we're not hiking people, BUT....

We've had the typical busy week so far. I'm posting this kinda early since we'll be out of town all weekend visiting friends out in the Kansas City area. I haven't seen them in over a year, and it seems like they all had babies, so I'm psyched to see my friends and meet all these new little ones too!

Sunday, Karl completely shocked the bejeezes out of me by suggesting we take the kids hiking. Uhm. Everybody knows how athletic we are....knows that we don't hike. The most hiking we've done is the steps leading up to the nearest restaurant, kwim? I agreed, thinking he'd back out later on. Since around THIS house....Sunday afternoons consist of one thing and one thing only: naps! BUT, to my ultimate shock, after the naps, Karl and the kids were ready to go on their hike, so off we went to the state park that's right down the road.

It's really a shame we're (okay, it's mostly ME) not outdoorsy people, because Pere Marquette really is a beautiful place. I took along the camera (duh, when DON'T I have this thing around my neck?) and got LOTS of nature shots.....I told Karl we'd have to go back once the leaves start to change colors....that'll make some pretty pics too. We took the easy trail, hiking up onto the cliffs. And when we finally did make it to the top, we had a beautiful view of the 3 rivers. This is the area of the state where the Illinois, the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers all come together. It's pretty cool really.....I never get tired of taking pictures of it. Then we started the long walk back down....got to our car and went to the park's lodge restaurant for dinner. Where we promptly consumed probably twice the calories we expended on the hike. Figures! But it was a fun time and we vowed to do it again....

And of course it's already scrapped because I'm wierd that way:

I finally got around to scrapping our pictures from the Fall Fun Fest over a week ago that we went to in Fairfield....I already posted the pictures, but here's the actual layout:

The latest round of 'telephone' is over at SM, and this was my entry from our UK trip:

Monday, on our way home from picking the kids up, Matthew decides that he's going to ride his bike without training wheels. Okay by us! PLUS, he didn't want ANY help from anybody.....so after he fell over a couple times he eventually got the hang of getting himself started, and he was off on his own! This was so much less dramatic than the ordeal with Alaina, I'm still in shock! He did this so easily! Go Matthew! What a big kid he is now! YAY!

and of course that's already scrapped......this was my entry for the speed scrap on Tuesday night. I stay up late for these things, that's how addicted I am.

And of course my blessing for the week. This is a layout I did for Vicki's CT with her new kit, "Wild Child" that's on her blog right now for download. I consider Telecommuting a blessing, because in all honesty, it really helps me get through the week knowing that on Thursday and Friday I can sleep in just a little bit later....I don't have to make the commute (I never do the driving, but just not having to go at all is nice!), and sit in a semi-smelly, boring ol' cube.....the kids love not having to ride the bus....and of course the dress code at home is way more fun! So that's my blessing for this week: telecommuting. At Scrap Matters, they have a gallery for "a day in the life" for everyone to scrap a day of your life......so my telecommuting page is kind of a twist on that idea.......and it's a blessing too.

And for my travel page this week....Paris! I'll probably end up redoing this at some point to take into account all the OTHER stuff I saw and did in Paris vs. just this one thing.......but I did this page as an entry for this week's template challenge at Scrap Matters, so I was trying to kill two birds with one stone, kwim? :D Since I"m going to be gone all weekend, I wanted to make sure I got it done, and using a template made it pretty quick and easy. Paris was a great trip....I hope I can get back there some day...there was so much we didn't get to see, although we crammed about as much as possible into the few short days we were there!

so that's it for now.....have a great weekend!