WHY I RELAY...American Cancer Society Relay For Life in Lakeville

Why Wouldn't I?

On Friday July 24th Anne and I will be RELAYING with over 200 others at Lakeville South High School in the ACS Relay For Life in Lakeville. Relay For Life is symbolic of the cancer patient's battle. As the sun sets, it symbolizes the end of what was thought to be a healthy life. The overcoming darkness throughout the night represents how scary the disease can seem and those dedicated participants that choose to stay show that this is not a battle that is fought alone. Then, with the sunrise comes a new day for the cancer survivors with hope and energy to keep fighting the disease. The Society works hard every day to prevent cancer and save lives by supporting groundbreaking research, affecting public policies that protect us from cancer, and educating people on how to prevent or detect cancer early. The Society helps people with cancer in their own community. And our efforts at Relay For Life can help the American Cancer Society to keep working toward a cancer-free future.

Wouldn't you?

(r: Anne and Lacy Cooper)

(b: Craig Letch, 06-1997)

Craig's Cruisers Relay Team was formed in memory of my dad and Anne’s "Gaga", Craig W. Letch. There have been great advances toward the cure for the brain cancer that took Craig. In fact, Senator Ted Kennedy is now living with the exact type of tumor Daddy had. Your contribution helps turn research into cures. We want to invite you to show your support in the ongoing fight against cancer by joining us for this year’s event. Please click on the links for more information, including details on the inspirational Survivors’ Lap and the moving Luminaria Ceremony. We hope to see you there! If you can’t join us, will you please visit the site and make a donation to support our efforts? Either way, you will make a real difference in the lives of people facing cancer – and in the lives of the people who love them. To request a Luminaria in honor or in memory of your loved one, please send me their name(s).

Fighting cancer is a team effort. The impact we can make together is much greater than what any of us could do alone. By supporting our team, you will be a part of a life-changing event that celebrates the lives of those who have battled cancer, remembers loved ones lost, and empowers all of us to fight back against a disease that takes too much.

Again, your contribution is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

God Bless You! Carla and Anne

Craig's Cruisers Team Page

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?pg=team&fr_id=15943&team_id=519860

Carla (and Anne) Personal Donation Page

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TRC/RelayForLife/RFLFY09MW?pg=peditor&fr_id=15943&px=6031697

Scrapbook Challenge!!! June 21-28!

Decisions, decisions..................
-Scrap a layout about your father, husband, brother, friend, or other special man in your life!

-Use blacks and browns on your layout!
-Use a flower SOMEWHERE on your layout!
-Scrap anything!!!
Okay, you asked for it...........................These are all pages from my Mom's 80th Birthday Album. I finished it, barely, on time and we had her surprise party on Saturday June 20th. It was wonderful. Her entire family was there. We had beeeeautiful weather, no rain, few bugs, pleasant temps. Many old family friends and even high school girlfriends showed up!

1st the special man layout. This is my Freddy. We've been married 28 years this past May and Mommy and Daddy accepted him as one of their own immediately, as they did with all of their children's spouses. The joke is that he is her favorite son-in-law (yeah, he's the only one, but still her favorite).

Blacks and Browns? Well all of the pooches have been various shades of black and/or brown. We've had many over the years. I don't think we had a year when any one of us didn't have a dog in one of the homes. We've had numerous spaniels: Cocker, 2 Brittanys, Boykin, English, and a Springer, a Poodle, a Gordon Setter, 2 Weimaraners, a Yellow Lab, and our 2 Beagles. Woah. It's incredible to think about the numbers when you put them all down in a row. I found it absolutely hilarious that this is only one of the two pages I had to make in order to get them all in and look at the number of photos on this page alone! We're a family who loves our pups.

Flowers, you say? Okay here are some flowers. Truly, my Mommy and Daddy are two of my favorite people in the entire world and their love was so obvious. It could be mushy, sweet, silent, sentimental, loud, hilarious, or teasing/sacastic, but it was always, simply there. They met in college, where she hadn't intended to find a husband. He was a friend of a friend and they just sparked. Instead of graduating, working, then finding a hubby, she turned it entirely around and got the hubby, the degree and then went to work. He was one of the first men I even knew who truly embraced "women's lib", not just by Mom working 'cuz she stayed home once we all came along, but he recruited and promoted women in his business who were smart, enterprising and hard-working. He believed that a woman could do anything a man could do and sometimes do it better and smarter. They were married almost 47 years when he died....................from the brain cancer that Ted Kennedy is LIVING WITH 11 years later.............if you don't believe anything else about cancer research, believe that! (I'll be hittin' ya up for ACS Relay for Life donations within the month, so be ready)

So, the final layout is the scrap anything. Yeah, I know, I've already scrapped, but I wanted you to see this last one. We all came up with words that described, reminded us of and captured Mom, Grammy, Carol (M-i-L) for an alphabetical list.

