We have a winner!

We have a winner in our Follower Giveaway for a FREE copy of  My Memories Suite Version 4 Digital Scrapbooking Software.  This morning I took all the names of interested people who left comments and printed them on pieces of paper, folded them and put them into a bag.  I asked my friend Hazel to pull out one piece of paper.  She did - and our Winner is:  (drum roll please...)

Yes, congratulations to Pam of Postcards from Pam and Larry! I'll be sending you an e-mail early next week with the Promo Code to access your free copy of  My Memories Suite Version 4 Scrapbooking Software.

Thank you to everyone who left comments to enter our Giveaway.  And thank you to My Memories!  Pam, I hope you enjoy your new My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Program.  :)

I have a birthday card to make for my Dad - 91 years old on November 10! - and I'll make it with my new My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software.  When it's done, I'll post it to give you another view of what you can do with this program.  The more I use it, the more fun I'm having with it.  Pam (and anyone who might purchase the software in the future), remember that there are Forum and Tutorial tabs at the top of their web page that lead you to useful information and many YouTube instruction videos.  These will give you the easiest, quickest, best way to do things with your software.  I'm willing to spend all day making a greeting card if I need to (because I love doing it), but if I can find a faster, easier way to do it, I'll take it.  And you might also see things you can do that you didn't know about.  That's what I found when I was going through some of the Forum files and Tutorial YouTube videos.

That's all for today - but next time, I'll show you a new engine mod that Andy Baird and I both did to keep rodents out of our engines, and nests that we found while working on the mod.  Ick! Ick! Ick! You will probably want to check that area in YOUR engines to see if you've been invaded, too.

Here are a few critters I snapped on my walk to Andy's rig yesterday morning.

There are lots of butterflies flittering from plant to plant all over the campground.

This guy has an orange head and rear, with an orange spiky tail and iridescent markings on his body. He was about four inches long. Moving right down the road. I wasn't sure if he was really pretty or really ugly.

Robber Fly (thank you heyduke50) on a large rock.  This is a CLOSE-UP, cropped to see him even closer.

Here's another one; he caught some lunch for himself.  I didn't see the green bug until I enlarged the photo. What big eyes you have, Grandma!

Again, congratulations to Pam - and from me and Katie, have a great Sunday evening, everyone!  :)

Wordless Wednesday - how big is YOUR appetite?

At The Thurman Cafe, Columbus, OH:

From me and Katie, have a great Wednesday, everyone!  :)

If you haven't seen our My Memories.com Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway, click the link for information.The drawing will be held on Sunday, September 29.  :)

This and that... and where we are now

We left the park this afternoon - and here is where we are right now:

I sent this photo to a friend of mine in San Diego and told him to check out the price of gas.  He said he just paid $4.05 at Costco - good old California.  :)   I'm going to return to Bluewater Lake State Park one more time, and when that two weeks is up, I'm going to head to Quartzsite.  The weather looks like it will be in the 80's the second weekend of October and will stay in the 80's or below from then on, so that looks like a good time to head out. 

I wanted to show you what I ended up doing with Lauren's birthday card.  Instead of sending three cards, I put the three on one card - front, inside and back.

Front:

Inside:

Back:

Lauren got the card in the mail on Thursday and she called me to say thank you, in her little 6-year-old voice, for the card and $$ I sent.  She said she especially liked the back of the card - the photo of her.  So cute, only a 6-year-old could be so honest.  I told her to put the card on the mantle with that side facing the living room.  If she gets tired of it, she can turn the card around to see the cupcake side, and then she can also fold the card inside-out and have the inside cake showing.  I told my daughter I was afraid the three-in-one card was a little overdone.  She laughed and said, "Nothing is overdone for Lauren! She loved it."

Turns out I was wrong about her having a cupcake party.  They did a gymnastics party, using all the gear that Lauren has, a low beam to balance on, pads to somersault on, etc.  They made up different stations for the kids to go through.  And the cupcake decorating.  And making friendship bracelets.  Etc.  I love kid parties like this, that's what I used to do for my kids and it was so much fun planning and then having the party.  The kids always had a good time.

I wanted to show you something I make for lunch or dinner sometimes.  It's  just a baked potato, a big one, and when it's done, I scrape out all the potato onto a plate, add lots of butter and grated cheese.  This time I had some bacon, so I crumpled that up and also I sometimes put chopped up green onion.  Then plop some sour cream in the middle.   

It was soooo good.  I had it for dinner the other night, and couldn't even finish it.  I had about a third left that I saved for the next night and had with a regular chicken and veggies dinner, so it rounded it out nicely.  Yummm.  (The daisy on the top right is a graphic I stuck in when I was playing with ribbet photo editing, a free program. I really don't "fancy up" my paper-plated meals with flowers. LOL)

Here's a photo I took of the Osprey I posted last week that was trying to pull the big gold fish out of the lake.  This was the day before and I got him flying overhead.  Isn't he beautiful?

I've gotten some pretty nice photos of humming birds at my feeders in the last few years, but these are the first shots I've gotten of a hummer feeding from real flowers. 

