USA scrapbook layouts

Ok, so for not having blogged for a while, grab your coffee and get comfortable so that you can read and look at all the layouts I have been busy with.

I still need to separate pages of journalling about what we did in New York, but the page below is about some of the sights we saw in New York:This page is about the Empire State Building - boy was this tall. We went up to the 86th floor and it was quite amazing looking down onto New York. It was absolutely freezing too!!
This layout is all about Times Square - this is where everything seems to happen and our hotel was about a 10 minute walk up the road.
This layout is not quite finished as I still need some wording in the top right hand corner and a note or too on the little orange tags (they are not stuck down hence the one being crooked). This is showing Central Park, Bryant Park, Maddison Square Park and the Natural History Museum. The picture with the dinasour is in the entrance area where the film "Night at the Museum" was filmed.
This Mall of America is where I found the best scrapbooking shop!!!!
The journalling is as follows:

Tuesday, 7 April 2009 – my dad’s birthday today. After getting up early and doing our last NY blogpost we headed to the station to get to the airport. Going through customs, we had to take off our shoes, jackets, belts, laptops in a separate container and then put our hand luggage through. Mine got stopped and the customs guy unpacked everything. He even flipped through the books I had! When I asked him what the problem was, his reply was “I don’t know, I just like looking through people’s bags”. While this was going on, our plane was boarding. It was a 2 hour flight from New York to Wisconsin, and we lost another hour, so we were now 7 hours behind SA. Airports in America are different to SA in that guests wait at the luggage carousels and this is where my uncle and aunt, Peter and Liz were waiting for us and it was great to see them.

On our way to Peter and Liz’s house, we stopped at the Great Mall of America, which is the largest mall in the world – not sure if there is one bigger yet. If you walk around the whole mall and up all 3 levels you will have walked 3.2km’s. We had lunch at the Nappa Valley Grill. Dereck and I had cheeseburgers and Peter and Liz had cheeseburger soup. After we finished lunch we wondered around the mall and found a scrapbooking shop called Archivers – What a shop!! After 45 minutes of looking around and only getting through half the shop I was pulled out!!! We wondered round the mall a bit more and on our way back to the car, passed the entertainment area. They have loads of restaurants and take-aways, a movie section and in the middle of the mall is this huge of rollercoaster and big legoland of building blocks. A child’s delight!

Once home we unpacked our bags and then walked around the garden for a bit. Peter took us for a walk up the road and we met his neighbour. Peter had a few errands to run, so we went with him and he left us at the local Dunn Brothers Coffee shop so that we could do a blog update. Once we got home he made us champagne cocktails – very yummy (1tsp Contreau, 1tsp Brandy, maraschino cherries and filled with champagne). Liz made a delicious pork casserole for supper and after chatting and catching up on news and handing out gifts from South Africa, we got to bed at 9:30pm.

This layout below is at my aunt and uncle's house in Wisconsin. The journalling reads as follows:

River Falls, Wisconsin.

My uncle Peter and aunt Liz stay on a 5 acre piece of land. The snow is what we missed a few days before we got there. We watched lots of squirrels and birds eating from the feeders on the veranda. "Nandi" is their sausage dog. Denny's is the diner (just like you see in the movies) where we had breakfast one morning.

Peter and Dereck went to play golf one morning and on their way, these two turkeys were having a bit of "fun"!.

Don't know why this picture came out this way, but anyway, it is about the sights and our trip to a town called "Stockholm". The journalling is as follows:

After a lovely breakfast of poached eggs with an English muffin we headed off to the Kinnickinnic State Park. This is where the Kinnickinnic river joins the St Croix river which eventually joins up with the Mississippi river which is the second longest river in the USA spanning 3730km from its source. There were still a few mounds of snow left from the recent snow fall and I couldn’t resist standing on it! We continued along the scenic route next to the river until we got to a little town called Stockholm. All the towns in the USA have signs stating how many people live there and are updated after a census has been held. There was a pie shop that Peter and Liz said made delicious pies, but it was shut. After chatting to the owner in the art shop next door, he suggested that we go over to Gelly’s pub as they make really nice food. So we did and they were even playing country music. I had a meat loaf with mash and gravy and it was delicious.

While there the owner of the art shop came in to say that his sister (who owns the pie shop) had just popped in and had said that she would make us a pie if we still wanted one. We said that we would like the apple pie and were told it would be ready in 45 minutes time. After our lunch we wondered round a few of the shops and then collected our pie. We headed off to carry along the scenic route of the river, crossed over it and continued on the other side. This river is really huge and very scenic and there are quite a number of places along the route to stop and look at the views. After getting home, Peter cooked some salmon on the braai and we had that with a lovely salad that Liz made and then finished off with the apple pie and ice-cream. One of the best apple pies I have tasted and it was certainly worth the trip!!

Four of these layouts were done over the long week-end when I went up to Johannesburg and spent the time with Desire and Conroy. I also got all the papers and layout ideas for the other layouts as well as another 3 that I still need to complete and once done, that will be the first week of our USA holiday - 4 weeks to go!!!! All credit to Desire for the designs and fantastic colour combinations.

Desire and Conroy are on a healty eating plan and I fitted in with this plan and on my return weighed myself and had lost 1kg. I have never eaten so many vegetables in a week-end as I did then, but boy were they delicious. I have continued with this eating plan and went to see a Dietician when I got home as I am a member of Discovery Vitality and get points for doing this. I have made a chart of what I should be eating and I have had it laminated and put up on my kitchen wall, so that everytime I eat anything, I just cross it off and then I know what I still need to eat. I get weighed next Monday and so far this plan has been really great and I am feeling wonderful.

Two week-ends ago, Rayna and I went to another mosaic/painting class and I started on my mosaic frog who will be named "Padda". I haven't finished it yet, but once finished will post a picture. I must say I am really enjoying the mosaicing and have got a couple of ideas waiting to be mosaiced.

Well, that is all for now.

Scrapped and healthy signing off ....