I'm packed and ready...

Hi, Sorry that I haven't been posting this past week. I have been suffering from Pink Eye. The first drops I used made my condition worse. I am allergic to them.
I am leaving tomorrow for California. See you all when I get back!
xoxoxo
Lorraine

Where's My Villa???

Our vacation started off on very shakey circumstances. When we got to the resort they were so over booked that they gave our villas away. We were all so pissed off! I think everyone who checked into the resort that day was pissed off. There were so many angry people in the lobby it wasn't even funny. We never got into our villas, they put us into 9 Hotel rooms, not a good thing when you need to chase teenagers around a resort to make sure that they are staying out of trouble...OMG! We did manage to have a great time...being with family and friends is what it's all about...
As usual there are really no pictures of me in my camera...I'll have to wait until my friends email them to me!



Thank you for all of your birthday wishes! I received a lovely brak from Nancy Ruth. I've got to take a picture and post it! It's so cute and was a pleasure to receive.
I had a lovely birthday. I spent it in bed...on the beach!
I was actually very sick and two days before my birthday I had to go see a doctor in the Dominican Republic. I ended up getting an iv full of antibiotics for Bronchotis and strep. I was negotiating with the doctor to let me have some drinks. No alcohol! ugghhh.... at least the beds were very comfortable.


Still recovering from the Bronchotis...we're all sick! lol And I have a serious headache from all the coughing! I'm peeling and need to find a place in the sun again, real soon...California here I come!
I'll be back tomorrow with the blog candy winner!
I hope that you are all having a great day!
I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow!
xoxoxo
Smiles :)
Lorraine

Sorry I haven't been around

I just wanted to let you know that I am alright! I have been having internet problems and haven't been able to get onto my computer.
I don't have anything new to show you. It's been very hectic over here. 10 days ago my son John was involved in a head on collision. He was in the back of a cab when a drunk driver hit the cab he was in. He was ejected from the back of the cab and was knocked out. He was rushed to the hospital and kept over night. My husband is with him now taking care of him. He had to have additional surgery yesterday on his face. I've been a lunatic being so far away from him and not being able to take care of him. Needless to say the last thing on my mind has been making cards. I know that you'll all understand. Thanks!
Lorraine

Update

Here she is. All in pink. She has to wear a tshirt to cover up her stitches, it's so much better than having her wear one of those cones around her neck. This way she is comfortable and fashionable. I want to buy her a Victorias Secret t shirt for Christmas. That's on my list my next stop at the mall.

Layla is going to be ok. They took out all the cancer with the surgery and it has not spread. However, she has diseased kidneys. The good news is that with a controled diet she can live for many years. We just have to keep an eye on it.
Thanks for all your well wishes. It really means so much to me.
Now, that I'm happy again I've got to finish decorating my house and get ready for all the company that is going to be coming and going in my house for the next few weeks. I didn't feel like doing anything, and now I have to hussle! The first round of company is coming this weekend.
Thanks again!
xoxoxo
Lorraine

Taking a Break

First of all I'd like to apologize. I haven't been doing much blog surfing lately. I am usually pretty good at visiting and leaving comments. So I do apologize about that. As soon as this rough patch is over I'll be back.
My dog, Layla has been diagnosed with cancer. She had surgery two weeks ago to remove the tumor and we have found out through a biopsy that it is a stage 2 cell which means that it is the type that spreads. We are having further tests done today to see if it has spread through her body. Her sutures were removed on Friday and I had to rush her back to the vet on Saturday to have the incision restitched. The wound was wide open. Apparently this type of cancer does not want to let the skin heal, and even with the sutures being in for two weeks it just didn't heal. So we are starting all over again with Antibiotics and extra strength benadryl to try to help her stay calm. Layla doesn't know she's sick and is still acting like a puppy.
I am not a real animal lover ( I do love my dog!) and I never thought that I would be like this over an animal, but she's mine and she's a part of my family and I really like Layla more than some people I know!
So in short I may be MIA for a few days. Thanks for understanding.
And thanks for letting me get ramble.
xoxoxo
Lorraine

Marlene, The Stamper!

