Visit To Arizona in March

My trip started with a pom pom fight. All the girls (including the dog) got into it, Grandma, Alexandra, Stacy and Me.
Then In and Out burger for a yummy dinner.











The next day was Alexandra's First Holy Communion. She really has a heart full of God's love. She was so excited to celebrate this special day!












She may have a few stuffed animals, just a few...









We took a couple of nature hikes, one up in Catalina State Park, where we saw this prickly pear cactus growing ON a tree! I've never seen something like that before. ON a tree. Nature has its ways I guess...







Then, on the last day of my trip we were able to find a geocache! It was my mom's and Alexandra's first geocache find. They were pretty happy to finally find one. We had been looking the whole weekend. One had been 'muggled' and another we were on the wrong path and running out of daylight. Another, one of the clues said to watch out for a healthy rattlesnake guarding the cache, so I decided to skip that one... We finally found this little microcache. Success! Now Alexandra and her mom and dad have been geocaching a few times and have had good success. YEAH!!

Such a fun little trip, so sad to leave though. I miss them all very much but was thrilled to spend the time with them. It went by so quickly!

WJIE Sweetheart Dinner

So I have this group of friends, and for whatever reason (something to do with Fried Green Tomatoes, the movie) we call ourselves the Bees. This is my lovely group of BeeFriends, all great women. We and our husbands went to a little dinner concert with Aaron Hurst and Sidewalk Prophets. The food was delicious, the music was great, and the company was the best!
Most of us met in church and we all meet often and share our love of Christ and our lives and faith with each other. What more could you ask for?

Christmas in Chicago

We had a great trip visiting my family in Chicago this year. We got a white Christmas- my niece Alexandra couldn't have been happier about that. Multiple times a day she was ready to go out and play in the snow- her specialty- snowball fights.
Got some great cuddle time with my niece, Ainsley too! It was a great little trip but as usual, not long enough.

Thanksgiving 2010

My Dad and his wife, Linda, were able to come out for Thanksgiving this year. It was a great weekend. We went to Lynn's Paradise Cafe and to the Woodford Reserve Distillery. They have delicious bourbon balls. YUM! As you can see- we had a great time.



My friend, Guen, who I have known since high school, joined us for a bit of dinner, wine and chocolate pecan pie (yum!). It was great catching up again.

Welcome Baby Ainsley Helen!

Early in September we drove up to Chicago to welcome my new niece to the world. Ainsley Helen was born Sept. 3rd. She is so very, very precious! Look at all that hair! :) What a blessing!

Thank you cards gift

My brother and his wife are expecting their first child soon. Very soon. I made them some cards to use for their thank you's. I used a few different colors to create some different looks.

For cardstock and inks I went with Certainly Celery, Marina Mist, Pretty in Pink, Chocolate Chip and So Saffron. The stamp set Baby Bundle worked out perfectly for this. I used some of the Nursery Suite Quick Accents and I loved the way they fit with the Baby Bundle set.




The last one is a bit blurry, but I had to add it because I like the little dangles I hung off the bar. I stamped both sides, did a little watercoloring and punched them out.

Card for Pastor Pam

Pastor Pam has been an intern at our church this past year. She gave me some great insight this past year. She has also become an unexpected friend!
I made her this simple little card with Cameo Coral and Ruby Red inks and Whisper White and Cameo Coral cardstocks. I used retired stamp sets: God's Blessings, Refuge and Strength, and Sincere Salutations. I used the large 1 3/8" square punch to cut my initial window then I just used my paper cutter to enlarge it to a triangle. No time for embellishments on this card!
Thanks for looking!

Updates

I've had quite a bit of changes in the last few months. I was in a car accident back in June (note rear axle), I am in the middle of changing jobs and recently attended my brother's wedding in Chicago.


Having supportive friends are so important in life. They can really help you through some tough things. I am very grateful for all of my great friends far and near. All their prayers have certainly carried me through much of this. When I started asking for people to pray for me I really felt much calmer and less worried and stressed out within days. Definitely more peaceful. (Here are only a few of my great supportive friends.)

I start my new job next week and I am really looking forward to doing different things.

This past week was great, spending time with family and friends. Of course it went by too fast but it was great to officially welcome Jade into our family.

She was a beautiful bride and her family was wonderful.

Scott's Victory Speech (April 2007)

It's been well over a year since this all took place but once I was on YouTube I did a search to watch some of the old videos they had for the campaign and found this. It's not very often you can put your whole family in the same room much less on the same stage/ledge when you have as many as us all over the place.
I was so proud of my family for this and especially of Scott.

Scott's Swearing In

I went back to Chicago one more time, to see Scott's Inaguration ceremony. It was a whole lot LESS work this time!
Whew!

