Just a few random things from this week...can't believe it's almost Friday!  I could swear yesterday was Sunday! 

KC is taking an art class and he's learning watercolor right now.  He was supposed to paint something with long straight lines in it and I was looking through some old pictures and came across this one...it was from the trek last year.  One night the moon came up over the mountains and the whole meadow was bright as day.  I didn't think my camera could capture it, but it did rather well.  So many different shades of pink and blue.  Everyone came out of their tents to look at it.  Anyway, it worked for what his assignment was.  He showed me what he had learned in class and I tried to paint one too.  It looks like a first grader did it, but it was fun!

Kelley surprised me with these pretty flowers...That just makes my day!

Went  shopping a bit...found some fun things for Livy's birthday...can't wait till they get here in October!

Stacey and I went over to Taylorsville to watch Tori play volleyball.  She is such a cute girl.  That other girl is Jo Ann's grand daughter..she is only in the 9th grade and is already playing on all three high school teams.  We got to visit with JoAnn and Bridgette a little bit too.  JoAnn is one amazing lady!  She has got to be 70 years old, but she looks about half that age.  She goes to all the grand kid, and now great grand kids activities and cheers them on. She's always been someone I look up to and admire.  I think everyone feels that way about her though...one of those special people you just can't help but love.

T-ville ended up losing ( after about 6 tie breaker games) but I think they will do well.  These girls are really good!

I was so surprised and happy to see Rosemary when I went to racquetball on Wednesday.  I just had to give her a great big hug!  We have all been so worried about her...she hasn't been to racquetball for about two years.  She was always kind of skinny and frail, but then she got sick and lost a lot of weight.  She stopped coming to play, and we would hear from Ruth or Susan that she was just too weak to play.  The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with her either. They thought maybe she had Lime disease from tick but she went through all the testing and they couldn't find anything so they started telling her it was in her head. 

She was telling us yesterday that she finally went to a naturepathic, holistic type doctor.  He ran some different tests and told her right away that she had a parasite.  So then they did all the treatments to kill the parasite.  That part of her illness was behind her, but now her stomach is totally messed up.  She can't eat any dairy  or wheat and she is allergic to a bunch of other foods too.  She said it's  not an easy way to live, but she is just happy to be up and moving again. ( she played just as well as ever!...and that's really good!)  She had to stop after one game though cause she didn't want to kill herself off on the first day back. Anyway, it was sure good to see her.  She is a sweet friend. 

Yeah, so that happened.   That was a good one Kelley...

No, he hasn't stopped ...it's something new about every day.

Luckily, I didn't need to get into my purse for anything urgent...it took me about 5 minutes to unwrap it....one of these days...

 The squashy like plants have taken over the garden.  It's almost creepy how they wrap their little curly tentacles around the other plants and just grow right over the top of it!  I know there are pepper plants in there somewhere.  This one gourd plant  is growing some pretty cool gourds...and also these cool flowers are all over the place.

 We about a zillion little fish in the pond.    When you throw in some food, they just go crazy.  I don't know what we will do when they all grow up to be big fish...there is not room for that many fish in our pond!  The guy at the pond store...(Mr. nature man)  said he would buy them from us, so if we can catch them, maybe we will do that.

 Kelley has been getting the walls ready to paint...got all the texture put on, then the primer...now the hard part...picking the color of paint!  I am the worst decider ever. Kelley is being really helpful though...suggested we get pick a few colors we like, then have them mix up the color at home depot in a sample size amount so we could try them out on the wall at home.

This was the first bunch we brought home.  Not good....too dark, too peachy, too fleshy. 

I went back over and got three more...more neutral colors.  We both liked all three of these.  Oh dear.  I will have to sleep on it and decide tomorrow.  I'm just so excited to see this project moving forward!

 

Happy Birthday Camille!

 Looking back over these pictures made me laugh and cry a little too. I feel so blessed to have this amazing woman for my daughter.  She brings so much joy to our family and to many other people too!  She's always doing things for friends and family...baby sitting, cleaning their house, taking in meals, reaching out to the lonely or sad... I could go on and on.  I think what I love about Camille the most though is the way she always takes the time to sit and listen.  She has a special personality that people are drawn to and open up to.  She doesn't judge, just listens and lifts with kind words and encouragement.  I think that's a special gift.

 She is very close with her siblings...talks with them daily.  She supports and is there for them no matter what.

 She is such a sweet mommy. 

 She is a fun mommy too...always makes what ever is going on more fun and special.

 She is super-optimistic...makes the best of what ever situation she's in.

She has a calming influence on me and can always make me feel like everything will be OK...( shouldn't it be the other way around?)

She was the cutest baby...love those cheeks!

 She's just fun to be with...

 Head down with KC



Wish I was with you to give you the biggest birthday hug! My heart is there!   Love you Camille!

A few other things from the past few days...

Kelley is back to work on the upstairs rooms!  Hooray!  We wanted a texture on the walls...he was going to have Jay J. do it for us, but then he decided why not do it myself?   so he did.  It looks great! 

(Kelley on the other hand  was covered from head to foot with the plastery stuff) 

Look at this cute invitation Teina made for the family reunion.  She is so clever!

I'm so excited for the reunion...hope the good weather will hold out for a few more weeks!

 The other day Kate asked me if I would take some flowers to her friend who was having a rough time right now.  I ran up to Costco and they had these beautiful bunches of flowers.  Brought them home and fixed them up pretty...forgot how much I enjoy arranging flowers.  Took them out to her work ( Kate's old horsey place)  She was really sweet...gave me a big hug and started to cry.

I don't know what's going on in her life, but I could tell it meant a lot that someone was thinking of and caring about her.  Kate is a good friend.

The garden is out of control.   so many tomato's....this is what I picked one morning... 

So I made tomato sauce.  It turned out good...a lot of work for something you can buy at the case lot sale for 25 cents..It give me a lot of satisfaction though and is wonderful to be able to use what we've grown in the garden.

 I hadn't looked through the jars we brought home from mum's basement...just stuck them in the garage.  So it was fun to go through them as I canned.  Some really cool old ones.

The poor chopper...it is about ready to die...we've tried to prolong it's life with duct tape and fancy epoxy glue, but the lid won't even fit on it anymore. It really was the best one we ever had. We had always got the cheap ones from the swap meet and they worked fine, but then I saw this one at  Ross...oh why didn't I buy 5 of them? Now they are nowhere to be found.   It has a super fancy blade that is really sharp...three spins of the handle and the onion, pepper or what ever is chopped just right...not pulverized like the other choppers do.  It has got us through many many many batches of salsa.  I'm going to blame Kelley for  the choppers demise...he gets pretty crazy with it.  He gets going so fast the handle comes right off!  Then the handle kind of stripped so it wouldnt turn the blade very good.  Kelley tried all kinds of glues , but it still wasn't quite right.  Then we got a crack in the bottom, so Kelley taped it back together.  It is just barely limping along...I say we let it go and lay it to rest. It has served us well. 

 

So in desperation...I bought a Ninja!  It is a lot like the old chopper, except it has an electric motor!  The way the blade is on this thing it doesn't mush your onions and peppers up...chops them just right, if your careful not to let it go to long.

There were a bunch of tomatillos on the ground that were ready and the peppers are all coming on like crazy, so I made a batch of green salsa...turned out good!

 (still love you old chopper)