My Summer Vacation

My visit with my best friend Noreen, her husband, Alex, and her wonderful kids, Ian, Sydney, and Sean was so much fun!!!!! We hung around all week, traveled all over locally, and laughed our heads off!!! The first two days of the week we all (except my honey Mike who had to work the first part of the week) went to lots of antique shops. Sean, age 6, helped me look for hankies! We must have gone through every stack of hankies in this area! Found some good ones too! Sydney, age 8, found the most glorious hats! Ian, age 12, helped me find some little items I would have totally missed! Thursday we all went to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Mike was a docent there years ago and he was able to navigate us around and add some interesting tidbits of information. We especially enjoyed watching and hearing the lion roar!!! Yesterday, the men and the kids went to the dunes in Indiana. They hiked the dunes and walked along Lake Michigan. Noreen and I took the opportunity for a girl's day out and went to lovely Crown Point, Indiana for some amazing antique shops! Add a great lunch and an ice cream sundae, and it was perfection!

The above picture was made by Sean and it is amazing!! He picked out all the elements (felt, paper) and then cut out everything free hand to make this picture. I was totally amazed!

This is Sydney's totally cool art work!! We stamped the girls image from Inky Antics and then she colored it with gel pens. I love the colors she choose and the geometric patterns around the girls!!! Great work!
Ian hung out in my stamp room and put this together!! I think it is hilarious and very talented of him to put these stamps together from the pile in my room! I am going to steal this idea using this lady stamp and the crown! They go perfectly together!

I am so lucky that Noreen and I have been friends since 1977. She has seen me through every up and down in my life since then. We have always managed to stay close even though we have not lived in the same town since 1978! We always visited each other whereever we were living and our families always include us in stuff they do. The blessings of friendship are so great!