Stoped to see our grandaughter at her new house she is renting.  Got a shot of her and her two guys.  Grandpa and boyfriend.  It was a real nice  day and the tour of the house was great.  It's a real cute place of a first place .

After a long hard working summer  and my flowers are in full bloom,  we are heading south for the winter. Won't miss the cold weather that is hot on our heels with temps. here in the 50/60 dergrees but will miss the fall colors that are now coming into full  eye pleasing  rainbows of color.  This also brings the FALLING LEAVES.  Yet one more reason to get out side for a last chance to enjoy indian summer before the snow.  We will not miss the snow but the late warm weather is always a joy to go to the roadside stands and get the produce of fall and  devower the apples and fresh vegetables of the season.

A rouge sunflower found it way into one of my  flower boxes at the back door.   Had I planted it  there may not have been such a  great bloom.  Will give  the head to daughter for her  winter birds this winter.

Ah, the last rose of summer!  How I love my roses. And this year these roses gave me long stems.  What a show off they were!

They almost  climbed over the arbor.  Maybe next  year.

Had a little tag  sale on Saturday.  Sold some things but was surprised the cedar chests and the crystal did not sell.The day was idea.  Not to hot and a beautiful sunny day.  Lots of lookers and browsers but   we were pleased at the outcome.  We are sad to have to sell the house as we were hoping to  summer here and then winter in our place in Fl.   I am sure we will  find another place just as  ideal later.

We decided to enjoy the  warm weather and take a little ride to the beach and have a picnic when we got back up north.  Took the little red car  to air it out for the season.  Made some sandwiches and  took some pop and off we went.  Here is Dad enjoying out feast.

Later in the week  Grandson Tommy and his girlfriend stopped over  to have some lunch with us and we got to meet her for the first time.  She is a very sweet girl.  We made toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and then the  two of them decided to try out all the puppets that Tom had collected over the years.

The  walking dog, the monkey and kermet.  It was a real nice long visit.  Now Tom is busy with on line college and work I doubt we will see him and his girl much this summer.  They are both real active  on their days off enjoying summer activities.
The yard is in full bloom with so many of my flowers. I love to walk through the yard and  enjoy them all.  Her are a few of the  bloom for June.

Thought I  would  have a "little garden of vegetables" so here  are  my radishes, lettuce and  one tomato plant with one tomato already growing!

Started like sooo...
Has grown to this so far..

AND....one little orb of a tomato........

I have high hopes for  my garden as it is on the porch where I can easily water it ever day and watch it grow all  the time.  With the weather is  so warm this year  they may need water more than once a day.

Tommy took a picture of my little doggy and thought I would put it on my site just because she looks so sweet.  We all know she has a  personallity all` her own but we love her just the same!!!Don't  we!!!!!

My sweet ANGEL!!

Just before leaving for up north I had been hoping to see the last of the five deer that we had enjoyed all winter passing through our yard.  My wish came true the morning before we pulled out there they were passing through the front yard.  Had not seen them for some weeks.  They came  to say good bye I guess. They are not afraid of the folks in the neighborhood. So they like to pose for pictures.

I  thought I might put flower in the boxes on the porch but that would mean brother would have to tend them the whole time we are gone.  So I opted for  fake ones.  Don't  think they look to bad for the summer.  Seem to put a little punch  on the porch as well.  So we are off to our stomping grounds in the north.  Hoping we continue to have warm weather so hubby can breath better and we can get our many family matters taken care of.

We will be  sorry not to see brothers son and family that will be coming down from Wisconsin in about two weeks but maybe lots of pictures will be taken we can enjoy when we get back.

Now we are back in the north and  we are to have the whole gang over on Sunday.  Got to get them together when we can because  the grrandchildren all have lives that are going in different directions.  Work and social activities  plus home chores all fill their days.  Will be good to see them all in one spot after almost  seven months of being apart.  Picture to follow  after the get-to-gether.

Have been  trying my hand in growing some heirloom tomatoes and some rainbow tomatoes from seed this year.  Hope to take them up to daughter for her garden and see how they grow.  Hope they transport well. Will give some to the neighbors here for their garden as well.  We will see who does the best in production.

Have done a lot of reading the past few days as it is raining  off and on every day.  The days are nice and warm though!  Made stuffed peppers for our game night Friday.  They went over very well.  Had bought some pastry shells to bake and fill for desert but...they did not turn out very good so I went ahead and made my own puffed pastry as I shoud have done in the first place.  I filled them with  real whipped cream and some wonderful tasting  fresh strawberries and red rasberries.  Yummy for sure!!!!  Had a  roudy game of TRAIN and realy enjoyed ourselves for the evening with good friends and family.

Have not been on in awhile.     After finishing the kitchen I took some time to finish up a painting I had been working on.We have so many of these bird in our yard I thought I would paint one.                       

Here is  a sweet picture I came across I just have to post.

Went out in the yard this morning to walk the dog and came across the bottlebrush plants  I had planed last fall.  What a nice surprise to see it in bloom before we head back up north.

Had a few new  critters visit  us last week.  One was a wild turkey  who did not want her picture taken,  The other was a large turtle.  Found him  just off the driveway so, I ran in the house to get my camera after taking a picture of him on my phone .  That little guy  took off so fast that when I got back  with my camera he was gone.  It could not have been more than 3 minutes!  He may have had short legs but he could use them.

