Saturday, January 5, 2013

Project Life 2012 Weeks 48 & 49

Well hi there and Happy (belated) New Year! I'm happy to say that I've already got a good start on my 2013 Project Life Album and am hoping to share my first week with you in the next few days. But in the meantime, I thought I'd first share a few of the final weeks of my 2012 Album, starting with Weeks 48 & 49.

First up, Week 48, which covered November 25 to December 1. This was the week we went on a little mini vacation to Oahu over a long weekend to celebrate Dean's 6th birthday (which was the following week) and my Mom's birthday. I already mentioned that I don't do a Photo-a-Day approach with Project Life and my Week 48 spread only covered our 4-day trip to Oahu. I didn't take very many photos before our trip and the trip was such a major part of our week and I had too many great photos not to use them all! That's the great thing about Project Life, I just make it work for me each week. So anyway, here's the whole week:
 

On the left side of the page I included a piece of a small paper bag from the gift shop at the resort. We stayed at Disney's new Aulani Resort & Spa on Oahu and it was AWESOME. We arrived Thursday morning and stayed through Sunday afternoon and had a great time. We didn't even rent a car and just stayed at the resort the entire time (when you already live in Hawaii, you don't feel the need to do all the "tourist" things and staycations are more about the resort and relaxing and playing in the pools anyway!).  We had an amazing ocean-view 1-bedroom villa that was directly above all the pools (see 2nd 3x4 photo from the left for a photo of the view from our lanai). We had fun playing in the pools, going down the slides, Dean snorkled in Rainbow Reef, and even Tutu couldn't resist all the slide fun!! I used lots of Studio Calico goodies from a couple of recent kits on this layout as well as some of their digi printables.


On the right side, I couldn't resist adding a Koa Wood postcard I picked up in the giftshop that was too cute! And more fun pictures from the weekend. A couple of the highlights from the trip were Dean losing his first tooth while we were there. Also, be sure to notice the picture of Dean with Minnie Mouse...Dean is NOT a fan of costumes or people dressed up as characters. When we went to Disneyland in May, he wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with the characters (honestly, I was kind of OK with this, I've never understand waiting in *that* particular line and was happy to avoid that). Aulani is much less over-the-top "Disney-ish" - very tastefully Hawaiiana, but you do see some of the main Disney characters walking around in Aloha wear every now and then. Dean once again was not impressed. However, at breakfast Minnie kept flirting with him and he finally caved and let her give him a hug! He was SO HESITANT, but overcame his fear / anxiety / whatever it is that creeps him out about those characters and even let me snap this photo! Proud Mom Moment right there!


So that was it for Week 48. Moving on to Week 49...December 2nd to 8th. This was the week of Dean's birthday and most of the layout covers various celebrating.


On the left side of the page there's a group photo of us as we get ready to leave Aulani on Sunday afternoon (My PL weeks cover Sunday through Saturday. I'm OK with splitting up my weekend. If an event covers the whole weekend, I just decide which week I want to cover it in and then go with it. And sometimes, like this week, I'll let it spill over into the following week. I'm OK with that. But I like my weeks to start on Sunday - Sunday is the day we prepare for the work / school week, and it just feels like where things should start). I also photographed my first Peppermint Hot Chocolate from Starbucks of the season. And there's a little bit about the small celebration we had at school for Dean by way of 2 instagrams, including a shot of the goodie bags I made for all of his classmates.


And on the right side, more birthday fun - we didn't have a real party for Dean. The last few years we've given him the choice between a party with a bunch of friends or a weekend staycation at a fancy resort and he chose the resort (bonus for him that we, along with Tutu, decided to splurge and go to Oahu this year). It probably ends up being only slightly more expensive than a party once things are all said and done, but this way there's no stress of planning a party in between Thanksgiving and Christmas - and Joel & I actually get to relax and enjoy ourselves too! So on his actual birthday (Dec 6th), he wanted to go to dinner at Genki Sushi, then we just had cake at home with the 3 of us. There are also photos from his school's Winterfest event (SO FUN!) and our trip to see our local Maui Academy of Performing Art's production of the Nutcracker.


And that wraps up Weeks 48 and 49. I'll probably go ahead and share the last week or 2 of 2012 before I share Week 1 of 2013. I'm so excited to be starting this project again!!

1 comment:

Jackie Pedro said...

Awesome pages, Jen!! You inspire me!!