Preseason: Lions vs. Broncos

Last Saturday Kaitlyn and i had tickets for the preseason game. We really wanted to go to this game to see our favorite rookies, Ndamukong Suh and Tim Tebow. Unfortunately, Tebow didn't suit up because of bruised ribs from the previous game. But we did get to see Suh in action. He's so awesome that he's always double-teamed, (in the middle of this picture, #90) but he got in on some of the tackles and also batted down a QB pass.


Here's another action shot from the game.

Finally, Palace of Versailles pictures

It was hazy that morning, but hopefully you get an idea of how huge this palace is! I'm so glad to finally be able to put on a "few" of the hundreds of photos we took. Hope you enjoy them!


Outside the palace before we went in.


The cathedral inside the palace.


One of the many beautiful rooms we toured through. All were very elaborate and ornate. After all, kings and queens lived here.


A huge hall full of this huge paintings depicting different wars and treaties of the times.


The famous "Hall of Mirrors".


This is from the palace looking down into a center walkway into the 28 gardens. You'll see another photo showing us down by the big lake looking up towards the palace.


Great photo op!


Another beautiful garden with statues!


Walking, and walking.....


Within another fabulous, beautiful garden.


This may give you a little idea of how huge this place was. Far in the background you can see one wing of the palace itself. Where we are standing isn't even the furthest end of the gardens, but it does run down the middle of them. So there are 14 huge gardens on either side of this large center walkway.


Another very large statue in a huge pond!


This pond was so cool! They had a musical water show! There was some music over some hidden speakers, and the water sprayed in cadence with the music. We loved it!


Us in front of one of the 28 gardens.


One of the many statyes outside in the gardens.

Some Tour photos!

A shot of the riders as they passed by us!


Here's a shot from the race! We were right up front...see Lance!! He's the blurry one in gray and red right there!


Yummy! We love the crepes!!

Back in the USA!

Here we are the last day of the Tour de France, wearing our "Tour" shirts. See the Arch in the back ground. This was taken on Champs Elysees.

At the Hard Rock cafe in London!
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Finally in the states again (waiting for our connecting flight to DIA), and I can post pictures again! Here's the London red phone booth!

This is one of our first pics in London. We were a top of a double-decker tour bus. Windy and chilly, but fun! And then, just so we could get the true feel for London, it started to rain.
We took several pictures of the red telephone booths, but I can't get any of those to upload to the blog right now. Maybe later!

I tried to upload other pictures and it's just not happing right now! Bummer!

More adventures!!

So I'm still having trouble loading pics! Darn!! On Sunday we spent the day down on the Champs Elysees waiting for the Tour de France to come through. It took forever, but to get a decent place to see the cyclists, we had to be there early. But it was so worth it when they finally came!! They actually do a big loop while in Paris, so they went by us 7 times! My guy didn't win (I was going for Andy Scleck) but he got 2nd. And we saw Lance several times!!

Monday we took a day trip to London. Does this make me a world traveler now? It was so much fun, but really not nearly enough time to see much of anything. The bus system there is incredibly slow!

And today, Tuesday, we spent the day at Disneyland Paris. I know, silly, huh. But the girls really wanted to go and we had tons of fun. Very tired though!!

Tomorrow Brianna leaves in the afternoon, and Kaitlyn and I leave Thursday morning!

Later!

A day at the Palace!

Bonjour! I continue to have trouble loading pictures onto my blog. I hope it's a location problem, and not a computer issue! Anyway, today we went to the Palace at Versailles! Oh my! To actually be touring a massive castle that kings and queens once lived in was amazing! It was so huge! We really enjoyed it so much. Then we went outside to tour the palace grounds. If I thought the palace was big, that was nothing compared to the gardens!! I only wish I had my pedometer on! :) I can't even begin to describe the beautiful flower gardens, all the huge fountains, the sculptures, the perfectly trimmed hedges and trees! And we took so many beautiful pictures and I'm so bummed I can't get them uploaded to the blog yet. I will certainly try when I get back to the states. Another great, but exhausting day!!

So tomorrow we will go to watch the finish of the Tour de France. If only I can figure out when the Tour will actually be arriving! I have asked several people here, and they don't seem to care about the Tour, so they have no idea! Ha!

More tomorrow!

The Louvre

Kaitlyn and Brianna in front of the Louvre.

Sorry, I couldn't load any more pictures for some reason right now. But we took lots of cool ones. We saw the Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa. Wander the Louvre for a few hours and were extremely tired. That place is absolutely huge!! It would take an entire week (or more) to try to see everything!!

Bonjour from Paris!

This is us in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was a beautiful day, and we were smart enough to get there early before the really long lines formed. So we went all the way to the top of that thing!! What a great view!!

Here's my two glamour girls!! Looking good in Paris!

