OK, technically it's not fall yet for another two weeks, and in truth it's just starting to feel like summer. But my retired-teacher brain says once school is back in session, it's fall. I'm still working on my spring and summer pages, but I might just get inspired to scrap something that's current in my life, instead of always trying to catch up with the events that have flown by already.

Ten years ago, we were in Europe on a paragliding vacation. Our perspective on the terrorist attack of September 11 is probably quite different from that of those of you who were at home in the U.S. on that day.

Miscellaneous 2011

In spite of truly dreadful weather that made spring feel like winter, and summer sunshine an unlikely dream, we managed to keep busy. The garden soil was too wet for planting or weeding, the trails were too icy and/or soggy for hiking or skiing, and flying was only possible during brief windows in the rain and wind. In mid-May we'd had enough, and made reservations for a few days' stay at a condo in Pinetop, Arizona, and another few days in Flagstaff. That was the perfect solution for the NW extended-winter blues, and will be the subject of a good number of scrapbook pages yet to come. We were lucky to enjoy Arizona's beautiful scenery before this summer's devastating wildfires destroyed many of the forests where we hiked in May.

It's now November, and I'm still working on Israel pages from last March, and have a huge backlog of 2011 photos that will appear in this "book" as I get to them. Many are rather "off the wall" topics that were specific challenges presented by my digital scrapbook group. Each completed challenge gets me a free set of papers and elements, so what the heck?!

















 

Israel!

 George and I had an unexpected opportunity to go to Israel in late March 2011. What a trip! This was our first visit to the Middle East, and we weren't sure what to expect, so we didn't do our usual thing and extend the trip for several days after the rest of the group departed. That was a mistake – now we're going to have to go back again, because we had nowhere near enough time to explore Jerusalem, or visit any of the Crusader cities, or taste all the Israeli specialties, or fly all the paragliding sites.

March was the perfect time to be in Israel: The northern part of the country was green and lush and blanketed in wildflowers, while the desert wasn't killer hot, and the hike up Masada was a pleasure. Here are my scrapbook pages; I've included images of the 2-page spreads, which are probably too low res to read the journaling, but I think the double pages lose something when they're only presented singly. I still need to do a few more layouts from our London excursion, but the Israel part is finished.