365 Day Art Challenge: Week 29 and ICAD Week 8

Here are my collages for Week 29.  This 365 something project was created in part and hosted by Hanna at i Hanna.

Additionally, for the remainder of this month, I will be sharing my Index Cards or ICADs that are hosted by Tammy at Daisy Yellow.  The collage cards will always come first and the ICADs will be second.

In case you missed them, here are Week 28's cards.  As I'm sure you know by now, I post every Monday morning for the previous week.  All my collages are 4" X 4" (10,16 cm X 10,16 cm) all my index cards are 3 x 5 inches (76.2 x 127 mm).

For this week I once again worked in a series, this time honoring Squiggles, who turned three on Tuesday, the 17th.

Brothers by proxy

Time to celebrate

You are loved, Squiggles

Bleubeard's life story is in the library

The top banana

Banana peels awaiting their victims

Circling the banana republic

Now it's time for the Index Cards.

Day 46

Day 47

Day 48

Day 49

Day 50

Day 51

Day 52

 Just nine more ICADs to make and I can celebrate another year of successfully creating these fun daily bits of art.

Thank you so much for spending time with me today.  If you are playing in Hanna's 365 Something project, or Tammy's ICAD project, please let me know and I will be by to see what you are making.  Please let me know if you like any of these.  As always, I am extremely grateful for your continued support of both projects. 

How does your garden grow

I love CJ's weekly garden updates.  I never think to take photos of my gardens because they are in such bad shape this year.  However, the other day I had my camera out photographing some art, when I decided to sit on my front porch. 

I decided to take a photo of the last of my roses.  I was just thrilled that my rosebush lived.

Out of a corner of my viewfinder, I was surprised to see these two finding food among the weeds in my "flower bed."

I suspect CJ would give them names, but I was just happy to snap photos of their visit.

Enjoy!

It was as if the spotlight fell on this one. 

Thanks so much for visiting my puny garden today.  If it hadn't been for these darling birds, I wouldn't have had a post.  So glad you stopped for a few minutes to join me.  It makes my day.

A picnic near the river

One day while the young people were in town, it wasn't quite as hot as it had been.   Although I hadn't planned to take any photos, where I go, so goes my camera.  One friend said it is like another appendage. 

Although we brought blankets and a cooler, we left them in the vehicle.  I had planned to picnic by the river.

I remembered when several of my internet friends got so excited when they saw Canadian geese, or their return, and I just rolled my eyes.

We have tons of them here and they never go away because people feed them.

Why leave when you have all the comforts and none of the migrating to worry about.

I had planned to take a photo of the river, but got the head of a goose.

Ironically, I cut off the head, photographically speaking, of the same goose, but managed to get its mate and a couple of crows hiding in the grass.  A fun fact: Canadian geese mate for life.

I followed the antics of the geese and their crow friend, all of whom seemed oblivious of others and vehicles, too.

We decided to let the geese have the shade near the river, and we found a shady picnic table in the park, where we could still see the river and eat our lunch without worrying about honking geese begging for food.

Thank you so much for joining the youngsters and me today as we navigated our way around the Canadian geese near the river.

Friday Smiles 281: At the Ice Center

I'm here to join Annie at Annie's Friday Smiles. Some of you may have been here last Saturday and Sunday when I shared that I had two teens and a tween who stayed with me for several days.  To catch everyone up, I took care of these youngsters as their mother was dying last year and until their aunt could come from California (a state in the U.S.) to make funeral arrangements and take them to live there.  They asked to visit me while on summer break.

We did a lot of fun things, and on this particular day, we visited the Wichita Ice Center.

We even took a walk through the Ice Sports Store, which was filled with lots of sports clothing, pucks, and ice skates.

The Ice Center has it all from figure skating, a professional sized Olympic rink, a professional sized NHL (hockey) rink, and children's skating programs. 

There are full-length viewing windows and a health center on the second floor.

There is also a 1000 person seating area in the Olympic sized rink.  You might not realize it from the outside, but this was a HUGE place.  I assure you, my photos don't do it justice.

Hockey, figure skating, and what they call "leisure skating" are all included in this building.  Skating lessons are also offered to young and old alike.

Although I promised I would never show their faces, or even their genders on my blog, they wanted to send a picture of them going to the Ice Center to some friends.   I just hope I didn't give too much away!

Image of hockey rink taken from the internet

I had never been on ice skates before, and I assure you, I hugged the edges, but at least I didn't break anything, and didn't bruise my ego too much, either.  After the skating session, we got to stay and watch the Zamboni (the machine that smooths and resurfaces the ice) in action.  Then, as if we hadn't had enough cold that day, we went out for double scoops of ice cream.

Thanks for joining the youngsters and me today and thanks for your continued visits.  Now let's visit Annie's Friday Smiles, where it never hurts to begin the weekend with a big smile, just like Annie's. Feel free to join in with a post of your own, too.