I love Blurb Books

I really love Blurb books. They are pretty and nice and so easy to make. I've made 4 books...I think. Well, I made 3 different versions of a 2012 book (changed out a few pictures based on who the book was for). I made my December Daily album for 2012 as a Blurb book, and I'm planning to do the same this year. I also just finished, but haven't ordered yet, a book about our Family Vacation to Colorado this summer. Here are a few of my favorite pages:



The front & back cover (well, the back & front cover). I love these two pictures. I have no clue where in Kansas we were what I got that one of the sun, but it is beautiful. The front cover was our view off one of the decks of the "cabin" we stayed at near Black Hawk, CO.



We spent the first few days in Colorado Springs. We were VERY busy for those few days - Garden of the Gods, Royal Gorge Railroad, driving up Pike's Peak, and visiting the North Pole theme park. Lots of fun.



Once we got to Black Hawk we slowed down...a lot. I realized after I did the screen shot here that I put Blackhawk instead of Black Hawk, so I'll need to fix that before I order. Claire got sick on the way to Black Hawk so I ended up spending a lot of time dealing with that, including an hour+ drive to Lakewood to the ER - you know you aren't having a good vacation until you have to go to the ER! My brother had also brought a very lovely cold with us to Colorado, which after spending 2 days with 8 people in 2 hotel rooms or cars, we had all managed to share in his misery.



Obligatory visit to Rocky Mountain National Park! We did just a little hiking, not much because of the sick preschooler and the not much better pregnant lady (I was about 2.5 months pregnant at the time). Also, pregnant + twisty curvy roads + worrying about a throwing up child = LOTS of fun! We actually did have fun, I just like to complain. And isn't that waterfall/cascade thingy pretty!



Once Claire got to feeling better, we spent a day in Denver. We went to the Denver Aquarium which was pretty nice. Then most of the family went to Chipotle for lunch while Claire, Grandma & I went to the Denver Children's Museum which Claire thought was the most amazing thing EVER and would have seriously stayed there all day long if we would've let her! Later that day, we were all sitting around the cabin bored (probably watching HGTV), the closest park with hiking trails was Golden Canyon State Park, so I convinced everyone to load into my Dad's truck and we made the short drive to the trailhead and hiked part of the way up a hill before admitting defeat (for the sickly ones) and walking back down.

I may go back and make more pages. This one is actually 20 pages long right now, I just didn't share all of the pages. But I know there are other good pictures of some of these events that I might want to include. Particularly since this is pretty much the only way any of the 508 pictures that I took are actually being printed! Well, I suppose my mom & my sister-in-law might print some of them for their own projects, but still 508 pictures taken and only 52 are actually being used. Good thing I didn't waste any film! :)

* I have no affiliation with Blurb books (although if they want to, you know, that would be cool!), I just really like their books.

Recipe: Gingersnaps

On Saturday, my sister-in-law made Gingersnaps. I didn't know it at the time, my brother told us about it on Sunday but didn't bring us any to share! So I went home and made my own batch of Gingersnaps later than evening. (And then my mom made Gingersnaps on Monday).

Since I don't particularly have a Gingersnap recipe, I searched online and found Smitten Kitchen's recipe. Since her stuff is always delicious, I decided to just use it instead of searching anymore.



I baked my cookies for about 11-12 minutes and they were just right. A little crisp on the edges but nice and chewy in the middle. Justin thought they were too crisp (he likes gooey almost under-baked cookies). I thought they were great. However, my tongue started getting tingly after having a few. Not sure if it was because of the white pepper or the fancy (expensive) ground ginger that I used. My mom didn't use white pepper in hers because she didn't have any and her's weren't quite as spicy. But she also used a different brand of ground ginger. So who knows.

I was playing with my cookies and different ways to take pictures of them and ended up with them all piled up and framed it so the stack would be on the far right of the picture...then I did this in photoshop:



Kind of fun. I think this would be fun with a recipe you are particularly known for to include in a scrapbook. Or to just use as a recipe card - print as a 6x4 and you have a pretty & functional recipe card. I just stacked them on a cloth napkin on my counter and then balanced a piece of white foam board against the cabinets behind it.

Train Pics

Today's my dad's birthday...so I'm writing about Trains and pictures of Trains. My dad has a bit of an obsession with Trains. There's this website that he likes to look at to look at pictures of trains. And at one point in his life he used to go take pictures of trains with a with real camera - back in the days before digital - and then develop the pictures in his darkroom in the basement. He had pretty much stopped taking pictures when I was a kid and then got interested again after he retired. I'm not sure if I would have my fabulous DSLR if my dad hadn't gotten one first. In fact, mine is just a newer version of the same one he has.

Anyways, there was a point to this before I started rambling. A few weeks ago, my dad was lamenting the fact that he couldn't find any good trains to take pictures of because we don't have nice scenic places to take pictures (like the ones in Colorado with the mountains in the background, or the ones in western Kansas where there's just flat fields all around, etc, etc, etc). And you have to really know the train schedules or have a scanner otherwise the chances of finding a train in the few scenic type places and being in position to take a picture are slim.

Last Saturday, Claire and I were on our way back from the mall and we drove past this little park with a little pond and I noticed a train, just sitting there. Trains that aren't moving are much easier to take pictures of, particularly when you have a toddler in the car so you can drive around a bit trying to get as close as possible without leaving the car. Unfortunately, since my original plan was just a trip to the mall, my (dad's) telephoto lens was sitting at home on my desk. Which means I was still pretty far away. If I'd been willing to get Claire out of the car, I could've walked around the pond to the otherside right by the train and gotten some good pictures. But it was almost lunch time.

Here's the picture...for my dad - and since my dad doesn't look at my blog, hopefully my mom will show it to him.