June Is More Than Half Over!

 Time has slipped by me this month. Whew!  Our weeks have been filled with getting our yard into shape and painting the back deck and front porch and just trying to spruce everything up in anticipation of our family reunion that's coming in October.  Yes, I know it's still a few months away but I just want to get it all done.  Plus we hosted a baby shower for our granddaughter, Summer, who's due in August.  It was an outdoor event in our backyard so getting things spruced up for that helped.  Of course, if you know me you know that when we plan outdoor things the weather goes to the dogs.  The sunny day we were hoping for started out that way but also hot and humid.  We made it through the luncheon part but  had to gather all the gifts and guests and finish up indoors.  The storms came through and the rain fell in buckets.  I'm glad we rented a cabin for our family reunion!  Not taking any chances!  In other news, our grandson, Taylor, came home yesterday from his 2 year mission for the church.  He was in Argentina and served a wonderful mission that brought many souls to Christ.  We are very proud of him and we're glad he's home safe and sound and ready to finish his college time!  He'll head off to BYU in Utah in August but now he's just getting adjusted to home back in Portland, Oregon.  Here's a few pics of our past few weeks.  My sister is coming for a week starting on this Saturday and I'm really excited to see her and spend the time together. Poor Jack knows there'll be lots of talking, laughing, and just hanging out for the week.

On Saturday, our granddaughter, Driana, and her hubby came down from the Cleveland area where they live to help with her sister's shower on Sunday.  But that gave us a chance to gather together and see for the first time, our great grandson Roman! He's so sweet and it was fun to be able to hold him and love on him for a bit!  He's 2 months old already!

Being a great YaYa can make you feel a bit old but seeing your child become a Grandpa does make you take a breath or two! Wasn't Jackie just that age not long ago? Well, maybe 50yrs ago!

Sunday afternoon we got the shower for Summer under way.

Tents and tables were set up and the idea was to keep the sun at bay but it got cooler and cloudy and when the rains came down, we went up to the house!

The food was pretty good.  This was just our dessert table.  There was also chicken salad on croissants and pulled pork, spanikopita, jello salad, coleslaw, chips, and other things! Plenty of food! So even though it rained we made it through the food part and Summer received many lovely gifts to help get her going with her little one.  Very thankful for all who came and those that helped.

Summer's having a boy also! Gabriel is his name to be. I'm hoping he and his cousin Roman will be close and share a friendship as well as a cousinship! 

Sisters, Summer and Driana.  Driana can give her sister some good tips on motherhood!

While the storms raged, the rain didn't stop us from having a good time opening gifts!  I was glad we were able to do this for her but also glad when it was over. I was pretty exhausted at the days end!  To add some more fun to our week we decided to drive up to Cleveland to see our Church's new Temple that will open officially in August.  We intended to just find out how to get there and then walk around the grounds and enjoy the gardens.  But we were approached by a couple that said they could take us on a tour of the inside if we wanted.  Sure!  So we had a lovely, private showing! It's a small but very beautiful Temple and we're so happy to not have to drive to Columbus where the traffic is crazier and Cleveland is only a 55min drive.  

Tuesday was sunny and cool and a great day for a little drive. The Temple is really a pretty sight!

These are just a few of the gardens.  My photo doesn't do it justice.

Hi Jack!  The Temple will be open to the public from June, 18-July 3 before it's dedicated in August. After it's dedicated, only members with a temple recommend can go inside.   It's located in Independence on Brecksville road if you're in the Cleveland area.  The tour is free of course and it's worth the trip!  Now back to preparing my house for guests this weekend and next week.  Hopefully more blog material and I won't let so much time go by!  

Bye May!

 The last day of May is here, and it sure went fast for a long 31 day month!  April was full of surprises and May has been the month of doctor appointments and follow ups.  Thankfully all is well.  I have one more appointment to see if I need to get my holy heart repaired with a patch.  Like a leaky swimming pool or a flat tire, I guess!  May is a month of birthdays and then we had our grandson, Cameron, graduate from high school.  He's going to go to Kent State University in the fall, and we sure wish him well He's a great kiddo.  He's very quiet and smart!  The school wasn't sure what to do with him for his senior year since he took every class and college courses they offered.  He wanted to continue to do track so they found a few classes he could take, and he took some online classes from Ashland University. 

Congratulations Cam-Man!

Our proud son Jack with his baby boy! The last of his 4 kiddos to graduate high school. Can't believe how fast time has gone! 

Proud YaYa and Paw Paw! 

Here's a few pics of the rest of our, as the song from Camelot would say, lusty month of May! The peonies did great and are now at the end of their blooming life.  I snagged a few bouquets to enjoy.

