Chilly Weekend

Brrrr, it was chilly here this weekend! Saturday was rainy and cold and then today it started out chilly but at least there was no rain. Thank goodness too because we went to a Tiger's game today! We wore sweatshirts but when the sun came out we didn't need them.

Here's a nice panoramic view of the stadium.


The boys and I had a nice time.


Tyler tried out the fast pitch machine. I think his speed was 63mph. Not major league but not bad either.


The boys had a good time. We hit that hot dog stand behind them before the game started. Why is it that ball park hot dogs taste so good?


I finally got to see my favorite player, Magglio Ordonez, in the 8th inning when he was put in as a pinch hitter!

They were behind up until the bottom of the eighth and then they pulled it out. We had a nice time and it was good to be together. It's always nice to go to at least one game during the summer. Makes you feel like you're alive!

It's back to work for me tomorrow, though I did work a few days last week. Tomorrow is our official "kick off" where the Superintendent welcomes us back and tells us how wonderful we all are. Then it's back to our buildings to finish getting the rooms ready.

We should find out on Tuesday what's going on with Tyler. H-man and Tyler have an appointment with the surgeon and we should know if he'll require surgery or not. I'm really hoping it's not.

Then on Thursday Amber comes home, Friday we will all be together and plan to celebrate Scott's 21st birthday a few days early, Tyler leaves Saturday (if he doesn't need surgery) and then later that day we are having a small shower for Amber. It's just going to be some of my friends who have known her since she was a little girl and a few of her friends who are still around here. Then on Sunday we are going over to the other side of the state to see Andy's family for the day. Amber leaves Monday and things will be back to somewhat normal. Back to work, back to school, back to tired all the time.

I'm Not Ready...

I'm not ready for summer to be over, not quite yet. But this weekend it felt like Fall, maybe even a little cooler than Fall! And it was gray, yucky gray. That was the worst of it. I thought only Saturday was gonna be cold, wet and gray but it turned out Sunday was the same way. So, what else can you do when it's cold outside? Bake cookies, of course.

Someone was appreciative.

They never left the kitchen. I made a quadruple batch and it will last for 6 weeks, hopefully, if we dole them out sparingly.
Then Sunday morning, since it was still chilly, we turned the oven on again and made Dutch Babies for breakfast.


Saturday morning we headed over to the farmer's market for supplies. The tomatoes were delicious, so we bought basil to go with them. Then Sunday night we turned them into this.

H-man made this all by himself. Who knew he had this talent? I think he's been holding out on us!

So many things at the Farmer's market were calling our names. The carrots, peaches, lettuce, eggs, corn on the cob. So many yummy things, only a few bags to carry it all in (and only so much room in the refrigerator).

I love this time of year when everything is so fresh and available.

In other news, Tyler made it home safely on Friday. We made it to our Dr. appointments and so far nothing is conclusive. The surgeon couldn't tell us if he will have to have surgery to remove the mass until he meets with another Dr. We hope to know more later this week. Until then, we'll just hope he doesn't have another episode.

Amber and Andy spent some time this weekend getting the baby's room ready. They have bought a crib and will be picking it up soon. The painting will begin soon in pretty baby girl colors. I'm sure there will be pink in there somewhere. They have been feeling the baby move now. It's so exciting.

I had planned to go out to the garden this weekend but with all the rain and cold weather I never made it. Maybe tomorrow. I should have some things that are ripe by now.

With summer almost over I've had lots of hummingbirds at the feeder. Instead of just coming for breakfast, lunch and dinner they seem to keep coming all day long. As soon as one leaves, another arrives. I've even had two there at once which I have never seen before. Of course, I could never get a picture of that. Not yet anyway.







Please summer, stay a little longer.

This and That...

I'm finishing up my garage sale today. I've been working all week on getting things moved from my dining room, where they've been waiting, out to the garage and then finally set up on tables and around the garage. No matter how prepared I think I am it never seems to be enough when the actual people start arriving. I had lots of one dollar bills even though people are usually pretty good about bringing small change. Then one of the first customers buys $3 worth of stuff with a $20 dollar bill! There goes all my change. Anyway, I sold quite a bit of stuff but still have a good bit left. Guess that will be going to the Salvation Army soon.

