Happy Memorial Day!

My flag is proudly flying today, as it does every day. 

I am watching the PBS musical Memorial Day tribute that I recorded from last night.  It is a very emotional concert.

My thanks to those who served and especially those who lost their lives in service.  Families sacrificed too and deserve our thanks.   My thanks also to those who currently are serving...Eric and John in our family.  Thanks is just not sufficient!

Hope you all are enjoying a relaxing Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day!

The week has been pretty quiet here.  The days have been so pleasant weather wise but it's beginning to get hot.  It hit 90 yesterday.  I hope that's not an indication of what our summer will be like!

Many of my perennial spring flowers are dying but the pots of annuals in the front of the house are flourishing.

I don't plant many annuals anymore.  We're gone too much and they end up dying from lack of water.  I never have much luck with geraniums but I'm such a sucker for them.  Hope I have better luck with these!

We have no plans for Memorial Day.  It will probably be nice and quiet.  Thanking all those who serve and all those who served in the past.  Remembering their sacrifice! 

Have a good one!

Happy 70th birthday to Doug AND HEATHER IS MARRIED!

Today is Doug's 70th birthday.  Wow, that sounds OLD!  Actually as Marilyn pointed out, 70 is the new 50.  She might have made that up and nobody believes it, but I'm going with it anyway! 

This picture was taken on our Alaska trip, my most favorite trip!

He's spending the day in the shop working on the Valiant.  That is what he most enjoys doing.

Cameron grilled hotdogs for lunch for us (obviously with a lot of supervision!).  He was very proud of himself.  I'm trying to teach him to cook.  He toasted his own Poptart yesterday!

We are going to dinner tonight with Ben and Cameron.

Also in big news, Heather and Randy got married today.  We won't have any problem remembering their anniversary!

They look so very happy and I hope they are always as happy as they are today!  I hate to get my hopes up, but I think this is really the one!

They are probably in New Orleans by now and will be returning Friday to finish up moving and get settled in Randy's house. 

We spent last evening at Harrison's ballgame.

He got two walks and scored two runs.  Thankfully he didn't pitch!

That's about all that's been going on around here.  Two wonderful things to celebrate today.  Life is good!

Busy summer days!

Now that school is out, the days seems to be going even faster! 

I took the boys to see Angry Birds last Friday.  They really enjoyed the movie and the popcorn!  There's just something about movie popcorn!

We've been spending a lot of time at the ball field. 

Cameron's pitching in this picture.

Pitching always makes me nervous! 

Harrison also had a game last night but the times conflicted so we went to Cameron's game last night and will go to Harrison's game tonight.

After the game last night, some of the players and families went out for pizza.

Doug and I were at the same restaurant but decided to sit on the other side of the restaurant as far away from noisy boys as possible!

Heather is busy packing.  I went by her house today and she and Randy had her car and a Suburban loaded up.  They are getting married tomorrow and hope to have her all moved into his house next weekend.  They are also having some work done on Randy's house (now their house) so they are very busy.

Ben is anxious to get moved into her old house.  He has been busy doing some work on it.  He built some shutters and installed them last weekend and restained the front door.  He also put new mulch out.  Here's the before and after.

Looks so much better!  I hope he continues to make improvements when he moves in!

Happy Birthday to Heather!!

It's Heather's birthday.  Today I'm recalling the day she came into this world.

Such a cute and chubby baby!! 

And look at her now.

No longer chubby and mother to two precious children.  How far she has come!!

I've had Cameron and Harrison here for the last two days.  They have been busy with bike rides and golf cart rides.  We are going to see Angry Birds this afternoon.  It's officially summer break!

Heather's birthday celebration

We had an early birthday celebration for Heather last night.  Her birthday is Friday but Cameron has a ballgame that night and Harrison has one tonight so Wednesday was the only night that would work. 

We had dinner at Don Julio which was Heather's choice.  Everybody likes Mexican too!  Then we came back to our house for cake and ice cream.  Since Cameron's birthday was May 2nd and Doug's is May 25th, their names were on the cake too.

That's Randy on the right end and his boys next to him.  Sam is the oldest (15) and Bowen 12.  They are really sweet boys.

By this time next week they will be a family!

 



Heather and Randy got their marriage license yesterday and they will be married next Wednesday in Oxford, then on to New Orleans for a few days.  They will take a honeymoon to Antigua in July. 

Although it's much earlier than we expected, we are happy about it and they all seem very happy too!

Awards Day and end of school

Emma Taylor's Awards Day was Monday.  She received an award for all A's in 7th grade.

