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.