When you give a carpenter a new deck....

We decided that our old deck (20+ years) needed to be replaced. It was so bad that you couldn't even walk barefoot on the deck without chancing splinters in your feet. While we were at it, we decided to put in a pool. And while we were at that, we decided to add in an upper deck to access said pool. While it's not 100% complete (the deck portion, that is), the pool has been getting a work-out since it warmed up in late May. Here's a few photos of the kids showing off their moves.

Charlotte lines up for her jump

I didn't ask, but I think it's called the frog jump.

Ker-plunk

Now a word about my new radio. I knew we'd be clocking some hours outside in the pool this summer, so when asked what I wanted for my birthday last month, I said "a poolside radio to listen to some tunes while we were in the pool!" Mike, my carpenter husband, went out and found me the mother of all radios. Here it is, and I gotta say it rocks!!

Eric doing his ninja moves
(and though he looks really boney in this photo, we do feed him.)

Look at all those custom cuts on the wood. Mike rocked it on the deck!

Family Vacation

Here are a few more photos from our trip to Puerto Vallarta.

Dad and Candace

The family - what is up with my kids?

I think this is only photo of me except one Mike took looking down my shirt at the Phoenix Airport. Not sharing that one of course. ;-)

Mike in the roof-top pool

Mike tries the waves

Our second favorite past-time while on the beach - dodge the waves

(First favorite past-time was sipping Coronas!)

Mr. Safety surfs safely

Still has the most awesome eyes ever!

Charlotte with her new friend from Montreal. The fact that neither could speak the other's language didn't deter these two from having a fabulous time together.

Posing after lunch with the Mexican Dancers sculpture on the Malecon

Dodging the waves

T-Ball Round Two

Just 4 short years ago we were on these very fields for T-Ball when Eric was in the league. This year Charlotte chose to take a break from gymnastics and try out T-Ball.

Warm-up before the game

In the dugout looking a little warm (it was 90 deg or something the day I took these.)

This is being "baseball ready" (aka pay attention so you don't get bopped on the head with a ball)

If this isn't a "girl throw", I don't know what is!

Can you tell this child was loving having the camera on her all during the game?

Do ya feel lucky, punk?

Tuesday the kids and I went on a little bike ride to the local park. I decided to take a load off and sit in the shade of a tree off in the grass. No sooner had I sat down than my eye caught a glimpse of a four leaf clover. I've never found one in my entire life, though I definitely clocked some hours as a child looking for the elusive weed. Of course both kids wanted to have it, but I said "No" (Mom of the year candidate here. Mine Mine Mine. Do I have to share everything?)

I say, " Let the good luck roll...."

Sweet Remembrances of Summer

It's official. The down-filled coat has come out of the closet and any hint of summer has flown off with the wind. I look at my garden, nothing but dried up leaves and keeled over stems, barren of any buds. Spring-time seems a long way off (actually, it is......5 looong months off.) It's a good thing I like to take photos; they remind me of what is dormant below the surface.

I planted this Lilac bush the year Mike and I got married. It's off on the corner of the house just a little way down from the master bedroom window, so when it's in bloom, the sweet fragrance drifts in to our room.

These may be your standard Stella day lily, but these flowers rock. They start blooming in June and the last flower I saw on it was in late October. They just keep going and going. I can see them all summer and fall out my living room window.

A new addition to the garden this year: A Hydrangea! I'm going to experiment next year with the soil acidity to see if I can turn these mammoth flowers a bluish-purple.

Now here is the most beautiful and fragrant Bearded Iris. Open your hand right now. That's how big these blooms are every May! I really look forward to seeing them each year, and wish their blooming season lasted all summer long!

My sturdy, dependable Daisies never fail me every June!

I really think these flowers got the shaft when someone named them Gladiolas. They surprised me late this summer when they bloomed. I'd forgotten all about them being in my garden!

And I think these babies are my favorite.....Peonies. Aren't they stunning? I have them in white, pale pink, and raspberry.

It's A Beautiful Day To Play

We're getting hit with a bit of rain (not hurricane related; that'll come later this week.) It's just a slow, steady rain with no accompanying wind, thunder or lightening. Combine that with a trench that I dug around the new landscaping area out front, which is collecting a whole lotta rain water, and you've got the makings of one fine day for a 7 year old boy.