We've been getting the Pines ready for a few events happening here. In 2 weeks, we're hosting our granddaughter's baby shower.  Summer is due in August.  I blogged about her sister's baby being born in April.  Summer's having a boy also so I hope those cousins can be besties!  So, weeding and mulching our "garden of weedin'" has been a project!

Spot the wee white dog? Keeping an eye out for the squirrels and neighbor cats that like to roam the whispering pines!  Our next big event is our 2026 family reunion being held right here in October. You know that's my favorite month, so I picked it for the reunion.  Keeping this area clean of weeds and looking pretty until then will be our biggest challenge!  Oh well, it will keep us in shape anyway! Memorial Day had family joining us for some ribs and fixings.  I had gone to the cemetery to put out the summer/patriotic flowers on my in-laws grave site.

I change flowers for each season, and my Mother-in-law enjoyed the summer holidays like July4th, so I try and honor that for her.  

I also decorate inside for Memorial Day and then on to July 4th. I found these plates at a thrift shop a few years ago and enjoy bringing them out this time of year.  When the family was here last Monday for our rib fest, I was busy and didn't get photos except for one:

Our granddaughter Rae tried riding the trail bike last year for the first time and crashed it.  She didn't hurt the bike but did hurt her knee. She was lucky she didn't do something worse!  Memorial Day she came with her boyfriend, Ethan, and tried again.  He's an experienced biker so he patiently and carefully gave her instructions.  She finally got it and did good except for one thing....Rae, where's the helmet!? Sheesh, kids!  On my final May happenings, I tried my hand at an easy, non-frying, donut recipe.  The first batch I did used a spice cake mix and a can of plain pumpkin.  Mixed it together and put it in a donut baking sheet.  Success! They came out great!  I decided to try with a chocolate cake mix (no pumpkin, thank you!).  Problem was I didn't have a chocolate cake mix so I tried it with a brownie mix.  I used a brownie mix, one egg, and a half cup of applesauce instead of a half cup of oil.

Yes, they came out great too! They stayed soft and delish, and Jack said they were winners! I'm going to use the spice ones this fall for our reunion breakfast.  I have a few more ideas for these up my sleeve. So easy and no frying!  Well, that's it for May.  Bye, Bye.  Tonight we'll have a blue moon happening.  Look to the skies!  Fingers crossed for a nice June and the beginning of summer! 

100 years

 Today, May 17th would have been my Mom's 100th birthday.  Not sure if they have birthday parties in heaven, but if they do I hope Mom is having a blast with all her family, my Dad, , my brother Greg, my nephew Jono, and perhaps others who aren't family by blood but by love.  Here's a few pics I gathered from over the years.  I know I have more, but they're not downloaded for sharing here.  I miss Mom every day as I would call her just about every day to check in, enjoy her thoughts and hear her voice. She was a very resilient woman who worked hard at her career as a switchboard operator/supervisor in a 500 bed hospital. She was so smart.  I always thought she was the smartest women alive!  She was a wonderful wife and a wonderful mom to us 6 kids. Happy heavenly birthday Mom! You are so missed and always so loved by me and all our family and the friends who were lucky to know you!

So pretty!  So Greek!

Mom, me, my sister Midge. The 3 musketeers!

Grand marshall at the neighborhood July4th parade.

Her 93rd birthday and she ate that all down!

All the young family.

Serving at the church giving mother's day roses to the women.

The last time at my house doing what she always enjoyed...chipping in to help either cooking or cleaning up. Yes, you are missed Mom.  She passed away May 29th, 2020, at age 94.  A long, full, love filled life, but we sure wish we could celebrate this one together here!

More Drama

 Sometimes it feels like the trials never stop. Wednesday evening I was sitting reading a magazine when I felt a little weird and my left arm was weak. When I stood up my left leg also felt weak.  Jack took me to the ER to get checked out.  The weakness had gone away but they ran me through stroke checks. Blood work, CT scan, heart monitoring.  My blood pressure was sky high which was different for me who never had high blood pressure.  They kept me for 2 days doing MRI, heart scan, ultra sounds looking for clots. Very thorough.  Everything came back normal except for a small hole between heart chambers that could have allowed a small clot to go through.  My body took care of it so no damage.  So managing BP symptoms and other things like cholesterol  is now going to happen. Im grateful for Jack pushing me to get checked quick and for good care from the nurses and doctors.  Feeling blessed and hopefully this won't happen again. 🙏   When it comes to strokes, getting treatment ASAP is essential for a good outcome.  Mine was a TIA that could have turned into a full blown stroke if I had ignored my symptoms.  Im now hoping for a quiet, healthy May!

