I love a good success story. Check out this experience, as shared by Anna in Loma Linda, California.
My husband and I went to 4 major cities in Europe (Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome) for about 11 days in March 2011. In 2012, when I was pregnant with our first child, I put together digital scrapbooks for Paris, Venice & Florence. As always, some things came up and I did not get a chance to finish an album for Rome. I gave birth in September 2012 and 5 months later, Rome still did not have an album.
In between giving birth and those 5 months, I came across Project Life when looking for the best way to document my son’s first year. I have already started his album using the Baby Edition for Him. When the mini albums became available, I knew that I have found a home for our Rome pictures and I knew it would get done in one sitting. Of course after choosing the 80 4×6 photos and the 3×4 photos that will go in the album.
I have zero experience in putting together a traditional scrapbook, but had the best intention to get into it since 9 years ago when my husband (then boyfriend) gave me a scrapbook album that is still unused to this date, and so discovering Project Life really provided this opportunity for me to finally document our lives in pictures and words, most especially now with our little one. I also have the Clementine and Jade Editions and looking forward to the Mini Albums/Mini Kit sets from HSN.
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Becky’s note: In Anna’s photographs the Rain Mini Album appears almost “mint” so be sure you check out the official product pictures for more accurate representation of this Rain color. I actually like the minty color too, but I don’t want anyone being mis-led by colors being off.
This is Anna’s collection of little albums she had already done on Paris, Venice, Florence albums, and now – the Rome album is complete and fits nicely with this collection!
Last week we were able to get away as a family – just the 5 of us – and head to the middle of nowhere for some much needed down time. We went to a dude ranch in southern Utah (and seriously … driving there, you really are in the middle of nowhere).
We played + explored + relaxed + rode horses + did archery + clay pigeon shooting (I nailed it on my first shot and was DONE) + hiked + rested some more + were fed home-cooked meals (I’m a believer in no cooking on vacation) + hung out with the locals + the kids roamed around on the property making up games + befriending every animal in sight.
We just … slowed down.
So lately, with all the activity going on between HSN, and new digital releases, and Project Life inspiration, and contests, giveaways, and sales … I feel like my blog was in desperate need of a post that had nothing to do with products. Today I’m just sharing PICTURES. No details about the specifics of our trip, no personal family memories, not even page examples of these photos slipped into Project Life Photo Pocket Pages.
Nope. Just pictures. All taken with my iPhone 5S. I didn’t bring my dSLR. Shoot, I didn’t even bring an ounce of makeup on this trip. Or any type of hair-styling product. For real. So … you know. I was looking pretty awesome all week. Ask me if I even cared about any of that.
Our Spring Break was all about quality time together. Away. Heavenly, really. And in case you’re wondering, YES – we definitely recommend the Rockin’ R Ranch if going to a dude ranch is of interest to you. We’ll for sure go back. Our kids prefer this over a Disney trip. (Gasp.)True story. And so do we.
I’ll be short with text and long-winded with photos today. Our little family just returned from another road trip and I’ll share some glimpses. Once again, I opted to leave the dSLR at home. It’s 100% iPhonography (all shots taken with my iPhone 4S). My favorite apps are still HERE (but I do need to update the list with newer faves).
First, I want you to know that while we love to escape the summer heat, break up the everyday routine, and visit loved ones … our business and our customers remain a high priority. We do not let things slip while we’re away. Wheels are still turning everywhere and I take extra care to be sure that everything is still in motion, all our ducks are in a row, and nothing slows down when we’re away.
We are getting very close to having sold-out products available again (but they won’t be here this week as we hoped) and I will have a full update for you later this week or at least by Monday. There are still a few things we are waiting on before I do that.
Stay tuned.
Side-of-the-road shot with amazingly perfect lighting + just the right angle + Instagram filter.
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{ higgins family reunion }
We gathered with everyone in a big lodge near Monticello, Utah and spent one of our days in the fascinating and beautiful Arches National Park.
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{ colorado springs }
We also got to spend several days with dear friends in the beautiful state of Colorado. As always – when we spend time with awesome people – I am inspired to share several things with you from this visit … but that warrants a separate blog post later this week. Watch for that. In the meantime, some glimpses of our time there.
Oh yes. I did it again. Definitely a love/hate relationship with this climb.
This is the beautiful Garden of the Gods. As we were pulling away from Colorado Springs on Saturday we spotted – unfortunately – a fire coming come from near this area. We have since learned about many acres that have been burned in Colorado Springs, and several evacuations. Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by yet another wildfire. We’ve now seen several just in the last two road trips.
