Still keeping busy

As you can see from these following pictures, I am still working on my crocheting. I love keeping busy in the evenings while I watch TV. This burp cloth actually has a new edging that I made up. I took an edging pattern that I've used a whole lot and then I added an extra row of stitches and I love it. I'm not sure I'm the first person ever to do this...but nobody showed me how to do it...I just tried it.

The asters are out! I absolutely love these flowers and they make the backyard so beautiful.

Cucumbers anyone? My mom only wanted to plant one or two cucmber plants but I talked her into planting a half a row. Well, the consequence has been too many cucumbers. Sorry Mom, I just love cucumbers and thought you needed more plants. I forgot that you are the only one in your house that eats cucumbers.

As you can see, these are not typical cucumbers...I think they are called Armanian Cucumbers. They are my mom's favorite cucumber...and very yummy. They also get very large but don't get bitter so you can eat lots of cucumber. The dark green cucumber is a Japanese Long cucumber...and SM actually planted this type in our own garden.

Family times

This last week my brother and his family have been visiting. Which means that all my siblings and their families have gotten together to spend time together. I have to add that I've got a great family and very cute nieces and nephews. We've had a great time together. Here are just a few pictures from our fun times together.

Yep, his shirt does say "I do all my own stunts" and it fits my brothers' personality.

I've had a great time holding cute babies and talking to my brothers, sister-in-laws, and sister...oh don't forget my parents.

We try not to let our silliness overpower all our activities...but we don't always succeed.

Three Days of Rain - A Play

SM is in a play called Three Days of Rain by Richard Greenberg. There are only three actors in the play, which is why in the previous and following photos you only see the three of them. The play is dreary and full of shouting...okay, maybe not exactly all that...but I'm not used to hearing SM shout, and he does a lot of that in this play.

As you can probably guess from the photos, the three characters are in a triangle relationship. In the first act you meet a brother, sister and best friend. During this act they confront each other about certain parts of their past, trying to understand why they are where they are...and how the past has shaped their futures.

In the second act, these same three actors play the father, mother and best friend. The children from the first act came to conclussions about the past and now you (as the audience) get to go back to the past and see if the conclussions are correct.

It was a very interesting play to attend. It didn't leave you feeling joyous and happy, but I don't think it was supposed to. I really enjoyed watching SM on the stage. He loves theatre and used to act more regularly, but once he got married, went to law school, and finished a PhD...well, there really wasn't any time for him to act in the theatre...until now.

Mom's Flowers

Mom has many different kinds of flowers all year long. Some flowers will only come in the spring and others only in the summer and others, like roses, will blossom both spring and summer. Here are some of the summer flowers. Above are some holly-hocks. Mom has many different colors of holly-hocks.

And some blue morning glory. She also has some hot pink morning glory which I tried to take a picture of...but the photo was blurry and the blossom wasn't yet opened all the way and just didn't look very nice.

And here are some four o'clocks. They grow very quickly, very large bush like plants and have beautiful blossoms.

These are California poppies...vibrant oranges! As I'm typing this post I'm surpised that I know some of the names of the flowers. I really never paid attention to the names of flowers until recently. Now it seems more difficult for me to remember them...but apparently some of the names are sticking.

And this is a side view of one of Mom's flower gardens that didn't turn out as nice as I would have liked. Oh well, got to keep practicing with my camera.

Mom's Orchard

I really liked this picture of holly-hock flowers in with the apples. It's pretty.

This spring Mom, Dad and I pruned the fruit orchard. It was a lot of work and we didn't quite get to all the trees before the time ran out for pruning. Mom has something like twenty-three trees and I think we got to all but two. Anyway, above is a picture of some peaches. They aren't ripe yet but we hope they will be in two weeks when my brother and his family come from Seattle to visit.

Here are the Italian prunes...my grandmother all was pronouned them "pru-ens" so that might be the way it's said.

And apples...doesn't that apple has wonderful color?! I love how most of the apples are very green with red "sun-kisses."

And here is another peach picture. I just love the contrast of color...plus the memory of how yummy peaches taste!

Mom's Garden

This summer I have spent a lot of time with my mom at her house. My mom's garden takes a lot of her time but is so wonderful. I brought my camera with me the other day and took some pictures of her garden, her flowers and her orchard. I'd like to share a few with you all. The camera cannot capture all the beauty and color that these places hold for me, but it does hold memories for me. So, enjoy...

Here are some yellow water melons. They are very delicious and someday when I have my own place, I too will be planting and harvesting these melons.

Here's mom picking cucumbers. Behind her are the broccoli plants.

Tomatoes not yet red...well there is one in the very back that is pink...don't know if you can see it.

This is a new melon that Mom has never tried before. I don't know it's name but if you look closely at it, it looks like an ugly winter squash. The outside of the melon is very bumpy and lumpy.

Here is a spotted watermelon. Kind of cool huh?! The leaves of the watermelon are also spotted...green with yellow spots.

Above are some peppers...they start off yellow and then turn red.

Here's one of the giant pumpkins that she is growing for my husband. She's very worried that it won't get as big as it needs to before the frost finds it this fall. Because our spring lasted so long the plant didn't grow very fast for the first couple of months.

Here's another view of the garden. Starting right in front and left by the shovel you will see beets, then carrots. If you look carefully behind the carrots are some re bar posts...below them are peas...Mom started a second batch of them a few weeks ago. Behind the peas are onions and then you can't see the melons. After melons are beans then the cucumbers and then corn. The corn cuts the garden in half but the corn is the last thing you see in this photo. There are more beets, carrots, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, melons, and raspberries behind the corn.

I wanted to show you how large her onions are...but I forgot to put something in the picture to show the comparison. If you use your imagination, put your hand out there to grab one and the bulb of the onion will be almost as large as your hand. Hope you've enjoyed the tour of most of my mom's garden.

It's been a long time since I've gone to any kind of amusement park...or indoor activity thing. A few Saturdays ago, SM and I took two of our nieces to an indoor amusement park. We were able to ride on a merry-go-round, bumper cars, and some spinny thing.

SM looks like he is having a little too much fun bumping the cars of all the little kids. I was afraid someone would start crying after seeing his face as he came at them as fast as the bumper cars could go. Luckily, no tears, just a lot of laughter.

I don't think I have ever been on a merry-go-round like this. It was a lot of fun but didn't seem like we went around long enough. Oh well, I wasn't going to go spend more money just to go around again and again. Once was memorable enough.

Lots of smiles all around!

And this is the school bus that flies up through the air, and then comes back down and then goes back up....again and again.

I had a great time, as did SM and the girls. One of our favorite things was the magic show performed about an hour after we had been there. This magician was a lot of fun. He may have not have tricky tricks but he had so much enthusiam that we just had to laugh and enjoy ourselves. Hopefully this was a memory that all will remember.