Yesterday was my idea of a perfect day. 

Outing to Morris Arboretum

Blue skies,sunshine, cool breeze

flowers blooming

all our daughters together

all the grandkids together

Dawn was able to get free passes that covered all of us except one adult.  So instead of costing $129 for all of us, we only had to pay $16.00 (of course, this added to the perfection!).

Enjoying God's beautiful creation in a garden!

I really would like to blog a little more frequently but lately I just haven't had time.  We continue to fill our calendar with things to do and places to go.  Well, I guess on the positive side, that makes for more interest on the blog when I finally do get to it.

Last Tuesday on our day off, Dawn came over and went on a bike ride with Andy.  I watched Kira while they were out.  Here she is with all the dolls I have in the house.  After she left, I had to throw one of them away because it had seen better days.  When she was littler, she had chewed a hole in the hat and torn off one of the legs.  Then this time, the doll lost an arm.  I guess I could have sent her to the doll hospital, but I'm not the nurse/doctor type, even for fake people!

We decided to have a sprinkler system installed in our yard.  We have so many bushes, perennials, flowers that need to be watered all summer long.  This requires a lot of time spent every day when it's extra hot making sure that nothing dies.  Then when we go on vacation for 2 weeks mid-summer, we either have to pay someone to water for us or worry the whole time we're gone about our dear gardens.  So in preparation for the sprinkler system being installed, Andy cut down 2 dogwood trees on the edge of our property.  I know it seems a crime to cut down dogwoods, but they were old, had lots of dead branches on them and were in the way of some of the sprinkler heads we needed to put in.  My consolation was that we can plant new stuff there, maybe more dogwoods or forsythia or...

One down

It was a different feeling to have someone else do the work.  It seems like every time we do a project, Andy is doing it.  But this one involved a lot of digging and would have taken him days.  The contractor we hired had machinery and a crew that did the work in a day and a half.  So it was worth it.  The sprinklers come on every other day for 10 minutes.

 

 The weather this past weekend was beautiful...finally the heat and humidity broke.  I was thinking I could finally get outside to work in my gardens.  Then early Saturday morning, Dawn called to ask if I had plans and would I want to go with her and Kira to Princeton for Apple Day.  Sounded like fun, so Andy and I went with her.  Tommy also went with us, although we took 2 cars, so he could leave from there to go surfing when we were done with the festival.

The Terhune Orchards in Princeton was a fun place to be on Saturday.  We got there as it opened at 10:00 and beat the crowds.  There was lots to do:

milk the cow

 Farmer Andy!

ride Poppop's back

  

eat cider donuts

 

 ride the pony

 ride the John Deere tricycle

 see how tall you are

 look at the goats

 walk the maze

We also took a wagon ride and picked some apples.  We stayed till around 12:30.  It was great fun and a beautiful day to be outside.

That evening we went with our singles group to Pitch and Putt.  I have never been good at sports or athletics, but Andy, who is very good at those, gave me some pointers.  No one could believe how good I did at the golfing, especially me!  Andy's score was 63 and I had a 69!
 

And of course, we had to go out to eat afterwards.  There just happened to be an Applebee's across the street from the golf place.

 Andy's mom and dad went to the shore on Saturday and are there for 3 weeks.  So since Sunday was such a beautiful day, Andy and I packed our bags and drove down to enjoy the shore.  We stayed overnight and all Monday morning.  It is such a restful, relaxing place to be, it is easy to feel your troubles all melt away (not that I have any troubles!).  There's no compulsion to get up and tend the laundry, clean up the dishes, mow the lawn, whatever - just sit and veg!

the waves were huge

I'm not sure what triggered the thought, but I got this idea for making peach cobbler.  I know it's a little late in the season, but Andy loves peaches and I hardly ever make anything using them.  So on the way home from the shore yesterday, we stopped at several fruit stands asking for peaches.  The third place we stopped finally had some white peaches.  I found a great recipe on the internet (Paula Deen) and voila:

It was the most delicious peach cobbler I have ever eaten.  How's that for dramatic!

