Annual Church Picnic

We go out to Dan Nicolas Park every year for our Annual Church Picnic.  They have rides, boats on the lake, animals and all sort of other sights, events and activities. 

The kids never saw a train that they could pass up.

The same goes for a Carousel.

The petting zoo, you can pet everything except the donkey, they say he’s not so nice.

Boys always draw to anything that has a motor and wheels.

Davis checking out his wing span.

Time to eat.

Time to play.

Time for baseball.

Time for horseback rides.

Time for races.

They were definitely having fun with Isaac and Rebecca.

I hope their backs were not too sore the next day.

TLC Barbeque ‘n’ fishin

We have our year-end TLC Barbeque at the Elder of our group’s house on High Rock Lake each year.  This year I got in a little bit of fishin, worms and all.

The view was beautiful out there.

They have a very beautiful home up in the trees with gardens all around outside.

We usually take the boat and go up the lake, but we didn’t take it out this time  There’s a lot of different kinds of birds to see around High Rock Lake.

The lake goes a long ways in both directions.

I didn’t catch anything but Charlie got this little bass.  Only bite of the evening.  We blame it on all the boaters going up and down.  What?

 

What would a barbeque be without a lot of food . . . .

and a lot of good conversation?   Boooooring!

Lantern Landing

A few weeks ago I was opening my blinds in the morning and on the side of the house I saw something laying in the yard.  At first I didn’t know what it was, finally I thought it might be something like a Japanese lantern that someone lit up the evening before.  I went out and sure enough, it had a little square piece that had been burned at the bottom.  Don’t know yet where it came from.  Interesting!?!

I tied a string to it and Abby’s been using it as a kite.

Would love to know how far it drifted.

My Yard and Garden

I always have my camera handy for when something is blooming.

These are Amber’s Hydrangeas, they’re beautiful!

A Strawberry box, herb box, and 2 vegetable boxes.

In this box there’s sugar peas, bush beans, and yellow squash.

This box contains 2 of each; yellow peppers, green peppers, red peppers, and Jalapeno peppers.  Also cucumbers, 1 Roma tomato, 1 cherry tomato, and 1 yellow teardrop tomato.

I also planted baking pumpkins in the flower bed between Amber’s house and mine.  There are 3 mounds of 5 plants each. Each one has a milk gallon container with holes poked in it that I fill with water to have a slow feed of water during the hot days.

Plenty of room to spread out.

The kids and I found another moth on my spike plant by the front porch.  I think they’re very interesting looking.  They do have a lot of different bugs here than what California does.  Some not so nice when they bite you.  Like the no see em’s, and really you DO NOT see them!

I wintered this hydrangea in my garage and it was just small sticks when I brought it out in the spring, but it really took off.

I had this lily at the other house and I split it and brought some of it over to the new house.

I also brought this lily from the other house, but I put this one in a pot because it was really small.

Now the plant is huge, it’s almost as tall as I am.  It will have to go in the ground this fall. 

These poinsettias are an experiment I’m working on, they are from last Christmas, I want to see if I can get them to bloom again this Christmas.  I printed out how to do it from the internet so we will see if I succeed.  They are looking pretty good so far and doing what they are suppose to be doing at this time.

This is a hibiscus and I’m always amazed at how big the blooms are.

These marigolds and the ones below are from the seeds of the marigolds I had last year around the mailbox.  They were such hardy and sturdy plants with big blooms I decided to save some of the dried blooms to replant.  They look just as big as they were last year.

 

This is a patio Hibiscus that has to be moved indoors for the winter.  I bought 6 of them last summer and by spring two didn’t look so good,   I think I over-watered them because it’s hard to tell how much they need when they are dormant.

A friend of mine has a neighbor who sat a 16” x 16” box of these Hostas out on the curb for someone to pick up and I was able to get them.  They were really nice plants.  I split them into 9 plants and these are 3 of them.  I’ve been amazed at how well they’ve done, of course I put them on the shady side of the house, that always helps.

Happy Gardening!

First Swim Meet ~ June 23, 2014

I’m going to try to get caught up on what’s been going on around here so I’m going to start with yesterday and work backwards.

Amber signed up Abby, Davis and Jackson for the Sapona Ridge Country Club swim team when the pool opened Memorial Day weekend and they will meet up through Labor Day Weekend when the pool closes in the Fall.  The practice sessions are every morning M-F 11am to 12pm and every evening M-Thurs 6:45pm to 7:45pm.  We can go to as many sessions as we want or work around our schedule.  The nice thing about it is that Amber and I can do laps while they practice.  YEAH!!

This is during practice time before the meet.  Check out the sky.

This is after about a 10-minute downpour, but no thunder or everyone would have to be out of the pool for 20 minutes.  That’s the rule when it thunders.

Everyone  taking cover.

The team from the city of Denton was there and with our team there were about 100 people and all of them shouted wildly for every one that swam.  It was so cool to see all the encouragement for each person.  I think Jackson and Davis were the youngest.

Having a snack break while the Denton team practiced.

The team getting instructions.

This is coach Hattie.  She is amazing, she’s only 15 and she has such an even calm way of getting the team to follow her anywhere.  They all love her.  Most of them know her already because she and they go to our church.

Davis and a friend getting ready to jump in for their turn.

Abby and Jackson getting ready for their part of the relay race.

Jackson watching for the boy to touch so he can go,

and there he goes!!!

Davis doing his freestyle lap

Abby getting ready for her backstroke lap.

It’s a good thing Amber always brings lots of good snacks and fruit because they ate all day long between events.  I thought Jackson would never stop eating, but the water and laps do make you hungry.