The Pool

One of our favorite summer hangouts.

The boy in the water...the mom on the lounge chair with her favorite book...sun shining warming and tanning the skin...ah...sheer bliss!  

Except for today when I forgot my book!  Arg!  BORING!!

Yesterday was the third day in a row with temps in the 90's and nothing but sunshine.

So...why not test out the local pool for the first time this year?

So...forgetting my book today and all...I had nothing to do but "people watch." 


Is there anything cuter than a little girl with a pixie haircut and a ruffled bottom swimsuit?

I don't think so..

Unless it's this little precious with her cherry swimsuit.

Oh...so...cute! *sigh*
Anyway, chalk up another great day at the pool.

Where's Ollie

Sometimes taking Ollie on his nightly walk around our yard is a bit like that book "Where's Waldo"

He loves exploring in the tall grass/weeds.

Final Resting Place

As I have mentioned before, my grandma's ashes were buried.  The ceremony, which we thought was the 7th and made a special trip up north for, was actually on the 14th.  


Today, I got these pictures, via e-mail, from my uncle.

I'm not too sure what the daughter on the stone is for.  I know that she had a stillborn daughter at some point so I'm wondering if they are buried together.  

In yet another interesting, yet confusing, decision that she made before her death...she chose to be buried next to her son (who died in 1986 at 46 yrs old.) instead of by my grandpa (whom she had been married to for 36 years).

I guess it's not for me to question.

Tree Inventory

We've been in our house for 6 years now.


We bought this land without anything on it...except a preexisting mound system...and had our house built.


The first spring in our house my husband decided we needed some trees on our property so we, as a family, spent a wonderful (not) weekend planting about 100 itty bitty pine trees.


This is how they look now - about 3 ft. tall.


Every other year hubby has thought it necessary to add 100 trees to our (now) tree infested property.


The latest batch, added just last month, is struggling with the lack of rain lately.

Anyway, this has become somewhat of an issue for me...since I'm the one who cuts the grass and all...and maneuvering around trees is really starting to get.on.my.nerves!  Believe me...it is not easy to do.


So, just for kicks and giggles, I decided to do a tree inventory on my latest grass cutting excursion.  


Some of the trees have died...mostly victims of the lawn mower and a driver (me) who wasn't able to control it very well - I told you it's not easy maneuvering around all those trees!


Final tree count: 279!  


And that does not even include the dozen or so fruit trees that hubby also planted in various places...also equally hard to mow around. (In fact, one of those trees has already succumbed, another victim of my lawn mowing skills. 

Watering

Normally, with all things being equal, I would be elated that we haven't had a single drop of rain this month yet.


In fact, looking at the data from the trusty weather.com site, our last measurable rain was .05 inches on May 26th.


I am a self-confessed sun goddess.  Sunscreen applied, I could spend hours a day soaking up the warmth of the sun's rays while I make my way through book after book.  


But this "drought" is taking it's toll on our garden, on our grass, and on the 279 trees that my husband has thought necessary to plant around our property (but that's a story for another time).  


The garden is easy to take care of but hand-watering 297 trees is not on my wish list of fun things to do.


So, I was pretty happy when I went outside to read today and saw this:

"Oh, thank goodness, God is taking care of our watering today," I thought.

Unfortunately, as ominous as this looked, it was a quick moving storm and only rained for a few minutes.

***Sigh*** There may be more watering in our future.

Training

Zack is working hard this summer training with one of the best basketball players on our school's high school team.


After looking into several clinics and camps I thought one on one training would be the best thing for him right now.


And so far he is loving it. 


One of the things he is working on is his vertical leap.  He asked me to take this picture.

Then I challenged him to raise the hoop to regulation height and try again.

So he did...and...

Wow!  


 His goal is to be able to dunk by high school.  I'm not sure about that but I am continually being amazed by his effort and the fact that he is only going to be in 7th grade.

Someone Please Tell Me...

What in the world was my husband thinking!

A couple weeks ago he informed me that "some work" was going to be done on our front lawn.  That we were getting the fill for free and would only have to pay for the labor - which was going to take a day.

A week later the work STILL is not finished. (these pictures were all taken yesterday)


And our front lawn looks like a wreck.

And I can only imagine how much this "labor" is going to cost us...since my normally very smart and prudent husband did not even bother to get an estimate!