finally got her all moved into the assisted living place. She really likes it there, especially since she was able to bring all her furniture and personal things to kind of make it her own place. It really is a cute little apartment, and we won't have to worry about her wandering off anywhere, or missing her medication and she has lots of activities to take part in every day! She said the food is really good too!

While my sisters were here, we took mom over to the Veteran's Monument in town where mom had my dad and my older brother's name engraved since they both served in armed services.

I finally got out in the yard the other day and took some pictures before all the pretty flowering trees were gone. I missed the Bradford pears this year, being so busy working on mom's house. My stepson Drew caught these tadpoles and he's trying to raise them into frogs. They are the biggest tadpoles I've ever seen!! I sure hope they "grow up"!! Can't wait to see what they turn out to look like.

 

The redbud trees are the prettiest ever!! We have 2 of them in our yard, but one is leaning so bad it may end up being cut down soon. Good thing is, there is another one growing right next to it, its about 3 feet high already this year, so when the 1 ends up coming down, we'll still have another there.

I really don't know what the name of these are, but they are sooooo cute!! I get more and more of them every year. They just remind me of little bluebells.

These tulips are just about to open. The only other ones I have is 1 red one down at the end of the driveway and 2 that just came up at the edge of the yard where the hill down to the pond starts.

The hostas are starting to open up too. We have a ton of really nice hostas along the on side in front of the house. they really come out nice in the spring but the hot summer sun tends to dry them up and they get brown and burnt by the end of summer.

These are the leaves popping out on all our little oak trees. They are so soft and fuzzy and little.

The azeleas are all budding too! I wish they would bloom all summer long, the flowers they have are all so pretty. Spring has alot of pretty colors, but its so hard to find perennials that last all summer long.

My favorite all summer flower is Lantana. I know they have perennials, but I have yet to find them. So I just get the annuals every year and plant them and they come out and bloom all the way into fall.

Spring has really blossomed out early here, but its so nice to see everything come to life after looking at the dead of winter for months.

More busy days ahead, Easter, my youngest son's birthday, trip to Arkansas and then my birthday, yay!

A Weekend at Memories Lane

Last weekend I attended a weekend scrapbook retreat with some of my friends. Jill put it all together a few months ago. It's a sort of Bed & Breakfast for crafters or actually any group that wants to spend a weekend there. Its called Memories Lane and it is it ever a gorgeous place! It sits back off of Hwy 5 south going towards Camdenton, MO, just 3 miles outside of Versailles, MO. Jacquie Brewer was our hostess and she really treats her guests right!

On Friday night right before dinner we had a complimentary wine tasting by the owner of Emme's Attic in Versailles. Its a quaint little gift/wine/antique shop. I found 2 pictures there for the wall in my kitchen, and the price was very reasonable. My husband and I hung them on the wall tonight, and they look awesome!
Jill, Ruth and Tracey were ready for some good wine!!











Mmmm, that wine was good!! Now our glasses are ready for more!! Most of the wine we tasted was really good, although I am not a sweet wine drinker. Of course, she saved the best for last.
The last tasting we had was a yummy chocolate wine with cherry flavoring. It was really good. But it was very rich and only a glass or 2 would have been fine for me.

We had the basement of Jacquie's house for our cropping area and we had our own little kitchen area and eating space. This spot was set up like an old diner. There was also a bar heighth table and stools on the other side of the back door. The whole house was filled with old memorabilia of some sort. This spot had alot of Coca Cola stuff all over.

There was even a sweet little tortoise shell kitty watching us through the window from outside. She looked just like Cathi's kitty back home and Cathi decided to make friends with Miss Mouse.

Of course Ruth was the one with smallest chest that fit right into the circle cut out on this paper!! Scrappers always find use for leftover paper!!

This was our kitchen area, isn't it cute?! The top of the cabinets is loaded with lots of old memorabilia. We looked at all of it and found pieces up there that our mothers used to have in their kitchens and bathrooms or somewhere in the house.

