Scrapbook Sunday & How We Ended Up In MI

On Friday's post I shared the latest pictures from my mom's garden and that got me thinking about the layout below. The pictures were taken fall 2007 we came back to live in MI. Brad had just flown back to NM to tie up loose ends, like packing - boy am I glad I missed out on that fun chore, and finishing up last few weeks at his job at the lab. ER and I were living with my parents for the month between buying our first home and moving into it.The journaling is printed on vellum and attached to the green cardstock mat with the ribbon and eyelets. I noted in it how nice it was to be seeing all the fall colors of her garden. We'd never seen her garden at that time of year before and really hadn't thought we ever would. (I didn't grow up in this house, my parents moved in after I'd been married a few years so it was never my home.) It was really a whirlwind adventure how we ended up moving to MI. Now seems as good a time as any to share it with you.

Brad had a two year appointment at the National Lab he had a fellowship with. He could get it renewed for another year or try to be converted to a permanent employee. Now nothing against Santa Fe or New Mexico, I met some of the kindest and most generous people there and my medical team was the best! But there was NO way I wanted to live there for a second longer than I had to.

He'd been looking and applying to jobs all over and mentioned in passing one day that there was a job possibility in MI so he'd applied. I didn't get my hopes up because Brad has always warned me that we would probably never live in MI again because his field is concentrated on either the West and East coasts. I knew he applied, but then again he applied a lot of places so we didn't think much of it.

We had planned on going to MI that summer anyway for a month long visit so ER could celebrate her one year birthday party with her extended family. We all drove out from NM to MI, yes I said DROVE, have I mentioned my fear of flying? Then Brad flew back to NM while ER and I stayed in MI for most of the visit. He'd fly back to MI in time for her birthday party and then we would all drive back to NM. Since we drove we were also able to fit stops in MO to see Brad's grandparents; we packed a lot of family time in those trips!

While us girls were in MI, guess who got a call from the company in MI? Brad back in NM, and gee didn't it work our perfect that he was already planning on flying out in a week to MI. They scheduled his interview for one of the last days of our summer visit and then we drove home as planned. He was offered the job, of course cause he's such a super fabulous science guy, and got a job offer from a company in Long Beach, CA at nearly the same time.

The draw to MI and the chance to be close to relatives was to good to be passed up. I wanted our daughter to really know her grandparents and to celebrate holidays with big gatherings like I did growing up. Plus it broke my heart the way she'd be looking for her grandparents after visits to see us. I didn't think the opportunity would ever come up; we jumped at it.

So about one month after we left MI from our extended summer trip there, ER and I came back for good and at the end of that month our family of three had moved into our first house. In the garden pictures, I am still kind of dazed that we are even there at all. Things moved really fast!

Now after that long side trip, here's the second set of pages I wanted to share. Today Brad was commenting that I don't scrapbook as much as I used to, blame blogging for that, and maybe my stuff should be sold on Ebay - AS IF!
He is right that I don't have as much time to devote to my favorite hobby, and I've been finding myself resorting to grid layouts more and more. I like them because, if you're like me and have a zillion pictures from an event and think ALL of them are scrap worthy it's hard to get them on one double page spread. I like how on this page the patterned paper give your eye someplace to rest and keep it from looking overly cluttered, or at least I think it does. If you don't, don't tell me and burst my bubble, okay?☺ The circle stickers are on pop dots for dimension and the journaling is printed directly on the patterned paper.One of my favorite columns from Creating Keepsakes Magazine is Becky Higgin's Page Sketch. I am sure this is based on one of them, but since I have years of past issues all torn up and arranged in binders by number of photos on the page there is no way I could ever tell you which one. I have both of her special edition page sketch magazines and they are what got me scrapbooking in the first place. She has a book out with all the sketched together in one handy spot and if I wasn't so type A and didn't already have them all saved and organized I'd buy it. It's a great resource especially for beginners.

BTW: If you're a scrapbook magazine junkie like me tearing out layouts you like and storing by number of pictures used is a great way to organize your inspiration. It's helped me a lot over the years, I just decide how many pictures I'd like to use and then flip to that section of my binder until I find the perfect one to scraplift. There you know my secret! I get help from magazines, I do design my own pages too but I have so little time and am so far behind I find working from sketches really helps cut down on the time it takes to do a page and get more photos scrapbooked. You might be wondering where are all the animals, but since we've got a membership we've been to the zoo so many times that it's no longer about taking pictures of the animals! I mean other than the ones also considered family, ha!

Does that picture of me in pink sitting on the stone bench next to ER look familiar? Either that one or the other almost exactly the same photo is the one I got my profile picture from. I think I might change it soon, my hair kind of looks big and bushy due to the humidity in it.

Noelle and Holly are hosting Scrapbook Sunday so please head over there for more inspiration and the stories behind the stories!

I also wanted to share some great news, I won Jen's at What's Shakin'? Ecostore USA giveaway and will be getting a $25 gift certificate from them! How cool is that, I'll be sure to share the goodies I pick out with you on a future post. Thanks Jen!