Spring Break with the Grands & Family

On Sunday April 17, after a two day drive through bumper to bumper traffic, and having to take cover in North Carolina between two tornadoes Heather and our 3 grand-daughters and a good friend of theirs Dellynne finally made it here. The first thing the kids wanted to do was get in the pool . The weather was beautiful and warm, but the water still quite chilly.

The girls & Tanek love swimming and had a great time. Our Hannah is a little fish in the pool.

Lots of fun!

Taking time out in the sun to try to warm up before getting back in. Emily and Tanek had a great time together.

Stephanie, Dellynne , Emily and Tanek

Shortly after Heather and family arrived Karen and Casey surprised her. They had flown in from Minnesota to spend a few days. They were very happy to enjoy the warm sunshine. Below is Hannah, Kirsten and Casey enjoying the pool.

We decided to go spend the night at the beach . We stayed in Villano beach and that evening we saw the most beautiful moon. You can see that on Karen's blog and Heather will have some pictures of it up soon. I love the ocean. It is just so majestic.

Tanek and Casey were enjoying the water.

And sweet Emily loved it too.

The water was a little cold but not too bad.

We spent the night at Villano beach and the sand there is all shells. Everyone had fun looking for sharks teeth. Hannah found several.

Tanek, Dellynne, Emily & Casey

Tanek and Dellynne

Emily had such fancy feet with all the little shells adorning her feet.

Such fun to dig in the sand.

This is what the sand looks like on Villano Beach which is actually just crushed shells.

Loved watching all the sea gulls flying around.

Such fun in the fountains at St. Augustine Beach.

Love the picture of the pier in the background.

We ended the day with dinner at Barnacle Bills. Heathers other sister Beth joined us at the beach. Here is the whole crowd.

Heather, Dellynne, Kirsten, Casey, Emily, Beth, Jackie, Karen Stephanie, Tanek and Hannah. We had a lot of fun at dinner too. It was a really nice beach outing. I can tell you that our "northern" family enjoyed the very warm sunshine of Florida where they all used to live. Karen and Casey had to go back home on Tuesday to more snow in Minnesota.

One of our favorite subjects....reading!

Tanek is doing so well at reading. Anytime you can give him something to read that has to do with construction, lego's or anything like that he especially likes to read about that. I think reading is the most important part of learning. If you read well and understand what you are reading the rest just comes. We do lots of subjects, Math, Bible, Spelling, History, Science, Handwriting, but especially a lot of reading. We go to story time at the Library twice a month and always check out lots of books to read. He pretty much likes all the subjects. His least favorite was handwriting, but he is even liking that better and doing much better at it. He is a joy to work with and I love watching him learn and I am learning lots of things that I am sure I must have known at one time but just forgot. Anyway, we are learning together and having fun. This book is "Three Little Rigs" taken after the story of "The Three Little Pigs". It really is a cute story and he loves reading it.

Signs of Spring!

This time of year you just can't help but love Florida. We have had one of the nicest March's that I can remember. It has mostly been warm and sunny. Flowers are blooming everywhere and as yet we are not unbearably hot and humid. I have worked in the yard for the past couple months and have completely gone from back all around the sides to the front and weeded, planted, trimmed, moved plants, put down rocks and mulch. I have just one flower bed that needs weeding and about 3 bags of mulch and then I will be on maintenance. Which is quite a bit. It takes weeding every week to keep up with it. That works until it gets in the 90's and then the yard is pretty much on it's own until fall. I am hoping this year I have made it easier to keep up and it will look nice even when it gets really hot. I love this bottle brush. Just a couple years ago (maybe 3) it was a tiny little plant. I had a larger one and wanted this one too, now the larger one is very tiny and I am hoping it will survive. I am not sure if the cold got to it and if so, why not this one? Anyway, it is very little and I am hoping it survives. These pretty much bloom all summer and the bee's absolutely LOVE it. If you look close you should see the honey bee flying around it.

This is my Joseph's coat rose bush. It is in the back yard and just starting to bloom. I love all the different colors it has on the bush at one time.

I love azeala's. I wish they bloomed all summer. They don't last long, but when they are all blooming they are beautiful. Florida is full of azeala's and that is one of the first signs of spring when the azeala's and dogwoods are blooming. Love the bright colors.

And the white ones too

Today we finally got much needed rain. Of course that makes the humidity go up, but we really need the rain. I know it won't be long before it gets really hot and humid and then working outside is no longer "fun". I have really enjoyed working outside these past couple months. So when it gets really hot it will be pool time and we are looking forward to that.

It's Spring Gardening Time Again!

Gary and Tanek have planted the Spring garden. The onions were planted in the winter and we are enjoying them now. They just planted peas, corn, tomatoes, peppers, watermelons and cantelope. Everything is just started to pop through the ground. Hopefully it will all do well and we will have lots of good things to eat.

Tanek loves helping his papa.....at least until he see's a bug. He does not like bugs or spiders.
He will take his rake and try to kill the bug if it isn't too big.

He loves helping his papa and he even likes eating the food from the garden since he helped to grow it. He has his own little rake......

but sometimes he likes to use his papa's big rake.

It has been hard for him to help very much because his allergies have really been bad this year and the pollen I think is worse this year than normal.

You can see the pea's just starting to come up. We will have lots and lots of them if they all grow.
My favorite is the watermelon's. I love being able to just go out and pick a watermelon to eat.

The pepper plants are just starting to blossom.

This year we planted some grape tomatoes and also some yellow tomatoes. I am looking forward to seeing what they are like.

Papa enjoys working in the garden and he works very hard on it. I like the fact that he grows it, shells it, puts it up, I cook it and eat it. Yum. That is the way I like to garden.:)

Happy Birthday Hannah!

My sweet Grand-daughter Hannah turns 11 years old. It is hard to believe she is already that old. I still remember the day she was born. Hannah is such a sweet girl. She loves the outdoors, and anything nature. She loves birds and she loves growing things. She can grow anything.
She is very creative and just so much fun to be around. She is also a very loving and tenderhearted girl. This picture was taken when she spent a week with us a couple summers ago. We took her to Downtown Disney on her way home.

I always loved Cinderella. She was always my favorite Disney character, so it was a good time to have our picture taken together with her.

This was on the 4th of July at the parade in Keystone. It was SOOO hot that day.

Isn't she beautiful

Relaxing after swimming. She has her a Florida tan.

This picture was taken last summer when they were down here on vacation.

Swinging on the swing

This is in Maryland at the barn where they take horseback riding lessons. She is also a natural on a horse.

This was a couple summer's ago when she was in a ballet recital.

These next 3 pictures were taken at our house when she was celebrating her 8th birthday. Can't believe 3 years have already passed.

She has certainly grown up a lot since these pictures.

Hannah is a very special grand-child as all 4 of my grandchildren are. Each one is unique and special in their own way. Each of them are very different and very very loved.

Happy Birthday Hannah. I hope your day is special. I wish you were here so we could celebrate with you. Can't wait to see pictures of this years birthday. I love you Hannah Banana.

Color Chemestry 101

Yesterday (Wednesday) was a beautiful Spring day. We did all of our school out on the back porch by the pool. It was warm and just a nice day. In the afternoon we did some experimenting with colors. We mostly worked with the cool colors mixing them to see what secondary colors you can make from the primary colors. We found at least in our work that blue was more of a dominant color than red. I would not have thought that. But most of the colors turned out with a blue tint even with equal amounts of red.

Part of the fun for Tanek was picking up the colors with the little tube.

We found that just a drop of one color can completely change the original color.

Here are our little samples. We started out with the primary colors of red, yellow and blue. But as you can see they all look more blue. He certainly enjoyed experimenting with the different colors.

Spring Time!

It is finally spring and I am loving it. I have been working out in the yard for the past month and it has been such nice weather. Other than the fact that there is yellow pollen everywhere which keeps me sneezing and my eyes burning. When we had our pool enclosed this past winter we pretty much had to tear up the whole backyard. I have been trying to get it put back together.
Gary had to move the fence (he took it all down) then put up some to give the dogs a safe area to go outside without having the run of the whole back. I have been redoing flower beds and rock walkways. I put out 29 bags of mulch and 20 some bags of rock. Now I am planting some grass in the area that was torn up. It is starting to come together. In just a couple months everything should be growing well and looking a lot better.
The plant below is called Loropetalum. I have no idea how you say it, but I love this plant. The cold does not hurt it, the heat does not hurt it and it blooms like this in the Spring. I have 2 out front and have put 2 out back.

The Amayllis are starting to bloom and they are so pretty. It is so nice to see flowers in the yard again.

I have an urn of this fern on each corner of the back porch.

This is the far corner of the enclosure that leads to the backyard. I planted this Red Sister and 2 crotons in pots to sit behind my angel statue that my good friends D & D gave me for my birthday last year. You can see where I have planted grass plugs and remulched the flower bed.

I have Day Lilly's and marigolds planted in here.

LOTS of mulch here. This is the area Gary fenced off for the dogs. It goes all the way up to the front of the yard. It gives Stanley and Daisey a place to play outside without them being able to go too far.

This will look nice when the daylilly's start blooming.

This whole rock walkway was redone.

A view from inside the enclosure. The barn (storage room, man cave) is in the background. I can't wait until it is time to swim and really enjoy the outside.

I "Really" am counting on having NO snakes and big bugs in the pool this summer. Sure hope it works.