Anniversary Trip

Boy, it has been a long time since I have last blogged.  We have been busy with outside projects, enjoying our pool and going to see our son get married in the Dominican Republic.

For our 30th anniversary we took a quick trip to Ithaca, NY.  Yes, it is a vacation hotspot!  It is a gorgeous area near the finger lakes.

On the way to Ithaca we stopped at the Corning Museum of Glass. It has been on my bucket list for awhile now.  We spent a few hours exploring the galleries and exhibitions.  Then we took a turn trying to make our own glass.

I read about this activity online and thought it would be a once in a lifetime experience.  Michael 

was game for doing "crafts" on our vacation.  

So we both signed up to make something.

 Michael was going to do the most "glass making", so he had to suit up to protect himself from the 2300 degree heat. 

The workshop staff got all the glass from the ovens.  But they did let Michael pull and twist his flower. 

 

 Now it is my turn.  I am blowing an ornament.  She pulls out my glass and dips into the colors I have picked out.

My experience was not as hands on as Michaels.  All I did was blow into a pipe and the girl did all the work.  

Here are our projects that we made.  They are unique and something we will remember from our trip.

  The cost for a professionally made flower or ornament was 25 dollars.  We paid 29 dollars "to make it yourself", so you are only paying an extra 4 dollars to get a glimpse into the glass making process.  From that perspective it isn't a bad deal.

But the quality of the product is kind of, let's say amateur.  Yes, I know we are amateurs, but I thought mine would turn out better since the staff did all the work.   

I think I would have liked to just buy a professionally made ornament.  Michael's flower turned out really cool and he got more of a real feel for how to make something from a blob of glass.

Now a quick recap about the rest of the museum.

You walk through many galleries that display both modern and historical pieces of glass.  

This is a glass mosaic.  There are 1400 glass tiles in one square inch, totally amazing!

 This diorama depicts a glass blowing factory during the industrial revolution.
It is interesting to see how they etched glassware.  The details are so pretty.

 
We learned all about the history of glass light bulbs, windows, windshields, lighthouse lenses, eyeglasses, dishes and the list goes on......

Over all this was a very interesting place to visit.  If you are a homeschooling family, I would definitely make it part of your art and history lessons.

Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day! 

My next post will be about our visit to the 

many waterfalls in the area.

Catching Up

Love that all my bulbs I planted last fall came up this spring!

 Meg and I got together for a day of smashing.  I made 8 more pages in 365 Smashbook.  This book is all about the seasons and holidays.  I am having a hard time finding things to put in this book, but I am chugging along in it.

So proud of these two!  They are living out their faith and
becoming awesome servants in ministry.

 This one was an Instagram picture that Matthew took while subbing.  Those kids are sure lucky to have him as a teacher.

All my cropping buddies!  I can't wait till next years crop.

 I wanted to document the Olympics this year. Not my favorite page, but it's done!








I love my bird page!  I can spend hours snapping pictures of our backyard birds.  When it is snowing they all come out to feed.  This page already had a pretty bird printed on it, so I knew I would put my birds on it.

 We had a doozy of a winter this year. 

 I lost count of the number snowfalls.  

It was fun working with these ladies to create a
 beautiful evening for fathers and their daughters. 

The next two pages are from my

 "Things I Love" Smashbook.

I have learned to love these movies!
I watch them so many times, I can even repeat quotes from the movies.

Here are some of my favorite Apps from my I Phone. 

 I even got my hubby to get hooked on a game.

Thanks for stopping by.

Have a blessed day.

Cleaning My Dyson

 While I was surfing around Pinterest I saw a pin about cleaning your Dyson vacuum.  I said to myself, "You are supposed to clean them?"  I have emptied the canister and clean the hair off the bottom, but that is about it.

In the eight years I have had this vacuum, I will confess it has never been deep cleaned.  So one sunny spring day I set out to clean my Dyson. 

Now Dyson has many different versions so yours may not have the same parts.  But I think the concepts are the same. Remember not to force any parts off. 

Open your trap door on the bottom of your canister and then take off the screws.  Next gently pull off the handled top.   

 Watch out for the giant dust cloud that explodes all around you!  OK, it is a miracle anything gets clean with this thing, YUCK! 

