Sarah and I took the kids home to Maryland for a little visit. Sarah went to see her folks.
The Kids and I spent a day hanging around Red Point.
We snagged my sister Linz and my Pap and went swimming!
Georgia was not so excited about actually swimming, she was a little afraid of the brackish water, ol’pool has spoiled her.  Eventually, she jumped off the dock into Pap’s arms. I almost cried.
How many memories I have being a little girl jumping off the dock in to his big strong arms!

The next day the kids and I headed up to Dad’s in PA. First, we stopped by my friend Jo’s house. She is a great friend of mine, a true kindred spirit. She helped me get a job painting pottery at Eldreth before started my career as a touge scrubber on the whalewash crew. Jo visited with the kids and really laughed at thier cutness. She showed me the way to the right road out of Colora MD and we headed to the Quarry. I have been looking for this quarry for ages and now, thanks to the internet and some random rock guy with long hair in London, I found the Quarry. I was glad the kids were sleeping when we got to the quarry, it gave me a little leadway to scavange around for nice pieces to take home. I think the type of stone is called serpentine, at least that is what Jo says. I just call it my local emerald. I have made jewelry out of it for years and carried a piece in my pockets so long that all my pockets got holes. I am a nut about my rocks.

We stopped to see Grandma in PA, she is getting therapy for her knee. We stopped by to say hi to Little Dennis, I introduced the kids.Left a rock from my favorite quarry and cried.

We got lost. Forgot to take the turn at Camphill, ended up just lazing along the Susquehanna.
Man, I love that river!  I always want to stop for pictures and never do. It is best seen from Kayak or canoe that is for sure.
Dad’s town was having a Fair so we went. It was a lot of fun. I was really surprised to see how eager Georgia was to ride the rides. Brenda bought her a bracelet and she rode almost all the rides.

          

The next day we hung around in the yard just being a fmily for a moment. Enjoying our little moments. I was really glad to see my Dad playing Grandpa. He is good at it.  It really breaks my heart that he lives so far away. It has always been this way. I feel like we have missed so much eachother’s lives and I just love and miss him so much. It was really great to grab coffee and some new pots for his houseplants and transplant everything. It was such the thing that he and I should be doing.

    

On the last day, in the last hour Brenda and I were chatting and I told
her I wanted to get Georgia’s ears pierced and so she called around and
we went.
All I have are mini videos, Brenda took the pictures.
I will see if I can try to upload one of the five I took.

We finished our Lemon Aid stand this weekend. (7/23) and collected $260 bucks for the homeless kids.

It was a lot of fun. Though about one hour into the last stand in front of Wal Mart, Georgia, turns to Sarah and says, “If Mommy does another lemonade stand, I am staying home with Daddy.”
She had enough and it was enough. We stayed four hours at Wal Mart. It was our biggest day for cash donations.
Most folks gave money, we drank the lemonade. It was really hot.
We sold Pink lemonade, Watermelon and bubble gum.

Later, we settled into the house. Dwayne and the kids ran around like crazies, burning off some energy after dinner time.

Georgia has been exploring the Arts. We let her color on the walls with chalk and recently she has taken some pictures.
Here are some examples of her original work:

I will take some pictures of her wall art tonight.

This is my garden.
I am pleased for the most part. The string beans are too high for me to harvest alone (8ft). I am short. (5ft)
The potatoes did really well.
I will not have to buy seed for next year, for anything but I will need a hot box to get them started.
Still looking for some old windows to repurpose for my mini greenhouse.
I think there is a possum eating my green tomatoes. I was expecting four reds by this weekend and they are gone. Not a trace. Oh well, everyone has to eat.

I just breezed
through the whole weblog.

Wow, Dwayne was
scruffy there for a while.

I was really thin!

Georgia was sooo little and still has the same
funny expressions on her now bigger face.

It is quite a
story we have here, posted for the world to read. I hope you all are enjoying
it.

This blog has been
quite a companion to me over the years. Sometimes I would drink my morning coffee
and write. Most times, I spent many a lunch hours plucking away on the
keyboard, telling you all about our family.

Now, it is very
late. Everyone is sleeping, the TV is blaring with Larry King talking about Roswell.

I
got my first pair of glasses today. Not blind or anything but strained eyes
from working on the computer for the last 10 years. It is a little weird. I
have been mostly motion sick all day. My eyes feel much better, but I sure hope
this motion sickness stops. It is worse if I am walking around.

Tomorrow
we have the lemonade stand again. I promise to take pictures this time. Plus
none of you have seen the terrible hair cut I gave my daughter. I will put a
picture up now. My friend from work saw this pic and said,

“At least she is
smiling in the last one. Probably cuz she can’t see the back of her head!”

I
really thought I was going to laugh myself to pee.  Poor child. I think her hair is thinning. If
you look back over the pictures from April till last month there is a big
difference. Her hair looked really stringy and was developing knots a lot at
the ends so I decided to cut it. I figured it would be fairly easy considering
how thin it was. I was dead wrong. Tomorrow we are going to the Beauty shop to
get a trim. Boy, , she really looks like her daddy now

I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.   

