Laura and Hans' fall visit mini journal...

Hope was here for a week and then my sister, Laura, was here the week after. Their trips overlapped by a couple of days, which was a lot of fun. We went to Scrapfest at the Mall of America together and then went to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum on the day that Hope left. Laura was here for the rest of the week, which included my birthday, a dinner with our cousins, some fall fun at the pumpkin patch and apple orchard with little Hans and some good crafty sister time together. I decided to use the book we made in Amy Tangerine's class at Scrapfest for a mini journal of the week Laura and Hans were here.

Journal of Hope's visit....

This is the third year that Hope has come to stay with my family for a week in September and we always have the best time. The first few years it was fun to have Junk Bonanza going on during her visit and now the last couple of years we have also attended The Creative Connection and Scrapfest. It's always a busy week fitting in three events, plus celebrating Lowell's birthday, going to as many estate sales as we can sneak in, spending time with the kids (they love Hope!), getting outside and having some time to chat and journal before we go to bed each night.

This year was as busy as ever. Luckily the weather was at its peak fall form. Crisp and clear with brilliant blue skies! Hope posted her journal over on her blog if you want more details of the events and the visit from her perspective. Hope you enjoy!

For the journal itself, I used a mixed paper pre-made journal from Amy Tangerine. We took a class from her at Scrapfest that we really enjoyed and she showed us this fun journal that's all put together and ready to go from her new collection. I wanted to complete my journal shortly after Hope's visit while all the memories were fresh in my mind and this was just perfect to get all my pictures and journaling in lickety split!

We had fun taking pictures of our matching shoes at the markets that we visited.

Go outside and play!

Did you know that today is Worldwide Day of Play? I was not aware of this until my kids tried to turn on Nickelodeon and they have no programming today to encourage people to get outside and play. What a great idea! The kids were a bit confused at first and then decided they would participate and ran out the back door.

The last two weeks have been filled with wonderful celebrations, classes, outings and gatherings with visits from both Hope and my sister with my youngest nephew Hans in tow. I have a lot to share, but will start with Hope's last day here and our trip to the Arboretum. The weather could not have been more perfect and with the morning dew still on the flowers, everything was picture perfect!

I have lots more to share, but for now, I'm going to go out and play!