April Endings And Beginnings

 I realized this is the last week of April and I thought I'd better do some blogging!  I hope to get to my blog buddies posts tonight too.  I'm happy to report that Jordan and I are healed up and putting this crazy month behind us!  So that's a good ending and then we have a real beginning....My Granddaughter, Driana, was due to deliver our first great grandchild in May but he decided to make an appearance last week! Little Roman James was born April 22nd at 9:02am, weighing 8lbs even.  It was a difficult labor and delivery, and she ended up with a broken tailbone and a bladder issue.  Roman had to go to the NICU for a few days with breathing problems but thankfully Momma and baby were able to go home Saturday.

Lots of dark hair! We'll see if that stays or turns blonde like Mom and Dad!  I'll look forward to getting to see him, but we'll let them get lots of rest and recoup first! The rest of our time has been spent getting the yardwork done and ready for planting of flowers and veggies in a few weeks.  We've had some pretty chilly nights with frost, so I usually wait until after Mother's day to plant flowers and then we usually do the vegetables near Memorial day.  However, we went to our favorite Amish plant nursery to get some raspberry plants, and I couldn't resist just one hanging basket!

All their flowers and plants were so nice, but I'll get more in a few weeks.  Just can't walk out of there without something though!  I still have strawberry jam from last year to use up before putting more up this June and I made a blueberry pie from the last of our frozen berries from our bushes.

It looked much prettier before I cut into it but it tasted delicious anyway! Speaking of the Amish...Jack had taken our big weed whacker to get the leaking gas tank fixed from an Amish gentleman that fixes all kinds of machinery.  We pulled into his place and besides tons of mowers and such, there were many of his children doing chores or helping him.  While I waited one of the kids came out of the barn to check on his little sister who was playing.  I snapped a pic that I thought was so cute of them.

He was so sweet with her!  He picked her up and carried her to the house as we were leaving.  Just made me smile!  Well, I hope your April has been good and I can't believe we're heading into May! Our weather has gone from 30 degrees to 80 and back down again.  We've also had those famous April showers and the flowering trees and bushes have not disappointed us! 

Night all!

Easter Doings

 We celebrated Easter a week late but that was also Greek Easter so no worries!  Growing up in my half Greek family we always had 2 Easter celebrations most years.  I didn't put on as big a deal as those good old days, but we still had plenty of food and some fun too!

A little food first!

Can't forget my annual lamb cake.  That's something we always had for Easter growing up.  Mom had a cast iron lamb mold that she got when she got married. My sister has that one and my brother Phil got me one some years ago so I could continue this tradition in my home.  I got a cast iron one for my daughter-in-law, Amy years ago.   I guess they are antiques now...like me!

Getting ready for the littles to do an Easter egg hunt.  Most years we do one for the adults, but we had a game for them to play instead after the hunt was over.  We only had 3 littles...Hazel, Tatem, and Aria doing the hunt, but they had fun.

Here's Aria finding some loot.  This is the only pic I got of her that day.

Hazel was enjoying herself.  She's getting so big!

Not to be outdone, little sis Tatem was a champ at finding those eggs!  The oldies played a silly egg game, and I didn't get any pics of it!  We had some good laughs, lots of candy and lottery tickets were won too.  The weather was beautiful, thankfully! Here's a few of the other family members that day:

Grandson Cameron.  This dude will graduate this year!  Time sure flies!

Granddaughter, Summer and her little baby bump! She's due in August.   Her sister, Driana, is also due but is too close to delivery for her and her hubby to make the 1 1/2hr drive down from Cleveland area.  We missed them!  Lots of new littles for future holiday fun!

My daughter-in-law Evelyn's daughters: Samantha (Mom to Hazel and Tatem) and Megan. 

3 of my 4 boys: Jack, Phil, and the much healthier Jordan having some brotherly chit chat! I'm glad we all could get together.   Wasn't sure that would happen after the crazy weeks we've had but thankfully Jordan got a clean bill of health today from his trauma surgeons and kidney doctor and my little messed up face is healing pretty good.  I worked on Monday and didn't scare the patients away!

I went from this:

This was last Wednesday.  To this:

This was Saturday.  My stitches came out Monday and I'm getting back to normal.  Life is full of ups and downs.  I've had enough of the "downs" so let's go for some "ups"!  Tonight we had a very vibrant sunset.

I hope it's a "red sky at night, sailors delight" kind of finish!  It does look like the trees on are fire though!  Happy late Easter everyone and good night!