Interestingness

Today I found this article about some of the stranger sights on Google Earth to be incredibly interesting! It's definitely worth a click-through. :)

Silly Boy

Woohoo, this layout has been featured over at the ScrapKitchen Designs blog! It just made my Monday!

Will post photos from the weekend soon - so much to share! I'm just thankful I was able to ease the stress of the insane heat by sharing it with friends and family. :) It's supposed to start cooling off tomorrow, keep your fingers crossed...I don't think we can handle 90+ degrees (without central air) for much longer!

Joan Jett Ain't Got Nothin' On Me

So I'm pulling a total Cathy Zielske-style blog this time and starting off with a self portrait. :) For some reason the way Angie styled my hair after cutting it Wednesday night reminded me of that classic Joan Jett video (even though I realize I'm blonde and it's shorter...but whatever, just run with me, k?). Nothing like a fresh cut to make you feel better about yourself!

I've been keeping my scrapbook album on here updated, but just had to share some from what's been a very productive week (even if it meant not getting to hardly any of the cleaning that I should have been doing!), that are fast becoming my favorite creations thus far.

Top on the list is definitely this one:

I had had the idea for it in my head ever since I ordered that swimsuit from Esther Williams, because I've always loved that photo of my grandma. :) Credits for it can be seen here.

I also really love how this one turned out, using a photo I took last weekend:

Too funny! Full credits are here.

Dante is a never-ending source of amusement for us. Last night he wagged his tail so hard while trying to sit nicely for french fries, he fell off the chair! Such a goofball. Speaking of the D-dog, he was acting so super cute last night while I was waiting for Chris to get home with dinner, I had to take some photos. Plus it was a good exercise in using manual focus with my nifty-fifty lens, which will give you much sharper images than always using auto focus. It's not easy (and I don't recommend it when you're trying to catch something in a hurry), but something worth practicing and using when you can! Because you can get images like this, even in crap low light:

Go ahead, just try and resist.

It was so funny because we had a bunch of pillows and blankets piled on his favorite chair so I could put a new cover on the futon, and I looked over and saw him sitting atop the pile, like this:

So of course that led to more photos, since he was content to just sit there and ignore me until I plied him with such taunting phrases as "You hungry? You want dinner?" (which is what got me that expression in the first photo above, incidentally...but ssssh don't tell anybody).

And while I was working with the manual focus, I got this shot completely by accident - but you didn't hear that from me!

I just looove that you can just barely see him doing the "Iggy smile". Italian Greyhounds are known for getting a smile occasionally - the corners of their mouth curl up, kind of a like a Mona Lisa smile. Jacopo usually gets it after he's been napping really hard. :) (And no, Dante's paws aren't dirty, he just has black markings on his skin that can be seen wherever he has white fur instead of black, as in the next photo...and yes, he desperately needs his nails trimmed, but this mama would like to spare herself the scratches for a little while longer.)

Once Chris came home bearing glorious In-N-Out for dinner, our photo session was over, but Dante graciously agreed to a few more shots while he sat next to Chris and silently begged for some of his french fries:

See, the black markings are much more obvious on his chest. :) And as my online photographer friend Corinne pointed out (and I had never thought of before), the marking on the right looks like a paw print! Too funny. And no, I hadn't just smacked Chris around a bit - he was working in Doheny Beach all day yesterday so got a little sun (you can see his stunning fantabulous buff arms are a little red too).

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

It's starting to get a little crazy...

Anybody else feeling that May-July is looking increasingly hectic? I don't remember last year being like this! As I'm sure you're all aware, last Sunday was Mother's Day, and us kids decided to go over to my parents' house and barbeque for my mom, she she hates crowds and wanted to make jelly (like she does every year) anyways. We had such a fun time of it! Here's some highlights (taken with my parents Nikon D40, since I asinine-ly forgot mine!).
Some of mom's cards and lovely flowers Roseann brought her:

We wound up having way more food than we could possibly eat, including these yummy hamburgers Chris mashed together:

Mmm steak...

Lars, hard at work. He's become quite the griller in the last few years! :)

And I love this one of mom, about to be kissed by Dante (for some reason he only likes to gives kisses on the lips!):

Don't let Eirik fool you, he's the biggest softie out there (unless he's hungry, then watch out!):

And since he hasn't been spotted much lately, here's Puss (closing his eyes out of spite, its like he knew what I was trying to do!):

Damn cat is so huge he takes my entire lens. ;)

Coming up this weekend is Nikki's graduation from Chapman Law on Saturday night (she's also singing at the ceremony - I'm such a proud best friend!), and then Sunday heading down to San Diego to hang out with my cousin and the fam, since she decided to graduate at the same time as Nikki (the audacity!). :D

 What is everybody else up to?

From My Blog to Theirs...

For this week's blog challenge over at the Sweet Shoppe, I'm supposed to share my childhood crushes. There were several, of course, but I think I'm a little different because the biggest one ever since junior high has always been none other than Harrison Ford. He just always seemed so real, so unaffected by fame. And funny! That always does it for me. No matter that he's older than my father, right? ;)

If that isn't extreme hotness right there, I don't know what is! And if you're still not convinced, how about this:

The love affair definitely started with the Indiana Jones (I had them on tape and now on DVD, of course), and I think I've seen all of his movies to date, except for Firewall (and for good reason, I've heard). My favorite of the triology was always the Last Crusade, because it was so much more comedic, what about you guys?

And, of course, I've been watching and waiting for the new movie to come out for years! Did you know at one point they even had an "open" call for scripts? A friend of mine in college actually submitted one, but it wasn't accepted. I'm honestly glad they waited until now, so that one of my current fave actors could play his son (I don't think anyone else could have done it, either!):

Plus Cate Blanchett is in it too - awesomeness! During the previews at Iron Man the other night, I saw the newest one for this movie, and it was seriously one of the best previews I've ever seen - they set the pace of the preview to the music! Maybe I'm a huge dork, but it was totally cool. :) So yeah, we'll be there at midnight on opening day, for sure.