Pomp And A Lot Of Circumstances!

Today we celebrated our dear Summer's high school graduation with a party.  I need to mention that it was held at our house.  That being said, all the pomp in getting a house and yard ready was lots of work. So many projects got done and in the end...all good! If you've followed this blog for a bit you know I don't have a good relationship with the weather Gods.  It usually rains unless it's Winter, then it's a blizzard.  Well, no rain today! Yeah!  But...and there's always a But...it was in the 90's with high humidity.  Oh boy was it hot.  We put all the food inside and even made sure our finished basement was  in good order so folks could eat down there if they wanted.

Lots of good food!

In this corner we have pulled pork and shredded chicken for sandwiches.  (I made that and it was good!) Notice the mannequin?  Summer's majoring in fashion merchandising. I've featured her art on my blog and she's using her artistic talent in the fashion world.

Summer's other Grandmother brought these very, very yummy cupcakes instead of a cake.  They were a big hit and so darn good with filling in them! Thanks Kaye!

I put together this basket of cookies...a mix of homemade and store made.  Summer is one smart cookie for sure!

Now for some of the "circumstances".  Because it was going to be hot and partly cloudy we need some more shade than my yard offers.  I had many offers for these types of shelters. However,  all the offers fell through.  I must add, for my poor hubby, that I nixed an opportunity to buy one huge tent for a decent sum.  "We don't need no stinkin' tent" I said.   "We have 3 or 4 coming."  Flash forward to this weekend.  We ended up with only 2 tents only because Summer's Mom went and bought one and the Grandparents brought the other one.  Jack just shook his head.  Oops, sorry Babe! 

The gazebo on the deck served as a nice place to eat and chat.  And when things got too hot to handle,  folks meandered inside.  The most unfun part of this day was waking up to a power outage  that shut down our power as well as Wal-Mart and many other businesses.  Without electric we can't do anything...nada...nothing.  We can't even flush toilets! I had visions of folks walking cross legged to the nearest gas station for a bathroom!  I also had visions of no pulled pork or shredded chicken!  Thankfully the power came back on around 8:30.  However, it was on a low power.  My freezer didn't work and all the lights were dim and even the crock pots weren't  heating up.  But eventually even that was fixed in time.  The AC was just fine thank goodness! 

The kids didn't care how hot it was.  They played outside and had these water pump thingies that everyone loved.  A good way to stay cool!

So the pictures were taken...Jack, Evelyn and our Summer.

Summer and Cameron.

Summer with her dog Happy and her other "happy" Grandparents, Kaye and Jerry!

Jack found a comfy, cool spot on the couch.

Anthony is growing tall very quickly! Add to that, his voice changed too!

We put up a table outside with pictures and awards.  She finished her freshman year of college as well as her senior year of high school at the same time and has enough scholarships to finish her 4 year degree at Ashland University with minimal debt. Way to go Summer!  The party was a success, even with the few bumps in the road.  All is cleaned up and YaYa and PawPaw are plenty tired.  At least the yard is ready for the rest of the Summer season!  I know our Summer (Summie Days as I call her) is ready for her next season of life.

This is very good advice.  Good luck Summer!  We love you!

Hazy, Crazy, Lazy Days Of Summer

It's here...the first day of Summer. It came around 6:30 pm and it brought with it a full moon on this solstice. That's a rare phenom that won't happen again for 70yrs.  I think I'll miss that one, so I made sure to take a good look at this full strawberry moon, as it's called.  The sky was hazy so the moon was shrouded in a milky covering.  The air is balmy with a slight breeze.  It feels like Summer with the temps in the 90's today and warm tonight.  I thought of the many things that remind me of Summer and the many things that make it feel like Summer has arrived.  When I was a kiddo it was the end of school and that first lazy day of just being outside the whole time.  No video games, tv, or other distractions.  The lawn sprinkler was the cooling off mode, or sometimes the public pool or a friends pool.  Oh that smell of coppertone!  Oh that smell of chlorine! Oh the first sunburn since sunscreen wasn't in our household.  We'd get tan eventually! Summer always was vacation time for our family.  My Dad bought a small house in Wisconsin about an hour away from our home.  He moved my Grandparents into it and he and my Aunts and Uncles worked together to make it a cute place for them and a good destination for us since there was a lake just down the road.  Dad and my brothers would go fishing and I learned how to swim in that lake.  I would stay with my Grandparents for at least a week during the Summer and enjoy my time with Grandma.  She and I had a good relationship and I loved her dearly.  She always made me doll clothes for my Barbies and there was always a new Barbie waiting for me!  She had a room that was full of the dolls she collected.  Heaven for a little girl!

Obviously this photo wasn't taken in Summer, but that's my Grandparents in the "house at the lake" as we called it.    Our Summer vacations also had many camping trips across the country.  I'll save those memories for another blog.  I'm sure everyone has their own way of ushering in this season.  Their own memories of Summer days.  I have many good memories of playing outdoors until it was dark, then watching and catching fireflies as my parents sat on the front porch and chatted with neighbors or my Aunt and Uncle who lived across the street.  Statue maker was another fun game we played as kids.  Time has replaced those childhood memories with memories of my own kids Summers.  We also spent time on trips and also time at my in-laws place that had a pond where my kids enjoyed swimming and fishing.  Again the smell of suntan lotion and chlorine and the sound of laughter and roasting marshmellows over an open fire.  Their games of ghosts in the graveyard and riding their bikes to the public pool.  Scout camp and basketball camps.

This pic is of a Summer many years ago with my oldest son, Jack, and I at a lake near my Mom's house.  I was 8mo. preggo with #2 son, Craig.  Now they are enjoying their own Summers with their kiddos...the circle continues.  Hopefully it will be filled with good memories, the smell of suntan lotion and chlorine and I know there will be roasting marshmellows waiting here at the Pines with YaYa and PawPaw during the lazy, hazy, crazy days of the Summer of 2016!  

Time Is Not My Friend

June's almost half over and I haven't posted even once.  Really, time has flown and I'm about ready to just sit down and let it fly on by!  We're having Summer's graduation party here in two weeks and Jack and I are doing our best to get the Pines in party order.  We always have projects on our "to do" lists but sometimes it's easy to say: "Oh, I'll get to that later."  Well, it's later and all those small things we put off are now bigger and need attending.  So it's cleaning, painting, trimming, organizing, and much, much praying that the weather will be dry and coolish and perfect.  OK, so maybe we're asking a bit much but I always say: "Go big or go home"....and usually it rains!

I've  had this little table set for a few years and it was just wood with no finish.  I painted it red....same red as my front door.  I like it!

Flowers are mulched and coming along nicely.

Roses are blooming!

Pink ones:

And even yellow ones!  It's a good rose year I think.

Chubbs checked out the back yard after it's mowed and declared it dog worthy. The weather around these parts is always a surprise.  Last week we had cool and even down right chilly with night temps in the 40's.  Yesterday it was 93de on my car thermometer and sunny as all get out.  Summer had arrived!  Today, it's in the 70's.  Sometimes our weather is like whiplash!

Ominous clouds.

Dark and scary.

A few minutes later it's back to big and fluffy! So we'll continue to get things done and of course I'll have pics about the party.  In the mean time, I'm here and probably won't have much to blog about.   Although, like our weather, blogging can changed at any moment!