Here they are in front of the Notre Dame cathedral. What a beautiful, awesome church. To beautiful...even to put words to it!

And here they are as we strolled along the Seine. It was a very busy, but fun day. We are totally exhausted now. But more to do tomorrow!!

"Leavin' on a jet plane..."

Bonjour! It's 4:35 AM, and Kaitlyn and I are getting ready to go to the airport. Hopefully I will be able to post updates here on my blog, so if you're interested, stop back throughout this next week. Maybe I'll get some pictures posted as well! I'm just not sure what access I'll have to internet there. We're looking forward to a fun time with Brianna!! And yes, we'll take lots of pictures!

Happy Birthday to me!!

Aren't friends the greatest?! My friends took me out to Texas Roadhouse tonight to help me celebrate my "21st"? birthday! I love them for that! No one has ever surprised me like that for my birthday before, and this was very fun and special!! Thank you so much!

Here are my friends, Debbie, Linda, Jen and Jill!

Me with my friends, Trish and Donna!

Cest La Vie!

This is a simple card I made with the Wall Decor and More cartridge. I really love that cartridge! It has some amazing cuts on it!! I made this card in celebration that it's two weeks from today that we leave for Paris!! Wow! Can't believe it's only two weeks away! :)

"Meeting Suh-perman" layout

I think this is probably the quickest that I have actually completed a layout after the pictures were taken. We got to meet Suh only a week ago, but I wanted to finish this layout to add to Kaitlyn's Nebraska Husker book. She really liked how it turned out. I used the Superman cartridge and the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.

SUH-perman encounter!!

Today was the day to go up and get autographs from Ndamukong Suh (this years 2nd pick in the NFL draft!!) and coach Tom Osborne. We've been very excited for this day to arrive! We waited in line for over an hour waiting for Suh to come out and begin signing. We were very hopeful that we would also get to have a picture taken with them. The security was very tight and weren't allowing fans to get pictures taken with them, which really disappointed us. The best we could do was to shoot a picture as he was signing.

This is the best we thought we were going to get. So then it was time to get in line to get Osborne's autograph. What a nice and wonderful man he is!! It was an honor to meet him and shake his hand. Afterwards we noticed Suh's line was almost empty. So we hung around hoping maybe we could get a picture with him. A guy in front of us asked if he could get a picture, the security told him yes, so he hopped over the rope and stood besides Suh while his wife took his picture. That made the security people mad, so they told us "no more pictures!" We were bummed, visibly, Suh saw that, stood up and walked over to the rope and motioned for Kaitlyn to come over for a picture!! We were thrilled! He didn't do this for anyone else!!

Kaitlyn with Suh!!

Me, getting Osborne's autograph. What an awesome day for both of us!!

Lacy Labels

These are a couple of cuts from the new Cricut "Lite" cartridge called Lacy Labels. Cricut has come out with 24 new "Lite" cartridges that are smaller than a full cartridge, but larger than a solutions cartridge. I just got this one (and a few others!) last night, and was anxious to try a few fun cuts. This cartridge is loaded with so many more!! I haven't decided whether I will use these on a card or on a lay-out.

Family get together

Grandma with several of the grandkids: Graeme, Cole, Carly, Kaitlyn and Gabby.

My siblings, L-R: Dianne, Doug, me, and Deb. Only Don is missing in this photo.

Me and two of my kiddos...Micah and Kaitlyn.

We met at the Pumphouse in Longmont, the halfway point for the the Denver gang and the Fort Collins gang. It's always fun to get together. We get a little loud and crazy...I'm sorry to all those who were sitting near us last night! :)

Merci card

Here's another thank you card I made this weekend. I used cricut cartridges Beyond Birthdays and the new cartridge, Cindy Loo.

gracias

Here's a card I made a couple of weeks ago. Kaitlyn wanted a card to give to her spanish teacher. We liked how it turned out.

More fun with vinyl!

Yesterday I played around with my gypsy again. With it's most recent update we are able to "hide" features on objects. This really helped me out on my Cricut cover. I used 3 colors for this project, the green, white, and black. I made a binder with all the cricut cartridges so it's easier to look for images, and this is the cover I made for the binder. How cute is that!? Have I mentioned lately how much I love my Cricut and my Gypsy!!

Dressed up my Cricut!

This is my first attempt at cutting vinyl on my cricut! I was very pleased with the result! I also used my Gypsy to design the CREATE and weld it to the flourishes. And I totally impressed myself by using the 2 colors of vinyl!! Yea!!!

Kaitlyn and Tawnya

Here's a picture of Kaitlyn with her friend Tawnya. We went to her graduation party. She has completed all her courses a year early! It was good to see her again. Sadly, their friendship has diminished over the years, but they were the best of buds beginning at the age of three!