This was our scrapping area. We had 14 people in our group that weekend and still had lots of space at our tables to scrap. There was also a nice sitting area at the back of the room for those that decided to take a break and read or just sit and relax.

Cute 33 LP's decorated above the back door that led out to a patio area.

Jacquie's husband took us out to his ginormous shed where they park their cars and his tractor. There sat an old 1961 black taxi cab. They originally bought the taxi to do a family photo shoot!!

Mis Mouse again! Isn't she pretty?!

This was a sign that was on the side of the house by the driveway. I guess there might be some that take heed to this! Once you're in, you're hooked!!

Saturday night after dinner, we celebrated a few birthdays. Jill's birthday was on Feb. 28, the Tuesday before our weekend. Look, she has a friend pointing out whose birthday it is!! The birthday girls had to wear their cute little hats all night long!

Could this be our waitress?!! Cathi is pointing to her, so place your orders now!!

Here is our other birthday girl, Tracey!! Isn't she cute in her little birthday hat?!! Funny how the Hot Dog sign ended up next to her in the picture!

OOOOO, I wonder what Janet has hidden in this bag!!! I think she likes whats on the bag better than what is in it!!

MMMWWAAAAA!!!! Here's some birthday kisses from Cat!!!!

Look at me, see my new bow!!! Isn't it cute?!!

Twin gifts for the birthday girls! Cute flower shaped Memory Trays to decorate!

My gift to Jill, a nice frame to put a picture of her friends in. She was also supposed to get a gift certifcate from the Scrapbook Factory, but when I checked out and told the girl I also needed a gift certificate, she never gave it to me! I checked my bag when I got on the road and it wasn't there, but the good thing is, she didn't charge me for it either!! So in with the frame was cash.

We really had a fun Saturday night!! On Sunday, we got up one by one and there were some yummy ginormous cinnamon rolls with coffee waiting for us in our little kitchen downstairs. We also had plenty of time to scrap away the day, as we didn't have to leave until 3PM! Here are the girls busy scrapping away the day, well except for 1, she decided her book was really way better than scrapping!

Cheri hard at work finding the right place on her layout for her pictures.

Sherry was enjoying a good book on the comfy couches they had in our scrap room.

Christine was punching holes in a mini album to put the rings through. Oh and she is also busy listening to her IPOD!

Not sure what Janet was doing, but she made some awesome, cute little cards this weekend!

And heerrreeee'sss Shirley!

Margie ready to go at with after going to Church with Deb.

This is Sheryl, yes we had 3 of them here this weekend.

And sweet little Mary, who has 3 boys and is as tiny as you can get, we can't let her go out in the wind, we might lose her!!! She is joy to scrap with!!

Tracey, the birthday girl!! Well, her birthday is actually the 17th, but we celebrated it this weekend anyway.

My dear, dear friend Ruth, still in her owl jammies!!

An my other dear, dear friend Jill, and the other birthday girl, whose birthday was Feb. 28.

And then there was Cathi..... one of the funniest, happiest, joyful person I know!! She is ALWAYS such a hoot to be around. She makes life so fun!

And last but not least, we have Deb!!! Another fun, joyful person to scrap with and to visit!!

Oops! I almost forgot our cute little mascot, Wooluv. His mom's a scrapper! He goes to all the crops with his mom Jill, and he even dapples in it himself sometime, usually when we aren't looking!

The property around the house had a big lake on it with plenty of geese in and out all day long.

From the breakfast table, we could watch the woodpeckers that were hanging around the wooden deck and bird feeder.

Not sure what kind of woodpeckers they were, but they were really little and so cute! It was sort of hard to get photos of them, they flitted around that deck so fast!

All in all, it was a good weekend spent with good friends. The weather was pretty good, a little windy here and there, a little rain on the way down, but a beautiful blue sky driving home on Sunday. We definitely have plans of going back and hoping to extend our day by a day or 2. Jacquie and Wayne Brewer were the perfect hosts and so accomodating. They visited with us, and talked and laughed with us and shared their family stories.