My Birthday Weekend at Virgina Beach!

Brace yourself. I look like a complete doofus in the following photo. Then again, I think that was the point:

(Ugh, my hair looks like stupid cocker spaniel ears. No offense to cocker spaniels. Our first family dog when I lived with my dad was a cocker who rocked the house.) It's going a little back in time, but I want to post a few pics from our fabulous weekend in Virginia Beach at a cropping weekend that just happened to fall on my birthday! Since I had just been to one a few weeks before with my super great friend, rescue cohort, and scrapping travelling companion, Kay, I really didn't expect to get to go to another so soon, even *if* my super crafty, uber hip, pirate princess, stampin' up minion, cleverest of pals, Jen K. (Pictured below)

was going and was actively petitioning to have me come along too. It's certainly not that I didn't want to go (Heck, if it was my choice, I'd probably go to one of these every month at the least!) but these things do cost money and take me away from home and I didn't want to be greedy.

But, oh my, how could I forget that I am the luckiest girls in the whole wide world because...I have Scott the WonderHusband who gave me the trip as a birthday gift. Yes, girls, he rocks and is totally taken. Nyah nyah!

The way things had worked out, Jen and I each ended up with our own rooms, so Jen suggested that she bring Alex and I bring Scott and they could have their own little play date while we scrapped. It turned out to be a fantastic weekend. Jen went out of her way to make me feel like the most pampered and sillified birthday girl ever, showering me with crime scene tape, mayorial banners, all topped off with a glittered purple cowgirl hat (me? In a cowgirl hat? Well, if Howard Lyman can be the Mad Cowboy, I suppose I can be the Mad Cowgirl.) And that doesn't even scratch the issue of presents. Is she a great friend or what? (And I say that knowing that she probably isn't even reading this. You *know* it's true then!)

So, while the boys played on the Playstation, we cropped and slipped little surprises to our secret sisters. I rested a lot due to my retarded spine, though Scott's gift of Degrassi High dvd's made forced resting so much cooler. For those of you who don't know what Degrassi" anything is, stay tuned for a future post on the topic. If I tried to explain the joy of Degrassi now, I would never get back to the original topic of this post. Suffice it to say: It Went There.

For those of you who don't know already, Jen is my minion--er--downline in Stampin' Up and I was SO proud of her as she took on the entire crop group with a class showing off stuff from the Occasions Mini catalog. It was great! There were three seatings (that I saw, there may have been four) and she was just brilliant--confident, knowledgeable, graceful. She did such a great job, they asked her to stay on as the official Stampin' Up rep of their crop group. That's nothing to sneeze at--people come from all over to attend their scrap weekends! Jen ROCKS!

Back to the story: Jen and Alex took us out for Indian food, then we stopped at Total Wine to pick up some Champagne Pops. If you haven't had these, they are fun and simply lovely. It's just pretty decent Champagne served single style in a sparkly little bottle with a straw attached. After all, isn't the bubbly all about fun? So we sipped them as we cropped while Scott and Alex hung out beside us, building Scott's birthday catapult which I was promptly konked in the head with a projectile from.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I have this problem. If something is going to fall on somebody, or hit them in the head, it will inevitably me it lands on. Seriously. Someone else could open and close a closet full of teetering drygoods and it would stand miraculously upright until I came along and opened that door once. I'm not the only person who has noticed this. I am convinced that I have a really intense gravitational pull on objects located directly above me. If I was given a halo, it would end up around my neck.

Later, back in the hotel room, I was trimming and mounting some stamps and began to ponder how one could put the extra sticky rubber bits to use. You know, the stuff that you trim away from the stamps when you mount them? The following photos were the result of much brainstorming:



Do *you* have a better idea to use up all this extra Stampin-uppitude? Leave a comment here with your idea and the one I find most useful will win a prize of some Stampin' goodies. Don't forget to include your email address so I can contact you if the goodiebag is yours!

Anyway, Sunday arrived all too quickly for my taste, but coming home is a good thing, too. Monday was Scott's b-day so once mine was over, it was Scott's Birthday-Day Eve, so in order to be truly festive, we dressed Scott appropriately. After all, it's only fair.


So, that was my birthday in VA. I was also lucky enough to have a birthday crop at my friend Teresa's house, but I forgot to take pictures there. Sorry folks! It was superfun too.

Don't forget to leave your ideas as described above. I'll be choosing a winner this weekend.