Tribute to a wonderful couple!

This is my sister and her late husband along with her daughter and her husband. Last June 1, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. In December Gerald went to be with Jesus. They have had a wonderful 50 years. They have 3 grown children, ( 2 sons and 1 daughter) and 5 grand-children. They have traveled to just about everywhere you can go in this world. He was a Pastor for many many years. He could preach the word and make you laugh and cry almost at the same time. Gerald had a great sense of humor. Everyone loved him. It has been very hard for my sister and his family to be without him, but we know we will see him again. This is a very hard day for my sister. The first anniversary without him. Please remember her in your prayers. 50 years is a long and wonderful life, but you are never ready for it to end. We all have so many good memories of him. He was a wonderful father and all his children are serving the Lord in some form of ministry. He has left a great heritage behind to everyone that had the privilege of being a part of his life. This picture was taken at their reception last year. They also had about 10 days earlier in the year where the whole family got together in Cancun, Mexico. That was a time they will always cherish. Everyday with Gerald brought laughter. He could make you laugh without even trying. He just had so much humor. He lived his life to the fullest and wasn't afraid to try anything once. He was a great asset to the ministry and his life truly glorified his Savior.

How Fast the Garden Grows

I can't believe that last week these were blossoms and now look at them. These were just some of the ones Papa picked today. I am scanning the cook books for good squash casseroles that are quick and easy and yummy.

We are going to have more squash than we know what to do with. They say the more you pick them the more you get. I am not sure I am ready for that. But it is exciting to see things growing. Papa counted 57 watermelons growing yesterday. Some are already the size of a baseball and these are the small individual seedless kind so it shouldn't be long before we can eat them.

Good Friends and Grand-children

Today my good friend Jackie stopped by. Tanek was in his "no nap" mode and so he got up and entertained her. It only took him a minute or two to get over the fact that he didn't know her and to put on his "show off mode". Of course Jackie is a seasoned grandma and now a Great grandma to several children close to Tanek's age, so she is a natural. They played and he gave her hugs and kisses. He knows no stranger for long. When we were trying to talk if he couldn't keep me occupied so I couldn't talk he kept her occupied. He was definitely going to be the center of attention and he was. Of course, not being a photographer I didn't even think about taking pictures until after she was gone. She hasn't seen him since he was really little and she was surprised at how he had grown and progressed. He certainly has caught up with being a 2 year old and he is one active little guy. It was fun to see him interacting with her and he was loving it.

My nieces beautiful daughter and new son

I got these pictures of my niece who lives in California. This is her daughter and new son. He is going to be a handsome boy, and isn't she a beautiful little girl. Looks a lot like her mommy.

Checking out Papa's Garden

Tanek is checking out the squash plants. Here is our first few veggies. We should start getting a lot now that they are getting ready.

Update on Papa's Garden

I can't believe how much Papa's garden has grown in just one week. By next week we should be picking lots of veggies. Here are the tomatoes. They are loaded. Anyone for fried green tomatoes? Above are the peas and they are putting out lots of them.

The watermelons are just coming along great. They actually are trying to take over the corn. We should definately be eating watermelon by the 4th of July if not sooner. And we should have tons of them. No problem. I can handle the watermelons.

Here is the pumpkins. There should be lots of pumpkins for the fall. I am going to see how big a pumpkin we can grow.

The Pacific and the Gulf

The top picture is of the Pacific in Oregon. My sister just went there. The Pacific is beautiful. The waves are big and surfers love it. There are mountains and clifts that just add to the beauty. Usually it is cold and the water is rarely real warm especially in the Pacific Northwest.
The Gulf doesn't have the mountains (at least not in Florida) or the big waves unless a hurricane is brewing. However, the beauty of the clear aquamarine water, the warmth of the water and the soft white sand are very beautiful. I grew up going to the beach in California and Loved it. I love the big waves and it is so much fun to be out there jumping in them. (or was when I was younger) but I also love the beaches in Florida. I love the warm water and that you can go way out and it not be deep. I especially love the Gulf. I love the clear blue water and white sands. So, in my opinion, anywhere that you have beaches is a good thing.

More Beach Pictures

Most of the people we saw on the beach seemed very nice. We did meet this one crab. He was about as happy to get away from us as we were for him to go. This is in front of our little beach house we stayed in. It was quite comfortable. There was a pool right outside of our porch.

Tanek loved the pool as well as the beach. It didn't take him long to let us know when he wanted to go to "the beach" or to the "pool". He is quite the water baby. He fell asleep as we were walking on the beach. Stephanie was carrying him and the next thing we knew he was out. There was no waking him up either. We took him back to the house and put him to bed. He was out for the night....that is until 3 am and then he was through sleeping. As a matter of fact we were all through sleeping.



These were some pictures of the sun breaking through the clouds. It looked so pretty as we were walking on the beach.

Vacation at the beach

Stephanie, Tanek and I spent a week in Siesta Key. It is a very beautiful beach as you can see. We had a great time. The weather was Hot, the water warm and it was windy for the first part of the week. We had rain on Sunday night and most of Monday, but the rest of the week was good. We have decided this would be a good yearly trip for us. Siesta Key is rated #3 of the 10 top beaches in the US. #1 was in Hawaii and #2 was somewhere else in Florida. Tanek loved the water and if he could have his way he would have been out there without his mommy and his nana hanging on to him. He thought we cramped his style. He loved the waves just coming all over him.

He also liked the sun and sand. As you can see he is getting quite tan. The sand is as soft as talcum powder and so white. The water as you can see is clear and a beautiful aquamarine. It felt so good to just be in it. We found lots of neat shells and just enjoyed the time basking in the sun and surf. We got home today and it was back to reality. Washing, grocery shopping, cleaning, and watering this dry dry land of ours. We need RAIN!. I have more pictures to post but for some reason this blog is not posting right so I will wait and see if it straightens up.

Weekly update on Papa's Garden!

Tanek is checking out the watermelons. We are hoping to have plenty of watermelons for our 4th of July party. Hopefully this year we can have a big party. Heather & Richard and girls will be here and hopefully most of Heather's family and I am hoping Steph will be off and her and Ricky and Tanek will be here too. SO, we need lots of watermelons, corn, tomatoes etc. to go with our Hamburgers. Maybe Pam will come along too:)
Tanek is checking out the progress of the tomatoes, but then an airplane went over and that was much more interesting.
Papa, do you think that corn will be ready by the 4th? I am not sure. Keep it watered Papa.
The pea's are growing pretty good. I think they may be ready, but not sure if I even like them.
This place takes lots of water. We need some rain. Tanek is making sure Papa does it right.

Here is the beginning of our pumpkin patch. Hopefully for the fall we will have lots of Pumpkins.
Overall I think it is coming along pretty well. Just getting ready for it to start bearing food. It does take time though.
Papa is putting down fertilizer. It should start growing faster now. Still need some rain though.
Tanek is helping Papa put fertilizer in his little machine. He would love to get into that bag and really help his Papa.
Papa has been working hard everyday to get the garden growing. It is looking good.

Mother's Day 2008

Mother's Day brings on many emotions. After I lost my mom many years ago, Mother's Day was a very sad time. Sometimes I didn't even go to church on Mother's Day because I thought it too sad. Even though I still miss my mom greatly I now have many added blessings to my life.
Besides having 2 grown children that are great friends I also have 2 great grown children by marriage that are great friends. Plus, they have each given me the greatest gift of all....Grand-children. You can't be sad when you have wonderful Grand-children. Above is a picture of Tanek. He was 2 in February and he is a joy. It is always interesting to have him around. There is no telling what he will do or say next. Pam captured this great picture for me to give Stephanie for Mother's Day. I only wish my mom could have met my Grand-children. She never got to meet any of them.

Here is Heather and my precious Grand-daughters. You could not ask for a better daughter-n-law or Grand-daughters. Any Grand-mother knows that to know your Grand-children are loved and cared for by their parents is a huge gift. So many are not. It is hard enough to have these beautiful girls so far away, but knowing that they are getting everything in life that they need and a lot of what they want is so wonderful. You can tell by looking at them, they are loved and cared for. They are wonderful, beautiful, blessed girls and it is great to see the way they are being raised. As a Grand-mother, knowing they are being raised in a Christian home and being taught about God is the best thing to be thankful for. I am looking forward to when they come and spend some more time here this summer.

Another big blessing in my life is having my daughter, her husband Ricky and our Grand-son Tanek live right here in town and get to attend the same church. It is so cool to see him come out of the nursery with a big smile on his face. He doesn't always go in with a smile, but he always comes out with one. He is learning at a very young age all about God too. I absolutely love this church. It is SO family oriented and so uplifting and encouraging. I am thankful to come here and very thankful that they also attend here. Stephanie is a wonderful daughter. She is truly one of my very best friends. For those of you that are raising teen-age daughters. Hang in there. They will one day be your best friend. She is a very wonderful mom too. Very patient and loving. I couldn't ask for more for my Grand-son either. Here are my cards and corsage from the family in Maryland. I wore my corsage to church today. There is one rose for each Grand-daughter. After church we had dinner at Applebee's with Ricky, Stephanie, Tanek, and Ricky's parents. After dinner Ricky and Gary took Tanek home and Stephanie and I had to go check out the new Super Wal-mart in Gainesville. We are going to the beach for a week and of course there were some things we needed to get. It was nice to just have some Mother-Daughter time alone. We exchanged gifts at Applebee's and I got a very nice gift from Stephanie, Ricky and Tanek. I even got a very nice gold ankle bracelet from Gary. One of the first gifts from him in 39 Mother's Days. He always said I wasn't his mother. But I guess he finally figured out I was the one who made him a Dad. In all fairness to him, I pretty much get anything I want whenever I want it. So, I can't really fault him on this one.

This picture and the one below have a story to it. About a month ago I asked Pam to take some pictures of Tanek for me to give Stephanie for her Mother's Day gift. It was a surprise to her and with the help of Papa we took him to Keystone Beach to take the pictures. As you can see

Papa was very busy on the job. He didn't know Pam would catch him. She is good. When she has her camera, nothing is overlooked. Papa actually did help some, but when we walked down to the water he thought it a good time to chill out.
Here are just a few of the pictures Pam took. I especially like this one because of the verse she added. This is such a good verse to remember as they are growing up.
As always Tanek will have his "mine" car if possible. He carried it in most of his pictures.
So as you can see I have had a very Blessed Mother's Day. I am truly thankful for what God has given to me. I am loved, and I have so much to love. Aside from my relationship with God, nothing is more important to me than the wonderful family God has given to me. I always loved my position as a mom and I still do, but the icing on the cake is being Nana. It really does make growing "mature" worthwhile. I say "mature" because I don't think I will ever think I am "old".

To all you Mother's out there. I hope you all had a Wonderful Mother's Day. Enjoy the children, regardless of their age and the Grand-children. God Is Good....All The Time!

That's enough for now!

We have been working on the yard all Spring trying to get it in shape before it gets hot. Well it is now HOT and I say enough for now. Other than maintaining it and that is plenty of work this is what we have got done. This is the big flower bed in the front yard. The arbor is full of jasmin that smells wonderful. I however don't get on that swing because who knows what lurks up there?
Right now it is full of day lilly's but you can't really tell for all the asparagus ferns.
This is my contribution to vegtable gardening. I have two patio tomatoe plants. As you can see the are full of little tomatoes. Hopefully they will do well. These are the small cherry tomatoes.
This was the last area we did. This is actually in the middle of the project after Gary had dug up all the grass. This is now ready for the rocks and getting ready to plant.

This is the before picture. Dear husband does all the hard stuff. He dug up all that grass by hand by his self. I tried weed killer, but it was too big of an area.

The rocks are down and the plants are in. They are small but should grow quite big by summer.

They are varigated weigela. Never heard of them, but they are supposed to be easy to grow and attract humming birds and butterflys. So we will see how it goes.

My plummosa plant. It is getting very big already and I had cut it way back. It will soon be hanging in the pool and will have to cut it back some more.
Now it is getting time for the fun part. SWIMMING. Come on over for a swim. Tanek and I will probably start swimming this next week. The water is getting pretty warm. Can't wait til the grand-daughters come down in June. They are little fishes and love the water.
I added this fountain. It comes off the side of the pool and looks really pretty when it is going.
This used to be a rose garden. There are a few left but each year one or more die. I am not replacing them. They are way to much trouble and I much rather be playing in the pool with my grand-children than trying to keep them alive. They just don't like our sandy soil. So this is it.

I am pretty much finished for the summer. It is now time to play. As you can see, even maintaining will take some time every week. But if you want to swim, come on over. The pool is open!