Here's Zoe keeping me company and checking out what's for sale.

Tyler will be leaving Hawaii today and will arrive back in Michigan tomorrow morning. He will be seeing our primary care doctor in the early afternoon and then a surgeon later in the afternoon. I really hope the diagnosis could be no surgery but I don't think that's gonna happen. Hopefully they will schedule it early next week and he can begin the healing process and make it back to school for his final semester! It would be sad if he had to miss the semester and couldn't graduate until the summer. I guess we'll just have to see how that goes.

We are getting some much needed rain today but sadly for H-man his "baby" is parked out in the driveway getting wet.

I haven't been out to the garden all week though so I bet it's thirsty and the rain will be good for it. On the plus side after the rain passes through we are supposed to have a little cooler weather with lower humidity.




That will be a nice change. I've had to have the air conditioning on all week because it's been so sticky. I hope I make enough money from the garage sale to pay the electric bill next month!


Look how green everything looks. That's one thing I can say about Michigan, we have the greenest summers ever!

Have a good weekend!

My Garden Grows...

H-man went out to the garden with me last night. While I was checking out what was ripe and what needed picking H was my main photographer. The bigger tomatoes are just starting to ripen but I picked some cherry tomatoes and some that were a bit larger, about the size of a ping pong ball. In fact, I ate those for lunch today and they were delish!



These green peppers are gonna be ready in a few days. I only have 4 bushes of them but each one has 4-8 peppers on it.





Here's the beginning of my corn ears. It had grown so much since last week when I was out there.


You can't really tell how tall it is but it's over my head. In fact I'm behind there somewhere, though I am bending over.


We are supposed to have a stretch of really warm weather and no rain is predicted so those tomatoes should ripen soon. I do have a few failures. The poor carrots are completely hidden under the super overgrown tomato plants. The tomato plants are getting so big they are falling over and taking the cages with them.

The zucchini are doing great! These are a bit large but still usable. I'm thinking another zucchini casserole sounds good!

Retail Therapy

Since it's a tax free weekend here in Virginia, H-man and I are having some fun doing a little shopping for our Granddaughter-To-Be!! There's not much to choose from in the way of color as I guess all the baby clothes designers think girls should definitely wear pink. I think we found one or two cute things in yellow but as you can see from the pictures, pink runs strong!!





This shopping frenzy won't last too long but it's going to be fun while it lasts!!

Weekend in Virginia

We made it to Virginia yesterday with no problems other than our flight was delayed from taking off for about 30 minutes. This morning Amber and H-man spent their time working. Amber had a Dr.'s appointment this afternoon but she still had plenty of work to do. It was interesting listening in on her conference call and hearing what kinds of stories were going to appear on AOL today.


H-man had a bit of work to do today too.


He managed to get the rocker put together today with just a few touch-ups of paint. He packed it well and it arrived in good shape. Amber seems happy with it.


Then we were off to the Dr., the main reason for our visit. We were hoping to find out if we are having a Grandson or a Granddaughter. Look how happy they are to have just found out

that they are having a little GIRL!! It was so exciting when we heard the news. The technician measured everything, head, spine, heart beat and finally got a good view of what she had been looking for and said, "it's a girl"! How exciting!! Andy immediately sent e-mails out to both sides of the family telling them the good news.

Andy had to go back to work but Dad and daughter had one more project for the day. This one was a tough one but they finally got it put up.



Tonight before we met Andy for dinner Amber H-man and I headed to Macy's for a little shopping. We came home with lots of pink outfits for our granddaughter-to-be. She will be well dressed, at least from 3-6 months! Thankfully it's a tax free weeekend here in Virginia so our money went a little further.

It's late and we have another busy day planned for tomorrow. I just know I'm going to be dreaming of my little granddaughter-to-be. We think she has the Mitchell nose!

Guess Who's 2??

Someone is having a birthday today. Sometimes I can't believe we've had him almost 2 years already! It seems like forever but then again, he does seem like a puppy still. He's still a goofball. He barks at everything and everyone passing by. He's afraid of kids, dogs, booms, thunder, gun shots, loud noises and things he's never seen before.

