Cold Shock !!

Florida's been experiencing a cold front since last Thursday, and temperatures dropped to below freezing yesterday night ! We were totally happy in our warm jackets and loving the cold, but some others are not so lucky.

With just their shells for warmth, these sea turtles have been "cold shock-ed" - as hundreds made their way to more inland waters for warmth. Akin to symptoms of pneumonia and hypothermia that we humans could encounter, the volunteers at the Loggerhead MarineLife Center have been totally overwhelmed, rescuing and nursing these animals back to health. 

Check out this cutie ...

his name is Dasher and was picked up on Christmas Eve. He had lascerations (possibly by a shark) on its lower shell and needed surgery

Some 500 sea turtles have been stranded by the cold spell and the Florida authorities are coping as best they can. 31 sea turtles now occupy the tanks of Loggerhead MarineLife Center, when previously they have on average 7-8 patients. We visited them today and were just inspired at the civic consciousness and social responsibility of these wonderful volunteers. My hope is that the girls will take this spirit with them as they grow and be active agents, bettering their environment around them.

Welcome 2010 !!

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone !!

We've been on the road travelling all the way from sunny Florida up to snowy Niagara Falls over the past 2 weeks ! It's been great ! Miss my comp time and all my virtual friends :)  Promise will share pix soon.

But first, our warmest wishes to everyone for a fulfilling year ahead, where you go after all your hearts' desires !!  And along that line, here's a layout on about lil' Faye who's simply blossomed the past year, who a tenacity and spunk that's totally refreshing :)

Ahhhh... what fun !

Put together a load of beautiful pix from our recent trip, fresh bling from the recent scrapbook expo in Tampa, and gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous kits from Blue Moon Scrapbooking - what do you get ?   PLAYTIME with beautiful outputs to boot !

My first try at a 6x12inch LO - and i think i am hooked :) 

some close ups ...

Then i copped out (heh!!) cos it opens into a more conventional 12X12 layout

of my 2 fav shots of the girls from Colorado ..

used some tissue paper here... and lots of Websters pages :) 

Think i went overboard with the bling and sparkles and the insects
but oh well, think i'm allowed !

thanks for dropping by !

Apron Strings Dec 09

Yeah !! It's the holiday season :)  

My first Christmas other than sweltering 30 degree Celcius heat, so I've been lapping up the holiday deals and stocking up on the gorgeous sweaters for the kids and me !

And it's sooo great to be scrapping again after the break down in Colorado. Here are some LOs done for Apron Strings Designs. Sadly, this will be my last month with them after a fabulous year. Thanks LORI, for everything *muack !!*

More scrappy goodness coming up !

Rocky Mountain High

Solitude and serenity can be exhilarating.  This past week we stomped through snow; counted stars in the sky - so numerous that i've never seen before and simply marveled and gave thanks for this beautiful world we live in.  

For now, THIS is home - a 2-storey cabin with the smell of pine trees and meadows and the sounds of squirrels and birds that envelop us.  Our hosts are just wonderful in attending to every small detail and making sure we are comfortable :)

So what have we been up to ??

(1)    We hiked - up Indian Mountain  amid threats ... 

and crisp thin air which left the girls breathless and hardly smiling....

yet with still enough in them to make snow angels...

and pose for me :)

In single digit temperatures (celcius),  i must say the girls did pretty well and we managed till here... not quite the summit before

they expired on us.... check out the small one - she could barely move !

Oh yes, and their spanking newly acquired boots ...

(2)   We sled.   Thanks to Gary and David - they really made the girls' holiday :)

and played with snow ...

(3)    We explored.

The girls are on a quest to collect as many Junior Ranger badges as they can. Here at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Park, the girls took a pledge to protect what they've seen  -  some 60,000 species of plant and animal life that lived some 35 million years ago have been collected by Paleontologists for museums and universities around the world. These fossils reveal, in remarkable detail, what life 35 million years ago was like, as they became trapped, after a nearby volcano erupted, and buried in the sedimentary rock and shale that subsequently formed.

The Royal Gorge - the doing of the Arkansas River as it dug this vertical hole more than 1,000 ft deep.    And there we were, bravely (or foolishly) taking the air-tramway across the Gorge.

Scenic Drives like this one on the Continental Divide

The meadows and forests at the backyard of our vacation home...

and the vistas coming home. We take this same route to and from our sojourns almost every day. Yet this same view still captures my breath each time with a renewed sense of wonder.

(4)  Most of all,   we laughed.  We connected. We marveled.  

Here's leaving you with some random shots of the girls that tug my heart :)   Thanks for dropping by !

 

All systems are GO...... blast off !

Fancy being that minute percentage to have caught a Space SHUTTLE launch  "LIVE"   !!

Certainly a privilege and humbling experience as we continued our space learning mission from a week before when we visited NASA -  to witnessing this momentous event :)    

We watched the launch of space shuttle Atlantis in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Monday, Nov. 16, 2009, 2.28pm across at Titusville from Launch Pad 39A. Atlantis and its six-member crew are on a 11-day mission to the International Space Station, transporting spare hardware to the outpost and returning with a station crew member who spent more than two months in space.  There will only be 6 more space shuttle launches, and this is the first of which to deliver critical spare equipment parts to the International Space Station. As such, the Atlantis crew is carrying the largest and the most critical on this mission.

 

Even at such a distance across the lagoon at Titusville from the launch pad, we could hear the thunderous roar and the smell of burning fuel, which followed what our eyes saw as the rockets blasted off just split seconds before. The girls stood transfixed and spell-bound.  The park, peppered with cameras on tripods, deck chairs and seniors peering through binocs, ruptured with applause

Being at NASA the week before touring the exhibits and watching the various shows provided us with a deeper appreciation and understanding of the multitude of factors that needed to go right, for a successful launch. This was how close we got to the launch pad on our " Up-Close" tour. And seeing the preparations for launch just drove home how real (and dangerous) space exploration was, and made the launch all the more poignant for us.