So very proud of her.  That's quite an accomplishment!

She drew this beautiful picture and gave it to me for Mother's Day.

She's very artistic too!

Cameron's field day was yesterday.  He's all packed and ready to go.

He's got a bunch of different balls, sunscreen, and a beach towel in his backpack and loads of water and Gatorade in his lunch box.  He had a very fun day!

Yesterday was their last day of school.  This is Harrison running to the car on his last day.  He was happy to be finished!

And here's Cameron this morning...having a lazy morning on his first day out of school.

Pop Tart in hand and juice and grapes.  He's engrossed in something on TV. 

Harrison is over now playing outside with him and Trip. Cameron got his dog back from his mom and he is delighted to be spending time with him.

He's such a good dog and a great watch dog!

Ben took the boys to a cheesy carnival on the mall parking lot on Monday night.

Thought this was such a cute picture.  They are getting psyched up for our trip to Illinois and Six Flags this summer! 

Since Heather is getting married and vacating her (actually our!) house, Ben will be moving into it.  I know he and Cameron are ready to have a bigger place and a place of their own.  It will be quite a change for us but I'm sure we will still see them lots!

Dance Recital

Emma Taylor's dance recital was Saturday evening.  There are so many kids in the recital that they break it up into three performances.  The older kids had the late performance at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday evening. 

Emma Taylor is in a hip hop class with her friend Lexie who is just to the left of her.

It was very hard to get pictures of her while dancing as she was constantly moving. 

Randy attended his first dance recital ever.  Having two boys, he's never had the privilege of attending a recital! 

They look like they go together, don't they?

Oh to be so flexible!

It was an interesting recital with lots of hip hop and contemporary dances, totally different from the recitals we used to attend when my niece Kathy was a dancer!  Doug was sad that he was out of town and missed it (just kidding, of course...he was quite relieved!)

Catching up!

I've had a couple of messages asking if I'm okay because I haven't updated the blog lately.  I'm okay...just been busy!  I'll try to catch up so hang on!

I started off May with Decoration Day at my mom and dad's cemetery.  It was always important to our mother that the graves be decorated.  I think it's a southern thing!

Karen always makes sure they have flowers, along with my grandmother.

I met some good friends there...Shirley Timmons, Ray and Ellie Bohannon, Marie Stevens, Peggy Templeton and Ray Austin.  All of these are former Zion people and they all have relatives buried in the same cemetery.

The next weekend was Blue Suede Cruise.  Bob Pushee came down and he always brings Kringle.  Cameron loves this stuff!

We polished off the apricot one in record time, enjoying every bite of it!

The weekend was spent at Blue Suede Cruise and Doug got his "new" car done just in time!

Still some things to work out but it made its maiden voyage just a couple of days before BSC.  Doug works best under pressure!

Doug's brother Richard and his son Matt and Doug's nephew Mark came for BSC too.

All the Harrison men right there!

Ben drove the Valiant for the weekend.  Cam loved that!

It was Mother's Day on Sunday so Heather, Emma Taylor, Harrison and Ben went to church with me, then Doug met us for lunch.

Cameron was with his mom so no pictures of him with Mr. Mom!

The house is finally back together and I'm enjoying my new kitchen!  In between all that I painted this table with chalk paint and used dark wax on it to give it the antiqued look.  The table used to be dark wood but was getting beat up from all the use. 

It was more work than I expected but I like the way it turned out.  I probably should have chosen an easier piece for my very first chalk paint experience!

May is when the flowers pop here and I love it!

This Confederate Jasmine and Clematis mix is beautiful and smells heavenly!! 

The spirea is in full bloom.

I'm enjoying them while I can because soon they will be gone.

We've been doing a lot of baseball with both our boys playing.  They usually have games three or four nights a week.  That keeps us running.

 

Friday night the two teams played each other.  Harrison is batting and Cameron is pitching.  That makes for a nervous grandmother!  I just wanted them both to do well!

 

So that' about it...except for a big announcement from Heather!  She's getting married!  Most of you know this and she'll be getting married on May 25th which is Doug's 70th birthday.  What a nice birthday present!  I had a get together last Monday so the families could meet each other which included Randy, his mom and stepdad, his sons Sam and Bowen and his sister Lara.  Ben and Cameron were with us too and Ben grilled burgers for us.  We have known his mom and stepdad for a long time as we went to church with them for years.  They are really nice people.  It made getting together much more comfortable. 

So we have had a lot going on but hopefully things are about to settle down with the ending of the school year and the house being finished.  I would really love to have a relaxing summer!