Summer means a lot of things. One thing I can count on – and you can count on – is inconsistency on my blog. Case in point: My last blog post was 11 days ago. I can’t remember the last time I had such a lapse. When school got out for the kids, we ran away. It was awesome. Road-tripping with the family to see extended family and friends was just what we needed.
And as always – we are so happy to be back. There’s no place like home.
So for the Summer, you can count on inconsistency here on my blog because the kids are around more and we’re enjoying more family time. Sometimes we are completely here but the blog gets less of my attention. Sometimes you’ll see daily posts whether I’m posting them live or they are scheduled ahead of time. It’s just not predictable. I don’t lock myself into a schedule during the Summer.
What IS predictable is that no matter when I post, or how often, I will continue to do what I love doing on my blog: I’ll share inspiring ideas, product updates, deep thoughts, light thoughts, fun giveaways, and all sorts of bloggity goodness. I’m grateful that you’re here. I’m grateful for your kind emails and comments and expressions of gratitude for what you enjoy about my blog. I strongly feel that we all need to be selective with our time spent with technology. There are a lot of great places to visit and a lot of places that waste our time. My goal is to keep my blog atmosphere positive, inspiring, informational, and uplifting. Life is too short to make it any other way.
Speaking of inspiration … I will be sharing a handful of pictures from our roadtrip on facebook + twitter throughout today, if you’re interested. Many of you already “like” my facebook page or follow my twitter feed. If you aren’t on those, or you’re simply not interested in adding me to your list, no problem. You can still see my live updates on the right side of my blog in the little facebook thing.
NOTE: I didn’t haul the dSLR around on this trip. Documented the whole thing in the palm of my hand with my iPhone. The picture above was edited on my iPhone with the wildly popular Instagram app (Early Bird filter) but all other pictures I’m sharing today were edited in Camera+. You can see all my favorite apps HERE.
All good things must come to an end. Spring Break was so good. Family time. That’s what it was all about. Just the 5 of us traveling and hanging out together – exploring, learning, SLEEPING (we had plenty of catching up to do). No phone calls, no email or snail mail, no work or homework, no texting or social media or deadlines or alarm clocks or errands.
And just my little iPhone to capture the memories. Oh, how I love that we have evolved to a place where I don’t need to carry around my dSLR everywhere. (Photos edited right on my iPhone with the Camera+ app).
Just off the coast of Florida.
Everglades in Florida.
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Friends, indeed this “good thing” (being off the grid) has come to an end – but – we are right back into the groove and heading into the NEXT good things.
Now … where were we? What are we facing? Normalcy + everyday life back at home. Such a blessing. And part of that is work. We are right back into the swing of exciting stuff here at Becky Higgins LLC. New products are in the making. More cool stuff for the website. Regular sharing on facebook + twitter + my blog again. Plenty of good stuff on the way.
It was good to disappear for a week. And … it’s good to be back.
Sure, most of you reading this right now have your heaters running, your cozy socks on to keep your toes warm, and you quite possibly had to scrape the ice/snow off your windshield at some point in the past few days.
But that’s not at all the case for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere. Today’s video was prepared by Mandy in New Zealand, and a group of Kiwi Scrapbookers (a New Zealander is referred to as a Kiwi). David and I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time and meet many wonderful people in New Zealand back in 2004. Truly one of the most remarkable experiences of our lives. We owe that to David + Mary Roberts (Craft House), who invited us there so that I could do a teaching tour. We absolutely fell in love with New Zealand.
Back to the video. Mandy writes: I wanted to try and capture how we do Christmas down under. In New Zealand it happens during Summer so going to the beach on Christmas day is quite normal, and after this time we are on summer break. Before Christmas we wind up our school year too! (ha-ha, add that to the Christmas madness! No wonder we need a holiday!) I asked all my Kiwi Scrappers for some holiday/Christmas photos to add to mine, and put them together using Windows Movie Maker. The jumping pics were taken during our high tea event! Hope all your readers have a glance into our way of life … and next time you purchase a snowy Christmas embellishment … think of us sitting on the beach with our jandals, looking at our Pohutukawa trees!
So we’re just going about our business one day last month and we get this email from Jeff of Phoenix, Arizona. Love the emails from the guys because they are fewer and farther between than the 99% females we usually hear from. This is what Jeff writes:
Seven years ago when my wife was 30 years old, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Our kids were 6, 2, and 1 at the time so needless to say it was a very scary time. After a double mastectomy and 6 months of aggressive chemotherapy, she was declared cancer free by her oncologist. The ordeal had a profound effect on how Jenny looked at life. When she was going through treatment, she was challenged by a fellow patient to write down everything she wanted to do in life and “go for it”. He wasn’t going to survive and he had regrets about putting things off and not doing things because they seemed too crazy.