I took a hose to all of these pieces.  I kept rinsing until the water ran clear.  Then I took them inside and scrubbed them with a soapy toothbrush  

 Next I found the filter.  Never knew it had one, but there are stickers on the machine telling me where it is. OOPS!

That filter is supposed to be blue.

 I brought it inside and rinsed it until it ran clear.  It was like squeezing mud out of that thing. Then I found out I am supposed to clean that thing every six months.  

 So next up is the roller brush area.  Yes, we all probably cut the hair and string off now and again.  But today I am taking the plastic housing off.  

My roller didn't come off all the way, so I had to work around the brush.  

 So I found a couple more parts that came off.  I rinsed and wiped all the parts.  I am leaving them to dry in the sun today.  Then I will let them dry inside for a couple of days.  You don't want moisture inside your vacuum.  

So there you have it!  One sparkling clean vacuum.  I thought it would be a simple task, but it took a couple hours to take apart and clean all the parts.  But now I have a "brand new" vacuum, that should last another 8 years. 

 Well, I hope so anyway.

Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day!

Organizing Stamps

I have quite the collection of acrylic stamps.  

They are great because you don't have the chunky wooden

 backs to store.  You only need an acrylic block to stick

 them too and your ready to stamp.  

Then when your done just clean them and put them away.  

Now putting them away became a challenge for me. 

 I stuffed them in little bags and had to dig through them to find the one I wanted to use.  So I decided to follow my DIL's idea to store them in baseball card page protectors.

 You can find them at Target or Walmart.  I think I paid 5 bucks for these.  Not a bad investment for my sanity.

 Next I cut out little white cards, to fit in each of the places.  I choose white so you can read the stamps clearly. 

I was going to put a set of stamps on each side, but it was too bulky.  So I decided to just use one side.  

So much better!  Don't you agree.  Now I placed them in a binder that I can carry to crops and classes.  No more digging for the right stamp, woo hoo!

Organizing makes me happy!

 I hope you found this little tip helpful.

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a blessed day!

Young Lives, BIG Stories

Let me introduce to you three special people. These youngsters have grown up in the sub culture called, the military family.  Over looked by the majority of our society, these kids sacrificed along side their soldier parent for the duration of his career.  They moved on average every 2-3 years, attended 6 different schools, had to repeatedly make new friendships, say good bye to many friends and live with the uncertainty of their soldier parent coming home safely.A lot of military children take these changes in stride and some even thrive on them, but it is hard - kids have to rebuild their world every time and find their place in it..

Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger in 1986 designated each April as "The Month of the Military Child".  Recognizing the contribution the military child makes as their parent serve our nation.  So if you happen to walk past a soldier and his family make sure not to only thank the soldier for his or her service, but also their children.  

Military posts have many activities for the military family. They have youth services, where young kids can gather and hangout. The bases have pools, playgrounds, bowling allies and theaters. But they don't have mentors.  People that come along side these kids to be a friend to confide in and share their lives.  

Let me introduce this little guy......... Matthew.

You may recognize him from the above photo, but he is somewhat of an anomaly in this story.  He grew up and instead of choosing the path of businessman, family, white picket fence lifestyle, he choose the career of serving as a missionary to military children.   Along with his wife Sarah, they plan to travel and live on military posts in Asia and Europe.  They will come along side chaplins, families and their kids to minister to them.  

How you may ask?  They will be in the schools tutoring, holding backyard Bible clubs, teaching Sunday school, setting up AWANA and VBS programs and so much more.

Quote from their blog.

Serving Those Who Serve

"We are followers of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Our desire is to bring a smile to His face! We are missionaries to the military children, we trust the Lord will use us to bring hope to their constantly changing world. The hope that they will never have to say goodbye to God, like they do with their friends every two years. The hope that God will never leave them or forsake them, He is a constant friend!"

 But in order for them to move overseas they must raise monthly support.  While they are raising their support they are active in their church ministering to children. 

Here is how you can help:
Pray that the Lord will place supporters in their lives.
Pray that Matthew and Sarah are able to convey their ministry and needs in a clear manner.
Pray that they will trust God for their provision.

Think about becoming a member of their team. 

The name of their mission board is Candence International.

They also have a Facebook Page

The young life of this military child is turning into a great big story for the Lord's glory.  Please share, pin, tweet, text, instagram, call, write.... whatever you can do to spread the word of this ministry.

Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day!