Grace and I took the kiddos blueberry picking yesterday. The blueberries are just loaded on the bushes.

We pick at a farm about an hour from my house.

Road trip in Mawmaw’s car.

They always fall asleep. So cute!

It was hot already by the time we got there but still a lot of fun.

See how pretty the berries are. We plan on making some blueberry ice cream with some of them. Yum!

It can’t be all work and no play though. We stopped at this park on the way home for some fun time.

Then PIZZA time!

It was a good day! God bless.

https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/pat-in-pan-pastry/bd055bce-e405-4daa-b99f-57d54fcc66aa

Not a lot has been going on here this week. Grace has been sick with a viral infection so we haven’t done a lot. We did mow the yard on Thursday and did the weed eating. It was looking pretty rough.

We have been blessed to start getting some fresh veggies from the garden. YAY! I am hoping to make a jar of refrigerator pickles soon. Grace and I don’t care much for pickles but Jess and her family love them. Sam even bought me a package of cucumber seed. He told me if they grow, mawmaw, you can make pickles.

We experienced a couple of wet, foggy days here. One minute the sun was shining and all of sudden we could watch the fog start coming in. Our temperature dropped at least 10 degrees. Strange weather.

We did gather some of our rhubarb this week. We decided to freeze it. We had 5 freezer bags and I put one bag in the fridge to make a pie with for this weekend. We will be helping Dave on the deck again. Hopefully get it finished. He is wanting to start working on a tree house for the kids.

My view as I chopped up the rhubarb.

I guess I had better get started on my day. The upper garden is in need of weeding. God bless.

Our garden is doing pretty good so far this year.

Grapes are starting to form.

Our early patch of green beans are blooming. My mom always wanted to have fresh green beans out of her garden on the 4th of July. I think we will have some this year.

We have already ate one cabbage and I think this one will be ready for this week.

These are our fooled you jalapeno peppers. We have ate several of them already.

Banana peppers. For some reason, I can’t seem to raise bell peppers here but banana peppers do really well.

First zucchini. I love fresh zucchini and squash.

Look at this beautiful cucumber. Last year our cucumbers didn’t do very well. We are hoping for more success this year.

Look at these beautiful tomatoes. We bought 2 of these plants. They were already huge when we bought them and had bloom on them. We got them in hope of having some tomatoes early. Looks like it will pay off.

Blackberries blooming.

Blueberries waiting to get ripe.

Raspberries ripening.

One of my many resting places.

God bless.

Isn’t this a beautiful site? I am so blessed to live here.

I purchased a few cherries yesterday from our local supermarket. They are from an orchard not too far from our house.

So I came home and spent part of the day pitting them and canning them. I think they are so pretty in the jars.

It has been a beautiful week here in Floyd. Cool nighttime temperatures in the low 50’s. Daytime temperatures upper 70’s. Low humidity. I LOVE it.

God bless.

We decided to do a picnic and a hike yesterday. I love spur of moment fun.

Grace, the kids and I went hiking while Jess, John Luke and Donna stayed back and started the charcoal. When Dave got there from work, he grilled the chicken. We also had macaroni salad, rolls, cookies and fresh lemonade. Great food.

Great memories. Jess took this picture of us before we started our hike. I realized in this picture just how tall all the kids are getting.

John Luke discovered how much fun a bubble gun is. He has trouble blowing bubbles but when all the kids were blowing theirs he got to participate by using his bubble gun. He loved it.

Our view on our hike. We saw deer, squirrels, chipmunks, bugs, flowers. All kinds of interesting things.

Grace took this picture of an indigo bunting. He was singing so pretty for us. I LOVE spending time with family.

God bless.

This is what our lower garden looked like yesterday. Amazing what a week of rain can do!

This is what it looks like now. Much improved. Vicki and her kids came over yesterday. She and I worked in the garden while her kids and Grace had some fun time together.

I must tell you something Katie said that helped us all get through yesterday. She told her mom “you can’t cry. You can’t mess up her first birthday in heaven”. Out of the mouth of babes.

God bless.

Grace and I did a little hike yesterday.I love going on these “adventures” with her. We always have a great time.We see so many pretty things. She is always on the lookout for wildlife and flowers. This trail has several little benches to stop, rest, pray or just listen to the beautiful sounds.As we came out of the woods yesterday and into the clearing, we saw thisWe hope to do another hike today. Yesterday we did yard work. Mowing and weed eating. It takes a long time to get it all done. It rained all last week so the grass was very high. Today we will be working both gardens. The weeds have almost taken over up there, especially in the lower garden.

Now for the hard part of this post.

This sweet beautiful girl would be 20 today.

I love this picture. You were always laughing.

My sweet baby girl! We miss you SO SO much. I have asked Jesus to give you a special hug today from us for your birthday. You always did give the best hugs. We love you!

This sweet boy has a birthday coming up. For his birthday trip, he wanted to see animals. He chose the Greensboro science center. Those of you who have been with me for a while know we LOVE going there.

Sam still isn’t too confident about touching a stingray. I love this picture. Grace is holding his hand.

So it was almost like he was touching them. It was really hard to get good pictures.

It was a fun day though.

Grace enjoyed some time playing with this robot while Sam and Mommy watched a show.

Now just a few pictures of our beautiful sky last night.

God bless.

Dave and I worked on making this gate for their deck over the weekend. They have a beautiful big deck to enjoy. However, they needed a way to keep John Luke in and Nana out, so we made this gate. It is a huge gate. 12 ft. long and probably weighs 300 pound. We put it on wheels and it rolls into pockets so it is easy to open and close. We think George would be proud of us.

On Saturday, Grace and I went to another con. It was bigger than the other one we went to and lots more people were in costume.

We also did another hike with the Horns. We hiked a small trail at Smartview Park.

It was a really nice hike.

Grace and I worked in the upper garden.

It has rained every day since so it is already full of weeds again. Oh well, we need the rain.

Just a few pretty pictures.

The first rose bloom on the rose bush.

Julie always got so excited when the first bloom came on. There are no words to say how much we miss her. Hard stuff but I know God will see us through.

That’s all for now. God bless.