YAY! I’ve done it! One of my photos has been published in a digital travel guide called Schmap. My photo has been featured on the marker for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Even though my picture is one of many on the Balloon Fiesta marker it is really cool that mine was selected. The picture of mine that got featured is the one of the turtle with his hat on backwards. Schmap is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch too so it is available on the go, online or on your computer. Go check it out! This is so exciting for me. Thanks to the people at Schmap for selecting my photo.

I was invited to submit my photos to a great website. If you live in Colorado, have ever lived in Colorado, or just came to visit and have great photos of your stay here, you should submit them to it too. It is called Capture My Colorado. It is being run by Colorado Mountain News Media and they are looking for the best photos of Colorado to be put in a full-color, hard-bound, coffee-table book and companion DVD. Each photo in the book will be voted in by visitors and contributors to the website, not by the people putting the book together. The photos with the most votes by September 26, 2008 will be in the book.

I have submitted some photos and would really appreciate if you would look at them and vote. I am soooo excited at the idea that I might get a photo or two or three published. Everyone who submits a photo is eligible for some great prizes, and a discount on the book. Also, everyone who submits at least one photo gets their photo on the DVD. Registration, voting, and submission are all free and if you are a Flickr member you can easily transfer your photos to them. Check out their website. Most the photos on there are beautiful. It’s hard to decide who goes and who stays. Help shape the Capture My Colorado book and help me get my photos published today.

On Friday night, June 27th at 7pm I participated in the Central Colorado Springs Relay for Life. It is a fun event that takes place for 12 hours. They say “Cancer never sleeps and for 12 hours, neither will we” so we walk from 7pm to 7am as a team in order to celebrate survivors and remember those lost to cancer. I ended up walking 22.5 miles for the night around the track at The Grace Center and raised $200 for Zach’s Team and for cancer awareness and support.

The weather was wonderful and as the opening ceremonies got underway we thought we might see lots of rain. Instead, we had a few sprinkles for about 10 minutes or so and lots of rainBOWS.  It was soooo cool.  Read (more…)

I was searching last night through some of my groups on Flickr and discovered that there were tools to use to find out if your photo was ever on Explore. When I checked these tools, I found out in November one of my favorite photos ended up there. I was so amazed and happy. It doesn’t seemed to have stayed there long but oh well, it was there just the same. According to Scout, it was listed as 111 on November 20, 2007.

Pretty cool. I’m hoping to find that more of my photos were there someday but for now . . . I’m happy with just one photo on there. Thank you to all my Flickr friends for your support and kind words about my photos.

YAY! I’m finally posting another adventure of my friend the squirrel. I have been having so much fun watching them (yes, I said them. More to come on that later). I have taken tons of photos and a few videos, so many that I’m having a hard time deciding which ones to share with everyone. But, for now, here is how this adventure unfolded.

When I last left my friend, he was peeping in my window and begging for me to feed him more almonds. He has been coming to my window almost daily so I’ve been tossing out a few almonds and then waiting. On this particular day though, I had opened the window and tossed out some treats without seeing my friend in the window. I hadn’t seen him yet and just thought I would leave them for him to find later. The adventure continues . . . (more…)

John Michael performed in a Solo/Ensemble contest on March 8thand he won an Outstanding awardin a duet with his friend Jacob. I wasn’t able to be at the performance but I was at his spring concert when he received his medal. I am so proud of him and all the kids who performed. There were no awards below Superior given out to Keller kids and there were 10 Outstanding awards. The kids all did excellent. I wish I could have been there to watch John Michael perform. Here is a photo of his award.   We can’t wait to see how much he grows next year at Russell Middle School.  I’m sure he will be playing full pieces of music very soon.  Great job honey and good luck next year.

I got an email today from a friend and was touched by the poem inside. It reminded me just how much our children watch what we do and learn from us everyday. With Mother’s Day approaching, I decided to share the poem with you although before I posted it I wanted to find out who to credit the poem to. After a little research I found out it was originally written by Mary Rita Schilke Korzan in 1980. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there! Make sure to hug your babies everyday and tell them how much you love them. Click to read (more…)

Sorry I haven’t been in to post another squirrel story for everyone to enjoy but my internet has been buggy. I have Verizon Wireless broadband with a very testy USB modem. After one replacement and MANY hours on the phone with customer service they agreed to send me a DIFFERENT model of USB modem. They are sending it via FedEx to me and it can’t get here fast enough. I’m hoping it will arrive tomorrow so I will have it for the weekend. (more…)