Grandbaby Time!!

I'm packing. My suitcase has hardly cooled off from my Bunco Girls Summer Weekend but it's being called up for service again. H and I are on our way to see this little darling!!


Look how excited she was when Amber gave her the news!! She's 6 months old now and getting cuter and more animated by the minute. Just hope she gets over this little virus she has before Mimi and Grand-daddy H get there.

We can't wait to spoil this little darling and cover her with kisses!!

Another Bunco Girls Weekend

This weekend was our summer Bunco Girls Weekend. Four of us headed up north Friday morning and the 5th followed later that afternoon. As soon as we decided our room and got settled and had a few snacks, we headed into downtown Traverse City for Friday Night Live. All kinds of interesting things were going on. They close down a couple blocks and you can just walk down the middle of the street.


The film festival starts Tuesday so we were a week early for that. A couple years ago when we were up there it was during this week and it was reported that Madonna and Michael Moore were both in town for the festival, both Michigan natives.



There were several small bands up and down the street.

We spent an hour or so walking around looking at the sites. Then it was back to the house for some girl time and visiting.


Not much of a sunset the first night as it was pretty cloudy but still a pretty nice evening.


The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast and rain showers, we headed up to Sutton's Bay for shopping and lunch. It was cloudy but only drizzled so it wasn't too bad walking around.



After lunch we decided to take a boat ride we had taken a couple years ago and had remembered as being fun. Here we are, looking forward to a fun time. Right after this picture was taken the boat loaded up with about 40-50 Indians, moms, dads, and many, many kids. Instead of sitting down on the benches they decided to stand along the railings, blocking our views and talking so loudly we couldn't really hear the captain telling us about all the lovely sights we were taking in.


The weather was still cloudy but at least it wasn't raining, yet.



Here are some lovely sights we saw along the way on our boat ride up the shoreline.





When we got home the light was so different looking on the golf course. It was almost like a fall sunset.



After being cloudy and gray all day the sun finally fell below the clouds and produced this gorgeous sunset for our last night there.



We enjoyed a dinner of appetizers and snacks we had all brought, sat outside on the deck talking until it started drizzling again and then decided to go inside and play a couple hands of Euchre. We stayed up a little later than planned and much later than I've stayed up lately. It was close to 1:00 a.m. when I finally turned the lights out.

This morning when we got up we were greeted with this beautiful sight!


Too bad we hadn't had this the day before but all in all we couldn't complain. At least it wasn't a total rainout.

It was a nice relaxing weekend, no drama, everyone got along. Can't complain about that!

It's Been Hot...

It's been hot, real hot. And humid, don't forget that. When possible I've tried to stay in the house and declutter and decide what goes and what stays. However, I have had to leave the house occasionally and have spent a good amount of time outside this week.

On Tuesday I took my young friend, Jade, for our long awaited visit to Commerica Park which is still Tiger's Stadium to me. She had been looking forward to going since I told her about it last fall. We headed to downtown Detroit and found the stadium with no problem. It was just Jade, me and two business men for the tour so we got lots of undivided attention. She got to see the visitor's underground batting cages and she got to sit in the dugout where the opposing teams sit.


We visited the broadcasting booth and The Champion's Club where she got to see the real Champion's trophy. She had a brief walk on the field but since they were working on the turf we couldn't go far.



She had a good time and learned all about the Tiger's and their history.

Wednesday I was out at the garden and harvested a few more things. A couple of my potato plants were dying back so I pulled them up and got a couple redskin potatoes. I harvested another head of lettuce too but about half of it was rotten inside.



This is the garden looking toward the community part and the corn. It was planted in two plantings so it's different heights and can be harvested a couple weeks apart. Last week a rain storm and some strong winds came through and we all got an email saying to come check our plots because the corn had been blown over and was horizontal. Today it looked just fine so I guess they got it all propped back up ok. The tallest portion already has tassels.

Even though it was hot, I took the pups up to the field most days. I had to be careful that they didn't overheat though. Zoe will run until she drops if you let her. When we get back home they are pretty tuckered out.

