13 Weeks is Really Not That Long and a Facebook Hop Freebie

What seemed like it was so far away has come upon us so suddenly.  Tomorrow my son will leave for Marine bootcamp.  He'll be gone for 13 weeks, which really isn't all that long, especially in the summer!  We all know how fast summer goes, right?  To keep myself busy, I created a new packet I will use to keep in touch with him while he's gone.  I also think it will be a wonderful resource for teachers to use during holidays when they want to initiate a correspondance with military personnel.

During Sean's party, I put out multiple copies of the notecards shown above and asked guests to write a note for me to send out at some point during his stay at bootcamp.  Reading through the notes the next day, I literally laughed out loud at so many of them.  His 9-year-old sister wrote, "See you.  I'm proud of you, Sean.  I (heart) you.  Love, Colleen."  Sweet, huh?  Then his best friend, Andrew, wrote on the other side, "Colleen has sloppy handwriting."  Ha, ha.  Some people wrote inspirational advice.  Some wrote jokes.  Some wrote nonsense, especially his friends.  But I think they will all really help keep his spirits up.

Earlier this week, I got a brand spanking new laminator.  It was like Christmas for me! 

It is a Fellowes Saturn 2125 laminator from MyBinding at www.MyBinding.Com.  This came with a starter pack of laminating pouches.  It is much nicer than the last laminator I had that I bought at KMart years ago, which I broke on the last day of school this year, so the Saturn 2125 came at just the perfect time.  The first I thing I used it for was to laminate a portion of "Until You Come Home" packet.

I laminatead the poster above to count down the weeks until Sean comes home.  Since I made this one, I've had to make two more, one for his best friend and one for his girlfriend!

I also laminted all these signs for his See Ya Later party we had Friday night. 

So you can see, laminators are great for home and school use.  I know I will continue to use my laminator for many, many more school items throughout the summer, and I can't wait to share them with you.  If you don't already have a personal lamintor, I  highly recommend this one.  It has a cool laminting setting as well as three different heat settings.  It's very simple and intuitive to use.  An especially nice feature of the laminator is the jam release handle.  I haven't had to use it yet, but I know on my old laminator, it was very difficult to clear jams, and ultimately, that was what caused it to break. 

During all this, my more-than-bloggy friends put together a fabulous Facebook hop.  I had every intention of participating but just couldn't get my head around installing the app needed at this time.  I had a (I think) wonderful product that is a paid item in my store all set to give to you for free, so I decided to put it up for you here. 

Click here to download your free resource.



Finally, be sure to visit the Facebook blog hop.  You will wind up with 10 fabulous freebies if you visit and like each page.  You can start your hop here, at Pirate Girl's Facebook page.  Click on the aqua tab to get to her freebie.  From there, you will be able to hop to 9 other pages.  What fun!

Until we talk again, have a great week everyone!