Nice pin. It's official, YEAH! It was a long day regardless. I was glad I was able to make it out one more time for this. It was a quick trip, I left Saturday afternoon and came back Monday night, the inaguration was Monday at 10:30 and lasted 2 hours. I met a really nice person on the plane trip back, that always helps! While I was gone my husband got food poisoning and was sick the whole time. Poor guy!
Well, it's late and I'll have to post again later more on my card creations.

ALDERMAN WAGUESPACK

HE DID IT!
With a margin of 122 votes my brother Scott Waguespack beat incumbent Ted Matlak for Alderman of Chicago!!
What's an alderman? Lots of people ask that- I did too. Basically, city council. Chicago has 50 wards and an alderman for each ward.
Matlak's people were going door to door to get people out to vote, who knows what else... The last election they were going to nursing homes and escorting voters to the polls with the false promise of donuts.

I had my own experiences with Matlak's "goombas". On election day, I saw a neighbor of my brothers' (my three brothers have lived in the same building for many years now in Chicago). The neighbor is around 80-90 years old, he knew my grandparents, and I went over to say hi, when I returned to the street corner I was on, the goomba says "is that your poster child?"
I got a tad angry and said, "YEAH! why not?? why shouldn't he be??!!!"

I had another man by the name of Mike tell me that he bet my brother Scott didn't live in the ward (let's just asume for the sake of stupidity that the Chicago Board of Elections knows more than this Mike and my brother really is a resident of the ward- Matlak says otherwise) and that Scott never coached him (Mike) in little league. (Scott had previously coached little league in Chicago) I replied, "well, you are a little old for little league, in fact, you look to be older than my brother..."
His reply: "A loser can't coach a winner." All I can say is:
Mike. You are an idiot AND a loser. Ok. That's as 'nippy' as I'll get.

Even with all the election day jerks, it was still amazing!
I am so proud of my brothers. They don't always see eye to eye on everything but they supported each other in this and got the job done!

This picture was taken after midnight, so you can't laugh at what we look like, my husband and I had been outside a polling precinct since 6:30am and then showed up at the office at 7pm. Who knows what kind of sleep Scott and his girlfriend, Jade got (none?).

So, that's some of what I've been doing. I spent time in my yard and garden this weekend. Pulling weeds, planting flowers and seeds and repotting my indoor plants. I have alot of dirt under my nails and my hands are all cut up- I hate to wear gloves and I spent a little time with my rose bush. I love the spring and all the planting!
Fun stuff!



Good night!

Latest from Fox News - Scott's campaign

AAHHHHHHHH
yah that's JUST a coincidence. hmmm
I tried to show the video here, if you can't see it click here

Things are heating up- it's a "red hot" race!

Click here to see the piece CBS did with the latest on Scott's race for Alderman (City Council). I love it - at the end they say Daley and other Aldermans are puring in money and manpower to help Matlak.
That's because they know how serious it is - Scott can win this!
Matlak has spread an amazing amount of lies. Most of it has been confirmed that they are lies by the media but that doesn't stop him from spreading them. If you live in the 32nd ward: Vote on the 17th! Don't vote for the machine!

Update on Tracy

I don't have much just that Tracy is not doing as well these days. They think the cancer has moved to her brain as she is having difficulty with coherency. They've also increased her pain medicine to help her get around.
When we visited them she seemed to be doing very well- as well as you could hope for. There were hundre$s of people at the fundraiser so it seemed to be a success. She got up and spoke to everyone and to her children, knowing it would be video taped. Then she asked Eric to renew their vows. EVERYONE was in tears. They ended with a dance to Anne Murraye27s "Time Don't Run Out On Me". It makes you just want to hold on to your loved ones and never let go.
Thanks again for all your prayers.

sad news

Our friend Tracy's cancer returned in November, it's now in her bones. Her doctors gave her 6-12 months to live. She is a young mother of two little children. She is in the hospital in extreme pain and the doctors are trying to find the right combination of pain medication to help her and relieve some of her pain. Nothing they are giving her now is working. We're so worried for her and her husband and children. We'll be going to visit them next weekend for a fundraiser benefit and to spend a little time with them.

Scott Waguespack for Chicago

My brother is running for alderman of the 32nd Ward in Chicago. (They vote in February.) He is such a hard worker, he puts in ALOT of hours with anything he does. I can't imagine him not beating the guy he is running against- he sounds like such a jerk who has no concern for the residents or neighborhood. Check out my brother's website here: ScottforChicago.com

There have been a few news articles written about him and the race. You can link to them from his website. My favorite is one where they refer to him as "The Sleeping Tiger"!