take a look at this!

check this out!!

I was looking for help in teaching photosynthesis!! It's great!! http://www.educationalrap.com/music

Sarah's music

Sarah has asked me to post one of her piano compositions. this one is un-named. She spends many, many hours working and refining her pieces. It gives her peace to play.

The Bridges of Linn County

For the last couple of weeks John has been hinting that he wanted to take me out for a special day...a special surprise. Unfortunately our schedules were just too....well....scheduled and the only date available was Memorial Day. Finally, he told me what he had planned. A day trip seeing as many of the covered Bridges in Oregon as we could. Did you know that there are 50 covered bridges in Oregon?? I didn't. John initially planned this as a special couple trip but due to extenuating circumstances it became a family trip and that's OK, we all had a wonderful day together. All told we were able to visit 11 bridges, most in Linn county. The bridges themselves look pretty similar but their stories are fascinating. Several were severely damaged in the flood of 1996 and had been re-constructed, a couple had been moved and re-built in a new place, one actually was taken apart and put into storage before it was bought by a preservation group and re-built in a park. One was in the movie 'Shannendoah' (in the 60's) and the production company fixed up the bridge as part of their cost for using it. We had so much fun that we're going to try to plan another day trip sometime to go further south. Their are a bunch south of Eugene, some right outside of Cottage Grove, a town I lived in for a
brief time.

track pictures

I don't have many pictures of Sarah in her track uniform but I do have these. thought I'd share

The color purple

It's a fairly well known fact that I adore colors...all kinds of colors with a particular soft spot for green. I think of all colors I know purple is probably one of my least favorite. Oh, I have a fantastic pair of purple earrings that I love and a couple of purple outfits I enjoy but I don't tend to gravitate towards purple, except when it comes to flowers. I can honestly say that all of my favorite plants are purple. I adore the lavender plant and of course the butterfly bush, my Iris's my wisteria. Many of my favorite flowers are spring blooming and they're blooming right now. My Wisteria is particularly gorgeous right now, with 3 foot long blooms... It was a beautiful day outside inbetween crazy rainstorms and so I ran out and took pictures of some of my favorite PURPLE blooms.

I cried

Happy Mother's day!! Bittersweet day, as always.

So, I made my mother a mother's day gift this year. The driving influence for my becoming a Heritage Maker was to create a book about my deceased brother Richard. Almost immediately upon signing up I e-mailed my mother and asked her to send me Richard's pictures. They arrived very quickly and I eagerly opened the package and began to cry. I put away the pictures and left them there for the last 6 months. On Friday my husband and daughter went away for a Youth beach trip and I decided I was finally ready to scan those pictures for my mother. It was such an intense experience. Every picture brought up memories that I had almost forgotten and some that I'd actively tried to forget. I cried and I cried and when I was done I knew that I had to make a book for my mother. I titled it "I Remember Richard Allan Feinauer". I still intend to write a life story book but for now this satisfied a need to present and preserve my brother Richard. I'm writing about this because it re-enforces for me the need to preserve our stories and our pictures. Things we think we will remember forever we forget and people we think will always be part of our lives might only be here for a short time. It's all too precious to loose. I have to say that I'm greatful that Heritage Makers has so many wonderful designers who allow us to borrow their ideas and make them their own. I was too overwhelmed by the subject to get overly creative and so I used a template by a wonderful designer named Melodie Jones. My gratitude to her. http://www.heritagemakers.com/?event=projectBrowse&projectId=dcf3aa79-58d1-42b8-97ea-b9de9c30ee4e&productId=3&projectSponsor=318864

pictures

I just wanted to share some of my favorite pictures.

bags and bags of fun!

It's always hoppin' at my house on Activity Day Girl's day. This week we tackled a fun little project that I'd like to share. We got some cute little canvas bags from Orientaltrading.com and ironed on these adorable iron-on's. Then the girls colored in the flower petals that represent the goals they've completed and then we bedazzled it! It's totally cute! The girls were darling and extrememly co-operative and well behaved. I'm always impressed by them. It's a little nerve wracking having an 8 year old handle an iron, so it settles the heart to know that the girl's are so good. They actually do listen! I love these girls! I got this project from the fantastic website www.sugardoodle.net. A really creative women named Anne Ficklin gets all of the credit for this entire idea. If you like this and want the pattern and infofind it at http://www.sugardoodle.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3018&Itemid=5.

giggly girls day camp here we come!!

So, the fundraiser was successful! All of the industry of my girls paid off and they were able to raise enough money to send all of my girls to camp. Disappointingly I was unable to attend the fundraiser. I feel quite irritated that I wasn't able to be with the girls and photograph their accomplishments! Fortunately I work with a wonderful group of women who were more than capable of doing all I'd wanted to do and probably more.

I'm home today for the second day with my back all out of whack. Why did it have to go out on the weekend when chiropractors are unavailable??? Hmmm?? fortunately, I think the rest is helping. I spent many hours resting on my back- ON THE FLOOR- yesterday and have spent the morning in bed. I'm hoping to be able to take a walk later this afternoon and see if I can stretch these muscles back into shape. I'm thinking that maybe I had a pinched nerve or something.... that's my guess.