Special thanks to Mike for standing out there to hold the umbrella over me and my camera. :-D

What It Was All About

I was in the process of posting a bunch of photos from our Labor Day Weekend trip up to see the in-laws, and while I was looking over a few of the photos, one in particular struck me as deserving of it's own post. I took this photo on Saturday night when we went back to the lake to do some more fishing. Mike and Chris got a chance to go out on the lake sans kids, while the kiddos were busily capturing frogs and placing them in Aaron's frog habitat. And me? Well I was busy doing what I was longing to do all week before we even arrived - capturing photos of whatever struck my fancy. That night, I was trying to photograph something that is hard to place your finger on. Being that we don't live up north (and don't get up there very often), it's easy to forget how peaceful it is there. The sky is bigger, the stars are brighter, the trees are taller....and if you listen, you can hear the quiet. I had to let it wash over me, just to fill me up a little bit, because I knew.....eventually.....I'd have to go back home to the traffic, noise, brightly lit night skies, and dimly lit stars. I do love my home, but sometimes I need to inject some calm into my life...

The Proof Is In The Pictures

Thanks to our neighbor, Sheila, I was able to go with the fam up north to visit my in-laws and not have to worry about Keats (who seems to be doing mostly OK now.)

My in-laws live about 6+ hours north of us, and our kids refer to it as "the big woods" (for obvious reasons.) While our trip wasn't run, run, run, it was still filled with daily activities that kept the kids and adults busy.....fishing, climbing, frog collecting (kids not adults), swimming, sand castle building, rock collecting, off-roading (technically speaking, more on that later), but most importantly, just visiting and enjoying family! It was a most enjoyable and relaxing trip all around, and was long overdue, since we haven't been up there in over 3 years (the kids don't even remember the last trip!) And it also gave me an opportunity to take photos! I took over 300 photos and am sorting through them all now. Here are a couple that I've had a chance to "approve" for publishing (if you want to see it enlarged, just click on it):

Eric stands on the little pier to do some fishin'

Uncle Chris helps Eric out (i.e., he puts on the bait, casts the line, reels it in, and gets "Eric's" fish off the hook.) My child is such a city boy.

My brother-in-law Chris smiles over at Heidi.

And Heidi smiles back. Aren't they a cute couple? (Sorry, couldn't resist; you guys are too cute together! ;-)

Little Man Zach off to show Eric how it's done!

Zachary and Uncle Joe (Heidi's younger brother)

Mike finds a secluded spot for some fishing away from the noisy kids, but not too far away for my telephoto lens :-)

By now you may be wondering why there are no photos of me fishing (or maybe you're not). Well, I really don't do fishing, not my thang, but the real reason there are ZERO photos of me from this trip is that my husband never thinks to grab the camera from me to shoot a few, plus he wants me to "pose". I really dislike posed photos; I'm more into candids because people are more relaxed and natural, unlike posed photos. Anyway, the "proof" that I was there on this vacation is "in the photos" - that there are any. :-)

The lake where we went fishing is on private property; i.e., Heidi's family owns about 1,000 acres of land, complete with many large lakes. The dirt roads were like a labyrinth for us, but Chris and Heidi knew their way around no problem. They took us on many of the roads, plenty of "scenic routes" and interesting things to look at up in the trees. We saw several dear too. It was really incredible for us to be the only people at the lake, to have it all to ourselves! What a treat!

The kids all lined up in the row boat to go out with Chris and Mike to do a little off-shore fishing (as it turned out, it was more like a little off-shore whining N complaining. Glad I stayed on the beach.)

Little Miss with her new fishing pole.....not sure if she caught any fish, but she did manage to hook her brother once in the leg and another time on the nose. Tears were shed over the nose-hooking (not hers, though.) It was downright dangerous being anywhere near my kids while they learned to cast their lines.

Aaron is probably spotting a frog, which were in abundance!

My nephew, Zachary again. He's at that wonderful age where he loves the camera and he made it easy for me to get so many cute photos of him!

Oh no, a posed photo
Eric, Zach, Charlotte, & Aaron at the lake on Sunday night. We went back for some more fishing and a little camp fire.

And that's all the photos I have ready to show for now. Hopefully I'll have a few more to share later this week.