Cindy's Family

I'm getting back to the scanning of old family photos again, finally.  Today I went through some of John's family photos that we've received through the years.  This is his little sister Cindy.  I'm pretty sure that's her daughter, Michelle, since the date was 1975.

Here are some photos of Ann Michelle Horner through the years:

This is Michelle with her daughter, Lexi!

Now here's a few photos of Travis Horner, Cindy's son, throughout the years:

Travis is the father of two kids now.  I'll find some pictures of them soon and post them up when I do.

Fall Garden update.....

The little seedlings have been moved out to the hoop house.  John had to replace the sides with clear panels this week - the plastic that we had used did not hold up well to the summer sun.  I actually like this clear stuff better, although these panels that are sun resistant are pretty expensive. But hopefully they will hold up much better.

 I'll be thinning these today!

 Meanwhile, I planted those garlic corms that I gathered from the spring garlics.  This will be a two year investment, from what I read these take a couple of years to develop.  We'll see.

 In they go, I put another layer of dirt of them and watered them in good.

I use a pair of scissors to cut out the extra seedlings in each of the flats.  That way I don't disturb the little roots of the one that I want to keep in eacch cell.

Meanwhile, we're still busy cleaning out the beds and the back garden.  We've been blessed by some mild days this week, so working out these is not so hot.  The 100 degree days are due to come back today, though, so things will slow down again.  We didn't get any real rain these past couple of days, somehow all the rain that was around the area missed us completely.  So disheartening. :-[

Grandbaby #2!!!

I think I've been given the go-ahead to spread the good, exciting, happy news that John and I will be Mimi and Grumpy again to a second grandbaby!!

Jeff and Colleen and KT are expecting their new addition in late January or early February. Wouldn't it be funny if this baby comes on KT's birthday of January 29th (or maybe not so funny)? Ha!  Anyway, John and I are beside ourselves with happiness and excitement to meet this newest member of our family.  I'll keep you posted!

I stole this photo from Colleen so you could see how we were given the good news....not that I paid a bit of attention to what it said on KT's shirt that day.  I'm totally oblivious most of the time.  Colleen had to actually tell me to read her shirt.  Du-oh.....
But it was a pretty cute way to break the news, wasn't it?!!

Movie Review --- Red 2

We actually saw this movie last Saturday, but I just haven't had time to sit down and blog about it.  Now is the time!
First, you need to see the first movie, Red.  It has the set up to the relationships and general kookiness of this cast of characters who are retired extremely dangerous (RED) black-ops CIA agents....get it?
This second movie takes right up from the end of the first movie with another crazy wild ride.  Frank's girlfriend, Sarah, seems to have become an adrenaline junkie and can't wait for the bullets to fly.
There's a really wild car chase that you really have to see to believe, with Helen Mirren shooting up the place. I think its part of the fun that this very accomplished, serious actress is playing this crazy woman.

There are a few new faces in this movie, Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones to name a few. I really highly recommend it - a fun, fun, wild movie!

Are you wondering what's been going on in the garden?

We spent part of the day today starting the garden clean up since we were close to, but actually under 100 degrees today!  Time to remove all the dead plants, pull up the stakes and the name plates.  Time to take up the weed barrier, the scarecrow, and the hoses.  

We cut back the tomatoes to about 1 foot, and the leggy pepper plants to about 8 inches. 

I'm disappointed in my tomatoes this year -- I think I'm giving up on these heirloom types. They just don't produce like the newer types.  I've only harvested about 18 pounds of tomatoes all total, compared to last year when we had 43 pounds by this time. Arghhh!! Is it just me, or has it been a bad year for tomatoes?

 Tomorrow I'm mixing up some of my special tomato fertilizer and I'm giving them all a good dose! The deer thought it was Christmas! They got all the garden plants and cuttings.