So, there it is ladies and gentlepeople. My contribution for this week's scrapbook challenge and a pretty, darned good attempt at condensing my Mom's incredible life down into 80 pages.......yep, that's why there had to be so many pictures on some of the pages. Since it was her 80th birthday, I wanted to have the album include exactly 80 pages................and I did it! But here's the best part. At the end of the book, I included another dozen slide-in pages and people who came to her party (or weren't able to make it) made memory or birthday-wish pages for her and we slid those in as we got them. And there's room for the cards she received last Saturday and in the mail. In fact, I just got another page in the mail to add today.

Not bad, eh?
Not bad.
Take care. Stay cool.
Love and Blessings.
Carla

Scrapbook Challenge-May 29-June 6!!!

Well seriously, Tracy made this Challenge waaaaay tooooooo eeeeasy for me. I'm still working on Mom's life book and I've been getting much better with the embellishments. I've also figured out how to make pictures into shapes using the very simple PowerPoint program I'm using. This is just getting more and more fun. Don't you absolutely love the flower............I did............duh. It's from Danielle Engelbretson Designs-Blissful Blooms and peachy/coral is one of Mom's favorite colors. So, I hope you like this as much as I do. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them......I'm still new at this digi-thing. Love and Blessings.
Carla

Scrapbook Challenge-May 5-May 15!

The challenge this week included scrapping a special person. Well. that's easy. I love my Mommy and she's one of my most-very-special people. She's going to be 80 this June and I am doing an album for her. I thought it was going to be a mixture of traditional and digital scrapping, but as of last night, I'm pretty sure it's going to be mainly digital. I went to a crop last night and, maybe it was because I was exhausted from the week but, I couldn't crop for my life. I struggled and struggled and was able to ALMOST finish one 8x8 page in 4 hours. I kid you not. I was sooo disappointed. But when I started talking about it with my crop-divas, they said maybe it was a sign that this album is supposed to be digital. So maybe it is. I have found that I need to work on my embellishments. I tend to forget them when I'm doing digi.
I am so proud of all of these. They're done very simply with MS PowerPoint. That's Mommy, almost 80 years ago above and Mommy and Daddy in 1989 below. Ain't he a cutie?!?!? (miss you Daddy) They are my pride and joy. They were married for 47 years when he died. They were the epitome of love and honor and share and committment and companionship and partners. What a wonderful example.

This.................is the greatest place on Earth. Mommy lives there now, but it was the land our cabin was on for 45 years before she and Daddy built their retirement home there. Yes, that's an bald eagle AND a family of loons. Mommy's kept "ice in and ice out" and "loon watch" for the last 49 years and more recently "tumpeter swan watch" and "eagle watch". All that means is that she has the records for the DNR for our little lake. Basically that is the view from her dock. Now ya know why I think it's the greatest place on Earth???

So, that's my contribution to the Scrapbook Challenge-May 5-May 15! Now I'm actually excited about getting back to the project to see what I'm able to come up with since I've decided to stick more with digi.

Love and Blessings.

Carla

Scrapbook Challenge- April 5-11!!!

Not sure how much you can actually read, but the date is CLEAR! Yup, this was our 25th anniversary weekend in May of 2006.......WELL over a year ago (which was one of the....hrmpf....challenges....like that's a challenge)
Okay, so Freddy rents a 2006 Mustang convertible!!! RED!!! We jumped in and headed south along and WI side of The River. We did all of the schmaltzy-touristy stuff; stopped at EVERY wayside rest along Highway 35 and Lake Pepin, ate at Pier 4, walked over the train tracks, watched the lock-and-dams, had a drink at The Dam Saloon, oh yeah, we hit 'em all. We saw eagles, herons, cranes, and all sorts of other "fliers". And that was before we hit the airshow! We drove up to Lookout Point on Diamond Bluff, Maiden Rock and Granddad's Bluff for the wonderful views. The first night we stayed in Wabasha and had dinner at Slippery's, the "Home of Grumpy Old Men". The next day we drove up to Red Wing to have brunch at the Historic St James Hotel; it's one of the best in the state. After brunch we headed over to the RED WING airport which is actually IN WI!!! What we're they thinking?!?!?! The show was amazing, truly amazing!!! I could hardly believe that I was able to catch a shot of the major explosion in the re-enactment WITH the plane flying through. OMG!!! We met so many wonderful people. These men and women take such care restoring these planes and traveling so people can see and touch the machines that made our country great! Bruce flew down with his team in their T-6s and we chatted for awhile. He let me climb in! Freddy's biggest thrill was to touch and tour Miss Mitchell, his favorite B-29 aircraft. The weather was fully cooperative and so no extra clothing to haul around, but no sunburn either.
So, I thought we'd head towards home and stay at some little dive along the way since that's what we do.....but no. What I didn't know was that he'd made reservations for the Honeymoon Suite! back at the St James!!! We had the most beautiful room called "The Boardroom" because it actually had been, back in the day. Now it had this enormous 4-post-bed and fireplace and a jacuzzi right in the room!!! We had dinner downstairs in The Cellar and slept in the next morning. Finally, it's Memorial Day Monday and we start for home. We picked up Anne and went on the Memorial Day Tour (to the cemetaries) which was so much more enjoyable in a convertible; you have no idea! We're commenting on how sweet the ride is and how sad we're going to be to give it back..............no, he didn't buy it for me, BUT we did decide right then to play hooky the next day and cruise out to Lake Minnetonka and do "the route". Freddy grew up out there and has a particular route he travels to check out "the lake" and make sure everything's where it's supposed to be because, you know, nothing is ever supposed to change............
Whatever, I've gone on entirely too long already, but it was sooooo much fun and now it's recorded for posterity.
Love and Blessings All!
Happy Easter!
Carla
aka MiniCooper452

