What a display. We’ve gone to this spot for around 6 years now I think, and it gets better and better every year. I promised that I would do my best with these photos, and out of 100+ pics, these are my postworthy shots. The grand finale can be detected by it’s sheer brightness, explosion on top of explosion until it was so bright you could see the green of the trees below.

I had hoped to see a yellow ribbon firework, and I was not disappointed. On a more grandeur scale, I will forever look to my husband as one of the thousands of prominent reasons why we will continue to enjoy such beautiful fireworks, and freedom in this Country. I’m proud to have such a tangible and meaningful reminder of that in my life every day.

For those of you who may be overseas right now and linked here through Mudville, I did record last year’s fireworks on our camcorder for my hubby while he was in Iraq. You are more than welcome to view that live show here! (note: long load time, full 19 minutes or so video.)

Click “read more” for more pics of this year’s show!

My daughter, the papercrafter. Lastnight she amazed and astonished me with her latest paper creation, sandals. She made them for the Chickeymonkey out of one single piece of paper. Neat, huh?

Yes, there are some slight manufacturing problems that need to be overcome, but what do you think? Have I got myself a future shoe designer or what? She can make paper patterns of her shoes, and sell the designs, and be rich and famous by the time she’s 15.

My head is just spinning right now, I’ve got a ton of thoughts and ideas swirling in my mind about my blog, website, marketing, custom portraits, pricing etc. I’m feeling like I need to make some major changes, but I’m still trying to pinpoint what those are. I also need to get my floral piece finished!

The last few weeks have been pretty strange for me, if you didn’t notice. I’ve gone from painting every single day to wanting to paint, but feeling like if I do I am neglecting my kids. So I make plans with them and we do things and have fun, since it is summer vacation. I’m venturing into photography more than I thought I would be, which I am really enjoying. It feels like a very natural thing for me to do, and doesn’t even make me feel guilty! (You guys aren’t used to that though huh? You miss my painting updates, I can tell.)

I could take the whole summer off, and thinking about that makes me envision my whole painting career being slowly gulped down by a huge toilet. I’m at a bit of a crossroads, wishing there was enough time in the day to do it all, to be everything I want to be (when I grow up), and being realistic. It seems like every day I wake up and have a plan, and by 10AM I’ve changed it a thousand times over!

I hate when that happens.

So I’m trying to chill out a bit. To just go with the flow, not worry about things, not stress that I haven’t painted so much lately. Not stress when the girls are off playing “Let’s make paper shoes” for a few hours, because they really are having a good time. Not worry that since it’s been a week, I’ve probably completely forgotten how to paint.

See? (Care you’re right!) It seems my head likes to make stuff up to worry about. I’ve been working on that. Just breathe deeply, eat right, and enjoy every moment with whatever it brings.

Mark and I are going to do some business brainstorming tonight though. It’s going to be an interesting evening, and hopefully a very productive one. 🙂

HEY, do you wanna help? Name THREE reasons why you come to my blog/gallery. (I hope you can come up with three?) Conversely, you can also name any reasons why you wouldn’t come back daily. (I’m okay with constructive criticism!)

That would be super helpful in deciding what changes I need to make. THANKS!

I can’t remember the species of this lil chimp, but boy was he something special. We walked over to their cage and when he saw us he came over to us right next to his cage and sat down. He seemed to be relating to the Chickeymonkey, she was in her stroller and her hands were tucked into her coat pockets. He tucked his legs up under his chin and wrapped his arms around them, interlocking his fingers in the front of his knees.

He looked so sad, but I don’t know if he was sad because Jay looked sad (freezing), or if he was sad because of what I am seeing here in the reflection of his eye. The full pic of this is really nice and good enough to paint from, but the middle of his face is blackened out by his cage so I cropped it up to his eye.

I forgot to tell you the story of Jax Beach Dude! For shame!