The treatment took a lot out of us emotionally and financially and 6 years went by until Jenny came to me early this year and said that she wanted to start a blog to document completing things that she had on her bucket list (we call it her life list). So, for Mother’s Day I had jennymeyerson.com designed and hosted and off she went.
Jenny is a little crazy and a nerd (in a good way) and one of her list items was to dance with strangers in front of the monuments in Washington DC. This summer we went to her 20th high school reunion in Virginia and spent the week touring DC and taking video. I was so embarrassed about asking strangers to dance that I would walk about 100 yards behind Jenny with the camera while she asked people to dance. To my surprise, people loved it. Eventually, she even got me to roll down the hill in front of the Washington Monument and to dance with her in front of the Lincoln Center.
Okay. Nod your head if you are totally loving Jeff right now. Awesome husbands rock. This is my favorite part, which was Jeff’s response after we notified him that the video was one of our picks to feature. He says, By the way, Jenny knows that I submitted the video but I haven’t told her that it was picked. I decided to keep it a surprise and let her see it featured on the site. She goes to Becky’s site just about everyday.
Hey Jenny – SURPRISE! : )
Jeff and Jenny used their Canon 5D Mark II SLR Camera for the video and edited the video using iMovie.
Of all the video submissions I got, this is clearly the most “experienced” quality. Eric Raum has a gift – seriously mad talent – for making fantastic videos. He currently lives in Afghanistan and works for the USO to help boost the morale of our troops overseas. Check out how he documented a little piece of his adventures overseas.
Eric used a Panasonic GH1 and GF1 and edited the video with Final Cut Pro.
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You have to read his email to understand the context of this video:
I moved overseas with a promise to myself that I would stay until I could come home having traveled to the places I’d dreamt about as a child. Two years later, having discovered for the first time what it really means to love someone (an ongoing discovery), that promise changed significantly, for the better. Eliza and I attended college together and over a period of lengthy letters back and forth sparked by a random hello years later, I realized that I’d better not let her pass me by again, regardless of the distance.
Still having another year and a half to complete my work here in Afghanistan, those dreams of seeing the world took on a whole new light. Together, we decided to make the most of this time and instead of my coming home to the US, we would meet up once every three months in a place that we’d both wanted to see but never thought we could.
It has been an incredible journey so far, to learn about each other, other cultures, and ourselves; To find out what it means to be a team in a distant land, to work through the initial stages of a relationship while in a desert on horseback, or even worse, driving through Jordan! I am blessed this Christmas to know that I have found someone who will stand beside me, encourage me, and most of all, put up with those three month absences!
I hope that this can inspire others to explore, whether it be a far away land or their own home town. To see things from a different perspective and to take another look at that boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife this Christmas and find an adventure of their own! And if nothing else, I hope at the very least it may entertain!
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Eric has made many other videos and it just felt appropriate to share one other that he did. He said, I believe with great conviction in the importance of taking care of our troops over here. Whatever side of the fence one might fall on, these are our sons and daughters and they are a long, long way from the ones they love this Christmas. I did this in Iraq a couple years back, and the message still hits home in a major way this holiday season. I was looking through the rest of your blog and was truly encouraged to see your veterans day post!
Thank you, thank you, thank you Eric – for inspiring us on so many different levels.
Just back from spending a few days in Colorado with dear friends.
And now — Preparing for school to start. Heavily involved in church responsibilities (which, to me, are really more of a blessing than a burden). Trying to bring our family back to normalcy as the Summer winds down. Wrapping up design work on the 2012 Project Life products. Getting ready to share sneak peeks and information on all the other products coming out even before that. Trying to get my head above water with the inboxes. Housework. Projects. Quality time with my family. Certainly not enough sleep …
To say life is busy feels like an understatement right now. So I’m taking a few minutes to say hello to you and share a few pictures from our little trip last week. I documented the entire trip with my iPhone and edited all the pictures with my favorite photography apps before I even got home and uploaded them.
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We spotted some bears as we were driving through a friend’s neighborhood (ironically, on our way to the zoo). Truly one of the highlights of our trip. We saw about six bears, including little cubs.
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We spent a little time in Garden of the Gods to let the kids climb around on the striking red rocks.
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And we floated down a calm river.
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We hung out at the beach (some local country club has a lake).
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I’ve decided I can’t visit Colorado Springs without hiking the Incline. It’s one mile, straight up. Very challenging. Very rewarding to make it to the top. This is my second visit to Colorado Springs and my second Incline hike.
Looking up.