My tall, leggy pepper plants

I still have some plants that are doing well, especially the tomatillo plants.  They are huge and have spread out like crazy.  Today I harvested a bunch of those -- and tomorrow I'm making salsa.  I also found a nice recipe for tomatillo rice that I want to try.

I packaged up some of the seeds that I've been saving today.  Dried okra, oregano and fennel. Then I took all the datura seeds out of their pods and packaged them up to plant this coming spring.

KT looked at these and said they were "aliens!"

 

Then I started soaking the seeds that I'm planting on Sunday in flats for the fall garden.  We're only planting in the raised beds this fall, so there are only 6 things here + 1/2 of a bed of garlic that I've ordered and won't arrive until late September.

Let's see....there's Catskill Long Island Improved brussel sprouts, De Cicco broccoli, Early Snowball cauliflower, Early Flat Dutch cabbage, spinach and chard.  Hopefully most of these will last through a mild winter.

Another vacation has crashed and burned.....

Well, John has twisted his knee into a pretzel playing softball, so our golf vacation is off...SIGH....
I'm okay with it...this was John's vacation anyway, although I was looking forward to seeing another state that we haven't been to, South Carolina.  He has an appointment with a surgeon on Monday, so we'll see what's what.

Mimi's Summer Day Camp -- Day Eighteen, Beach Week

We started the last day of day camp with an art project....KT's favorite thing to do. The dollar store had a really easy dolphin picture - no glue required!  It was easy and a lot of fun, she really followed the picture of the completed project to know where to put each colored little rubber pellets.

 KT and Grumps examined all of the shells that we bought in a bag at the Dollar Store.  There are some pretty nice shells in the bag - and she then decided which ones go in the water (blue pebbles) and which would go on the sand.

 Then we broke out the little ocean creatures - most of them belonged in the water.  We had to have Grumpy's help in knowing which were which.

 Then it was time to go to the library!  Our last visit for the summer.  Cousin Daniel went with us.

 We watched a cute little turtle movie, A Turtle's Tale 2, while we were eating lunch, and then KT took a little nap! She doesn't do that much anymore, but we had a busy morning. When she woke up, we made an aquarium! Two paper plates, some pictures I printed of fish and underwater creatures, two plastic lobsters left over from one of our dinner club events (thanks, Aunt Kathy!) and some plastic wrap.  Easy peasy!

 Before we left we had time for one more puzzle!

On the way to dance class!  I think this was her last class for this session, too.

We're going to miss having KT come over every week and we're looking forward to next summer!

Mimi's Summer Day Camp -- Day Seventeen, Beach Week

We had planned Beach Week for KT's final week of summer camp, but since we had family visiting, we took them to Fredericksberg for lunch and a little shopping.  We had a really great day!

 While the family checked out one of the shops, KT watched the Koi in a little pond!

 Make a funny face!

 Adrienne's grandma bought KT a candy necklace....she loved it!

 We had lunch at the Fredericksberg Brewery.

 Then at the cowboy store, KT fell in love with a sparkly pink cowgirl hat.  If you think its a cowboy hat, "you are wrong."  That's KT's new favorite phrase.

We topped the day off with a chocolate ice cream cone at the bakery....while Grumpy bought some pastries. This is one of our favorite places to visit when we are in town.

We came home and crashed on the pillows to watch a little tv before heading home. Whew! What a busy day.

Mom on Wednesday, August 7th

Mimi's Summer Day Camp -- Day Sixteen, Under the Ground Week

We took a little trip down to see the small "caves" and crevices that exist on the cliff on our property today.  KT, Grumps and Daniel climbed up there.  They tell me one of them is pretty deep and dark in there, they couldn't see to the end of it.  Most are simple crevices in the rock, but deep enough for a racoon or some other small animal.

 We also took our weekly trip to the library.

The day went by very fast, but there was a little time for water fun in the tub today.  Perfect on a very hot day.

 Some things floated, and other things sank.

 Nothing better then a tub of water and bare feet on a hot day!