We were scheduled to go to Morris Arboretum today but because of the forecasted rain and storms, we are postponing till next week.

Our life is full and blessed, which gives me lots to write about.

Party Animals

Our social calendar has been filled with interesting invitations the last several weeks.

The first of those was a 25th wedding anniversary celebration on Saturday afternoon, Aug. 25th.  The husband, Johnny, threw a surprise party for his wife at their house.  He had her upstairs getting ready "to go out," while all the guests came quietly into the house.  We all waited in the kitchen, and amazingly, she was totally and completely surprised.  That was fun.  Then the party commenced with lots of good food and fellowship.

The next day, we hosted a game night with our FOCUS group.  This is a group of older singles (30, 40 & 50 year olds), some divorced, some never married from church.  We felt a desire to help these lonely people to build relationships and connect with others who are in the same life situations.  We meet during the year every other Sunday evening at our house where we eat a dinner together, then have a Bible study and discussion, with hanging out time till they leave.  During the summer, though, we haven't met quite as often because of vacations and a less structured schedule for people.  But on Sunday, Aug. 26th, we had a fun evening planned at our house.  Everyone brought a snack and I made a carrot cake to celebrate 2 girls' birthdays.  We were able to eat out on the deck and play some games out there until the mosquitoes drove us inside.  It was an enjoyable evening with lots of laughter and camaraderie, especially laughing at ourselves because it took us longer to read the directions than it did to play the games.  Then when we finally got to playing the game, we quickly lost interest and voted to play the next game...when we had to read the new rules again, etc.

We finally gave up on the games we brought and let Lizette take over.  She had been in charge of kids' games at a camp all summer and had all kinds of creative activities for us to do.  Now little kids' games we were able to do without a lot of long and difficult instructions!  And fortunately, no one minded looking silly.

 

This past weekend was Labor Day.  Usually with a long weekend, Andy and I are working on a project around the house.  But at this time, believe it or not, we are not working on anything.  So we decided to go to the Franklin Institute to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit.  C & C and kids were planning to explore the Academy of Natural Sciences, also in Philadelphia, close to the Franklin Institute, so we talked about going back to their house after our respective field trips and spending the rest of the day together.  Christy would make dinner.  Christy had called to ask if the Academy was normally crowded on Labor Day, and was assured that it wasn't.  However, I think everyone must have been at the Franklin Institute, because there were lines of people there.  Maybe because the weather was nasty and people couldn't go to the shore or be in their yards picnicking, the museum was a good alternative.  We waited in line for 20 minutes, at least, before we could get in to the exhibit.  Then when we did get in, there were so many people in there, that it was next to impossible to see anything.  There were interesting displays of pottery, evidently taken from Israel, as well as scraps of scrolls in displays.  But it was hard to read any of the explanations because of the crowd.  Well, chalk it up to a learning experience, although I'm not sure what we learned!

 We were in the museum when Christy called to say they were still looking for a parking spot and let's just forget about us going back to their place afterwards.  They didn't want to be rushed, but thought that since they were there, they would like to take their time enjoying their field trip.  But I had bought some ingredients for our dinner and didn't want them to go to waste.  Then we had the idea of having dinner at our house.  Yeah!  So Andy and I went home, had a couple of hours to ourselves, then started dinner for C & C and gang.  We also called Dawn and invited her and her family to come over.  Tommy was working late and couldn't join us, but Dawn and Kira joined us.  Christy and her family got to our house by 4:00 and we had a good time together all evening.  (I felt bad that Amy was missing.)
 

 Playing games after dinner

 Look who's crawling - and what a face!

On Tuesday, I cleaned house and did laundry.  Then Andy and I took his mom and dad out to eat for dinner.  That was our thank you for dad helping Andy with the plumbing issues we had a couple of weeks earlier.

Then after work yesterday, Wednesday, we were invited out to a couple's house for dinner, a nice evening out with friends.

I think after all this partying, the next couple of days are going to seem pretty humdrum and dull.  Yawn!