 

And now...  a couple of "Ohhhh, poor Katie!" photos.  The first one is of Katie in trouble.  We were in Hazel's car and Katie kept barking at something and wouldn't stop, so I pushed her down on the ground by my feet and told her to stay.  She was so shocked.  She hardly ever gets in trouble.  It was hard not to laugh at the look on her face.

This second photo is from when we were at Joe Skeen Campground at El Malpais.  Katie and I were taking a walk with Nancy, when Katie stopped walking, looked at me and held up her foot.  She wouldn't walk on it.  I looked and there was a large red ant between two of her little pads.  It had bitten her, and must have really hurt.  I had to carry her back to The Palms, and together, Nancy and I tried to help her by putting some ointment on it, but Katie wouldn't let us near her foot.  She finally jumped up in her car seat and stayed there for a while, licking her foot and holding it out away from her body.  

This photo was taken later in the evening when I gave her the peanut butter dollup that goes into her Kong toy.  That's her favorite treat, and the last one of the day. She has never refused it.  Here she is, licking out the peanut butter, holding her foot up in the air.  Poor Katie!

She wouldn't stop licking her foot and she felt really hot, so I gave her a baby aspirin and I think it helped. She finally stopped licking and fell asleep.  Luckily, the next morning the pain was gone, and she was again walking normally on that foot.  It's so hard when our little critters are hurting.

WELCOME to our newest Follower, Wayne!  Wayne, do you have a blog?  If so, let me know in a comment.  Katie and I are happy you are following along with us - Welcome Aboard!  :)

Also, one of our followers that we welcomed the other day, Patti, left me a comment that she is not RVing yet, but hopes to in the future.  She does have a blog -There's a neighbourhood in my basement!  Check it out!  :)

And finally, beautiful cloud cover at sunset after a storm the other evening.  It was beautiful!

From me and Katie, have a great day, everyone!  :)

If you haven't seen our My Memories.com Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway, click the link for information.The drawing will be held on Sunday, September 29.  :)

Train track truck on the way to the Casamero Pueblo ruins

Hazel and I visited one of the ruins close by the other morning, and on the way we had to cross train tracks.  Sitting across the road, blocking our way, was this truck.

See the wheels in front of the front tires and behind the rear tires?  They fit onto the railroad tracks.  The driver positions the truck exactly, and lowers the little wheels - these are the rear wheels below.

And here is the driver lowering the front wheels, which raises up the truck's front tires:

See how much the front tires are raised?

And away he goes, backwards.

I thought that was pretty neat.

We continued down the road to the Casamero Pueblo ruins.

All the rooms still had walls showing where the rooms were, but back in the day there was also a second story.  This diagram shows the location of each room on the bottom level.

Here are some of the various rooms I took photos of and a couple more diagrams.

Hi, Mom!

I thought this next photo of a wall was very interesting.  They used two different methods to build their walls, the blue rocks with the red rocks in between, and the red rocks with the blue rocks in between.  The two types of walls were adjoining in this photo below, and you can clearly see the difference:

And here are a couple of photos of the hill behind the pueblo.  The way the circular indentations are formed is beautiful.  I'm assuming the formations are due to weather.

The Casamero Pueblo ruins aren't far off I-40 past the power station and paper mill road; it was a nice, close morning excursion.  I don't do much sightseeing, but really enjoyed seeing this and walking around inside the walls.

WELCOME to our newest Follower, Patti!  I don't see a blog listed for you, Patti, or any other info, so if you do have a blog, let me know, okay?  Katie and I are very happy to have you following along with us.  Welcome aboard! :)

From me and Katie, have a great day, everyone!  :)

If you haven't seen our My Memories.com Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway, click the link for information.The drawing will be held on Sunday, September 29.  :)

Bluewater Lake has risen

We've had so much rain, the lake is up quite a bit.  After all the heavy rains, the shoreline moved so much the boat ramp was out in the lake, and they had to pull it back to shore.  Fishing is good and the fishermen need the ramp.  

As we continued to have heavy rainfall, the ramp again ended up out in the lake and had to again be pulled back to the new shoreline. 

One of the volunteers here in the park, Anita, took photos of the men pulling the boat dock back to shore the second time, and she e-mailed them to me so I could show you.  Thanks, Anita, for providing these photos.

Here is the dock, out in the lake.

Our Ranger, Mark, drove the Cat down to the dock location.

Randall, a park employee, waded out into the lake with a wetsuit on to connect the cables to the dock.

Using the cables attached to the Cat, Mark pulled the dock back to shore.

And it's back, securely attached.
 

Pretty cool, huh?

I'll tell you - the Rangers and workers at these parks have to know how to do a lot of things, fix a lot of things, and solve a lot of problems.  With the drought New Mexico has had for quite a while, this is one problem I'll bet they weren't expecting!

From me and Katie, have a great Thursday, everyone!  :)

If you haven't seen our My Memories.com Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway, click the link for information. 