Whew, has it
really been this long.

I must be a busy
lady.

This July, the
children and I will be holding a Lemonade Strand to benefit Homeless Children
and the Emergency Women’s shelter downtown. There was a recent article in the
Herald Leader about the Shelter, conveniently followed by an advertisement for
the first annual Lemon Aid Days fund-drive. I figured even though Georgia is
little, she might enjoy doing a lemonade stand. She is very industrious and
energetic. So we registered.

Website: http://www.lemonaiddays.org/index.htm

 

It took a while to
explain homelessness to my three year old, what a concept, right? She really could
not understand why anyone would want to sleep under the trees in the park when
it rained.  I tried to explain that it is
not something that people want to do but rather have to do.  I told her how some families have no food and
no toys and how the families have to go to nice places like the shelter to take
showers and get dinner for free.

 

So 4^th
of July was the kick off day for the lemonade stand. We set up in front of the neighborhood
pool. It was not the smartest thing as everyone was downtown for the 4^th
celebration.  We set up in the street
behind the Volvo. The park would not allow us to set up on their property
because of liability reasons. Damn lawyers/chronic sue’rs take the fun out of
things sometimes. I thought about bucking the system and setting up in the park
anyway, but Georgia
is definitely too young for that lesson.  I mean really do you think they would fine us?
“Mommy and daughter fined for selling lemonade to benefit homeless kids”, I can
just see it in the paper now.

We set up in the
street. After an hour with no business, I sent Georgia up to the pool entrance to
drum up some customers. I had my eye on her the whole time.  I could see her talking to the lifeguards,
then she turns around and starts yelling to me. I couldn’t hear her at all, she
was uphill from me and the wind just carried her little voice straight away.  She got frustrated and just started running
down the hill to me. She did not stop until she was standing right next to me
and she says, “I said, how much is it?” “25 cents” I say and off she goes,
running back up the hill jumping over the cement drainpipe. Then she comes back
awkwardly, with hands at her sides motioning that my plan did not work but
still looking over her shoulder to see if anyone is coming as she comes back to
me. The lifeguards are on her trail and she quickly snapped into gear, getting
cups, filling them with ice and short filling them with lemonade. The life
guards laughed and laughed. Telling me how cute she is and how we should have
set up downtown. We were also selling watermelon and bubble gum, so I manned
the watermelon cooler while she kept on with the cups of lemonade.  They came in pairs until all of them had made
it down to us.

 

We sold 11 cups of
lemonade and 6 pieces of watermelon.

Totaling $4.25 for
the couple of hours we were there.

It was a great
day.  We plan to go out this Saturday to
the same location with the same plan only this time in our bathing suits. It
sure was hot!

 

I think the
neighbor kids will be at the stand this Saturday to help.

And we have a date
to set up in front of Wal-Mart at Hamburg
on the 22^nd.

 

It was a good
time.

Around the house with the kids:

One of my favorite places in the world:

Beautiful dirty faces:

Fun with garden gloves

I love this smile:

Daddy’s annual bath:

Stick yer butt out!

Get back here boy!

The Dessert Rose in bloom:

Hens and Chicks in bosai pots.

We had a very nice weekend.
Dwayne’s Birthday was on Friday. He got a new Weber Charcoal Grill. He was very happy to grill on his birthday.
Ben and Sarah came over and helped us eat up some steaks and salad. It was nice to have them over.
I worked in the house all weekend. I touch-up painted Georgia’s room and the living room. I left one of her drawings on the wall. It looks so much like Mommy holding a Baby that I just did not have the heart to paint over it. She drew it during the Sharpie Marker night. I am hanging a couple of shelves in her room and Dylan’s room this week. It is nice to have a couple of extra bucks to do things like that.

Georgia and Dylan played outside with the hose all weekend. Georgia was all natural most of the time, so I don’t have any pics. Some days I can barely keep clothing on her!!
I was so afraid of strangers peering into her bedroom, so got these really neat window film treatments for her bedroom windows. They look like stained glass Dogwood flowers. The blue background compliments her wall color very nicely and will peel right off if we wanted to get rid of them.
I really like the security of them. I think I might go back and get more for the rest of the windows that face the street. Maybe a different pattern or mirror effect.
http://www.gilafilms.com/index.htm

From this morning:

From this weekend, nice hair? most likely from a water hose shot to the face.

  

Pictures
Little G

  

Little D

 

The Garden:

Hens and chickens

Asparagas plot

Strawberries

Full garden view Tomatoes, Lettuce,Broccoli, Onions, Potatoes and Peppers

Nice head eh? I will be eating this soon!

Bean Hill: Cucumbers, Pole Beans, Garden Peas, Sugar Snap Peas and bonus lettuce in the way back.

Ok , totally  beee hind.

Yes, very much…. not keeping up.

I have excuses. Really I do.

 

So the kids and Hunny are doing
great.