I don't have anything new to share with you from this weekend. It was a little busy here.
On Sunday, I was going to stamp with my sister but I ended up cutting out all of her stamp sets from Gina K, putting all her paper trey stamp sets into cds and spraying tack it over all over the backs of all her Bella stamps from the cruise. She in now more organized than I am!
Before we left for the cruise my sister was ambivalent about the stamping part of the cruise. I think her words were something like, you know you can have all my stuff, what am I going to do with it?
I forced her to go to the meet and greet to pick up her goodie bag, and as soon as we got back to our cabin she packed everything away. She had no intention of using anything. She even told me, you take it all home! lol
She did not come with us to the first stamping class that was held during the day, she played bingo instead. But after dinner we forced her to come with us to our 10 pm class!
We arrived late to StampingBella's class and had to split up. I took a seat with some wonderful ladies, Kim, her friend and I'm sorry I forgot her name, and Garnet. Everyone was so nice. I'm stamping away and Emily from Stamping Bella tells me that I am needed by my sistah! Marlene had Emily making her project for her and let her have it when one of the sentiments didn't stamp evenly. YOu have to stamp the sentiment before you put on your embellishment! Then she's working with some Dazzling diamonds...now everyone else is funneling the diamond dust back into the little containers. Not Marlene, she just takes the sheet of paper and dusts the floor with all the sparkly stuff. I just lost it. I was laughing so hard, stamping my feet, pounding on the wall! I thought that's it, we're not going to be permitted to come back to this class. We were so loud and obnoxious! But at the end of class, Emily told me that we had better come back! She and Nicky got the biggest kick out of my sistah! Emily also introduced us to Michelle and Irene and we quickly became friends!
The next day we had to drag Marlene to classes, but now she's hooked!
I will be trying to get some stamping done today!
Have a good one!
Smiles :)
Lorraine


P.S. See my new picture? Emily from Stamping Bella made me change it! LOL!

I'm Back!

The cruise was such a blast! I'm still rocking! LOL!
We had such a great time. I can't even begin to tell you how much we enjoyed ourselves.
We got so much loot in our goodie bags that I had to buy another suit case to bring it all home in. Unfortunately, my sister took home the bag for me so I can't post a picture of all our goodies, but as soon as I get my stuff I'll show you what we got!
All three companies were so generous! Stamps galore, ink pads, coloring pencils, cutting tools, punches, paper, baubles, ribbon and so much more were packed into a backpack for us. And then, during classes more stuff was given to us! Emily and Nicky from Stamping Bella were so nice...they took us under their wing and we had so many laughs together! I love my new sistahs! MWah to them....and their husbands! I really think that we have new life long friends!
Gina K is just as nice as you think she is. So calm and easy going. We made some beautiful projects in the classes that she held.
Nicole had some wonderful projects for us as well. Her stamp sets are beautiful and her classes were a real challenge! lol
I promise to take pictures of everything we made and brought home. But for now, here are some pictures of me, my sister Marlene and my sister in law, Elizabeth goofing off at Margarettaville in Ocho Rios! And some pictures of the cruising stamping rock stars!
Smiles :)
Lorraine


Parrot heads in OchoRios


Dancing!


Heather and Mike ( I loved them! so nice!)


Elizabeth


Formal night...me and my sister


Nicki, Nicole, Gina and Emily


Me and Emily (Stamping Bella herself!)


Nicki and Gina K


Marlene, Irene and NIcki


Alma (cats pajamas), Nicki (Stamping Bella) and Kim (MFT)

I am a winner!

OMGosh! I just had to share this with you...ok, last week I won blog candy from Angela. I received the cutest Bella image card stock, dp. ribbon and embellies to make a card. The next day, I get an email from NicD that I won her blog candy for my entry "Frankie goes to Hollywood" She is sending me a TAC set! Then today, I get two emails one from Holly, that I won her blog candy, and I just got a pm from MFT that I won for this weeks submission for Mondays who's that girl? I get a $5 certificate off my next purchase from MFT. Spending ban has been lifted temporarily! LOL!
I'm just so excited..."you like me, you really like me" lol
When I have everything together I will take a picture and show you all my goodies!
Big Smiles :)
Lorraine

Just thought I'd share...

what 110 dozen raviolli look like! LOL!
We're taking a lunch break, we've been working all morning! We've gone through 5 pounds of flour and we're on to our next batch.





We finished at 5:30, and my sister and I made 200 dozen ravioli! With the left over pasta dough we made fettucinni.
Thanks for letting me share this with you!
Smiles :)
Lorraine

Homemade pasta is easy to make! Try it, you'll really like it!
Recipe below!
Pasta
5 lbs of flour
2 eggs
6 egg yolks
about 1/4 C of oil
3 TB of salt
3 - 3 1/2 cups of luke warm water

mix all together. the dough should not stick to your hands. Knead until smooth. Cut into small pieces about 2 ", roll out to the thickness you desire and then cut into strips. Let hang to dry!

Funny thing happened on the way to the..