Looking down. And PS – That’s our friend Katie on the right, who is 6 months pregnant! So proud of her. Tina (left) is local and hikes the Incline all the time. She is such a motivator and example of living well.
Hiking back down on the 4-mile long trail.
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You probably know about my new love for shooting panoramic shots with my iPhone. Inevitably, I have a few from this trip to share.
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Last time I visited, I made a few floral arrangements for my friend Tina. This is a glimpse of one of them. I used this picture to demonstrate some fun photography apps with my friends.
This was showing the “tilt shift” feature in Instagram that allows you to select an area of focus, leaving everything else blurry. If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s super easy. Bring up a photo in the Instagram app, then tap on the picture and you’ll see “Tilt Shift” in the corner. Click on that and then move around the bar (area of focus), widen it, change the direction, etc. Super fun.
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And now … I’m right back to the whirlwind that is this week. See ya.
The following are notes from individuals and families who have generously donated to my brother's family. There are many others who donated beyond the notes you see below and the ads you see on my blog. We can not thank you enough for your kindness and generosity during this very difficult time. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Jonathan -- May god give you strength and courage in the coming months. Enjoy your family. Love you wife and hug your kids. Lean on Him. He can handle it. God Bless.
- Tricia Shelton
May you be surrounded by love, friendship and family in this difficult time.
- The Gourlay Family
Dear Jonathan, Tina and family: Our thoughts and prayers are with you. Although we have never met, we felt compelled to reach out to you. We hope that through these well wishes you feel loved and cared for. Life is about our families, communities and sharing love with each other. Through Becky's blog, I know that you have a wonderful family. We hope you know that through Becky's web community, you now have many new friends thinking of you. May you find strength in God and from all the prayers said on your behalf.
- anonymous
I wish you all love, peace, courage, and strength for the days ahead. I'll be praying. Be blessed!
- Sandra
You and your family are in our prayers. God Bless!
- Angie Murray
Thank you, Jonathan, for being there to support Becky while she shared her gifts and talents with me through the years, albeit remotely. This small gift is the least I can do to say thank you. God bless you and your family.
- With loving thoughts, Terri C
Although I've never met Jonathan, I have been following Becky's articles, books, and blog for years—even met her once at CKU Orlando. Like so many that Becky has touched, I've always admired the love, unity, and values of your large and beautiful family. I wish you all love, peace, courage, and strength for the days ahead. I'll be praying. Be blessed!
- anonymous
All I can say is that I believe God has heard your call because He certainly placed it on my heart to respond. It was loud and clear. And when He's involved, great things far beyond what you and I can comprehend will occur and I pray that gives you peace today and the days to come.
- Peggy Krantz
May you continue to find peace and comfort knowing you are surrounded by loving family and friends.
- anonymous
My heart is filled with love and pain and gratitude for eternal families as I have read about the challenge your family faces. Please accept my donation as a small token to help ease the significant, and often devastating, monetary burdens that come with this challenge. Thank you for a fine example of strength during the darkest times we face in life - an example that gives courage to others struggling with trials in their lives.
- anonymous
To Jonathan and family - I am keeping all of you in my thoughts and prayers during this very difficult time.
- God bless all of you, Leslie Schmitt
"Praying for you and your family." 1 Peter 5:7
- Kristina Proffitt
I'm praying for you throughout each day and asking God to give each of you the strength, comfort, and peace to get through this enormous trial. May God bless all of you in ways you never could've imagined and may His mighty and healing hand be especially upon you Jonathan.
- Much love, Lisa in Florida
May you continue to find peace and comfort knowing you are surrounded by loving family and friends.
- anonymous
Dear Jonathan and family, Our heartfelt prayers are with you and your family. May you know in your hearts that there will always be someone, whether here or above, who will always be with each one of you.
- Maria
Jonathan, his family, friends, and coworkers are all in my prayers during this difficult time. Thank you for sharing your story with all of us- it's very inspiring to see Jonathan's strength through this battle.
- Kristen
"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is that small voice at the end of the day that says 'I will try again tomorrow' " - Mary Anne Radmacher - The last year has been really difficult for me, but this quote always seems to help. I hope it helps you and your family, as well. Don't forget, miracles really do happen. Hang in there and keep your chin up.
- Love and prayers from NM, Stephanie Taylor
To Jonathan, Tina and your entire family: I wish there were more that I could do to help you. Becky's books have been my favorites since I first read them. Because she shared family photos and stories, I feel like you are all old friends. Good luck and I am sending happy thoughts and sparkly wishes your way!
- Jacki Samolsky
Big hugs and lots of prayers of healing and peace to your whole family.
