Sunday blessings

Husband and I were surprised yesterday with an unexpected visit from Sandy and Jimmy. They decided to just get on their bikes and come see us. They also surprised us with a bag full of hibiscus seeds from their garden.

We will start the seeds early next spring and hopefully we will have enough plants for a large flowerbed. I love the look of these flowers.

We were also blessed late this afternoon with blessed RAIN.

Our ground was so dry, it literally sucked all the moisture up as fast as it poured down. It was wonderful. We had not received any real rain for over a month and everything was dry beyond belief.

Following our brief rain, we were blessed with a horde of hummingbirds coming to our feeders. They have been really scarce this year but all of a sudden we had at least six buzzing around one of our feeders. Of course I had to grab my camera in the hope that I would get a few good shots of these ruby-throated beauties.

Seeing all these beautiful hummers (my absolute favorite birds in the world) was a big thrill and was the icing on my wonderful cake of a day. Such a nice day -- spent with good people, enjoying each other's company, sharing a meal and good conversation, swimming with husband. What more could a person ask for? MORE RAIN.

An ode to joy

Fresh peach pie (before)

Fresh peach pie (after)

Fresh peach pie with French Vanilla ice cream (before eating)

Husband purred while eating this once-a-year treat. Yum, yum.

This and that

Grandma was so bad, taking baby boy into the pool for his very first swim. Grandpa is looking on and daughter was anxiously watching poolside to ensure baby was safe. (What could be safer than a baby in a grandma's arms?) Baby boy is now two months old and is growing by leaps and bounds. He's a very sweet baby and we love him very much just like we love our granddaughters.

Daughter + 3 spent last Wednesday through Saturday morning at our house. A very good time was had by all. We swam, we baked cookies, we made lasagna, we ate, we watched movies, we played games, we worked puzzles, we talked, we laughed, we watched videos of the kids at play, and we generally had a very good time. Thank you daughter and grandchildren for coming to visit. We enjoyed spending time with you.

On a sad note, Sandy and her gang were unable to visit this time as planned because nephew Brian was hospitalized for several days. We are very happy that he's feeling much better and is now at home recuperating. We hope to see them all very soon. We missed them so much.

Husband and I have been busy with our solar heater project. Phase II looks like this:

We installed edging and mulch consisting of shredded tires dyed red (I guess to look like cypress mulch). We are short several bags and will be going back this afternoon to get the rest of what we need. Did I mention previously that this project was turning into a money pit? I can see the end of Phase II is near but I fear Phase III will really be expensive. We plan to build a shelf for storage and enclose the whole thing with lattice panels. Hopefully we will have this completed very shortly so we can go on to other outdoor projects.


We are off tomorrow to attend Dancer Girl's sixth birthday party. Daughter is having the party at her local pizza joint which boasts a play room for the kiddies. Should be a lot of fun for everyone.

Happy birthday, Dancer Girl