Have you ever Googled yourself?

I did, and added the word marijuana to my name because right now where I work we are preparing to hold hearings on whether marijuana has medicinal purposes. My email and phone number went out in the press release about the hearings. The results were about 39,100 in less than 0.49 seconds for "debbie jorgenson marijuana." And for the record, I have never ever even indulged.

Our first stop at the zoo -- a wall to get an official zoo picture. Wish these places had signs that were accessible to stand in front of that said Minnesota Zoo.

Can't see the turtle statue here, but the kids were all climbing onto its back to get this group shot.
Puma.
This wolf was a one year old female. I thought Cailey would be infatuated with her but she didn't pay her that much attention.


I thought this was pretty cool. The diver, while feeding the fish in the tank, was telling us all about the various fish and their habits.



Time to head home. A couple of us had trouble waking up. Had a bit too much fun.
We're up!
Fairy dust boxes the girls picked up.
Cousin It? I love the necklace accessory.

Vacation photos

Back home now from our mini-vacation to Minneapolis. The zoo was a really great choice as a destination--two thumbs up for the Minnesota Zoo.

The Mall of America may have been too much for the kids. Perhaps it was the two hours I let the girls swim the night before at the hotel, but we hadn't been there an hour and they were dragging. We decided to rent a dual stroller for the girls to use along with the umbrella stroller we brought along for Luke. The kids enjoyed the rides--especially Cailey, who rode the roller coaster once and the log ride twice. Mia sat out the log ride the second time and the roller coaster. I'll give the Mall of America one thumb up.

Our hotel, the AmericInn in Shakopee, which I booked through Expecia, was really nice and had a water slide and a kiddy wading pool. Unfortunately we were placed in a smoking room, which the hotel tried to clean the air, but the hallway was filled with cigarette smoke and was unbearable. Lesson learned--just because Expedia asks you what your smoking preference is doesn't mean that is what they get. They have a very small disclaimer that they can't guarantee the availability of a non-smoking room. The hotel happened to be booked solid and there were no other rooms to move us to, so the assistant manager said if I want to come back up, call her directly and she'll take care of us. Two thumbs up for the AmericInn; two thumbs down for Expedia.

For some reason I've uploaded my pictures but they aren't showing up, so here's a link to my Flickr Photostream to see some pictures from our vacation: http://www.flickr.com/photos/queenshakenbake/.

Dogs, thunderstorms, and free dogs

While we were on vacation Carrie watched our three beagles. She was telling me they were really good except for one morning when she went over and they had gotten an onion off the pie safe and a zuchini off the table. That would be Maddie. Maddie may be ten in dog years, but is still going through her terrible twos. That dog can get onto a bar-stool high chair and get up where no dog should be able to get.

Last night Molly was acting up even before being put in the kitchen for the night. I wondered then if there were storms in the air but I didn't hear Ed Wilson mention any overnight thunderstorms, so I didn't give Molly a Nervoheel pill. Her heavy breathing and pacing kept me awake until around 11:30 when I finally fell asleep, only to be awaken at 3:15 by her doing her best to tear the gate down. Fortunately for us it is a new gate and not as easy to pull down. Unfortunately she has figured out how to open it up so we bungie cord it shut. While on vacation earlier this month she chewed through the bungie cord and Jeremy tied it together and we have failed to replace it. I yelled at her a few times and dozed back to sleep. I was awaken once again at 4:15 by her heavy breathing/panting in the bedroom and two other dogs jumping up in bed with me. I listened for a moment and heard thunder off in the distance. I dragged their sorry butts back into the kitchen, gave her some Nervoheel. When I tried to fasten the gate again saw it had once more been chewed through. So in my lazy/sleepy frame of mind, I saw the cooler, still filled with cold beverages and icy cold water and thought I'd just move it in front of the gate so she can't pull it open. I went back to bed only to hear a thud and went back to the kitchen to find Molly had removed the lid to the cooler and using all her strength, tipped the cooler over. Now I had a small flood on the kitchen floor to clean up. After doing this, I dragged her sorry butt downstairs and put her in a kennel, came back upstairs to go to bed. I wasn't able to get back to sleep, but did stay in bed until 6. I went out to the kitchen to feed the dogs and let them out only to find that Maddie had gotten into the lazy Susan and got a pasta salad mix and ate all the dried pasta and seasoning. She also got a box of spaghetti and ate them.

With threats of thunderstorms again tonight, Molly and Maddie are both being put in a kennel tonight and I'll let the "good" dog sleep with me.

Cailey version of our vacation....

