Open Air Jeep Tour of St Lucia

St Lucia was our favorite day of the cruise.  We have so many fun memories from that day.  This layout shows us during the ride to / from the rainforest. We rode in an open air jeep.  The scenery was beautiful, our tour guide Lisa was fun and informative, but the ride itself was the best!  We were allowed to stand up the whole way.  Better than memories of riding in the back of a pickup truck!  Music was playing the whole time. It rained some of the time, but we didn't care!

I was able to combine two different challenges in this double layout.

Stick it Down was having a double layout sketch challenge.  I used their sketch, with a few modifications - I turned the second page to accommodate my horizontal pictures.

Scrap Our Stash was having a stash challenge - using supplies that spell STAMP

S - STRIPED PAPER

T - TAPE

A - Alphabet Stickers

M - Marker for journaling

P - Patterned Paper.

Sunny Shores in St Martin

The last stop of our 7 Day Southern Caribbean cruise was St Martin (well, it was actually Sint Maarten). We originally planned to go to the Airport Beach - Maho Beach.  This is where the airplanes take off and land VERY close to the beach.  We wanted to experience that, but everyone was tired and it was an ordeal trying to get there, so we opted for the nearby Great Bay Beach.  That beach is just a water taxi away from the cruise port.

This ended up being a great option.  The water was just beautiful.  I could have ridden the water taxi back and forth many times and been completely happy.  Did I mention how beautiful the water was?  We were able to check out the beach in the morning, go back to the ship for lunch, and then head back out to explore the beach and shopping some more.

Lasting Memories has a great theme challenge going this month - Travel.  This fits perfectly with my vacation book I am working on. The theme for this layout is Sunny Shores

I totally scrap lifted the layout from Renee, a DT member from Lasting Memories. Thanks for the great idea Renee.

Lunch in St Kitts

During our tour of St Kitts, we stopped at South Friars Bay to each a picnic lunch that Royston got for us.  The lunch was Roti - an interesting wrap with potato, mild curry, spices, and chicken.  It was very good.  We ate at the tables from The Godfather Music Beach Bar, which is owned by a friend of Royston's.  Too bad they were not open at the time as it looked like a fun place!

A Cherry on Top  is having a neat "3 in a row" challenge that works with my layout.  I used the row: card stock, 6+ patterned papers, 3+ photos.

Shopping trip to Rio Piedras

Day 4 in Puerto Rico: We decided to visit a local food market to experience some Puerto Rican culture.  We went to a market in Rio Piedras, which is a part of San Juan. While we were hunting for the market, we did some shopping along the busy streets.  We also came across a curious pink church that was abandoned.  It was a very pretty church - totally boarded up.  I later found out it was a Catholic church that used to also serve as a school.  I never could find out what happened to it - other than the area was in need of revitalization..

On the first half of the double layout, I used the layout from Sketch N Scrap's challenge #77

I also was able to use the March color challenge at Scrap Much

Here is the first side of the layout:

The other side of the layout uses Sketch 430 from Scrapbook Challenges.  I rotated the layout.

and Challenge 75 from The Paper Girls Challenge, which says use the color Marsala somewhere in the layout.

And the whole double layout together:

Old San Juan Walking Tour - Rest time!

As we worked our way through Old San Juan, we rested A LOT!  I loved this beautiful fountain that we happened upon!  We wandered to the Old San Juan Gate, which is one of the original entrances into Old San Juan from the 1500's.    This layout shows us resting by the fountain and then again by the gate area.

I found a neat Pi-Day challenge at A Cherry On Top.  I picked pecan as my pi(e).  This means I was supposed to make a layout that uses at least 3 colors.  It actually says "Go nuts!"  I also had to use at least 3 circles in honor of pie.  I picked brown, turquoise, and a pinkish orangish red for the colors.


I also used the layout for the March Rewind challenge at A Cherry on Top as well!

Jungle Time in St Kitts

On our tour of St Kitts, we stopped and checked out a creek near some ruins we were looking at. As soon as we got near the creek, we were in the JUNGLE - complete with Tarzan style vines to swing on.  The boys were immediately enthralled!  We spent quite some time swinging in style!

Thanks to Let's Scrap Sketches for the great sketch.  The sketch is one of their March challenges!

I was also able to squeak in a few other challenges with this same layout.  I combined two Scrappy Friends challenges: Rochelle's Tic Tac Toe Challenge and Kelly's March Color Challenge. 

On Rochelle's Challenge, I used the center vertical column: Polka Dot Paper, The color Green, and Something that sparkles.

On Kelly's Color Challenge, I used three of the colors.

Polka Dot Paper closeup

Something that Sparkles. 