On Friday my friend Cheryl and I headed out to the Lavender Festival. Thankfully we had a little cool front come through on Thursday so even though it was hot it wasn't quite as humid and we got in and out of there before it got too hot.

Saturday morning H and I had to get up early for our turn working the farmer's market for the community garden. We made it out there by 7:30 and soon our table, tent and veggies were delivered. Before long it had gotten pretty hot out there! We were mostly selling squash with a few eggplant and cucumbers thrown in. We had mass quantities of patti pan and zucchini squash. I had never really heard of patti pan squash before and apparently not too many people had either as they kept asking us what to do with it. H googled it and was able to give people some ideas about how to cook it. We only made about $35 for the garden but the best news was, we put in 9 hours of our 10 hours of garden time. I had already put in another hour weeding onions so at least this year I have made the goal of 10 hours of service to the garden! Yeah me!!

Saturday afternoon I went to a graduation party for the daughter of the special ed teacher I worked with last year. It was held at am American Legion post and I wasn't sure what to expect. When I finally found the place they had a beautiful outdoor pavilion right on the LAKE!! It was very nice and breezy there which felt great after sweating at the farmer's market all morning. It was so nice to catch up with a few of my co-workers and hear all about their summer. One friend just got back from a trip to Alaska!

Sunday morning H and I worked out in the front yard trying to save our evergreen trees from possible death. I had an expert come out a week or so ago because the branches are losing a lot of their needles. We thinned out what we could but it was hot work as it was really humid. Poor H had to wear a long sleeved shirt so the branches would stick him and when he came out of the middle of those trees his face was bright red!! It wasn't especially hot but it was so humid. You would drip sweat just standing there! From there we started cleaning out the basement which hadn't been deep cleaned in a long time. We moved things, decluttered and vacuumed behind and under things. One of the more interesting things we found was a bone one of the dogs had hidden under a bed and it was covered in this strange powdery mold! Gross!! From there I vacuumed the main floor and then the top floor too so by the time I was done I was really done. I took a shower, 4 Advil and then a nap!! Since I was too beat to fix dinner, H ordered pizza for dinner which was a real treat. I can't remember the last time we had pizza!

I tried to get this post ready for last night but just couldn't make it. Which turned out to be a good things because I really wanted you to see this!!

This morning, after taking the pups to the field and delivering the farmer's market money to the parks & recs dept., I went out to the garden and worked for a couple hours. I needed to pull what was left of the radishes and harvest what was ready and do some weeding. While I was there another gardener came by to tell me she had just seen a SKUNK in the garden!! I kept waiting for it to come down to my plot but thankfully it never did. I thought skunks were nocturnal!! But the really exciting part of this harvest was the potatoes!! I harvested 7 redskin potatoes!! Just look at them! They are so beautiful!! I actually grew potatoes.


And then I discovered I had grown carrots too! I grew carrots!!! Look how cute they are!! And they taste good too! I am so daggone impressed with myself!!

The zucchini is still going gangbusters. What do you do with all that zucchini?

Make zucchini casserole, of course! Did I mention, Zoe loves zucchini??


I put up 4 bags of chopped zucchini to make for her this winter. She will love me so much!

Early Harvest

I went out to the garden this morning but before that, in an effort to beat the heat, I took the pups up to the field for a run. It was only 9:00 a.m. so it wasn't too hot yet but it didn't take long to wear them out. This is how I like them to look! Relaxed and tired!


Especially this one. Though for him to be really worn out I'll have to do it again this afternoon and I don't think that's gonna happen as it's in the high 90's and super humid.


I dropped them off and headed out to the garden. It has been almost a week since I'd been out there. I really should have gone on Sunday because look at what I found.


The broccoli is winding down, at least the two I've already harvested whole heads from. The other 3 plants don't look like they are going to form heads at all. Weird.

This head of lettuce is really good size. H bought these iceberg heads by accident but we decided to plant them anyway and they've done pretty well, at least this head has.


