Happy New Year!

I made these 2 LOs on New Year's Eve! I'm just now getting to posting them since I worked New Year's Day and then went to Duke Thursday for my dad's surgery and was in Raleigh until Saturday. I think I've finally settled back in here at home! Now onto my layouts! This past July I went to Raleigh to spend a few days with my dad, Tammy, Tyler, and Emily for a couple days and we went to Pullen Park in Raleigh while I was there. The LO above is pictures of Tyler and the picnic area at Pullen Park. The paper is Recollections Watermelons and Mambi (Me & My Big Ideas) Spring Kit. I chose these papers since it was a picnic. The green paper w/ the black dots reminded me of watermelon seeds! :) The ribbon is Best Occasions Tropical, the tag is K&Company Engraved Garden Journal Tags and I wrote the date: 7-5-13 Tammy, Tyler, and I went to Pullen Park so Tyler could play on the playground then we had a picnic before we went swimming. The tag is self-adhesive. The wooden chipboard pieces are Studio Calico Wood Veneer Die-Cut Wood Pieces. One has "LOVE THIS" printed on it and the other one has "GOOD TIMES" printed on it.

 The train rode around the park while we were eating. We didn't ride the train, because there was an extra charge to ride the train. The stickers "my" and "brother" are from my stash, I forgot what collection they are from. The vellum sentiment "Nothing is worth more than this day. Goethe" is from a vellum stack that Mrs. Gloria gave me (the cover is gone) and I attached it with ZOTS Medium Permanent Clear Adhesive dots on a scrap piece of Basic Grey 6x6 Life of the Party & again adhered with ZOTS. All the pics and Recollections Watermelons strip was adhered with ZOTS. I found them at Michaels and they're cheaper than Glue Dots and come in 3 different sizes- small, medium, & large. Thermoweb is the manufacturer and they even have a website (http://www.thermowebonline.com)! Sorry for the bad quality of pics, I'm still trying to figure out my camera and should have taken close-ups. Anyway, onto the next LO! I made sure I took close-ups with this one since the background is so busy!

The paper is Recollections Teal Butterflies. The "This is what counts" sticker is K&Company Emma Rose Word Embossed Stickers as is "SILLY" on the chipboard title. The chipboard "Today was a  Day" is from Housecalls by: Scrappin' Madge (http://heartstringdesigns.blogspot.com/)  September Hello Gorgeous kit and I added the "silly" sticker to finish out the title. I traced in the "O", both "D"s, and all 4 "A"s with a black gel pen, the name escapes me at 1:15 in the morning! LOL! The goggles stickers are Recollections Beach stickers and the flippers  & bikini stickers are from another Recollections Beach collection.  

 Both of these journaling designs are Basic Grey Casablanca Clear Stamps that Helen gave me in the blog prize from Scrappin' Everyday Miracles (http://scrappingeverydaymiracles.blogspot.com/). I used Martha Stewart chalk/cat's eye ink- a lime green and a light blue. In the green circle, I wrote-- I didn't any pics inside since we went swimming.

 In the blue fancier circle, I wrote-- I loved this horse from the merry-go-round!
As I mentioned before, my dad had surgery at Duke this past Thursday and here are 3 pictures of different things I saw around the facility.

 this is a little orange bike car that my aunt Karen, Emily, and I saw and liked. They also have a green one that is  used around the campus. This one never moved. We were standing on a walkway bridge that connected 2 buildings. Duke is made of 3 buildings connected in 1- Duke Medicine Pavilion, Duke Clinic, and Duke Hospital. My dad was in Duke Medicine Pavilion for his surgery and then in Duke Hospital in ICU and has been moved into a stepdown room. He's been up walking around each day and not allowed any food/drink. He's taking sponge lollipops- which is water in a cup and the sponge sticks are dipped in the water like a lollipop. He just had a tube put up his nose and down to his stomach today to drain nasal congestion and help with acid reflux. He's on oxygen and has a catheter. Tammy told me they want to wean him off all 3 soon so that he can go home Thursday. He had a foot of his small intestines, gall bladder, right side of liver, and the lymph nodes around the liver removed and the small intestines were infused back to his liver. He has an "S" shaped scar from his breast bone down to just above his waist where the liver is on the right. He lost quite a bit of blood and also still has a drainage tube from the incision that the blood is draining into a little bulb/valve. He's on a saline drip IV. I've never seen the IV/blood lines (in case they have to give him a blood infusion) so small they're like wires. He can't stand the oxygen tube around his nose so I know he can't stand the tube up his nose. He's breathing in a pipe about 10 times an hour and the tube up his nose makes it harder. His spirits are down and that discourages Tammy. I lost it this afternoon just reading about his condition on Facebook. I can't imagine being in so much pain or going through what he's going through.

this piece of art is hanging from the ceiling in the corner on the way to Starbucks- YUM! There's art all over the hallways going from place to place and is beautiful! I couldn't take pictures of all of it and keep walking! One funny thing that happened in his room is a guy came in and changed a picture out in my dad's room. The picture that was in the room was of water lilies and the guy changed the picture out with a picture of a barn with a lake around it like in the country. The nurse was in the room and even said she had never seen someone come in and switch the pictures out. I told her and my dad that they might have pictures for females (water lilies) and pictures for males and that's why he changed it out. He was just in there long enough to switch out the pictures and left. I should have looked to see if there was a camera on the picture, lol, I watch too much TV! He was also trying to cat nap while we were there and the oxygen monitor kept beeping. He asked the nurse if it could be turned off so he could sleep. She turned it down, but he at first thought it was the computer monitor, lol, he was exhausted and getting delusional. His surgery was 5 hours long. Tammy, my aunt Karen, Emily, and I sat in the waiting room for 12 hours, because there was so much prep time and the surgeries were behind. He was supposed to go into surgery at 1:45, but his surgery didn't start until 4. Then we waited after seeing him in ICU to find out if we were gonna be charged for parking since someone else told  us they got a free parking voucher. This particular lady left before 9, but we were there until midnight and the parking attendants leave at 9 so we still got free parking. Well, I better get to bed as it is near 2AM and I need my beauty rest! TFL and come back later for another LO of Tyler! Please keep my dad in your thoughts and prayers. Cindy, Tammy's sister, is here for 2 weeks to help take care of Tyler and he's loving every minute with her. He starts back to school today. He was supposed to start last Thursday, but the school understands their situation. Thanks again and have a good day!