S2L Scrapbook Challenge-March 30-April 5!

Once upon a time we had a thread that asked about how to write script in a circle if you didn't have psp or corel or whatever. So I played with my PowerPoint and wrote down my very favorite Robert Frost passage. How convenient that the challenge this week had to do with "trees". This is a picture I took in our backyard last fall. "....nothing gold can stay."

I got my FIRST award! How Cool Is Cool!!!

I received this "Cool Blog" award from Barbara at Just Passing Through. Thank you, Barbara, for thinking of me!

Here are the Rules:
• Display the image of the stamp "Look How Cool Blog" you just won!
• Post the blog link you provided.
• Indicate your choice of 10 blogs.
• Let them know.
• Post the rules.
• Check if the blogs post the prize and followed the rules

My "cool" blog award choices are:

Denise at Being Craft-De, that's me!

Tracy at Tracy's Whimsical Thoughts

Ashley at Dreamsfulfilled

Amy at ScrapJunkie

DGirlLV at Keep Your Mind Open

Joni at Joni Gray

Inger at Twisted Scrapper

Roxanna at Movefearlessly

Efie at Efie's blog

Bonnie at The Maltese Scrapper

Scrapbook Challenge- February 16-22!!!

Okay ladies, this is the layout that I completed for LAST week's challenge regarding birthdays, but didn't actually get it done until LAST night....................danged friends keep me from scrapping with silly things like lunch and drinks and chatting and catching up. Don't they know that there are important pictures that need to be cut, taped, embellished, posted?! What on earth? Love ya Cheryl..............great Mexican and margarita and friendship.

I've Been Tagged...........

I guess I'm supposed to post this picture and explain 'cuz I've been tagged by Karilee at http://blessedmemoriesscrapbooksbykarrilee.blogspot.com/2009/01/ive-been-tagged.html

This is a very special picture to our family. I'll show you the whole story in a minute. Anne was calling her Auntie Chelle immediately after receiving passing marks to earn her Black Belt in Kung Fu in July 2007. That grin was contagious. Uncle Clint (the cop) and cousin Lexi were there as was Uncle Curtis, Auntie Jen, cousin Alex, Mom, Dad, sister Lacy and her boyfriend, Trent. She had a fan club. Unfortunately (or otherwise) Auntie Chelle was cousin Cole's basketball coach and they had a big game that night.

So, below is the competition. She had to do many things, but some of the highlights were when she had to show take-down techniques and used her friend James as her attacker. Her forms were very strong and she happens to be one of the best kickers in the school. Her upper foot on her scissors kick is over 7' and her lower foot is consistantly 2.5-3 feet off of the floor. And, yes, I'm just a little prejudiced. : ) The handsome hunk teaching her how to properly tie her Black Belt is Lama, the instructors son and one of Lacy's good, good friends and has also become one of Anne's chief supporters.

Now, I believe I have to tag six additional people, but I'm not at all sure how to do that, so for now..............................................beware, it could be you next.

Love and Blessings.

Carla

Scrapbook Challenge! January 11-18!

You may finally have me and I'm scared.....................I got a load full of the cricut last weekend and I almost love it. Now mind you, the one I actually have at home is a used model that has no cartridges right now. It was an amazingly generous gift from the mom of the wonderful kiddos I babysit periodically. She's a sweet friend and checked it out to be sure it worked, but the seller just upgraded and wanted to keep the original cartridge. So, I didn't even try it out.......yet. I was at TWO different crops last weekend, both had cricuts and one even had the 12x12 cutter attached to the computer!!! Okay, I'm not quite THAT sold yet, but that one does actually belong to "the mom" AND she lives next door! So, I'm going to test drive several cartridges from the "Becky store" and see which one(s) I need to have to start my collection. The above title was done with the cricut, but I also did a layout with "Hockey is Life", "woof, yap, bark", and a "Tinkerbell" and "Piglet". Also discovered Glue Dots......Lulu is mounted with Glue Dots, pretty cool. Who would've thought that there was still product out there that I hadn't at least heard of?!?!?!?!