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Well this is what happens when my darling girl refuses to co-operate and have her pic taken. I take photos of her anyway and scrap them. I wish she would pose for me and I'd get the gorgeous shots I'm after, but just not gonna happen! Ah well, I still like the layout.

But I managed to get one decent shot of her looking at the camera and smiling.

And a heritage one - it's been waaaayyyy too long since I've done any of this. I love this photo of Mike's grandparents taken in 1942 in Eritrea (yes I had to look it up as well).

And a page using some gorgeous pics of Adrian and his girlfriend Angela ( we adore her, she's just so sweet and loving and totally down to earth and well as stunning).

Mia's album

Well I finally got off my butt and finished pages for my great niece Mia's album. Nothing like working to a deadline. I only really gave myself just over a week to complete it, and as I had really only done about 6-8 pages so far, it was a big task. But I got it done, and was delighted with most of the pages. I even used a page that I'd done at a class with Jolene, Liz and Karen and much to their amusement finally found a pic that suited it! And my niece Sam and my sister Marg and all the family just loved the album as well. Apparently it took pride of place on the table at Mia's birthday lunch, with Sam and Marg proudly showing it off to everyone that came. Thank goodness for Express Post, I got it there on her birthday. And bot did it get the creative juices flowing again - I scrapped up a storm in a matter of days (fact is I haven't done anything since!), used up some old papers and embellies as well as some gorgeous new stuff.

Here's a few pages from it:

Celebrate (Sam in hospital just after the birth).
Cousins (my niece Amanda, her little boy Angus and Mia)

Family (in the cubby house in the backyard) Gorgeous Girl (this is from the class we did with Andrea Thompson) Very pink, glittery and girly, just didn't suit any pics of Alanna! Hello Baby (me and Mia when she was about 3 weeks old). Used up some old 3 Bugs paper in this one.

Just keeping the Peace

Well, that seems to be what I do some weeks. Keep the peace between my sisters, who for some reason behave like a couple of bitchy teenagers every so often and expect me to take sides. Well I won't, love both of them dearly and I'll keep talking and ringing them etc etc.

Then I sometimes have to keep the peace between hubby and kids, or as was the case last week, between 2 of my kids.

DD turned 18 on Thursday and had told us a while back that instead of having a party, she wanted to go out for dinner with a few of her girlfriends. OK, that was fine, until she then wanted to go out Friday and Saturday nights as well. Hello, what happened to the family dinner that we usually have for birthdays?

I stewed about it for a few days, but her eldest brother was totally pissed off with her and let her know it! Wow, haven't seen him upset with her like that - she adores him and they have always been so close. So we had to come to a compromise and she said she'd stay home for dinner then go out on the Friday night. Well he got held up at work, then he had to pick up my niece and her partner who were visiting from Sydney. So by the time they arrived, daughter was in tears that she was late and it wasn't much fun! I ended up calming her down and just letting her go, then the rest of us had dinner. And it turned out to be a lovely night.

Her brother had given her cash as a present and even bought her a bottle of Moet champagne, so she has some serious sucking up to do.

Pages for my Egypt Album

Well I've started scrapping some of my holiday pics. I just really felt that I wanted to get started on some of the 1000+ photos, while the memories are still fresh in my mind. And to get me started I had a bit of a spend on some of the online scrapping sales, including Blue Bazaar where I picked up lots of acrylic stamps for up to 70% off (Bargain!). I'm trying not to buy anything else now as I figure I have enough goodies to last me for ages - well maybe I'll cheat and buy cardstock every so often.

So I started at the beginning and I'm only up to about the 2nd day. But at least it's a start!

First one is a pic of the plane while waiting at Sydney airport. Mike and I were pretty excited about setting off on our adventure.


Then I have used some pics of our shopping experiences while in Cairo.

Then some of my Pyramid photos. I had to tweak the colours a little in these pics as they were just a bit washed out. I really wanted clear blue skies as a background but with all the smog around, it just wasn't going to happen. But compared to some pics I have seen, ours aren't too bad at all. I just love the ones of us standing against the lower level of the Great Pyramid, it really shows just how massive each block is and makes you wonder how on earth they were built. I've incorporated our entry tickets for the Pyramids as well. Mike was very careful about keeping each ticket we got and storing them away for me - he must have known I would be scrapping them too.

Fantastic Holiday!

We had the best time! I loved everything about Egypt - such a different culture and with such an amazing history. We have some lovely relatives there - never met them before but they welcomed us into their home and treated us as if they'd known us forever. We just adore them all. The sights we saw were incredible - huge temples, amazing carvings and heiroglyphics, the Nile, and of course the Pyramids and the Sphynx. One of the highlights was climbing to the top of Mt Sinai which you start at an unearthly hour of 3am to try and get up to see the sun rise from the top. An exhausting climb but well worth it.

I have so many favourite pics from the trip - too many to post here but I've set up a travel blog if anyone wants to take a peak

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/leone_and_mike/1/tpod.html?tweb_UID=leone_and_mike&tweb_token=427839605530951524

just click Continue then click on each entry in the Table of Contents to see the pics.

4 days till we leave

Starting to pack, then unpack and repack everything. Do I have the right sort of clothes to wear (nothing too tight, revealing etc), do I really need this, can I just buy that over there, etc etc. Such a dilemna. I hate packing.

But I'm getting there.

Copies of all important papers - CHECK
Housework up to date - CHECK
Bills paid - CHECK
Kids nagged and reminded about jobs, what to do etc etc - CHECK (but I'll still be telling them on TUE morning)
Health - no! Damn flu has no progressed to my chest and I still feel like crap. Thinking of visiting the doctor after work today. I really don't want to be feeling like this.

Probably won't be posting again till I get back so look out for some happy snaps then.

Yuck!

Only 9 days till we leave and I've come down with a nasty dose of the flu. Not what I wanted to be taking on the plane with me! So I'm sneezing, sweating, wheezing, throat is on fire and nose is alternating between blocked and flowing. I'm taking as many cold and flu medications as I can, so hopefully it will ease off soon.

So Easter Sunday means taking it easy, resting, lying on the lounge watching movies.