Happy #Quaranteen Birthday

Celebrating anything under quarantine is far from ideal, but we made the best of it for Trevor's 14th birthday with a 'when life gives you lemons... share them with friends' theme. This is the layout I made from his special day.

Happy #Quaranteen Birthday (affiliate link)

I'm so thankful for friends who helped make his day special (from a distance). 

Battle of the Books

Back in December, Trevor joined his middle school's Battle of the Books team. Every two weeks, all of the Battle of the Books participants received a new book, which they needed to read and study. On Battle days, Trevor's school (B. Gale Wilson) and the other 5 middle schools in the district competed against each other in dual meets. After each team had competed against all the others once, there would be a championship meet between the two top teams. The BGW team met twice a week after school to discuss the books in depth and brainstorm questions that might appear. They were well-prepared and worked really well as a team. So well, in fact, that they went into the Championship Battle undefeated.

The Championship Battle, scheduled for April 2, never happened.

Obviously, this is an extremely minor disappointment compared to all the other things canceled due to the pandemic. But I feel bad for those kids who worked so hard and were having so much fun. It was their last year of middle school, so there's no looking forward to next year's team. They hadn't taken their team photos for the yearbook yet, or even posed for a group photo before school was abruptly moved to distance learning. All I have are a few lousy snapshots from the meets.

Why am I bringing up the Battle of the Books now, months later? Because I recently finished reading what should have been the championship book (along with the other three books in the series). I loved it. I loved all of the Battle books. Even though Trevor and the BGW team didn't get to finish their season, they are all better for having read and studied some really great books.

I don't know who selected the Battle books, but they couldn't have made better choices. They're as enjoyable for adults as they are for teens. I loved each of the books enough to search out and read more by each author. Below are affiliate links for all of the books. I highly recommend you give them a read.

When I drafted this post, I mistakenly included one that I'd thought was a Battle book, but was actually from Trevor's book club. It was fantastic. 

Have you read anything great recently? Let me know in the comments. Happy reading! 

Washington DC and NYC 2019

Trevor spent his 2019 spring break on a trip to Washington DC and New York City with his classmates. The trip was virtually identical to one I took as a kid in 1988 and as a teacher in 2001. It would have been awesome to have completed the trifecta (taking the same trip as a student, teacher, and parent) but it was not to be. 

DC & NYC 2019 (affiliate link)

Trevor had an incredible time and loved every minute. Although he traveled with a camera and a cell phone, he came home with a lot fewer photos than I'd hoped. Fortunately, the fabulous Mrs. Brucia (the teacher in charge) and the other chaperones took plenty of pictures. I found the best ones that actually had Trevor in them, added a few others, then put them together on this spread. I left plenty of space for journaling. 

I'm so glad Trevor had the chance to travel with his school friends and make such great memories. 

NJHS at UCD

Today's layout is from a field trip that Trevor and the rest of the National Junior Honor Society members took last fall to my alma mater, UC Davis. I love chaperoning field trips and was particularly thrilled to show off the best of UCD to the middle schoolers. 

NJHS at UCD (affiliate link)

I went with the UCD colors, Aggie Blue and Aggie Gold. By the way, if you've never checked out a brand guide, I think they're fascinating. Many universities and businesses share theirs online and they're a great source for colors, fonts, logos, and other branding.

Somewhat related... did you know you can get university-branded gear on Amazon? Follow the affiliate link to buy UCD stuff or to search your own alma mater!

Celebrating 13

I've already told you about Trevor's Peanuts-themed 13th birthday party; here's the layout about that fun day. 

13th Birthday Party (affiliate link)

Every item, except the white cardstock, is from the Party Boy collection by Photo Play. Sometimes it's nice not having to dig through different collections or different manufacturers to find embellishments that coordinate. It certainly makes scrapping faster to stick with a single collection. 

Scrapping the California Cookie

Remember when Trevor and I asked some of his friends to join us in creating a potential State Cookie for California? It was so much fun. And now the memory is forever preserved in the album. 

California Cookie (affiliate link)

The layout design started with a mistake. When I order photo prints, I want the originals, not the ones that I watermark before putting them on my blog. But I accidentally printed the watermarked version of the plates of cookies. Sigh. 

I was determined to make it work. After trying a bunch of different things, I came across the die cut of California I'd received in my VIP goodie bag at Pinners Conference. It covered up the watermark perfectly. I added the letter stickers and heart to finish the title. Having the title so high made the layout unbalanced, but I couldn't lower it without the watermark showing. Inspiration struck and I took a (faux) bite out of the bottom to help balance the page. 

12th Birthday Party

One of my favorite things about blogging is that I can tell more of the story and include more photos of an event than I can squeeze onto a scrapbook layout. So while I want the important photos and the story to appear in the album, it helps knowing that the details are preserved here on the blog. Because I shared so many details from Trevor's narwhal-themed ice skating birthday party back in June, I didn't feel compelled to include close-ups of the narwhal items we made on the layout. Instead, I packed it with photos of Trevor and his friends having fun.

12th Birthday Party (affiliate link)

I debated whether to include the grinning alligator on a page about a narwhal-themed birthday, but I couldn't resist. He fit the space perfectly and looks so cute holding the present and the balloons. 

You may have noticed that the only journaling I did was to label the kids (and Narwhal). The photos answer the rest of the basic questions:

• What: Trevor's birthday party
• Where: ice rink
• When: Trevor's 12th birthday

You might argue that, years from now, one of Trevor's descendants won't know when his birthday was and thus what year this took place. Nor will they know which ice rink we visited. But I'd argue that both of those questions are answered by other layouts in the same album. For the record though, I'll note both of those here, with the optimistic (though perhaps unlikely) expectation that my blog will be accessible to future generations: This party took place at Vacaville Ice Sports on June 8, 2018, the day after Trevor's 12th birthday. And it was awesome.