If You Love The Outdoors…

Hey there! How’s everybody? I trust you all had a great Christmas and a happy beginning of the New Year.

 

We had a great Christmas. Both of our children were able to be at home with us this year. Times like these are rare these days and I really love them. I’m not going to bore you with Christmas pictures and such, but I do want to show you a few pictures taken on our day after Christmas. If you love the outdoors, like we do, then you take a walk in the woods. And then there’s this one of Cliff cooking our Christmas steaks outside over an open fire. Since we went traditional at Thanksgiving, we decided to part from the norm at Christmas. Yes, we had steaks and all the fixins to go with them. Delish!

Our walk in the woods was so fun and beautiful and peaceful. We may even make it a tradition. I mean, when you have a child as active as Whitney and a husband who would love to just live in the woods or swamps, then you conform. It wasn’t hard at all. I love it, too. Not the swamps…just the woods. Especially, when there are no snakes out.

 

And then after the New Year, specifically this past weekend, there was the promise of snow. Accumulation was expected to be about 3”. For the south, that’s nearly paralyzing. Well, that didn’t happen. We had a trace…I don’t even know if it was enough to measure. But to this snow loving woman, it was beautiful. I stared and gazed and was mesmerized for the two whole hours that it snowed. Ha!

This week, I’m working on my goals for 2017. They include health, organizing, new plantings, crafting, and such. I’ll probably share. Stay tuned.

Hoping you all have a great New Year!

Laurie

I Have A Malady

It's true. I have a malady. A heat malady! 

Y'all, I'm surprised I haven't melted. It's been in the upper 90's for almost two weeks now. 

  My poor little flowers are struggling. The Gerbera and Zinnias are surviving pretty well, but I have to give them a good soaking, daily.

The garden, on the other hand, must be related to the energizer bunny. It just keeps on going. It's been so much fun eating out of the garden. Our meal yesterday was meatless and consisted of almost all veggies coming from our garden. I bought some Crowder peas from a Mennonite shop in town and served them over rice. And then from my garden, we had sautéed squash, fried okra, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. 

A meal to die for!

 

I'm excited at the promise of this cantaloupe.

 

The okra is doing very well.

I didn't tell you about our 4th, did I? Well, baby sista and her family spent a few days with us. It was so hot that we basically spent the whole time in the water. My nephew brought his stand-up paddle board and I tried it, but I just wasn't as thrilled with it as I originally thought I would be. It was a little difficult to get your sea-dog legs and I guess I'm a little lazy, but I didn't want to stand up the whole time. Cliff, on the other hand, had a ball. My brother-in-law pulled Lidia and Sawyer on the tube and they tried to get me on it, but I declined. Ha! 

 

 

My sister, her husband and my nephew pulling L&S on the tube.

 L&S were getting pretty brave.

 Cliff enjoying the SUP.

 

Cliff leading the children on a swim picnic. Sawyer is hauling the food on his kayak. They swam to the mandatory portage area to have their picnic.

 My brother-in-law made good on his promise to let me drive his boat.

 

My niece and Lidia cooling off. And because I just noticed their earrings, I'm calling them the Pearl Girls. Ha!

 

 You know it's hot, when you find a cow in the lake. HaHa! 

Thanks for the picture, Kaylan.

It was a great weekend. We enjoyed having family over for the 4th and look forward to another visit soon.......maybe a fall kayak trip with the sistas this fall!

Laurie

Coming soon: Canning and Refinishing my oak table

Festivals and Firepits

Saturday....

My two little brown belts had their Taekwondo Festival, Saturday. I took a lot of pictures, but the majority of them are no good. I was too far away to use the zoom without shaking, which caused most of them to be blurry. Even so, we had a great time watching Lidia and Sawyer do their thing.

 Here, Lidia is sparring. She is the one in black and sparring with a Black Belt.

 Lidia, a brown belt, won first place in her sparring competition beating out that Black Belt.

Lidia Overall:

1st place in Form

2nd place in Breaking Boards

1st place in Sparring

 Here, Sawyer is in mid air during his breaking competition.

Sawyer with his 3rd place award in Form.

Sawyer overall:

3rd place in Form

2nd place in Breaking

2nd place in Sparring

Lidia and Sawyer did very well at Saturday's Taekwondo Festival. From this time last year, their confidence level is through the roof. And, by this time next year.....they will both be Black Belts.  We are so proud of our sweet little brown belts.

Sunday....

Emily and the children came for Sunday dinner. Afterwards, we spent the rest of the afternoon on the patio around a fire.  I neglected to take a picture of that, but here is the view we enjoyed. 

 And a couple more pictures from around the lake today......

Have a splendid week!