Friday, May 27, 2011

Bleu de Toi

Hi Everyone!
Summer has finally reached my house and boy, are we excited!

I wanted to leave you this weekend with a really creative site I fell upon today.  Do you know anyone getting married?  I don't, but if I did, I'd send them to Bleu de Toi. (It means "Crazy For You" in French. Isn't that cute?)


Can you tell what this is?

Yes, it is a tree...but what is it for?

It is a really creative take on the traditional guest book for weddings!  You get the tree, naked (as my boy would say), with your names or whatever you want written on the bottom.  Your guests then leave their finger print on the tree and can sign their name on their print or make it a bird or whatever!  How fantastic is this?  I would have loved this at my wedding.

Look at these....


How adorable is the house? Can you see it is the house from the movie "Up"?  Love it.


And the pig is just my favorite.  I don't know how well this would do for a wedding, but maybe a birthday or a shower or something?

I'm constantly amazed at the creativity some people have.

Visit Bleu de Toi and look around.

And thank a solider for your ability to visit sites, walk around and enjoy your weekend.

And fly a flag.

Happy Memorial Day, y'all.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Math for End Of The Year

It is the end of the year and I want to be sure you have your addition skills down pat before you leave for summer break.  Let's do one last problem.

Please find the sum of the following.....





Have you reached the sum, Class?

Let's check your answer.  Does it look like this?


Then you're spot on!  Names have been blurred to protect the innocent. :)


To be sure we're all on the same page, check your work against mine....



Did you get the answer! Now you're ready for summer!
I must be really ready for summer since  some of my gift cards were all in SPANISH!!  Oh well. They still spend the same. :)

Monday, May 23, 2011

Cannes Film Festival for the Non-Famous

My husband has a client  that had work at the Cannes Film Festival.  
So OF COURSE I *had* to go with him.
**sigh.  I'm such a good, supportive wife.**

Seeing that I'm NOT famous, don't have people, most certainly don't have a movie coming out and don't add any value to my husband's client (except that I really like the people he works with over there), it was imperative that I go just to offer my insights into the entire crazy event.

I characterize it as this....


Spring Break for really really really wealthy people...OR people who want to see really really  wealthy people....OR people who THINK they are supremely important. 

Just like Spring Break in Panama City Beach, Florida, people cruise the street, try to look cool, dress in clothes they should NOT be wearing, and act like they are much too cool to be bothered with the likes of YOU.  If you put some of them in airbrushed t-shirts, it would BE Spring Break '11 PCB, Baby!

The people watching was amazing.  

This post is a little long with many pictures.  I've even pared it down, but I want you to get the full effect of my experience.  

It started with Ivana Trump sitting right in front of us on the flight from New York to Nice, France.  And after 8 hours on the plane, she looked just as fresh as she did the minute she boarded.  I still have no idea how she did that.  


The first day we were there, my husband's client let us borrow this sweet ride to drive to Monaco.  Truly a dream come true and there were no shortage of people taking pictures of this car and probably wondering who the jet-lagged Americans were who were getting out of it.

Cannes Film Festival is kind of like Sundance Film Festival in that many of the films are independently produced and tend to be a little "artsy".  There were a few blockbuster films being shown, but most of the films we heard about were ones that, safe to say, were not going to be showing up at my local movie theater.  Anyway, because of this, there was always the opportunity to do some star spotting.

We were there at the same time as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.  I never saw them, but we did hear the roar of the crowd when they stepped out of this hotel...


There are three main hotels in Cannes--The Martinez, The Carlton and one other whose name escapes me.  When Brangelina came out, there were probably 200 people/paparazzi waiting to get a shot of the famous couple. Some people were waiting upwards of 14 hours for a look at these people.
 My husband and I were eating.  I love to eat and eating always trumps waiting for celebrities.


Here is a typical beach front restaurant.  The Carlton hotel is behind us, across the street.  Do you see the Smurfs billboard on the top in the middle of the hotel?  Promotional stuff like that was all over.  Just after this picture was taken, look who walked by...


Melanie Griffith!  Antoino Bandaras is behind her in the white t-shirt.  They were heading down the dock to a skiff and then on to lunch at one of the many mega-yachts anchored nearby.  This isn't flattering of her, but she really was beautiful in person and very tiny!


This was at the end of the dock/beachfront restaurant we were eating at our first day.  See what I mean about the movie displays?

Another thing to do is eat at a hotel called Eden Roc.  Evidently it where Jennifer Lopez stays when she visits Cannes.  Brangelina were staying there, but we didn't see them.  We were there one evening to have dinner with my husband's clients.  The restaurant was outside and beautiful.

That is the view from our table.  It was much too cold to swim (at least for me), but our hosts said that lots of people had been swimming earlier that day.  I can't imagine diving into that cold water....

After dinner we went to the hotel for drinks.  Doesn't that sound just so ritzy?  It was waayyyy after my bedtime, so I was honestly afraid that I would fall asleep.