Mama’s day was more like Mama’s
week, because of my birthday’s close proximity. My Mama said it was ok to take
the week off. She gets the same treatment during her b-day because of
Valentine’s Day. It is the perk of have a middle of the month b-day I guess.

HA!

Dwayne was absolute sweetness and
gave me a really expensive bottle of perfume. I feel like a million dollars
when I put it on. And it is almost silly to wear it only out to the Veggie Garden,
but that is where I hang out.  Dwayne’s job is going really well. He
fluctuates between number one and number two salesman for his company.  He
is destined to become the favorite Dad in the neighborhood because he comes
home from work with Ice Cream and balloons in his pockets. We have the
neighbors hooked on Blue Bell Creamery Ice Cream. How cool is that?

 

Georgia is a gem. What a lucky parent I
am to have a three year old that is as smart as me. HA!

Yeah so, ok I am being sarcastic.
This kid is so witty and quick with her words that she leaves me speechless
sometimes.

Last weekend, she and I are out in
the garden, installing the irrigation. I ask for the clippers (hand held kind)
she pitches them to me, nearly hitting me square in the shin. I dodge it, quite
surprised; I tell her, “Georgia,
you should never throw clippers at anyone because they are sharp. They could
stab me and make me bleed.” And then as if she had no idea what else to say,
she replies, “Sorry about your luck.”  And her little eye balls rolled
around in their little sockets.  I almost fell over, but I never let on
that this response was either funny or allowed. This prompted a lesson in how
to respond to your parents when you are told something, such as all responses
from a child ends in “Yes, Ma’am.”  Most of the time, we are testing
boundaries. Other times, she is curled on my lap telling me how beautiful I am.
Last night, she laid in my lap, with big sleepy eyes looking at my face and
fitting her thumb into the curl of my lip. I am so very lucky and I am glad she
makes me laugh and/or cry every day she is alive.

 

Our Dylan is getting quite big.
Most definitely, surpassing little skinny Georgia.  He is very smart
little man. Very industrious.  It seems as though he is very driven to
test his muscles. I always catch him picking up things that are heavy. 
Things range from: Tin cans that are stored on the dry goods shelf above his
head, rocks in the garden path, plastic kiddie chairs, and empty laundry
baskets, basically, anything that crosses his path. When he picks something up
he will grunt and bend at the knees. It is the funniest thing to watch. He
loves to be outside. He will crawl or walk to the back door and look outside
with love in his eyes.  When he is outside, he is perfectly content to
play with whatever objects he can find near the door, sometime not leaving the
stoop for hours. Other times he is all over the yard. Crawling or walking bare
legged and footed through rocks and brambles, carrying rocks, dropping them on
his toes without much notice.

He will walk right out to the
grass and tread through it, laughing in bursts as the grass tickles his feet.
He will crawl into the brushes, pick leaves off of the limbs and sit in the
grass with a ball he may have found. Once or twice he had a mouth full of dirt
and dirt dribbles on the front of his little white t-shirt.   He is a
very pleasant boy, very content to play by himself or invite you into his little
world.  His laugh is the kind that makes you laugh. It is a full and deep
belly type laugh that kind of makes the back of your throat feel
scratchy.  And he laughs a lot, sometime for no particular reason at all.

He really lights up when Georgia is near.
He loves her so much. It is so amazing to me how that is even possible for this
little guy just barely one year old.  They play together sometimes.
Sometimes things get really quiet and I look into Georgia’s bedroom (playroom)
and she is sleeping on the floor and he is sitting on her bed playing with a
toy, he will laugh or smile really big as if he was just waiting for me to
check on him.

His smile melts my heart.

 

We got our Camera back from the
fix-it shop so pictures are on the way.

Sorry for the delay.

Just a couple of pics from two weeks ago when the weather was nice.

Georgia and I planted the garden, Dwayne swooped in and saved the day by tilling the earth for us.

It was great.

Georgia took these shots of me

I think Dylan looks like Linsay here

I was trying to get the perfect shot and then Little G tricked me….

Georgia and her best friend Micheal who lives next door.

 

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
1922 — 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/books/12vonnegut.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

 Hi

It has been a while, I have become so lazy about writing. The lack of photos translates to lack of inspiration.

I love photos.

Ahhh.

So I have some Easter pics.

I am borrowing Sarah’s camera until mine is back from Kodak.

Ben and Sarah came over for dinner, Sarah made a lot fo the food. I took care of the ham and that was about it.

Sure was nice to spend the holiday with family.

 

So here goes, this is the first Easter for Dylan.

 

 Good Morning

 

Georgia is finding Eggs and Dylan is still trying to figure out what this stuff is all over the place.

 

Since when did the Easter Bunny start bringing Money?

 

Dylan got Marshmallows!!

 

Your never too young to steal from your big sisters’ Easter Basket!

 

More Chocolate please?

 

The Dogs get some too!

 

In the meantime Daddy makes BREAKFAST!

Mommy and Georgia painted Eggs at lunch time

 

I love the tounge sticking out here…

And this is my new wallpaper at work

The feast