Mark had taken the girls for a stroll along the beach as I was finishing up my goofy sand sculpture, so I grabbed my camera and headed down to catch up with them and take some pics. Me, in my modest one-piece suit, strolling along the beach with my camera. No big deal right? Well Beach Dude ran up behind me and asked me to take his picture in the ocean. Uh, okay. He says “You’re so beautiful, take my picture swimming in the ocean!” I said “Sure, but how will I get your picture to you??” He said “Oh you keep it, you are so lovely! You keep it!” So off he went, into the ocean. Feeling a little awkward, I pick up a shell and holler for Caitlin as he’s on his way into the water. So he’s out there, falling in, getting up, splashing and posing. And here he is for your enjoyment, Beach Dude.

When he came back to the shore, he asked Caitlin her name, told her she was beautiful too, and kissed her hand. I hope the sea salt washed away the cooties? LOL (kidding!) He was a nice guy. Coulda been my sugar daddy I guess, Mark asked why I didn’t run away with him. I said he had too much chest hair (it musta moved down there from his head).

heh!

I was going to recap our vacation in long form, but you guys don’t wanna hear all that do you? Oh man, yes you do.

Well, lemme see here. I have about 20 minutes to get ready to go, I have to drive 80 miles today to go get a live catfish so I have a model for this project. I’m going to get that done pronto so I can get pics of this slimy wierd lookin’ thing and show you – then I promise I will sit down and recap everything!

I took 1200 photos and just finished transferring them over to my hard drive a little while ago. I’ve still got to sort thru and pick more to share with ya, so I need a good couple of hours to write!

I will be back later today!

This past week has been awesome, having my hubby home has really calmed my nerves as you can imagine!

The only bad part is that my fall last Saturday on my way out the door gave me whiplash. I’ve had a headache every day, and have seen the chiro twice this week. I really did a number on my head! Scar under my chin, put a nice hole inside my bottom lip, yadda yadda. What a mess! It’ll be one of those days I never forget though, huh? LOL

He missed last Easter, so this morning was really special. I don’t know about you, but our Easter Bunny leaves pawprints all over the house. He’s a crazy little bunny, the girls can’t figure out how he can climb on them while they’re sleeping and not wake them up, leaving pawprints on their foreheads and hands. hehe! He even played the piano while he was here!

HAPPY EASTER!!

XOXOXO
Leanne & Family

We’ve been coding, downloading, shopping, and burning the last couple of days. We downloaded several full CD’s from Walmart.com and I’m burning them now for our roadtrip. Gotta share the tunes, you know? So here’s what we have:

CELTIC WOMAN / CELTIC WOMAN
FIVE FOR FIGHTING / THE BATTLE FOR EVERYTHING
MERCY ME / ALMOST THERE
MICHAEL BUBLE / IT’S TIME
NORAH JONES / FEELS LIKE HOME
RASCAL FLATTS / FEELS LIKE TODAY
RASCAL FLATTS / MELT
RASCAL FLATTS / RASCAL FLATTS
RYAN CABRERA / TAKE IT ALL AWAY

We downloaded a CD’s worth of individual songs, too, but they’re already lost in my media library. LOL!

Back to the burn… I will have more news a little later on today, I promise I won’t leave you all hangin’ with nothing to do while we’re away!

Sexaaayyyy man, look at those eyes. Mmmm!! I’m playing with my new camera now. 🙂

I’ll keep updating with more new camera pics & put them behind the “read more” tag!

I needed to put in this entry to say Thank you to all. I would list all the names of those that helped and supported myself and my family for the last 18 months but the list would be long and I am sure I would screw up a name or two and forget about a dozen people.

In the last year and half the support that we have recieved from each and every one of you has been a blessing. There is no way we would have made it to know with out a circle of friends like we have found here.
Some of you we will be seeing in the next couple of weeks and we will thank you in person.

It was a time for me at least that I learned that life can be taken away very quickly. I learned a lesson on the power of love and prayer. At any given time the prayers and love that each of you have given to us keep me alive and my family safe.

The power of the art world and blogs helped me stay up to date on everything going on at home plus the opinions of those around the world.

I have babbled enough.

To each of you, Thank you, Thank You, Thank you.

We love each and every one of you.

Keep blessing the world with your art!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark