Next few days

July 1st, Got up at 6:30 (my dad had conference stuff at 7 every day, so that was the time we all woke up). I had breakfast of some granola bars, we wandered around the hotel a bit. I was very disappointed in the hotel, they were supposed to have shopping but didn't. Everything was very spread out and all their food was kind of expensive. We went down to meet my dad about 11:30 for lunch as a cafe the conference had set up with sandwiches, salads and some hot food items. I got a veggie wrap ($5). We headed out to meet a bus to take us to the National Blues Museum for a tour, food and a concert. This tour was mostly for my dad, I'm not really into blues music, though I did learn that all music comes from the blues, and it was interesting, but not really my thing. We had an afternoon snack/dinner of barbeque ribs, pork and brisket plus potato salad and some ooey gooey butter cake pie at about 3:30, afterwards we had a blues concert by Chaz'men Williams and the Shattered Glass Experience. It was ok, like I said, not a big fan of blues and I didn't know a lot of the songs, plus it was really loud. Headed back to the hotel about a quarter to eight and settled in for the night.
July 2nd, (my birthday), we headed out to the Missouri Botanical Gardens, this was more for my mother. I'm not a huge flower person.
I found some colored lily pad blooms:

 I really love this purple one:

 Also, found a bunch of strange plants in their dome, called a climitron.

 

 Interesting leaf

 How neat looking are these leaves?

 And this leaf?

 These looked like tiny corn cobs to me.

 More cool leaves

 This was called water lettuce, it looked like cabbage to me.

 Some more interesting leaves

And a bumpy tree.

 A giant flower.

Another one in a different color, this is my favorite picture from the day.

 Purple flowers are my favorite.

 Had to take a picture of this cute fox mug for a friend.

 How about a stuffed fortune cookie?

 Thought this was a neat sounding book.

 I bought a few postcards ($2):

We had our transportation drop us off at the Old Courthouse where the Dred Scott case happened. We wandered through the courthouse and some of City Garden where there's sculpture. I liked this pink suit guy:

 We stopped at a grocery store for more food, I bought some pastries ($6) for my breakfast for the rest of the week.
We went to the hotel restaurant for birthday dessert.
I got the matcha bomb:

 This is what it looked like when I got into it:

 It was not as good as I wanted it to be, it was pretty tasteless.
My dad got the baked St Louis, though the lady called it the baked Alaska when she brought it out.

 My mother got this lemon raspberry thing:

 We met up with my cousin and his wife for supper at a nearby Irish pub (Maggie O'Briens), I ordered a mudslide:

 But they didn't have ice cream or a blender, so it was basically alcohol on ice, very strong.
I had potato skins for my entree.

They were ok. We headed back to the hotel and retired for the evening.

Birthday Haul

Hello all, so lots of mail today (and one from yesterday). In one of my FB groups I won a giveaway. After a little snafu, I got it yesterday in the mail.

Here's what was inside the envelope:

 a notebook, stickers, owl highlighters, sticky notes, a really cute paper clip, some pink washi and a thank you card. I'm pretty sure this is all from the Target Bulls eye's playground.

Today is my birthday. I had asked on Crafty Lori's wishing video for people to send me happy mail for my birthday, here's what I received:

 Three pretty big packages. I just asked for happy mail, the people who sent to me chose what to put in the packages. I sent them an email about what I liked, they chose what to send. I'd have been happy with a couple rolls of washi. I greatly appreciate what they sent me.
This is looking inside that huge one at the top:

 It's from ACraftyPoodleMom, and here's what was inside:

 Paper, notecards, pencils and letters.

 cupcake pics with cupcakes, cupcake picks with cakes, a paper cake card (it actually came all folded up), 'happy birthday' stamp, paper clips, an owl card

 puffy owl stickers, dimensional owl stickers, dimensional zoo stickers, cute puffy animal stickers, layered coffee stickers, puffy sparkly stickers with sayings, and cupcake brads

 Project life kit, butterfly wood veneers, paper flower stickers, green diecuts.

 Here's a close-up of the cake card:

 This next package was from mscraftygirl42

Her card is so cute!

 Some die cuts

die cut journaling cards, owl stickers, birthday stickers, wood veneers, mini clothespins

 More die cuts

 And owl journal

 This last one is from Gracie21

 I had granted her wish in the past, so this is a thank you card with a few stickers

 Here's her birthday card. I LOVE it!!

 rainbow circle stickers, layered owl stickers, dimensional stickers (the same ones Siv sent me), more owl stickers, a few layered Dollar Tree flower stickers, a roll of owl washi, some We R Memory Keepers pocket pages

 3 books of Darice stickers

 This is the big bag of stuff I got for myself. I had started collecting craft stuff May, maybe. Every time I bought something crafty or really fun, I put them in this bag and didn't think about them.

 shiny bug stickers, puffy bug stickers, page flags, layered alien stickers, frame stickers, puffy ice cream stickers. All the stickers except the page flags and puffy ice cream are from the Dollar Tree. The puffy ice cream stickers and page flags are from Target. The page flags came in the planner pack with the notepad and planner stickers. I just wanted the page flags.

 'W' stickers, owl and fox pillow boxes, layered stickers, die cut frame stickers, die cut word stickers, Olaf keychain, thought bubble sticky notes. The 'W' stickers were on clearance at Hobby Lobby. The Olaf keychain was from the Dollar Store. The rest are from the clearance section in JoAnn's. I love the sticky notes, they say 'Shout about it, another amazing idea'

 chewy candy from The Dollar tree, Valentine's figurine from Hobby Lobby, travel stamps from Hobby Lobby. Stickers and crocheted guy from the Art walk in Ames.

 green and owl Tape Works washi from JoAnn's, washi three pack from Target, gold and white striped washi from Target, camera ribbon from JoAnn's, owl ribbon from JoAnn's

 Felt owl kit from JoAnn's

 Here's what was in the kit:

I got totally distracted in making these today. I also have a ton of edibles to devour. I'll post those tomorrow, or next week. Some I left at work because I didn't want them sitting in the car while I was eating supper.

By the way, it was my 33rd birthday.