This is pretty funny. Stuff like this happens to me all the time.
This morning I went shopping. I was heading to TJMax in search of some king size pillows for my bed. It was a little nippy out this morning so I put on my brand new jeans, go into the closet to get some shoes and can't find anything with a closed foot. All of my shoes are sandals, mostly with heels, where the heck are my flats? No flats, I must have thrown them all out at the end of last season. I must have something like 40 pairs of really nice sandals! Anyway, I find a pair of mules that I purchased in Italy, at least they had a closed toe! I head out the door thinking that I look really nice. My hair and makeup are done nicely, and I had my 20 % off coupon for M's in my purse...M's is really close to the Max. I see my girlfriend in the store and I say hello. She is looking at me really funny. I'm like Fenizia, are you ok? And she says to me, Are you OK? I'm like, yeah, I'm fine, kids are back in school, just running around, trying to get somethings done, you know how it is. Fenizia looks at me again and starts laughing. and says, Lorraine you're blue! I'm like, no I'm not, I'm in a really good mood.! No, she says, you're really blue! The ink from my really expensive True Religion jeans had rubbed off on me. My hands were blue, the side of my purse was blue, and the top of my shoes where the jeans had rubbed were blue. And I had blue on my face. I did notice that my hands seemed blue but I thought it was the lighting in the store. OMG! Can you imagine? I didn't come right home, I did stop in M's. They had a whole bin of $1 Halloween stamps...I didn't buy any...but i'm sure the people in the store thought that I was a little early for Halloween! LOL!
I came home and washed my jeans. 3 washes and the color is still bleeding! ugghhh!
It's a good thing that my appointment with the gynecologist is tomorrow! Can you imagine????? LMAOROTF!
Thanks for listening to my ramble!
Smiles :)
Lorraine

Cruising the Mediterranean and Naples

Our trip was coming to an end. We had one last day at sea and then a day in Naples and we would all be returning to our homes. It's really sad when you all have such a great time and then you have to return to the everyday grind.
Our day at sea was so relaxing. After dinner there was a competition being held in one of the nightclubs and all 19 of us went to cheer my daughter Chelsea on. She was competing in the Princess Idol. She was voted in on another night and this night was the big finale! Chelsea sang a Janis Joplin song. She nailed it and won the competition. The entire room was on their feet cheering her on. She really was magnificent! We were all so proud of her! She was the star of the evening.



We had all decided that we would spend our time in Naples shopping and then have a nice lunch somewhere. Well let me tell you, we were there on a Sunday, nothing was open except for Churches! WE walked around for what seemed like hours and finally found a little restaurant that would serve us. The owner spoke only Italian, but somehow we managed to order a fabulous meal.
If I am ever in Naples again, which I doubt I ever will be, I would take an excursion to Capri or Sorrento. Naples was filthy, and after seeing such beautiful cities and Islands throughout our trip, Naples was a huge disappointment, it was like being in a toilet. We couldn't wait to get back onto the ship.
All in all, this trip was one of the most amazing vacations that I have ever been on. It's one that we will never forget. We met so many wonderful people in the most fabulous places. I'm looking forward to the day when we all travel back to Greece and get to spend more time on the Islands that we fell in love with.
Smiles :)
Lorraine

Santorini, Greece

Santorini, our last stop in Greece was truly magical. It didn't start off that way though! In order to get to the town of Santorini you must either take a donkey or a cable car to the very top. You can also walk the many steps up but it would probably take a very long time and we had no interest in walking the steps. We didn't take the donkeys due to the size of our group. We thought we might cause them duress from the weight of carrying us. lol So we took the cable cars to the top of the city. Our plan was to head to the beach and then have lunch on the beach. Santorini is known for it's black sanded beaches. We get to the bus station and just missed the bus. We were informed that there would be another bus coming in like an hour. From experience we learned that that hour could be any hour, not necessarily the next hour so we made out way to the taxi stand. People had been waiting an hour on that line for a taxi. Apparently there were only 3 taxis working that day! So we rented 3 cars to transport all 17 of us. The scenery and landscapes were beautiful and we finally found our little slice of heaven on the other side of the Island. We settled on the beach and across the street was a restaurant that we picked out for our lunch spot. Our cocktail waitress told us to wait until the fresh fish came in for the day. We asked her how we would know when the fish came in and she told us that a truck would come by, ringing a bell with the catch of the day. As soon as we heard the bell we headed to the restaurant and had a lunch with all the specialties that Santorini is know for. Fried tomatoes, grilled octopus, Yalandzi Dolmathes, taramosalata, tzadziki, Greek Salads and many other dishes appeared on our table as well as some lovely tasting local wines. Everything was just wonderful and flavorful. After lunch my son John went into a local store and bought a CD of music from Zorba the Greek. On our way back to the ship we were blasting the music on the car stereo, dancing in our seats. We pulled over into a gas station to get some gas and we jumped out of the car, still dancing. The locals thought we were absolutely crazy and other tourists pulled over to the side of the road to watch us.
My older son, John announced that he loved Santorini, that he loved it so much that when he gets married he was going to come back for his honeymoon. We all wished that we had more time there to see more of the Island but had to get back to the ship. All of us recited that we would be back!
Enjoy!
Smiles :)
Lorraine

