Arches in the sky

Little Band of Refugees sitting around the campfire

Well, I just don’t know what to say other than our lives will never be the same and everything is changed. We evacuated from the coast area 30 miles from Galveston, Texas and came home on Sunday night. There were no stores open, no lights, no Power, and lots of debris for several days. As our city began to return to normal we sat with our family of refugees who can’t go home to Galveston now. That childhood home is gone. We sat for 7 days without power scrounging for ice and food whenever we could find a pod or store open. Our families in Lake Jackson, Alvin, and Galveston, Texas are all still without power and trying to clean up the messes of what was left behind. Thank God for the fabulous neighbors of mine that traded ice and food back and forth between us. And the sweet Friends that had power who let us do laundry for our big family. I thought to only share the photos of peace and strength that I have from that return home. I love how the night sky seemed to be under arches of Rainbows! It was a little solace of Peace to be found in what was a very dark night.

I thought I would share this Birthday card I made for my sweet friend Renee, it was very therapeutic to have a creative outlet for my stress and sadness. I called this one "Looking Up, not Back". I am always looking up. Looking up in admiration of nature. Looking up at the created night sky. Looking up for a glimpse of peace. A sign of change. A hint of what is to come.

Ted Dekker is my literary Hero! And his thriller, action, fantasy style writing is in your face, fresh and so enthralling. It started as a Love story for me, my husband was going out of town for several weeks and he knew the circle trilogy books, Black, Red and White were an awesome read so he bought one for me and gave it to me right before he left so I would think of him! I couldn’t put the first book down and scrambled to read the next books in the series. I’m now a huge Thomas Hunter fan, the main character of the circle trilogy. And after finding the Ted Dekker website and forum and also finding the Lost books series that goes along with the Circle trilogy books I’m a Ted Dekker Junkie! Check out the I’m a 3,000 campaign that is featured on his site to promote freedom of speech and religion, a tie in to the theme of his new book Sinner.

My daughter was turning 8 and loves music, Hannah Montana, and the Jonas Brothers so we decided at the last minute do have a rock star birthday party! First we made the invitations using the blue, pink and purple color scheme we were using for the decorations. Next we looked up Rock star party ideas online at Kaboose.com and decided to incorporate some of those ideas.

For the party we hung a large outdoor Christmas net of lights, Christmas Lights Direct even sells purple and other fun colored lights, behind our white curtains and made this a "Stage" area for the kids to play dress up. No need to buy a bunch of party stuff, we just took out all of the scarves, jewelry, shiny shoes and glasses we had and placed them next to the stage area. For the next bit of Rock star fun we broke open the Glo-sticks and the kids had a blast playing with these.

We also used free Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana coloring pages to decorate the room and to give out as party favors. We even came up with our own version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey game by hanging a Poster of Hannah, Secret Star, with a guitar on her shirt and printed out little pink guitars for the kids to "pin" on her shirt! Simple game and ideas but they ended up being so much fun!

Last week here at Pinkdilla I spent my time Hatching up new ideas, making cards and spending time with family. The first card I made is a Wizard of Oz Birthday card using a Breygent Collector card on the front, and the second one is a just hatched New Baby card using vintage scrap images and the turquoise German dresden wings. Hope your week is bright and shiny!