Wordless Wednesday - RV plumbing mod

From me and Katie, have a great Wednesday, everyone!  :)

If you haven't seen our My Memories.com Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway, click the link for information.The drawing will be held on Sunday, September 29.  :)

Osprey fishing trip

Saw this Osprey Sunday afternoon trying to pull a large gold fish out of Bluewater Lake. The fish must have been hooked/attached to the bottom, because he kept going under the water and coming up with it, but couldn't get it out of the water and ended up flying off without it.  Too bad, it was a nice fish.

 

From me and Katie, have a great Monday, everyone!  :)

If you haven't seen our My Memories.com Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway, click the link for information. I don't want you to miss out.

A Giveaway for one of our Followers :)

Today's post is something different for me.  I was contacted by My Memories, which is a digital scrapbooking company, asking me if I would be interested in having a giveaway for one of the readers of my blog.  I thought about it for a while, checked their website, and e-mailed back that I was interested.  When I agreed they gave me a copy of the program and a coupon for $10 to  purchase something in their store at mymemories.com.

I've been playing with it for a week or so - it seems to be designed to create different pages using the same design element style - ending up with a photo book.  You can also make cards and scrapbook pages, so I made some cards for my granddaughter, Lauren.  She is going to be six on the 21st, and I thought this would be a good try-out for the program I received,  My Memories Suite.  After making the cards below, I logged onto their site again and read through the forum items, and looked at some of the tutorials offered, which are Youtube videos.  Those are going to be really helpful.

I remember a while back there was chatter in the RV blogs about creating books of our RVing Blogs, and a few of you had some made.  I thought this program would be perfect for that.  When you choose a specific template for your book, the program puts together a bunch of pages, from four to 17 pages depending on the template you choose (you can add more pages, or delete pages if you want), with different images in the same template design, and each page is different.  You can use the pages as they create them, and you can also add or delete elements.  There are places to drop in your photos, and places to journal. From what I learned in their forum on the website, some people had their photo books printed through My Memories, and other people had other companies print their books, so you have a choice if you are going to have them printed.

I love using digital crafting programs to make greeting cards and other digital files and have been playing with this crafty stuff for years. I have thousands of digital images stored in files on my computer, and this program allows importing of images that are on my computer.

They have a lot of "Freebies" that come with the program, and a lot more on their website that I've downloaded.  I also ended up purchasing two kits with my $10 coupon.  Whoever wins the Giveaway will also receive a $10 coupon to purchase a kit or two of images or a couple of ready-made templates or "quick pages" to use.

So, I made three totally different cards.  Maybe I'll send Lauren all three?  Here they are - what do you think?

Lauren is having some of her friends over for a cupcake party.  They are all going to frost and decorate their own cupcakes as one of the fun things to do at her Birthday Party.  So this is a cupcake card.

Because Lauren is so beautiful, I wanted to make her a beautiful card - with six candles and six flowers for her sixth birthday.

And this is a photo birthday card with Lauren's photo.  She is a gymnast and this is Lauren posing in her new team leotard. I've probably put too many elements on this one, but I liked it.

Which one do you like best?

Since I've been playing with the program, it seems there's been a Freebie on their website every day. This is one from the other day, it's a "quick page" that you just drop photos into for a finished page:

You just import your photos, and you're done.

I just got this one from their site this morning, it's a pack of eight different papers:

If you are interested in winning the free giveaway, My Memories Suite, let me know in a comment and I'll put your name in a hat.  Two weeks should be long enough - so - let me know in your comment by the end of Sunday, September 29th.  I'll have someone here at the park pull out a name, and that person will be the winner of the digital scrapbooking program and the $10 gift certificate to spend in My Memories' on-line store.

If you are interested in checking out the site, it's mymemories.com.  I'll let you know in two weeks who our winner is!

Boy, are we ever getting the weather this week!  It's been so cloudy and rainy and lots of lightening and thunder, it's pouring right now, and we just had a crack of thunder that was really close.   My generator wouldn't work the other day and we had no sun all day, so I gave up and moved over to an electric site for the rest of my two weeks here.  First electric site all year.

Look at who came for breakfast this morning:

I remember last year one of the horses checked out my bar-b-que, too.  There must be some drippings on the burned wood that someone left.  Isn't he cute?

A few times the colt started racing around - I guess just like any kid, he had some extra energy to get out.

He walked around yesterday morning for a while full of greenery.  He must have had a nice roll in the grasses and flowers and some of it stuck.

Below is what the sky looked like right before the heavens opened up again.  

These poor horses, they've gotten a lot of rain in the last few days; they just stand there in the driving rain.  Can you see how hard it's falling in the photo below?  I guess they must be okay, but I feel bad for them. The Monsoon Season here is from June 15 through September 30, so I guess we'll be through it soon. 

Welcome to our two newest Followers,  wb3dzy AND Taryn Faust!  They don't show any information about themselves, or blogs, so ...  if either or both of you have a blog, let me know so we can check it out!  Thank you both for following along with me and Katie!  :)

From me and Katie, have a great weekend, everyone!  :)