Well, we finally got the big cabinet in!  On to the  one over the refrig.  Should have that one done in a couple of days.  All the trim is done on everything  but the last cabinet.  Boy,  this has been a long project but worth every minute!!!!

The weekend is over and we have moved on to trimming out the kitchen this week but,  LOOK what we got done!!  The large cabinet is in place and the counter top  has been resized to   fit until later.  Also  notice the  electrical  plug has been moved up to the counter top where I will put the wine cooler.  Things are moving along nicely now.  The heavy stuff is done and only the trimming out to finish.  The tall cabinet is taller than it shows.  Will try to download  another picture of it in all its glory later. My broom finally has a new home and the swiffer too!  YEA!!!!!

So, here is a special surprise this morning in my  front garden.  The flowers are blooming and I am so happy.  With the hot summer and drough here I'm surprise they are so beautiful this year.  Ther are  three more presenting  buds that should be in full color by next weekend.  What a special  gift  on a early  March  morning!

end of the day

Here is the finished job for today. All the cabinets are in place and fastened down.  At the far end you can see an electric outlet that  we are going to move before we put in the rest of the cabinets.  We will bring it up to counter hieght  and then continue to put in the last of the cabinets.

phase two!

So here are the first two big pieces put in place yeaterday.  We  were  anxious to seee how they would look.

second phase

This will be a long week as we have started to do the other sidse of the kitchen.  We cleaned out the old cupboards of all the staples and then proceeded to  demolish the  wood framing.  The counter will be saved to put back on top, we hope,  until we are all done and then we will purchase all the toppers  for the all the kitchen.
We had spent the weekend putting together the new cabinets.  One was a real jigsaw puzzle.  It was the lazy susan corner .  It took us almost 5 hours to put together. As you can see  our livingroom is torn up too just making  room  for all the new cabinets to be put together. Yes,  He put the  cabinet on my new diningroom table.  Oh, the sacrifices we make for a new kitchen at times. And puppy had to be in the middle of all the action.

He is smiling now but there were moments  of a less happy face during all of the putting together.

Today we will get back to work and get the rest of the  framework torn out and then  install the new  ones starting with the corner cabinet.  There is a monster of a  heavy tall cabinest to put in  in  that will be  a utility cabinet for all my cleaning supplies.  We will definately need help moving that one.  Brother and probablly the neighbor boy will help with that for sure.

Here is  morning to night fall work for one day! Start with old...
Today we move in the new!!!!

MARTI GRA

We ran around all last week trying to find masks for a Marti Gra Party at sister-in-laws church on Saturday. We ended up clear across town at Party City to finish our hunt.
Planning  for the night I made some  purple ,yellow & green cookies to grace the refreshment table and  sister made some bar-b-q  meatballs.  When the day came there was a very good chance the evening would find us in a major(watch box ) storm.  We made it through the whole party with not a drop of  rain. Infact,  when we came out to go home it was a very balmy warm breeze to go home in.  Then about midnight it came down in buckets and the sky lit up for about two hours.  We were glad we were home as our puppy doesn't like thunder and lighting .  She ended up with us in bed all night! 
So here are the picture of the party!

Brother and  his wife  danced the night away.  He is wearing his mad hatters  shapo!  We had a great time and the  church made  a nice profit as well.  The 50-50  went for $140.00.  A good bit of change for a small church in our quie little town! Lent will start next week.

early spring cleanup

Last week I  worked at removing all the pinecones and fallen branches from our 30 trees in the front yard. I really find I  quit  enjoyable because I  have this great little lawnmower and wagon to help with the job.  I  retreived over 100  cones and as you see a stack of falled branches.  So much for last week.  This weekend another wind storm blessed us with another ample supply of  cones that fell from the tall pines.  So, I'll be out ther sometime this week if it doesn't rain, doing the job  once again.  Oh,  how we love mother natures way of getting us  outdoors and getting our exercise..  Yea,  I  know,   using the mower does not count as excercise.  The fresh air is good for us though!  This job took  an hour and a half to finish because our yard is so  big.  Then  mowed for 2 hours.
Well, the plumber came yesterday and got the sink and everything hooked up.  Hooray!!!!  I  now am doing the dishes in the kitchen.  What a joy.  You get to appreciate the little things when you don't have them for awhile.  Will try the dishwasher in a couple of days but love to do them in the new sink right now and there aren't enough dishes to load in the dishwasher  as  yet.  I'm  sure I'll enjoy it  when to time comes.

 So,  we get started  on preping the area for  new  design and wouldn't you know it , working around the plumping we  bump a pipe and spring a leak!   Turning off the water line  to stop the flow,  we now wait for the plumber to come and fix  the pipe.  This requires closing down the water to the kitchen completely.  Oh well.  We get out the fan and dry the area.

Finally the plumber comes and along with  dealing with the leak, he  reconfigures the lines to  line up with the new sink.  By now my kitchen is upside down and finding anything to get a meal ready is a game of  it is

hidden and I must seek!  (only a few more days I hope)

From this to.....

this...and now on to the other side of the room and the other cupboards.   Lets hope we have an easy time because we don't have plumbing to deal with over there all should go as smooth as most home improvements!  How lovely it will all be when it is done.