Grace and I took the kiddos on a little picnic Monday.

We went to a little picnic area on the Parkway called Rocky Knob. It is not too far from our house.

And features absolutely beautiful views.

It was a really nice day. Not too hot.

The kids had a lot of fun playing on all the rocks.

Sam said this rock was perfect to use as a chair. It even had a foot rest.

They are growing up. This young man will be 12 this Friday. Amazing!

We had a lot of fun!

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Hello everyone! I thought I would share wth you all my latest big crochet project and tell the story behind it.

Just a few weeks before my sweet Julie went to heaven, she picked out this yarn. She wanted me to make her a new “double cover” which is what we call a little extra blanket at the foot of the bed to be used when needed.

I had started making it and was about half way through one skein when she went home to Jesus. I can still see her face when she told me how much she loved the colors!

Last year, I couldn’t even look inside the basket where I kept it. This fall, I decided it was time to do something with it. She would not have wanted it to just sit in that basket serving no purpose. So I undid what I had crochet before and made something new.

I decided to make my first ever shawl. This has truly been one of the hardest things I have ever crochet. Some days I couldn’t even pick it up to work on it. But now it is finished.

I will wrap up in it and remember my sweet girl, the love and joy she brought into our lives. And I will try to focus on all she gained and not all we lost. Death is such a hard thing for us left here. My Julie truly loved Jesus. Knowing her as I do, she’s probably talked nonstop since she got there!

God bless.

Hello everyone! Our temperatures have cooled off some here and in this family that means fall decorations.

Grace does our decorating and she loves fall.

Her art room looks so cute!

Our mantle

I crocheted this little doily in fall colors.

I have also been working on more dishcloths. This is a granny stitch which for some reason I have had a hard time learning. I did this one with scraps of yarn.

The garden is winding down. Green beans are done. I counted it up the other day and we have almost 170 quarts of green beans in the cellar. We have canned lots of tomatoes, peaches and corn. Huge blessings!

There is still plenty of canning to do though. Grapes are just finishing up and apples will soon be ready.

I always say I feel more ready for winter when the cellar is full of home canned goodies and the wood building is full of wood.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a good week so far.

We have been busy with normal summer things, harvesting and preserving. Look at the size of this tomato. It is the biggest one we have gotten so far.

We have been making lots of salsa.

This is by far my favorite salsa recipe. https://heartbeetkitchen.com/2013/recipes/dietary/paleo/fiery-roasted-salsa

We canned 7 quarts of these October beans and had 1/ 2 gal dried . These were given to us by a friend.

This is one of our favorite ways to eat tomatoes. I will definitely miss fresh tomatoes when they are gone.

I bought this melon the other day at one of our local produce stands. It was huge and tasted so good.

I decided to save seeds from it. I never have success with melons in my garden but I may try this one next year.

I have been working on new crochet dishcloth patterns.

Here are a few pictures of some I have finished.

I guess that is about all. Grace and I are cleaning a house today and doing some more canning.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

This will be the last beach pictures for a while.

This little boy loved the waves. He would laugh so hard every time the waves touched him. See that man standing there beside him? I know I have said this many times but he sure is a good Daddy! He stood there for hours letting John Luke and the other kids play. While they were playing, Jess got the rare opportunity to sit and watch them play. Love has many languages! I didn’t get a picture of all of them playing. I wish I had!We certainly had a lot fun!Many happy memories!

God bless!

We spent one of our vacation days at the MOSH center. (Museum of Science and History).

It was a really fun day

With lots of cool stuff to see and do.

After that, we came back to the beach.

I love just looking at the ocean. Enjoying the sounds of the waves. My next post will be the last vacation post.

I hope you all are enjoying seeing the pictures and the things we did. God bless.

One of the days of our vacation, we went to St Augustine. The city itself was very historic but way to crowded for us.

We decided to just spend time at the beach.

There was an area roped off just for the nesting birds. It was pretty cool. Grace actually got some pictures of the adult and baby birds.

After walking on the beach, the kids spent some time playing in this little water area.

They loved it.

An evening stroll on the beach.

God bless.

We are back home from our vacation. We had a great time.

The ocean was beautiful. I have so many pictures to share.

I love watching the waves!

It feels so good when the water splashes on your feet.

The house we stayed in was very nice and only a few minutes walking distance to the beach.

We are so glad we got to have this experience.

I will have many more pictures in future posts. God bless.

We have been blessed to go to the beach! This is our first picnic on our way there.We stayed over at a motel on the way down. The kids(young and old) enjoyed the time at the pool.While they were swimming, Grace and I took a little nature walk. We stayed over at Walterboro SC. The place we walked at was called Wildlife Sanctuary.It was a really nice walk. Most of it was boardwalk.Some of it was nice open trails.

Grace made a cute little Sparky video.More to come on this great adventure. God bless.

Hello everyone! I hope all of you have been having a good week so far.

We have been busy doing the usual things here. Gardening, canning, things like that.

Teaching Daniel how to work up beans. He seemed to enjoy it and wants to help more. I’m glad. I think it is important for children to learn the art of gardening and canning. So far, we have about 60 quarts of beans canned, with hopefully more to do.

One of my first tomatoes and just look how big it is. It has been so dry here at my house. It amazes me that the garden is producing at all. Jess, who lives 10 minutes from us, has rain almost every day.

A carrot I pulled the other day to add to our slaw. I haven’t had much success with carrots in years past but they have done very well this year.

We have had some beautiful night skies here.

The moon has been so pretty.

That’s all for now. I hope you all have a great Friday. God bless.