I have a little toy otter and Mia has one too (Mia's is bigger). It has a star fish on it. Minnesota is fun. I love my breakfast when I eat at the hotel. The hotel has a TV in it. We are watching Disney channel....maybe more later as she is sidetracked by the the Wizards of Waverly.

Our vacation as told by Luke....

I'm having fun on vacation. I went to the zoo and I saw camels. I saw bears, wolf and rode the train (monorail). That was fun. I got a dolphin. I played on the playground at the zoo. I went swimming. I saw another bear and had fun playing at the playground and I saw the thing that was swimming (I think he's talking about a diver feeding the fish and talking to the crowd). And I ate a slush and a pretzel and pizza. I love the zoo. And I love to go there.

Mia's Vacation Memories (so far....)

(I've neglected this blog for awhile. I'm not on vacation with three of my grandchildren. I'm going to let them tell about what we've been doing.)

We went to the zoo. I got a toy otter. I am going to buy Mommy something at Mall of America tomorrow. We saw the otters. I like the swimming pool. I really like the water slide and jumping in the water. I can't wait to go to the Mall of America tomorrow. I'm thinking I want to see all the gift shops.

[NOTE: I'll try and post some pictures later.]

More Vacation Photos

Here are some more pictures from our recent Colorado vacation:
Roger and I at the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). Who needs a tripod when you have Photoshop. Can you tell which one of us was Photoshopped into the picture?

After visiting the Alpine visitors center at RMNP, we stopped to play in the snow. Notice my shoes--the snow was a little cold when it hit my bare feet.



View from our hike around Bear Lake in RMNP.

A photographer taking in the beauty at Bear Lake in RMNP.
Ferns we saw while hiking around Bear Lake.

We also hiked to Alberta Falls in RMNP to capture the beauty.


The water tumbling over rocks while hiking to Alberta Falls.

A Rio Grande train at the train museum in Golden, Colorado.

You know when you're blog reading is out of control...

When you only have 407 more to read. Of course I've been on vacation for a week and have only kept caught up on a few blogs. I'm not telling whose I've read. This isn't taking into account the number of emails I deleted without even reading. Of course I didn't delete any you might have sent.

Recapping my rafting experience

We're home now and we were Googling news stories to see if we could find out how the gentleman is doing that was pulled from the river on the 14th and taken to a waiting ambulance by the Royal Gorge train is doing. Had I seen the stories from last week, I doubt very much if Roger would have been able to get me on one of those rafts. It seems that on July 7 (one week before our raft trip) two gentlemen from Colorado drowned in the Arkansas River while rafting. Then on July 9th, a Texas man volunteering at a Boy Scout camp in Colorado died in a rafting accident when his raft capsized in the Arkansas River in a class 3 rapid.

Here's a little video of rafting in the Royal Gorge and a view of the railroad:

Roger's gold mine

Those of you who know Roger (family) probably knows how he loves to watch the ground for interesting things. It isn't uncommon for him, while I'm driving, to see a box or bag besides the highway or street and say I bet it has something valuable inside it. I, being the driver, just keeps on going.

Yesterday as he was pulling into the hotel parking lot, he is looking at the ground and says, "there's two dollars back there." He parks the car and walks back to pick up the two dollars. I see him bend over six times picking something up. He comes back with three $5s and three $1s. That bought us dinner at Pizza Hut. WTG Roger.

What a day!!!!

Climbing into the engine on a 7 foot vertical ladder, 34 inches from the ground.


Today I had booked us in the cab of the Royal Gorge Railroad. Chad was the engineer and I think we had the best seats on the train. The railroad track follows along the Arkansas River, which has many rafting companies operating white water rafting. Right before we reached the Royal Gorge Bridge I saw several boats pulled over to the side, but didn't think too much about it until all of a sudden a guy runs up the bank and pops onto the railroad track waving an oar. Chad stopped the train. From my vantage point I could see what was going on. There was a gentleman laying on his back in the boat gasping and holding his chest. He was being held by a girl. The boats appeared to be loaded with all young people, so don't know if he was a teacher or something. Chad and the train's conductor helped the float leaders to help get him up the steep bank and into the train. Chad then dialed 911 and made arrangements for an ambulance to meet us up at a quarry that had access to the train. Chad said he had fallen out of the boat and taken on a lot of water and came very close to drawning. The gentleman's condition wasn't the best and they had problems getting him stabilized. I hope he will be okay. While waiting for him to be loaded onto the train, other float trips came by and were stopped. Here is some people in a raft.


