Here is but a small preview of our trip to the San Francisco Bay Area. After I have had more than 3.5 hours of sleep, I will write further posts. For now, I leave you with yours truly drinking a cup of tea in Chinatown, a hand drawn sheep at a small pub, and a clue to the reason for our visit. I will catch up on all post and comment reading soon, so please bare with me for the moment.

Still being a new store blog writer (I have years and years of personal writing), I feel like I muddle my way through sometimes. It is fun to write, but I don't always feel like it. Do I buy advertising? Do I not? Do I have giveaways? What do I write next? Well, this weekend I have been bitten by the advertising bug and decided to go for it. I decided that I would buy some ad space on some of my fave blogs, as well as set up Google AdWords.

See that yellow t&e? That's my ad!

I started with thePaperMama. I mean, how could I not? She has this incredibly cute daughter, fun DIYs, donations for causes and great posts about her everyday life. Other bloggers...don't worry, I have plans to buy space from you too! She was the first I followed, so I felt like I should get space there first. I enjoy reading through my Google Reader List every day and look forward to making some more blog friends.

Then I decided to take Google up on their $100 in free advertising. I setup my text ads yesterday and I am set for the month. I have liked Google products from the start, so it just made sense for me to try them out. I am not yet sure what I will do when the $100 runs out, but what I do know is that I will continue to contribute to other blogs.

How did you decide what you would do with your blog?

Here is another photo of our Tater dog while we were out of town last week. My eyes are so drawn to her eyes in this photo. It's almost like she's cross-eyed...very attentive at the least.

Once again, linked up to Chelsey's photo challenge at ThePaperMama.com.

Bride-to-be, enjoying some chocolate brownie.

Enjoying the fire at my parents'.

Making pizza with Mom.

My pizza. Yum!

At Jennie's wedding reception.

She's married!

Ruthie and her baby boy Zach. He pooped right after this!

Mom and my cousin's baby.

We enjoyed going out to eat at many places!

While at home visiting family and friends, I thought about what I would like to do with my blog. I had written some goals for my blog at the start of the new year, and although I haven't quite met them I feel like I have done more with my blog than I thought I would this year. I feel more invested than I thought I would too. This blog will continue. I am going to have a giveaway sometime soon to celebrate it and my readers. Stay tuned!

This weekend we went to the Portland of the East Coast. We had briefly gone there early last fall and loved it so much that we knew we had to spend a weekend there. After suffering through many cold and rainy weekends, we were finally greeted with sun this past weekend and headed over there. Our dog, Tater Tot, made many new friends with humans and dogs alike. Here she is, at our fave restaurant, begging for more treats. Her tongue hangs out like this a little sometimes.

Linking to:

Ooh, I made the top 5! Thanks, Paper Mama.
 

I made a few more chalkboards for our shop. You may find them here and here.

This weekend, we took Tater to the woods and she had a grand ol' time tromping through the long grass and attempting to swim through shallow brooks. Isn't she beautiful? The next three photos are by Ryan.
I can definitely see the bulldog in her in the first photo. In the second, she is more herself (smiling). We picked at least 12 ticks off from her once we got out of the woods. Thankfully, she was patient and still loved us afterwards.

I also washed mounds and mounds of laundry this weekend. Believe me, we don't need pictures of that up here. I feel like I'm caught up in most domestic spheres and ready to start the week.
This is Tater rolling around in the river on a hot day. She does like to roll around on our carpet as well as the grass...I just never pictured her rolling in the water. What a funny capture.

This adorable person is my cousin's baby. (If this disqualifies me from the photo challenge for the week, I am okay with that.) She was born last year and I didn't see her again until last week. My has she grown! And she is so smart, too. Besides being smitten with our cat (and all things that are cats), she is also smitten with jewelry. Here she is, holding one of my new pieces of jewelry. (Yes, I gave it to her to hold and wear while they visited.) She treated the necklace well and made me laugh and smile so much that my face hurt.

Linked to the Paper Mama's photo challenge of the week.

I will probably continue writing a series posts about my trip home last week. This girl in that picture was one of the reasons I came home, in addition to seeing family and friends, my grandma and witness one of my friends get married. Here she is with my necklace on. As soon as I leaned over to say hello, she sad, "ooooh," and reached out to touch my necklace. Luckily it is lia sophia, so if it broke I could get a free replacement. :) She did great with it though and only occasionally touched it like this. In this photo, she is standing near my cat and my mom is blocking her so that our cat does not hiss or reach out to bite her (my cat will be 13-years-old this year and does not like children her size).

I am so glad it is the weekend now. I can finally catch up on my mountain of laundry from before and during vacation, as well as work on a few more crafts. I hope to update my shop with more items today and write a little more about them later. While I was home, I was able to find a few more small frames to turn into mini-chalkboards.

Hello readers from oh, hello friend blog. It's good to see you here. Thank you for clicking over from the ad widgets on Reader Appreciation Week. I have been on vacation for the past week and am now catching up on all things bloggy and my day job.

What? Reader Appreciation Week?!

That's right! Danni from oh, hello friend and the wanderlust is hosting a fabulous reader appreciation week at her blog. She has giveaways, deals from her store and just sweet posts and inquiries about her readers. Click any of the links in this post to checkout her activities for the week. A few include:

Instax and camera pack giveaway.
$100 giftcard to madewell.com.
$100 to the wanderlust.

All look fabulous so far! And even when the reader appreciation is over, it is a great blog to continue reading. Please take a look!