Deep Sea Fishing - Got the Big One

Vacation 2013

Puerto Rico: During the boys' Deep Sea Fishing trip with Captain Marcos, they kept catching small fish for bait.  In one of my very favorite pics of the trip, you can see how a big fish bit into a smaller fish and left just his head on the hook! Love the expression on Preston's face.  Persistence pays off though because Preston finally hooked a BIG one.  After much reeling, he brought it in.  A large King Mackerel!

For the first half of the layout, I used a Map pattern challenge from Scrapbook Challenges.  Thanks so much for the inspiration!

And here is the full double layout.

St Lucia - Our adventure with Adventure Tours

Cruise 2013 - We started out in Puerto Rico and then hit 5 different islands in 7 days to end back up in Puerto Rico.  The highlight island of the trip for most of the family was St Lucia.  We took this tour through Treetop Adventure Tours.  The whole tour was fantastic.  From the open air jeep ride to the rainforest, to the Hike to the Waterfall, with the zip line in-between.  Lisa, our tour guide, made the trip unforgettable!

To document part of the trip, I used a challenge from Scrap Much? This was the Sketchy Friday Challenge for March.

Monkeys in St Kitts

Man, two snow days = four double layouts for me.  That is 8 scrapbooking pages.  I might finish this cruise album after all!

During our cruise, we stopped at St Kitts.  We took an EXCELLENT island tour through Royston Tours. Royston was a GREAT guide for our private. I felt like he took us everywhere! If you ever make it to St Kitts, be sure and take his tour.

One of the first stops on the tour was to see a friend of Roystons.  A friend and his monkey!  

The Memory Nest has great challenges. I used their Make it Monday #35 sketch for part of this layout.

The double layout is below:

During our cruise, we stopped at Barbados.  As part of our snorkel/turtle tour, we stopped at a quiet beach to hang out for a while.

I followed a sketch from Stick It Down. This was March's Single Sketch Challenge.

Here is the whole layout

Old San Juan Walking Tour

After our cruise was over, we spent one night in Old San Juan before we fly home.  Old San Juan is beautiful, and there is SO much history to see.  I wish we had more time to explore and experience it. But, you do what you can, right? So, after getting of the ship, we CRAMMED as much as we could into that afternoon. This layout shows just a small amount of what we saw!

I followed a sketch from Stick It Down. This was March's Double Sketch Challenge.

Luquillo Kiosks - Puerto Rico

During our summer vacation in 2013, we spent 5 days in Puerto Rico.  We tried to get out and enjoy the culture as much as we could.  One great local hangout we visited was the Luquillo Kiosks. The kiosks are a long strip building divided up into around 60 little shops, bars, and restaurants. It is a great place to sample food, get to know some friendly locals, and shop.

Over at Scrap Our Stash, they have a great challenge up right now.  Challenge #24 is to use elements on your scrapbook page that spell out the word "STENCIL".  Here is my double layout that I made for the challenge:

S - Stitches
T - Torn paper
E - Embossing (the black stitches are stamped and embossed)
N - Numbers - For date in journaling
C - Circle
I - Ink for edges
L - Letters for title

Silver Moon Charters - Cruise 2013 - Barbados

As part of our caribbean cruise back in 2013, we booked a snorkel tour while we were in Barbados.  Silver Moon Charters was the company we used - they were great!  The trip started out with a snorkel with the turtles.  That was AMAZING!  Then, after some sailing, we stopped off shore for lunch.  We swam to the beach and explored while the staff prepared lunch.  The trip ended with a nice sail back to the dock.  I would recommend this tour to everyone.  The catamaran we were on had our family and 2 other families.  Very private and very fun!  This page is just one layout for the tour.  I found this great sketch over at Scrapbook Challenges. Sketch 428!

The second page is for a color challenge I found at Scrap Much?.  I have never done a color challenge before so I'm not sure if I did it correctly.  I only used a few colors from the palette.  Anyway, below is the page.

And here are the two pages together, as they were intended!

Fishing and Eating - Puerto Rico

While we were in Puerto Rico a few years ago, the guys went deep sea fishing. They caught all kinds of fish: big ones and little ones.  The mentionables are the King Mackerel that my son caught, and the Jack fish that my husband caught.  After fishing, they took the fish to the marina grill, El Varadero Seaside Grill, and had some of the smaller fish cooked up for dinner.  The girls joined them for a nice fishy dinner!

I scrapped one page of my two page layout using the challenge (LM #229) at Lasting Memories.
The layout doesn't make tons of sense yet since I don't have the first page done, but hopefully, you will get the idea.  The complete quote for the title: Teach a man to fish, and he will EAT IT!