The green bean plants were loaded and I got a pretty good harvest.


And the zucchini, there were 11 of them with at least 5 being way oversized. Last Wednesday when I checked them they weren't even ready yet. Guess this heat has really helped them take off. Now I gotta get busy making some zucchini casserole and I think the rest I'll freeze for the dog's food. Zoe especially loves zucchini.


I couldn't stay long, maybe an hour, because it was just getting too hot. I did promise to come back Friday evening to help harvest for the farmer's market on Saturday morning. I think I'm gonna sign up for that gig too. It's gotta be easier than weeding, right??

Where to Start?

The problem with waiting so long between blog posts is that so many things have happened it's hard to know where to start. So I'll start with my trip to visit Quinn (and Amber & Andy too, of course). We had a really nice visit and I got some real quality time with Quinn. She's growing up so fast and really starting to develop her little personality. She's also doing so many new things. She's started eating cereal and fruit which is so fun. I had some video but I can't get blogger to upload it right. I'll try again later because it's so cute and I really want Tyler, who's so far away, to see her in action. Here's what is looks like when she's done! So funny.


She also enjoys her "floor time" and likes playing with her little toes and rolling around. I even caught her rolling over from her back to her tummy but couldn't get it on video.

Her facial expressions just crack me up. So expressive.





She also loves reading and is doing really well sitting up, with a little help from the boppie. It won't be long until she's sitting all by herself.



It was really hot and humid in Virginia so we didn't really go out much unless it was to the pool which we did a few times. She really seems to enjoy the water but I didn't bring the camera down to the pool. On the weekend we all went downtown to the Eastern Market but really couldn't stay long as it was just too hot and humid. I'm sure it's wonderful when the weather is just a little cooler. It was in the high 90's the whole time I was there.

As soon as I got back to Michigan I felt the nice cool air. A cool front had passed through and it was such a nice relief after hot, humid Virginia! I went out to the garden the next morning to check on progress. Things are growing so well. I harvested 5 zucchini, some more radishes, a green pepper and a couple cherry tomatoes. The onions are doing really well and are in various stages of flowering.




The tomatoes are doing well and now that we've had a few days of heat I have to get back out there and check on them. They should really take off now.


This year my zucchini is doing much better. I actually have blossoms and lots of baby zucchini.


The beans and lettuce are doing well too. The beans weren't quite big enough to harvest then but they probably are now.


Even my herbs are doing well. I bought a couple basil plants the other day and I'm going to take them out there too and put them in the ground.


It really was an absolutely gorgeous week here. Beautiful blue skies, no humidity, plenty of sunshine, perfect.

Saturday was the day the township decided we should celebrate the 4th of July. In the morning I went to the craft show with a friend then in the early afternoon we headed over to Mark & Cheryl's house for a bar-b-q and swimming. We were joined by some other friends and even Scott came over for a swim. The water was perfect and we really enjoyed our day. We stayed until almost midnight and enjoyed the fireworks display right from their backyard.
Here we are, floating around, so peaceful and nice.


We had so much fun on Saturday we decided to do it again on Sunday though we hadn't planned to stay for dinner but were FORCED to stay again! Those people are so forceful! We didn't stay quite as late that night, only until 8:30.

Today we hung around the house in the morning, trying to keep cool. It was in the mid 90's and the humidity has climbed way up there too. The weather man this morning said there was going to be a heat advisory. You know it's really hot when they do that. I haven't even taken the pups to the park the last couple days, it's just too hot. I worry that Zoe will have a heatstroke because she just won't stop once we get busy playing frisbee. The last few days have been hell for Charlie. The loud noises and booms have really driven him nuts. Pretty much after dark he refuses to go out so he's been waking me up early to hurry outside. I'm hoping the booming will be over soon so we can get back to semi-normal.

This afternoon H and I went to a movie. We hadn't done that since Christmas! We saw Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. It was action packed and had it's funny parts too.

Look at this little Firecracker!!


Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend (or just weekend).