One night after a cleaning session in the basement H-man and I were sitting in the living room. We kept hearing Charlie barking down in the basement. We knew no one was down there and there should be anything he would be barking at. After five or ten minutes H finally went down there and came back with a big old baby doll that I had as a kid and I had taken it out of it's box to decide what to do with it. It had been sitting on the counter in the laundry room and that's what Charlie was barking at! Guess he's afraid of babies too! He's fine once he gets used to things but what a big scardy cat he is until he does.

I think one day he will turn into a great dog. Aussies are known for being goof balls for a few years until they mature, especially males. He's not there yet. I'm hoping he will calm down like Zoe has in the next year or so.

He's still my little baby though. My little velcro puppy. Never far from wherever I am.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLIE!!

Beautiful August Weekend

The weather this weekend was perfect! The kind of weather you wish for all winter long, and spring long and even early summer long when it's still cold! I think I spent most of the weekend outside either taking the pups to the park or on the deck or checking out what's growing around the yard.

This is my zucchini plant that I'm growing in the front flower bed. It has 3 zucchini on it already and more flowers.

These are my cherry tomatoes, also growing in the flower bed. I have harvested quite a few of these already too.

This is the first full size tomato. The plant it's growing on is pitiful but this one nice tomato somehow grew.

I went out to the garden Thursday morning and harvested all these goodies!

It's growing like crazy out there. In my eagerness to have lots and lots of veggies, I may have over planted a bit. The tomatoes and corn are now overshadowing my little carrot patch so I don't think I'll have much (if any) of a harvest of carrots. The onions are a bit crowded together so I've thinned them out a little but I probably won't be getting any monster onions out of there either. The tomato plants are loaded with green tomatoes so that's exciting. I also harvested quite a few pea pods. I couldn't tell for sure if they were snow peas or truly peas but some of them had matured enough to have real peas in them. Look at these!!


I had to cut up and freeze the head of broccoli as I harvested another head today and we can only eat so much broccoli. The zucchini practically grew overnight as the last time I checked it was really tiny but then zucchini tend to do that.

Amber & Andy enjoyed their trip to Belgium. Only a couple bad moments, one when their flight was delayed 4 hours due to thunderstorms and engine problems (thank goodness they changed planes) and another when Andy ate some mussels that didn't agree with him. Other than that things were fine and they had a great time. We are headed over to their place on Thursday for a visit. The rocking chair was shipped out yesterday, in pieces, and should arrive next week so that H-Man can put it together when we arrive. I'll take some pictures of it assembled and ready for the nursery. After a little investigation, Amber and I have concluded that Bentwood rockers like this are now antiques and quite valuable!! Who knew?? It's gonna look great in it's new home.

Tyler seems to be feeling better. He was able to go to school all week which was a relief. He's so close now to graduation that any dropped classes will impact that so we don't want that to happen. He goes back on Wednesday for another CAT scan to see how the "mass" is doing and to be sure it's going down in size, etc. He's been taking antibiotics so hopefully they are working.

Scott is finished with SCAMP now so he'll have lots of free time. I am hoping he can get started on decluttering his room now. We are going to have a big garage sale when we get back from Virginia and I'm hoping he will have lots of things to contribute. He will be staying with the pups while we go to Amber's but I'm sure he won't mind having the place to himself for a few days and no Mom to nag him about all the things he does or doesn't do. He's been working on a marketing internship this summer for a local author, helping him to market his book and will be finishing that up soon. He's hoping to get a good recommendation letter out of the deal plus gain a little experience.

Even though no one's mentioned it, I'm sure y'all are missing some pics of my favorite pups!! Here they are waiting so patiently for their dinner last night. I believe beef, zucchini, green beans and pasta was on the menu.


We went to the high school field today and since H-man went along to throw the frisbee I was free to take some pics. I got a few good ones too!


Look at that style and form! Perfect frisbee placement too! Do you think she caught it?


Charlie, going for the stretch! What a grab!! Of course he caught this one!


I just thought this one was so cute! Look at those ears straight up! Sorry for the poop bag placement. Just couldn't crop it out and still get all the feet in!


Focused and Dad making them wait for the throw. And wait, and wait, and wait.



I hope everyone had a good weekend! I love summer!