My husband and I can see why celebrities stay there.  The entire place looks like a movie set.  Once we get into the lobby/bar area, guess who walks up?  My new BFF- Melanie Griffith!  AND she was with Jane Fonda and Robert Di Niro.  They were sitting just on the other side of  the glass partition from our group.  Practically in the same room.  Practically having the same conversation as us!  I mean, PRACTICALLY *IN* OUR CONVERSATION!  No, not really, but we did lean way over in our seats and stare and whisper about what famous people we were seeing.  No pictures of that.  I hadn't perfected my covert picture taking skills at that point.


If you wash, rinse, repeat these activities, you've got the Cannes experience!

It was amazing and a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Thanks to my Husband and  his client we had a fantastic time!

Now it is summer break at my house and it doesn't seem quite so glamorous.  Maybe I can give my kids cameras and tell them to follow me around like paparazzi.

Hmmm....now that's an idea.  

Thursday, May 19, 2011

End Of The Year

Oh my goodness.  I, for one, am so happy this school year is drawing to a close.
It's been a year of.....hmm....a year of....ummmm.....
Let's just say it's been a year and now it is over and we can ALL sleep in a little bit.

Plus I don't have to make lunches at 6:30am for a few weeks!
Yea Mom!

My oldest is finishing 6th grade, so she is calling herself a 7th grader now.

My youngest is a rising kindergartner.

My middle is a rising 3rd grader and it is her teacher I'm writing this post about.

We love Mrs. H.  We love love love her and in trying to figure out what to do to show our appreciation for her hard work and love for my daughter this year, I really racked my brain.  No apples or book bags or coffee mugs.  Nope.  I had to think outside the box.  Thank you, Alexis from Jac-O-Lyn Murphy, for being my creative inspiration!

I think I've come up with something pretty good.  Maybe even great.

I got some gift cards together and threw in a few dollars of my own and bought a digital picture frame!



I've emailed our parents and asked them to email me a picture of their child.  I'll upload the pictures onto the frame and VOILA!  Slide show of her kids from this year!

The best part is that one of our parents has pictures of Mrs. H's parents and I'm uploading those as well.  Later she will also be able to upload pictures of her own onto the frame and she'll have a slide show of pictures of people who love her.

Thank you, Mrs. H!  You've made this year picture perfect!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Link!


I have found the most fun blog and I wanted to share!Karen at The Art Of Doing Stuff

She is a tv personality from Canada who, for one thing, has some serious abs.  I don't have abs right now and so she is my hero.

From Karen @ The Art of Doing Stuff

Second, she has that ellusive "eye" for decorating that I wish I had.  Simple, classic, fantastic...in my humble opinion.  And, BONUS, she knows how to fix and make all sorts of stuff....like this bowl.

From Karen @ The Art of Doing Stuff

I was searching her site, reading back posts, her story, clicking links that she liked and generally trying to infuse myself into her space.

My favorite post was about her selling or giving away ALL OF HER FURNITURE because she was ready for a big change.

That is so brave.  Maybe a little crazy, but seriously, how many of you have wanted to clear a room and start over?  Well, live through Karen and experience it second hand.  Her new home may not work for you and your life, but it is an amazing transformation of a space.

Karen's Living Room from Style At Hom
It has inspired me.

No, I'm not selling all my furniture, I'm not to that point yet.  But I am at the point of emptying out a room and putting things back one at a time, finding their right spot and truly loving the spaces in my home.

Run on over to Karen's blog and be inspired.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

That Guy

I'm completely behind with The Wedding post, but boy, has it been a busy few days on the homestead.

This will be short, as everyone has put in their two-cents worth and I agree with the following:

1.  Kate Middleton's dress was truly fantastic/lovely/beautiful/amazing/insert your choice here....

2.  Pippa was quite the looker in her dress as well.

3.  I thought of Princess Diana the whole time and felt she'd be so proud of her both of her sons.

4.  The sermon was so wonderfully traditional and practical.  Plus the prayer at the end was incredibly sweet.

5.  Leaving in the Aston Martin with balloons tied to the bumper makes me like them so much more than I already do.

Those things being said, as my kids and I watched The Wedding on Friday night (I had TiVo'd it),  my 5 year old son asked this as Prince William and Prince Harry entered the church....


"Mom, who are we rooting for?  The guy in the red or the guy in the blue?"

"The guy in the red.  He's the groom.  He's getting married today!'

"Mom, what does the guy in the blue do?"



"He's the red guy's brother, so he's a prince, and I think he does something with tanks in the military, but I'm not sure."

"Mom, what does the red guy do?"

"He is  a prince too, AND he flies helicopters in the military."

"Helicopters?"

"Yes. Helicopters."

"Oh. Well then I'm on the red team.  Helicopters are cooler than tanks and I'm the red guy's biggest fan."

I love it.  My little guy turned the most romantic thing the world has seen in a long time into a macho competition between tanks and helicopters.  

Must be a guy thing.