Camping at Arkabutla

Here to share a few other pictures from our family campout. A weekend of relaxation, resting, walking, nature, and photography is a weekend of BLISS.

I should definitely edit some of these (all of these), but I have little skill and less time. Sorry if I hurt your eyes.

Promises, Schlomises

I know I said I'd show pictures of the invitations next, but I have yet to do an invitation photo shoot, so I'm sharing some interesting finds we happened upon while we went camping with Dad and the kids. The lake (Arkabutla Lake) has been pretty low, and it's been getting lower, so we had the opportunity to explore what is typically below the water. People have lots of fun throwing, tossing, dropping things in that lake. Here is what we found below lake level:

a huge group of feathers. so pretty. cool, blue coloring under a shadow. 

took great efforts, including a red extender (scarf) with a strong hero (dad) on the other side of it to help me reach.

2 golf balls. and a fly on this one. Thanks, Fly, for waiting patiently for the picture.

glass bottle. oh, the recreational activities people engage in while camping. and I thought people just made s'mores.

part of a bowling ball. the hero took it home as a souvenir.

another glass bottle.

animal prints. they were up earlier than we were.

spark plug. the hero had a cool (made up) story to go with that.

grasshopper. nervous with his first photo shoot, but cooperative.

small pancreas, maybe? 

finally, found a hero and his shadow.

Handmade Instruments

I just started my first year teaching elementary music, and I have had so much fun helping the students discover the many avenues of music. Each day we sing songs, listen to music, play instruments, and dance on the dance floor. We learn the basics of music theory and music history, and I've realized that the more fun I have, the more fun the students have.

The most recent project we've accomplished is making our own instruments. All grades K-5 took part in this activity, and the success rate was higher than the average homework turn-in rate! Yay for music! With our handmade instruments we sang and played along to "Old MacDonald Had a BAND!" We marched around the classroom. We played a rhythm guessing game, and we did some rhythm sight-reading. The kids loved it, and the noise was worth the experience!!

The guitars were pretty dang creative. We also had some awesome drums and shakers. Above you saw a harp as well. Below is a finger piano made out of bobby pins on wood. My favorite was an instrument called a drumbone. It was something the Blue Man Group would have on stage. Sorry I don't have an awesome picture or video to go with that.

Below is a sneak peek of things to come- my most incredibly professional-looking project ever!

Yarn-Wrapped Wreath

I love doing crafts, like many women my age; however, I don't have a lot of time to do them because I have a full time job. I love my job, but I miss my craft time. One craft I did earlier last year was a wreath. I had seen many awesome wreaths done online with jute, burlap, ribbon, tulle, flowers, ornaments... Should I keep going?

I decided to try my hand at wrapping a wreath with yarn and found some bright, bold colors to work with. This is what happened:

I'm hoping to soon share my current project with you. (Oh look! I made a goal! I shouldn't have done that!!) I've created the most incredible wedding invitations! I've never made something so ligit-looking! This is a new thing for me, so let me brag a little.

Thanks for stopping by! (She says in her best Anchorman-esque voice)

the COME BACK tour

Coming back to the blogging world is about as hard as writing a journal entry for the first time in months or years, I always want to catch everyone up on what's been going on. Of course that is an extremely daunting task, so I just resort to not making an entry at all. Another mistake I make is sharing all my new goals and plans of what I want to include in all my future posts. Then you look forward to so many awesome things that I end up not doing. So, I am not going to disappoint you (or myself), and I'm not going to get our hopes up. We'll wait to see if this is a new habit I'm forming or just a whim.

I've been practicing photography as of late, and I have lots of photos to share. I'm not an expert editor, so most if not all of these will be raw images. Don't judge too badly. Emphasis on the word practicing in the first sentence of this paragraph.

These pictures were taken outside my home earlier on this summer (June 26th).

Trying to speed things up:

Trying to slow things down:

Yes, that is the moon.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the images from my summer days at home. One day I'll venture out there and edit a few. I hope to continue to post and share different things in my life that I love.