Savanna

Here's a quick pic of the girls cousin Savanna who lives in GA.

She has a horse named Baby (if I am remembering correctly). Madeline and Annie would love to have a pet horse! Savanna is one lucky girl!

August News

Lots going on in our neck of the woods. Madeline started school. She seems to have a very good teacher who is presently on maternity leave but will be back right around the time we leave for Disney World. Annalise is doing very well. She has a lot of totally dry days at school and uses the toilet regularly. She loves her school and is becoming very independent.

We joined a health club and are starting to increase our activity. Ryan is joining the raquetteball league and I am doing pilates and soon will be doing yoga. The girls are gearing up for kids yoga, tumbling and tijitsu (however you spell that). Annie will be doing ballet at the club and Madeline will start ballet with her studio in about two weeks. Madeline is still taking Spanish lessons with Senora Lisett. We soon hope to find an all subject tutor for Madeline to keep her challenged. Sunday school at church starts in two weeks also. That's pretty much what's going on at the homefront. The garden is still very active.

Work is busy. My assistant started last Monday and she is FANTASTIC! Things are going well. Ryan is busy with work but also with his new arts council. They are in the election of the board phase. Ryan is one of the board members and hopefully will be president. We'll see.

Garden again

Well I counted the peaches and it looks like all told we'll get around 66 peaches this year. Pretty good for its first year fruiting. Ryan canned six jars tonight because we couldn't eat them all before they got too soft. There's another 30 or so on the tree. The blackberries are turning black and are really tart. I may freeze some of those. The grapes are turning purple. Ryan tasted one tonight but the sugar content is still pretty low. We knew it would be, but it was fun watching him eat a grape from our vines. Ryan planted the second crops of beans, peas, lettuce and carrots and planted a first crop of beets. The purple beans are still going strong.

Ryan canned another 14 jars of pickles. We opened up one of the jars from two weeks ago. It's not as dilly as he would like but they are really very tasty. I like them a lot.

So far we have a large muskmelon, about three small ones. The bunnies are eating the tips off so Ryan needs to protect those somehow. We have one honeydew melon and about six butternut squashes. There are three white pumpkins out there too. The cauliflower is growing well and think the broccoli is doing well. It's the first year we've ever done that before so we're not sure how it's going. The bugs are thick in our yard because we do the organic gardening thing. We hve a lot of cucumber beetles and some other wacky bugs I don't know the name of. They seem to appear every year. This year I saw some gigantic scarabs eating watermelon off the rind as it waited to go into the compost pile. I wanted to get a picture but when I went back out they'd gone. They were the size of quarters. Something similar to that was eating the grape leaves but luckily they went somewhere else. The pear trees are supposed to bloom this fall but I am not sure if they will since it's the first full year we'e had them. We'll see in a few weeks. Ciao for now!

Goth

So today I decided to cash in my lee's nails gift certificate and get a pedicure done. The whole family went along and I agreed to let Madeline get her fingernails painted. It was a busy place. It was so inexpensive that I decided to get my nails done too. While Madeline and I were having our nails painted I noticed a young woman next to me. She was dressed in all black, her hair was bleached as blonde as it could get and cut very short. I would describe her look as Gothic. But there she was sitting in the nail salon getting a manicure. She had her nails painted black. Never in a million years would I have ever thought I'd see a Gothic dressed person getting their nails painted black at a nail salon. Not that I believe Goth to be synonomous with unclean or unkept, but I just never expected they'd get their nails done at a prim and proper salon. It seemed very oxymoronic to me, but hey it just goes to show that you can learn something new everyday! Later during my pedicure a guy came in an had a pedi done with his wife. I told Ryan he needed to get one done too! LOL

Garden Today

Maters
Peaches (so far picked around 23)

Uh, the peaches are soooo good. It's pretty cool to pick peaches off your own tree and eat them right then and there. Planning on planting a couple more of those suckers!

Meeeeee!

Annie never ceases to amaze us. While we were all sitting together on our bed getting the girls ready for bedtime someone asked a question like this... "who wants to go..." Annie shot up her hand really fast and shouted "Meeeee". It was just about the cutest thing since Madeline was a baby. So we proceeded to ask more things like "who..." and Annie never failed to shoot up her hand and shout "meee!". I told Ryan we needed to get it on video. I will try to get that added here in the next day or so.

In other news we found out our neighbor lost his sister at 51 years and our good friends the Riviera's are leaving for a year to help out with a family need in New Jersey. We'll be keeping all of them in our thoughts in the coming days.

As for work, I may be on the edge of wishing I was actually not working there. We'll see how it pans out. I knew the day would come when my power and endurance were tested and that day is definitely here. We'll see who the last person standing is and how many people are there to support me. I just hope that I don't get an ulcer from the ordeal. Tomorrow I get a nice deep tissue massage to help ease the stress. It may become a regular appointment.

Visit to Kansas City

Jack got his hair cut into a very cool do
The girls played in the fountain around crowne center
At the game
Maggie got a new cut too, very cute!
Michelle playing with Madeline's new Royals bat

We went to KC earlier this month around July 11th. We had a great visit with the Jacksons. Other relatives went too. Friday we left early, met the Jacksons at the Coco Keys hotel and hung out before and after the Royal's game. Saturday we swam most of the day. Saturday evening we went to the Plaza for dinner and a little shopping. Sunday we had breakfast and all went our merry ways. It was fun!

Fair time

County fair rides
Annie had a great time
Ryan is a canning foo.
He canned seven quart jars of peaches