Rhodes and the big boot

Rhodes was beautiful. It was one of our favorites that we visited this trip. The walled city reminded us all of the smaller walled cities of the Tuscany region in Italy. As you walked through the gated city there were several areas that reminded us of the piazzas in Italy. What caught my boys attention were the large boots full of beer. They couldn't wait for us to get off the beach so that we could go to lunch and they could get their hands on Das Boot!
The beach was so much fun. They had a platform in the water that had many levels that you could climb and jump off. Needless to say, my four jumped from the highest level.
The beaches are free of charge, but they charge you for the chairs that you use. This old woman who only spoke Greek comes up to me and holds up her fingers in the air. I'm like what? She sticks her fingers up at me and points to the chairs. She wants 5 Euro each (which was something like $55 for 6 lounge chairs) and won't go away until I pay her. We were only going to stay for maybe an hour, so when the kids came out of the water they found out that they had to share a lounge chair! LOL!
We found this great little restaurant tucked in an alley on our way back to the ship and had a fantastic meal. I have to say that we did not have one bad meal anywhere in Greece or in Italy and that includes the airport food!
After a leasurely 2 hour lunch we found our way back to the ship and sailed off into a beautiful sunset.
Smiles :)
Lorraine

Kusadasi, Turkey

Anthony and Cleopatra walked this!

At first I had no real interest in going to visit Turkey at all. The things that I had heard about it were unflattering to say the least. However, while looking up information and things to do while we were there I had read about Mary's House. I knew that I wanted to see this. The Vatican has declared it to be the house that the Virgin Mary lived in after Jesus was crucified. I booked a tour and my two sister in laws joined me. It was such a beautiful moment to visit her home. Just to see a structure that was built around 2AD was magnificent. I was so emotionally and spiritually touched that I was crying. There was a prayer wall outside of her house that you could write a prayer to the Virgin Mary, tie it up in a tissue and hang on the wall. We all did this, then lite a candle and drank from the ancient wells of water that signified family, success and health.







After visiting Mary's house we then went to the ruin of Ephesus. Awesome! The ruins were larger than Pompei and were amazing to look at. Just imagining life back then, and the vast buildings has us staring with our mouths open in wonder. I would have to say that this was one of my favorite spots. We actually walked down steps where Anthony and Cleopatra walked.
I couldn't take enough pictures!
Our tour guide was such a sweetheart. She spoke beautiful English, but every now and then she would falter on a word or two. While sitting in the bus she was speaking about St. Paul, and referred to him as an opossum rather than an apostle! I just lost it. I stated cracking up and couldn't stop laughing. It was a very silly moment!
After our tour we got suckered into going into a rug demonstration. Sasoon, our tour guide told us we were about to see something very Turkish, and we would be served some Turkish wine. Did she say wine? We didn't want to hurt her feelings and we really wanted some wine so we just followed the group. We thought that we were going to see how they made carpets, instead we were brought into a show room where they just kept throwing carpets on the floor for us to look at for purchase. They didn't serve us any wine, they gave us some apple tea (it was very delicious, but it wasn't wine!)
Our husbands kept beeping us on the walkie talkies. My one sister in law flew out of the room, while Kelli and I were still stuck. I looked at her and said, we just have to get up and walk out. So I stand up and said, I'm sorry we have to leave. Our husbands are watching our children and we must go. The salesman, looks at us and just replys "very interesting".
We later found out that Turkish men do not help out with the children at all! Thank heaven we are all married to nonTurks! LOL!
Enjoy!
Smiles :)
Lorraine

Mykonos

Ohhhh, Mykonos! So pretty, so blue, so beautiful, and the night life!!! Just ask my kids! LOL! The ship docked at 1 am and my 3 older ones couldn't get off the ship fast enough. They hit all the night clubs and came back to the ship in the early hours of the morning...penniless! Unfortunately for them we made them get off the ship an hour after they returned so that we could spend the day at Paradise Beach. It was beautiful. we really had a magnificent day!
Here are a few shots of Magnificent Mykonos!
Smiles :)
Lorraine