We had reservations for our own rafting trip right after the train ride. Before this happened we needed to get right in the car and drive 45 minutes to the Arkansas River Tours, which was going to be a close call. I called them as soon as we reached the car and explained what had taken place. They asked if we were traumatized by the event or if we still wanted to go and I said we still wanted to go. They said they would wait for us and told us to drive safely.

I had been nervous before the morning incident and I think it just made me a little more scared. I think I clenched my teeth most of the way and now have jaw pain. I knew we were in good hands though, because our guide's name was Mia--and I knew she had to be a fantastic person. These pictures were taken by Arkansas River Tours. It was a really a good float and I would highly recommend Arkansas River Tours to anyone coming to Colorado and want to try it.

That is my oar near the back of the boat.

Roger is sitting right across from me. I was knocked into the boat in this photo.


Mia our float guide.

The whole crew.

4th of July

I'm a little late posting pics from the our 4th of July. We were invited to Gloria and Ricks for a Bar-b-que. The night was a little rainy, so we moved most of the fun into the garage. Doug and Beth were there with Evan and Jared and their grandson Brody, along with Carrie's and Jeremy's family. The two youngest Jorgenson boy's spent some time bonding over the saucer. Brody is 9 months old and Jaren is one year.

Pikes Peak's Cog Railroad

This morning we caught the 8 a.m. Cog train to the top of pikes peak. Breathing was a little difficult--Roger didn't even attempt a cigarette. I think we both suffered a little altitude sickness from this trip.

Afterward we ate lunch in Manitou Springs and then went to the Garden of the Gods.

Rain moved in while we were there and the thunder and lighting was very cool.

Views from the car

The view from my side view mirror yesterday. Notice the beautiful blue sky behind us and the dark sky iin front.

I see the mountains.

Jaren turned 1

On the 28th of June, Jaren turned one. He celebrated it with a wading pool party with friends and family present. He wasn't too impressed with the cake / frosting.

Supplies used were Metan Turnidge's Party Boy kit and Meryl Bartho's Pocket Dates.

Wicked Tickekts and lazy Saturday

Today was a nontypical Saturday for Grandpa and Grandma. Grandpa left home to go stand in line this morning around 6:30 to get us tickets for Wicked. I stayed home doing laundry and downloading and tagging some new scrapbook purchases from Crystal Wilkerson Grandpa came home and watched some TV and, are you sitting down, I fixed lunch. Cooking on Saturday almost never happens in this household. After lunch we took a nap. I didn't leave the house until after 5 today and that was to go to Costco to pick up some 365 pages I had printed.

I did finish Mia's and Luke's soccer pages:

Visit with Jaren

Grampa and I visited Jaren and his parents tonight since we haven't seen them in over a week. As soon as he saw me, he crawled over and pulled himself up on my leg and gave me a big kiss. He spent a lot of time walking between everyone. There was one unfortunate incident--he was standing at the TV playing and fell, hitting his head right above his eye HARD on the glass shelf. He cried hard for a minute and then got up and went back to playing.

Wow, I'm leigh out of the day at Scrapable.net

Uploaded a couple lei-outs at Scrapable last night. I am participating in Scrapable's first ever Swim School, where I get assignments each week and learn lots of new tricks as we swim through these lessons. I was so surprised this morning when I woke up and saw the following message in the forums:

Congrats to QueenShakeNBake for LOTD, Spring.
This lei-out catched my eyes when I made my round through the gallery.
I love this colors, which shows me happiness and gives me a summer feeling. I also like to see a photo different from the family-fotos which we see mostly.



The other lesson this week was to scraplift one of several lei-outs the swim instructors and lifeguards had chosen. I chose to scraplift Digi-Chick Linda's fabulous lei-out

Linda's lei-out.

My lei-out.

Iowa State Fair

The Iowa State Fair currently does not have a category for digital scrapbooking. But the "scrapbooking" category does not specifically preclude digital scrapbook pages, so several digi scrappers I know and myself are going to enter some layouts. The deadline for entries is July 1, 2009. I've chosen five layouts to enter and have sent them to Costco for printing. I may submit a couple more. I need to look at the premium book a little closer. Perhaps next year they will include a category just for digi scrappers.

Click HERE for Contest Information (PDF)

Click HERE for Entry Form (PDF)

Iowa State Fair
P.O. Box 57130
Des Moines, IA 50317
515.262.3111 ext. 242
Fax: 515.280.4841

Thank you Denise from "Time to Scrap" for finding this information.

Here's one of the layouts I'm planning on entering: