Tales From the Minivan

I know I probably need my head examined, but I just booked airfare for the 6 of us and my mom to fly to Orlando 5 days from now!

Why so last minute you ask?  Well, it’s been a really hectic school year for Mackenzie, she’s really had a hard time this year with one of her teachers and really needs a break.  We’re at the point where we may move her to another school because of this conflict, it’s really affecting the overall mood of our house.  My mom really wanted to have some time away too, she’s been missing the kids lately, so I thought what a great Mother’s Day gift! With the long weekend falling next week the kids will only miss 3 days of school so no biggie!

The funny thing is, I’m 75% packed!  When I put away some of the summer clothes last fall, I took out some of the things that Andrew and I wear and the kids wear and packed them in our suitcases!  Just need to throw in our swimsuits and underwear and we should be all set!

I personally prefer to travel more last minute, not only can you save money, but save the over analyzing and stressing over the trip.  The one things I want to accomplish before we go and getting the rest of the house organized, thank goodness for the Clutter Control Club! It has really helped me put things into perspective. For so long I would start one area of the house but never get it completed, then start another only to go back to the first area that was completely destroyed again.  I now have a task that I can complete and love seeing the before and after pics to show what I’ve accomplished!  Check out the CCC Smilebox Gallery for some motivation!

Well I better get busy, I’m off to www.disboards.com to get some tips from the fanatics over there!  Only 6 sleeps to go!

Make a Smilebox postcard

So you just saw my (not so small) dirty little secret!  I’m not sure just how things can get this out of control in the house, but it happens WAY TOO OFTEN!!  The first step they say is admitting you have a problem.  My problem, I hate cleaning, but I hate even more having a mess!  This is not a good combination, because as soon as I see the mess I want to tackle I get frustrated and overwhelmed.  I start the job, but it never gets completed the way I want it to.  Yes, I will admit I have a few distractions in the house (well four of them ) and that doesn’t help, but it doesn’t take long for things to get out of control like that. This needs to stop, I need to start good habits of taking 5 minutes after a meal rather than dealing with the crisis that ensues when I “leave it for later”.  Upbeat music really helps me, and I tackled the kitchen mess to one of my all time favourites, Bob Marley’s- Legend.  This music is truly timeless and I never get sick of these songs, even the kids love them!

One thing I’ve decided to do is to reward myself.   After watching the Kitchen Inspiration Slideshow it has really given me some motivation. I have hated these kitchen counters since we moved into our house almost 6 years ago.  They are an awful dark shade of dusty rose (just like the awful carpet on the entire second floor), I’ve decided I want to reward myself with a mini-kitchen makeover if I can maintain the kitchen until my birthday in June (the 23rd).  I want to replace the countertops and stain the cabinets and island a darker colour.   Wish me luck, and I’ll be sure to post photos, if I reach my goal!

I have been crisis cleaning! When you take a look at my Before & After Smileboxes you will see this crisis, that has been surrounding us.

I will admit, I have let the housework slip lately, but when everyone got sick last week, then I got sick everything went downhill from there. I had started to clear out the closets to put away all of the winter jackets, boots, hats and mitts, then everything got left then scattered all over the entry way! So I will swallow my pride and show you my mess! I even added a suiting song!

Make a Smilebox postcard

Tomorrow! You get to see the horrific Kitchen shots! It’s bad…really bad! Thank goodness for the Clutter Control Club, it arrived just in time for me!

Over the weekend, I tried out my brand new *Sparkle Kit*!  I have to say, what a difference it makes.  Having all of my supplies handy all in the same place was great.  I tend to get distracted a lot!  I’ll be in a room cleaning then realize that I’m missing a cleaning supply then  leave to go get it, then I’d get side-tracked and not get back to the task at hand.  My *Sparkle Kit* hopefully has cured this, and brightens my outlook on cleaning!

Let me know if you want your own label for your *Sparkle Kit* and I’ll email you one.  I have to send a big thanks to my DD Mackenzie, who helped me with it!

It was such a nice weekend to start Spring Cleaning, we had the windows open, I got to hang out laundry  and take a look at that blue sky!  Make sure to sign up for The Clutter Control Club so you don’t miss out on the fun!

Ok this is my 3rd attempt to get a post in here, believe it or now I have 3 saved half posts!

I’ll get to this one first though! This past week I got to meet another Cpo’er, Miscouchemommy, the timing worked out perfectly, although I could have sat and chatted with her for hours! Kelly was in Fredericton for a work conference, and I needed to go to Fredericton as there was a group meeting with a lawyer. Looks like some of us that had kids already enrolled for this coming fall for Grade One are going to pursue legal action! I’ll write more about this later! Coincidentally the meeting was on the exact same road as Kelly’s hotel!

I ran a couple of errands when I first arrived, got a new copy of Mackenzie’s Birth Certificate with her new last name! Yes, it’s official as of March 17th, Mackenzie’s adoption was finalized. After getting her updated BC, I stopped into the passport office to see what I needed to do to get her passport changed. We only get hers renewed last year, and for the name change we have to apply for a whole new passport along with the entire fee again. What a money grab!

After finishing my tasks I headed over to the hotel where Kelly was staying. It was so warm in Fredericton I had my windows down in the van. When I parked I noticed this bug right on my windshield, at first I panicked, as I have this fear of wasps and hornets, (well actually anything that stings) then I looked again and it was a Ladybug!! So of course I had to snap a pic. The clarity is not the best as I brought my little cam and not the DSLR.

I walked into the Hotel and noticed Kelly right away, and we headed over to the Diplomat Restaurant right next door to the hotel. The poor waitress had to come back a few times as we were gabbing to much to even look at our menus! I got a Lobster Roll Platter and Kelly got the Lobster Chowder, it was delicious!

Next came dessert, their menu was very vague, cheesecakes, cakes and pies. When I questioned our server what they were she said, “You have to go and take a look at the display fridge!” We walked over, and literally started drooling! I got the “Turtle Cheesecake” and Kelly got the “Cappuccino”. I highly recommend their cheesecakes!

Before we knew it, it was almost 6:30pm which is when my meeting was. We grabbed a couple of photos, and exchanged some goods! LOL! I have been raving about this seasoning called Bell’s for months, you may have seen a recipe called Crockpot Stuffing. Well, Kelly was interested in a box, and since I’m so close to the border, it’s much easier for me to get some. So I promised her that I would give her a box when we met up. She knew I was a big fan of Coke, specifically in a glass bottle. PEI, is one of the last places to still use glass bottles for their soft drinks. Sadly though, the bottling plant will be closing so Kelly picked me up 10 750ml bottles! Oh how I love my Coke! I’ll be sure to ration them out!

It was really great meeting Kelly IRL! We hope to definitely meet up again on her turf in PEI this summer!

As I know many of you are aware Andrew and I got married in a very unconventional way, on St. Patrick’s Day in the Irish Pub we met at. Here’s a post from CPO’s Message Boards I originally wrote 3 days after I got married in 2005 all about how we came to the decision to get married on St Patrick’s Day and how our little “pub” wedding turned into a national news segment. (I still joke it must have been a slow news day!) There’s also a few pics so keep reading to the bottom!
So as some of you may know by now, my long-time significant other and I have finally “tied the knot”.

I thought I would share our story of how my idea for a small little ceremony turned into a national news segment.

Andrew and I met 4 years ago in a local Irish Pub (O’Leary’s), since meeting we’ve built a great little family. Andrew proposed to me 2 years after meeting while vacationing at Walt Disney World. It was like a dream! He had it all arranged, previous to arriving. Our first night there we visited the Magic Kingdom. He seemed antsy all evening but I had no idea why, then just as the fireworks were about to begin, 2 cast members walked us into a roped off area called the “Secret Rose Garden” waiting there was a bottle a sparkling cider, chocolate truffles, & chocolate covered strawberries. I had no idea what was happening, I kept thinking…”I don’t think were supposed to be in this area, someone else is going to be upset we have their reserved spot for the fireworks viewing”. Then just as the fireworks began he dropped down on one knee and passed me a glass slipper, inside the most beautiful 3 stone diamond ring, and proposed. Of course, I accepted!

Now getting married had always been talked about, but was one of those things we kept putting off, our son Liam was born later that year (2002). We decided to have another sibling for him closer in age than his big sis Mackenzie, so little Ciaran was born almost 2 years to the day later. We were busy building our family so getting married just seemed to not be a big priority. Then a life changing event happened in early Feb that put things in better perspective for us. While Andrew was playing his weekly hockey game with his buddies, tragically one of them collapsed and died right in front of them. The next day we both decided together that we need to make time to get married.

A week or so passed and I thought to myself, St Patrick’s Day is coming up wouldn’t be great to have that as our anniversary date? I thought a small civil ceremony, in the place we met, our local pub, my parents , his parents, the kids and our witnesses. I knew that the date was quickly approaching so there wasn’t much time to do more than that.
We got a hold of the pubs owner, who happens to be a good friend of Andrew’s, and he was gracious enough to allow us to use the pub as our venue, and closed off a major portion for us to celebrate that afternoon. Remember this is also his busiest day of the year, and Saint John is “Canada’s Most Irish City”.

Now that the venue was established, our next step was wedding rings. We knew that we really wanted to get Irish Claddagh Bands. So while searching the net, I found the “Irish Soulmate Band”. It had the gaelic words “Mo Anam Cara” etched into the band which translate into “My Soul Friend”, they also have the Claddagh symbol inbetween each word. Perfect! Seeing that my name is Cara, the next hurdle was making sure we could get these shipped to us quickly as they had to be sent from Ireland. Thank you www.irishcelticjewels.com !!

As the next few weeks went on I hadn’t done any more planning, we had our venue the rings were ordered, we found someone to marry us, we told our immediate family, (who I might add were not overly enthusiastic about our non-traditional idea), but really liked the date, Andrew’s parents actually got engaged on St. Patrick’s Day, they of course have Irish roots so it’s a significant day in their lives. Andrew then took an annual trip he makes with his friends, he happened to mention our plans which were met with much enthusiasm, at that point he informally invited them ALL. Gradually, more and more people started hearing about it, and our invitee list was growing… I needed to start planning a “real wedding”, our list had grown to almost 80.

Now it was time to find a dress, I could never have envisioned myself in a tradition wedding dress, but my mother was insisting we just go take a look. The first bridal shop we visited had this gorgeous flash green gown in the display window. I pointed it out to mom and laughed, “Wouldn’t that be funny, get married on St Paddy’s Day in a green dress!” Mom just rolled her eyes. We went into the shop and looked around, just as we were heading out, I looked back at the dress, and said, “Why don’t I just try it?” Mom, much to her chagrin agreed. It fit perfect, like it was made for me. We left the shop, went to a few others, tried on tons of other gowns, but I couldn’t get the green one out of my mind. We went back and I bought it on the spot.

Now being my mothers only daughter, she wanted the whole she-bang and was insisting that we now get a photographer. I refused, saying that everyone we know has gone digital, we’ll be able to obtain their photos, for no cost at all. So not liking this, she came up with an idea to leak it to our local newspapers editor, thinking they may send a photographer to get photos, this was her way around me not wanting a photographer. The paper loved the idea and interviewed us at the pub during an annual children’s charity breakfast, that supports a program that brings children to Saint John from Belfast for 2 weeks during the summer. The article was in Monday’s paper with a nice color shot of us in front of the pub, it was really nice. The photographer mentioned he might try and get back if it was OK at the ceremony to get a photo of me in my green dress, to appease my mother, I agreed. What ensued after this is quite surreal!

CBC Radio called and wanted us to do an interview with them to open their morning show, another local radio station wanted us to help with their humorous morning drive to work show all on the morning of our wedding day. It was great fun! Dave the pub’s owner offered to pick me up in a Hummer he sponsors. When he arrived at the hotel, he warned me “they” were all waiting. I’m thinking our guests family…Andrew, but no “They”, meant photographers, TV cameras and reporters. I was in disbelief that our little pub wedding had gained this much attention. I tried my best to answer all of their questions, but in the end I blocked it all out and focused on the man I love, and pretended that we were the only 2 in the room. Andrew, if you’ve managed to find this I just want to say, “I Love You!”

Telegraph-Journal | Saint John
As published on page A1 on March 18, 2005

THE BRIDE WORE GREEN
(Peter Walsh/Telegraph-Journal)

Cara Fanjoy and Andrew Miller raise mugs of green beer to toast the new life they began Thursday afternoon as a married couple. Saint John’s uptown Irish pub O’Leary’s became the setting for their St. Patrick’s Day wedding. The couple met there and became Friday night, after-work regulars at the pub, which closed its doors for several hours so they, family and friends could enjoy the venue for the celebrations.

Me getting out of the Hummer

My Dad and I

Getting Interviewed by the CBC and CTV!

My Dad and Mom on the left and Andrew’s Parents on the right.

My Dad, Grandmother and on the far right my brother Curtis

A Family Shot!

This entry may come off as a bit of a vent. No photos not much fun, so I will apologize in advance. In about 6 hours an announcement is going to be made that will impact my 3 youngest children for the rest of their lives.

As most of you are aware, I live in New Brunswick, Canada’s only bilingual province. That said, bilingualism is in jeopardy here. You see, my 3 boys will never have the benefit of Early French Immersion as the NB Government is planning on eliminating it from the school system. They say their intentions are good, they are planning a new “Intensive French Program” that will start in 5th grade and will give every student the opportunity to become bilingual by the time they graduate from high school. Their goal is to have 70% of students graduate bilingual, the Late French Immersion program will be kept and students will still have the option to start in 6th Grade if they so wish. Core French will not be taught at all until 5th grade, which now starts in 1st Grade, so they can bring back programs like Art and Music (programs that were slashed years ago). These are the recommendation after a report was done of the Early French Immersion program.

The report “said” that EFI is not producing bilingual students, too many drop out of the program before they graduate from highschool. The other problem is”Streaming” as the report calls it. This is when children are having difficulty then their parents are pulling them out of EFI throwing them into the English program causing these teachers to be overwhelmed, and many children are not getting the resources they need.

I was enrolled in the Late French Immersion Program. At the time it started in 7th Grade. This was a difficult decision for me to make at this time. It meant changing schools, leaving all of my friends and a much longer school day because of the location of this school. I remember many tearful nights wanting to quit and go back to my old school. The preteen years can be very tumultuous and this is a very difficult decision to have to make at this age, many will opt out even when they would have excelled in the program. I was fortunate and did excel in the program, stuck it out made many new friends and appreciated the sacrifices I made from grades 7-9.

Skip forward to highschool, I continued in the FI program for my grade 10 year (highschool back then started in 10th grade). What I did not realize was that the Late French Immersion and Early French Immersion students would be integrated together. This is where I saw the advantage of EFI over LFI. The Early Immersion students were so much more advanced, and the majority of them continued with the program through graduation. I dropped out of the program in 11th grade, something I regret all the time. At this age teens just can’t grasp that these decisions will impact them, perhaps if I had of taken the EFI program, I would have rethought this decision. I was very fortunate though as I retained the majority of the conversational French I had acquired and went on to work in bilingual positions with some of my future jobs, I even had an offer to work in France at EuroDisney in the early 90’s.

After seeing the advantage the EFI students had I knew that when my daughter started school, I would have her enrolled in the EFI Program. She’s done very well in the program thus far and I know that when the time comes in highschool, I will encourage her to stick out her commitment with the program. It was a no brainer that we would also enroll our son who started Kindergarten this past fall. Now I have to explain to him he will not get to learn French like his big sister until 5th grade! He will also most likely have to change schools now too, as our neighbourhood school did not have the EFI program so he was enrolled at the school that did.

This comes down to dollars and cents plain and simple. EFI enrollments are down, and the NB Government does not want to subsidize these smaller classes. They are having trouble recruiting teachers to fill the positions. If New Brunswick is to retain it’s status as the only “bilingual province in Canada” they need to rethink this decision or there isn’t much sense keeping this status. What will students do that are coming in from other provinces that have been in the program? We have a huge Military community what will this mean for them?

I know the fight is not over, but we have a long road ahead of us. I just hope that my 3 boys will get this same opportunity as their sister.

For anyone interested reading this confusing 100 page report it can be found here:

http://www.gnb.ca/0000/publications/comm/FSL%20Report.pdf

If you are against this decision, make your voice known, now is the time to make the Government listen to those who elected them.

It’s been a while since I’ve had an entry here. February was a really housebound month and I’m so glad it’s behind us. I’m really looking forward to the arrival of Spring this month and lets hope that nice weather comes with it!

So I really wanted to go somewhere, anywhere for March Break and was very tempted to load up the van and drive to Florida (flights were full at any nearby airports). I had found a 3 bedroom house with it’s own pool for the week for just around $400 at a really nice resort in Kissimmee. The only problem…Andrew had work obligations where people were flying in from out of town that he could not change. This meant later working hours for him as well all week.

Our first day home we spent relaxing, I’m not even sure if any of us got dressed! It really was a lazy day. Here’s a shot of Ciaran taking a mid-day snooze.

Tuesday I decided to the kids bowling. The really wanted to go swimming, but I knew that without another adult with me it would be a little difficult. Bowling I could handle, especially at this particular alley as it had computerized scoring. Mackenzie typed in all of our names and got us going while I helped the boys with their cute little bowling shoes. I was really surprised they had them small enough for Ciaran (size 8), and can remember bowling many time as a kid in my sock feet. I have a lot of fond memories of bowling. I think I started at around age 7 or 8 bowling in a youth league. Then when I was 11 or 12 my parents were a part of our Church’s league, one evening our regular sitter had to cancel last minute so my parents brought us with them. As luck would have it they needed a few spare players and my brother and I joined the league as spares. By the end of the season, they put us on the roster for the next start-up. In this part of the country the style of bowling is called Candlepin. We use small balls 3 per frame and 10 straight pins.(see pic below) You can use the knocked down pins to help. It’s a lot of fun and great for younger kids to learn as the balls aren’t too heavy (like in ten-pin bowling…I still have to use the kids balls!)

Mackenzie was such a great help with Ciaran. She would take him up and get him all set up, it was really nice to see her taking the time with him. Now that he’s getting a little older, she tends to do fun things with him. He loves to play dressup with her and is not opposed to wearing her princess gowns and being a real-life doll for her. Here’s a pic or two before he decided bowling wasn’t fun anymore around frame 5.

Liam on the other hand loved bowling and really got into it! I may look into getting him and Mackenzie involved in a youth league. Here’s a few action shots of Liam:

I even tried a string too sporting Finn on my back in my new to me 4th Generation Beco. I’m really liking it thus far and find it easier to put on and take off than my BabyHawk. I also like the fact that it has a padded waist band.

After bowling we had dinner at the diner style restaurant at the Alley. The food was really good! Homecut french fries and really tasty gravy! I can’t wait to go back again!

Wednesday’s outing was the Twoonie Matinees at our 10-plex. This did not go quite as planned, mostly my part of poor planning. I wanted to try and go to a movie at the same time as my mom and Mackenzie, the only one that was playing alongside theirs was The Waterhorse. I knew Liam would like it and sit through it, and Ciaran’s attention span has been more into full-length movies lately. About 3/4 through, Ciaran decided he did not want to be there and tried to wake Finn at every opportunity. I thought about leaving, but figured that we’d be even more disruptive trying to get everyone out. Note to self: don’t do this again, unless you’re sitting in the aisle for a quick escape!!

We were expecting bad weather on Thursday, so I didn’t plan too much other renting a couple of movies at our local corner store and setting up our Zoombox to play movies in Ciaran’s room. What’s a Zoombox you ask? It’s a DVD player with a built in projector that will play your movies on the wall making them up to 60 inches! Although I don’t find the quality all that great, it’s a lot of fun for the kids and they’re not picky about pixels! They’ve really been into dog movies as of late. Snow Buddies, Air Bud, Air Buddies, Air Bud- World Pup…you get my drift. So our store has a pretty good selection of family films and I rented, Firehouse Dog and Good Boy! Ciaran was a little over anxious and decided he was going to get the DVD out of the holder, and snapped the disc in half!! The store was really good about it, and was glad I was honest with them (I guess they get a lot of broken ones returned anonymously), so now I’m trying to find a replacement copy. I’m guessing it’s going to be eBay as I’m not having much luck locally.

Andrew had decided he had put in enough for the week and took the day off. We decided to take off for the night for a little trip to Fredericton. It was a beautiful sunny Spring like day and when we arrived in Fredericton we decided to take advantage of the double digits and sunshine and went to O’Dell Park for a little hike. Here’s a few pics from our afternoon there. I’m still getting the hang of my new camera so the snow threw me off a bit, nothing a little editing in Picasa can’t help though.

This first pic is of the six of us, from left to right: Ciaran, Andrew, Mackenzie, Cara (me) with Finn on my back peeking out and Liam. Isn’t it a cool shot?

Here’s a few other random shots from our hike at O’Dell Park:

Ciaran

Finn and I

Andrew giving the boys a lesson on birch bark, and learning just how wide a tree is!

It was really nice getting outside in the nice warm sun, it makes me really eager for Spring and enjoying the new back deck we built last summer. After leaving O’Dell Park we took a drive to Kingswood to see how busy it was. Kingswood is an indoor entertainment centre with 30 lanes of bowling, a huge indoor play structure and small play area for toddlers, laser tag and arcade games. Since it was the end of March Break we weren’t sure how busy it was going to be, so we found out that there is a lull between 5:30 and 7pm, so we headed out for dinner and returned then. The kids had a fantastic time! Ciaran just kept repeating over and over again, “This place is awesome!” I didn’t get very many photos as we were so busy chasing everyone. Finn kept trying to climb the gate of the toddler area, I was so hoping he would not follow in Ciaran’s footsteps with the climbing! He’s still not walking on his own yet, but his crawl is a half-walk/half-crawl, he looks like a little bear cub, I tried to catch a shot of him, here’s the best I could do.

Here’s few of the action shots I managed to catch, this is that the bottom of a really fast slide, you can totally see the excitedness of each of their faces:

We headed back to the hotel after Kingswood thinking that the kids would be super worn out and fall asleep quickly. Wishful thinking! Finn fell asleep right away as did Andrew, then Liam and Mackenzie finally stopped bickering and nodded off. Ciaran my little night-owl…finally fell asleep at almost 1am! He was literally bouncing off the walls!

After a fairly good sleep, Finn woke a couple of times since he slept with us in the King size bed, we headed to the famous Boyce Farmer’s Market held each Saturday in downtown Fredericton year round. It is both indoor and outdoor and very busy, so Andrew decided it would be easiest to wear Ciaran in the BabyHawk and I wore Finn in the Beco. I brought a stroller once, and it was a nightmare trying to get around. I picked up some local produce and a seafood chowder mix, Andrew got some beef jerky and samosas, and the kids picked out some homemade chocolate easter eggs. We had lunch at the Market, I got my usual chicken donair that I shared with Finn, while Andrew and Mackenzie got beef donairs and the boys had a hot dog.

We told the boys if they were well behaved at Market, that we would go pick out a new toy for them, as long as they would get rid of one at home. They’ve discovered a new Fisher Price series of toys called Planet Heroes .They very similar to the Rescue Heroes toys of the late 90’s. There’s even a DVD of the TV series, and the boys just love it! It’s space oriented and teaches them all about the solar system. Finally Liam has decided that he no longer wants to be a Monster Truck Drive- he now wants to be an Astronaut! How’s that for a goal? After lots of indecisiveness Liam finally decided on a character called Saturn “Rings” and Ciaran picked out Jupiter “Gustus”.. It’s finally so nice to see them take an interest in the same things and actually play together. At ages 5 and 3 it’s made such a difference over this same time last year. My boy are growing up! Mackenzie decided to get another WebKinz this is number 11 (even thought I’m pretty sure we agreed on 10 being the limit) and she got a really cute St Bernard and called him Max. The funny thing, when she tried to name his room “Max’s Room” it seems the work Max, is a blocked word, I thought this was pretty strange!

Well if you’re still with me, I thank you for reading all about our March Break adventures!

I’m was very happy to see some great new St Patty’s Day Smileboxes added! Here’s one that I created in less than 5 minutes from last years’ celebrations!

Make a free ecard - it’s easy!

A photo really does say a 1000 words, and if you are a Blogger a photo can really help to get your story across. Statistics say that Blogs with photos have higher readership!

Here’s a few pointers on how to get photos easily onto your CPO Blogs!

First and foremost is resizing! If a photo is too large it will look distorted. We recommend a width of 400 pixels as the maximum width.

Here’s an example of a photo that has not been resized:

Here is the same photo resized to 400 pixels wide:

How do I resize my Photos?

Many online photo hosting sites allow you to resize you photos there, but with some of them you will be limited to their default sizes. (***Photobucket, now has custom resizing capabilities now!***) If you’d like to resize to a specific size I’d recommend using a Windows XP add-on called Image Resizer
Once installed it allows you to right click on any photo and choose “Resize Pictures” you can then customize to the size you want.

How do I add a photo to my Blog entries?

Now that you have your photos resized appropriately you’ll need to upload them to a photo hosting site. There are many of them online, Flickr, Image Shack and Photobucket are the most common and easy to use. Sign up for a free account and upload your resized photos from your computer to the site. Doing this will assign a URL (a www address) to your photos. I know many of you are familiar with adding photos to your signatures and posts on our Message Boards, adding a photo to your Blog entry is just as easy, but differs a little. Instead of using the [IMG] code you’ll just need the direct link code. A quick way to get this is to right click on the photo and select “Properties” and highlight and copy the URL for the Image Location.

Once you have your photo and your URL, to get the photo into your Blog entry you’ll see some tools just above your new post text box. Click on the “Insert Image” it’s the small icon that looks like a tree. Once it has been selected you can paste in the URL of your photo then select “insert”.

It’s as simple as that! If you have any questions feel free to comment below!