Lots to Celebrate

Such a happy day!  It has really been 24 years?

It has been a while in between posts and there has been a lot going on!   Necessary but unglamorous home improvements, celebrating birthdays, college graduations, Mothers Day and our 24th Wedding Annniversary, visiting family, following youngest son on the high school golf circuit, planting the garden and just the everyday normal.   Where to begin......Well, this past weekend was really wonderful.  My sister and family, with Mom in tow and the three dogs made the trek from Missouri to celebrate their son, Josh's graduation from college.  They rented a camp on the New York side of Lake Champlain.  The camp was lovely, complete with a large stone fireplace that was certainly needed during the crazy and way cold weather snap we had.  Yes, it did snow in late May!  Mount Mansfield had 16.5 inches of accumulation!  The weather did not hinder our time together however.  We caught up, played poker, checkers, watched movies, visited Lake Placid, fished in a downpour (Katie, Julie and I hung in while the others ran for cover, girl power!) and ate!  Boy did we eat!  Good old fashioned camp food.  It was so good to just be together.  With Julies husband retiring after some 26 years (am I right Julie?) in the Army come November, they plan to be back in the North East, at least within a half days drive and we are all really looking forward to that day.  Several times during the visit though, one of us would mention how much Dad would enjoy the time together and all that is going on with everyone's lives.  Your missed everyday Dad but no more than on the days we are together It is so hard to come to terms with the notion that we cannot all be together.

 So missed

  The family time really had me feeling nostalgic and thankful so it spurred me to finish the very time consuming picture project I have been working on.  We have never really have had a lot of family photos around the house, but I thought it was time to change that!  So what began as a quick project to pick out some favorite photos for some wall space in the family room, became a week long trip down memory lane.  It is so hard to look at photos of our kids in their younger days, I so miss those little versions of them.  Wish we could turn back the clock and have a do over and really soak it all in.

Not sexy, but necessary

     So what started out as a simple call for a routine and mundane task turned into well.....a costly and very unglamorous home improvement.   The day our oldest son was taking his last final exam for college and visions of tuitionless days were tantalizingly close, we got the news.  Erma Bombeck was right, the grass IS always greener over the septic tank!   Knew it was coming, but wish we could have gotten our porch put on first!  Well, maybe next year!

     I have really been trying to get some work done on more Halloween characters.  The latest creations include a pumpkin witchy gal with attitude, a harvest moon man, scarecrow in the pumpkin patch and a mummy man and lots more funny faced pumpkin heads.

 

 

Whimsical Halloween

 

 More scary creations ready for finish painting

In between the work and crazy, I took a night off and loaded the kayak for a float on my favorite pond.  It was amazing!  So glad summer is back.  You are back....right summer?

Favorite floating place

 
Now its back to work time, candle lit, (thanks sis! Love it!), Pandora playing the Wailin Jennys station, and a glass of iced tea.  Hopefully in a day or two, I can post some finished photos for all the Halloween pieces I have in the works.

 Work requirements

Until next time!