Project Life: (My) Week 16

Holy busy, crazy week. My week 16 was Spring Break and included our annual Spring Break Trip to California. This is our third year in a row making the trek and I really think this was our best year ever. Now that Cooper is a little older, he can more fully enjoy Disneyland and all the glory of Southern California (the beach, Hollywood, LACMA, etc.). Granted, he was also more of a handful this year, but it was beyond cool to see him totally mesmerized by the fireworks (he calls it snow) and to watch him melt when Minnie Mouse hugged him.

I was overwhelmed just thinking about putting together these spreads. I started working on them as soon as we got home, in fear if I waited I’d get too scared to do them. I wish I could say I covered EVERYTHING from our trip. But I’m sure I missed tons of stuff. I guess that’s why I was so stressed about doing this week. What if I didn’t do the week justice? Then I thought – well anything I do is better than last year, which never got done at all. I tried to defuse the pressure and just enjoy the process. And guess what? Once I started it came together faster and easier than any other week. Granted, there is a TON of content. But it just all fell into place.

This is my first page. It includes our first full day in California. Since the weather wasn’t supposed to be great, we went to the Discovery Science Center, LACMA and Hollywood. LACMA was my favorite part and Shelby actually was more interested in the art than anything else we did all day. She totally digs walking through museums, checking things out and dolling out her opinion the the artwork.

My second full page highlights our first day at Disneyland. My favorite photo on this page is of Cooper and Shelby watching the fireworks together. Once in my album, I plan on stapling our park tickets to the photo in the bottom-right corner.

The center journaling reads:

One of my favorite parts of the entire day was when we watched the fireworks show. We just so happened to be in the perfect spot when people started lining up to watch them, so we decided to do the same. Sitting in front of Tom Sawyer’s island with the Haunted Mansion at our back, we were in the front row and had perfect seats. Cooper was mesmerized. As the fireworks exploded, Cooper yelled “Ooh, the snow.” His eyes lit up. As I sat there watching him and Shelby in awe of the show, I was reminded of my childhood and the countless trips to Disneyland I made with my siblings. My heart about burst. I know Disneyland is expensive and so commercial, so much so people don’t like it ... But it reminds me of everything wonderful & magical about my childhood -- the crappy stuff melts away, all I remember is the good. Now, I get to share the magic with my kids.

For this particular week, I have a ton of inserts and lots of added ephemera I collected along the way: maps, tickets, hotel room keys, etc. Here’s my first insert (using a 6x12 template from Ali Edwards), which includes some of my most favorite photos from the trip:

My second insert highlights our trip to Santa Monica. We took a ton of photos that day, but I wanted to highlight my favorite ones and focus on the beach, my favorite place in all the world.

Here’s my third insert. It’s 12x12. I don’t have a fourth insert. I’m going to use the back side of this page to add some of the larger memorabilia. I have a large, professional photo from our breakfast with Minnie Mouse that will fir perfectly here. I used a free, Instagram template I found on the Persnickety Print blog.

 

By no means did I cover every single moment of our trip. I still have oodles of photos. But these pages really capture the spirit of our vacation. If I don’t manage to make anymore pages for this trip I’ll be okay. I’m beyond thrilled with how these pages and inserts turned out. Love them. And I love this project.

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This week I linked up with The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama. Both are filled with great Project Life inspiration.