A snapshot of my life

Whew!  It was a busy weekend around here with the Balloon Rally, Rib Fest, and Chalkfest.  Saturday afternoon, I went back to the airport to check out some of the BBQ that was being served up since the lines were way too long Friday night.  I decided on a place called “My Happy Place” since they had a lunch special…a pulled pork sandwich with beans and slaw.  I thought the pulled pork was very good, but didn’t care for their sauces much.  Next year I will have to try one of the other places in the cook-off. While at the airport I checked out the kite flying going on…so many kites!!  There weren’t many people there so it was fun just to walk around and see everything that I couldn’t see Friday night.

Just some of the kites flying high on Saturday.

Saturday night I went back down to the airport to check out night 2 of the Balloon Glow and fireworks.  Luckily the breeze had died down enough throughout the evening that they could do the full glow…almost 20 hot air balloons, including the Energizer Bunny balloon…the largest balloon in the world!!  It was amazing.

The Energizer balloon...you can't tell but there is a full balloon behind it that is completely covered!

After the glow, there was an awesome fireworks show.  Before the fireworks started, a friend went to go in search of some food for her family and came back with the report that all 4 of the BBQ places at Rib Fest ran out of food (they were scheduled to go through Sunday, but had to close up shop early) and the other few places (local groups with food carts) had lines hundreds deep.  I’m glad I went in the afternoon to check out the ribs.

Sunday afternoon, Andrew and I went downtown to check out Chalkfest.  It’s amazing to see some of the creations people made out of chalk!  Andrew even got a chance to make a small drawing for the Children’s Mural.

In this class, we learned how to desaturate the colors on a picture and then hand-tint some color back in.  This was a lot of fun!  Here is my before picture:

and my after:

This is a picture I took yesterday at the airport.  Part of the balloon rally were airplane rides (at a cost) in this (and other) bi-plane airplanes.

Last night Andrew and I joined some friends at the airport downtown for the Balloon Rally and Glow.  For a while, it didn’t look like the weather was going to cooperate so the balloons could inflate and glow, but they did decide since it was borderline too windy, to inflate 2 balloons…YEAH!

Andrew and his friend Trevor with their Kettle Corn waiting for the balloons to glow

Self-explanatory

The balloons glowing

Since I’m playing catch up this sunny Saturday morning, I thought I would post an update and some pictures from our weekend at the cabin.

Andrew and I had a great time!  We left the farm after lunch (from Panther Drive-In…YUMMY!!) and got up to the cabin around 3/3:30.  Andrew went right in and put on his swimming trunks and it was down to the lake.  We all had fun splashing and playing and even had a bonfire before bed.  We celebrated the “Cousin’s Birthday Party”  around the fire and opened gifts.

Andrew with his new fishing pole from Uncle Tim

Saturday morning, Andrew was awake way, way too early, but he had fun playing DS while letting me catcha few more zzz’s.  After another fun day of playing in the lake, we enjoyed fireworks before heading to bed.

One of Andrew's favorite things...the kid jet ski

A look at the "beach"

All the Grandkids

Sunday it was a little bit more playing, but mainly just cleaning up and packing up and heading for home.  Andrew did get in a bit of fishing with Grandpa while I was helping get stuff together/clean up some.  He claims the fish he caught were “too small to eat, too big for bait”.

Yup…I’m not really behind in my photo editing class…that’s ok though, I will continue to work at my own pace and enjoy myself.

In the second day of class, we learned how to use the brush tool to add a stamping effect onto photos.  Here is the picture I did, with my adorable niece Kaylee…

I’m taking a free class at JessicaSprague.com called Photo Editing – Frame Ups and Special Effects.  I’m a day behind right now (it started yesterday and I just now completed day 1), but that is OK.    So far, so good.  Here is a photo I took of my nephew Evan at the cabin with a frame and word art added.

I’ll try to blog tomorrow with an update from our weekend at the cabin with family.

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy 4th.  Andrew and I are currently at my parent’s house hanging out.  Andrew is looking forward to riding with Grandpa in the tractor this afternoon while Grandma and I go shopping…he HATES shopping!

Tomorrow we leave for the cabin.  I can’t wait to lounge around the lake and see my sisters and their families.  We should all have fun!

Have a great weekend!

Sorry, I’m late getting this updated…last week the Wisconsin Scrappers blog’s card sketch challenge was posted.  Here is the sketch:

Here is my card:

Every year, there is a summer kick-off celebration in downtown Wausau.  Local bands play, food is sold, and at dusk a movie is shown.  Andrew loves to pack a picnic and go check everything out.  This year the movie was Shrek.  The movie started at about 9 pm, so Andrew only wanted to stay for about a half an hour before he was too tired and wanted to head home.  Here are some pics:

Dancing to the music

Close up of him dancing.

Testing out the projector/movie screen

Watching the movie start

Andrew’s last day of school was June 9th.  He was sooo excited for Summer vacation to begin.  As a result, it was a bit difficult to get some pictures, and the bus was early (I think the bus driver was ready for vacation too!!), so he had to run down to the bus.