Fairystone Park

Yesterday we met Dave, Jess and kids at Fairystone Park for a picnic and a fun day out. We have lived here in Floyd for almost 13 years. This state park is just about 40 minutes from our house. I have no idea why we have never been to it before. We all had a great time. We had grilled chicken, mac and cheese, potato salad, pork and beans, and a green salad. Delicious!!

Can you guess what we had for dessert?

While Dave, Jess, Daniel, Sam, Julie, and Grace spent all day in the water, Pawpaw and MawMaw had the “hard” job of watching Katie. She sure is growing.

We all had a great time and definitely want to go again. Enjoy your day and God bless.

May 28, 2012 4

Grapes

This picture of our grapevine was taken on April 12. This is what it looked like last week.

It seems to be growing every day and full of baby grapes!

This makes me very happy. I hope to make some jelly this year and lots and lots of grape juice! We so enjoy having our own juice to drink.

Our weekend was a busy one. I didn’t get to tell all about it on yesterdays post. It was late and I was tired. Anyway, on Friday, our church had a mother/daughter banquet. It was lots of fun with about 25 ladies attending. Then on Saturday, we had to go to Jessica’s to start working on some things her ins. agency said needed to be done. After we got there, Hubby realized we would need the scaffold, so we came back home Saturday evening. We went back down on Sunday and finished it up. Jess, the kids, myself, Julie and Grace went to the Farmers Market on Sunday. We had a great time just walking around looking at everything. Okay, so I have to tell you, we rode Jessica’s van to the market. 7 of us. We took the double stroller and the small stroller, plus, of course, all the other stuff you need for small kids. Needless to say, her van was packed. Then when we get there, the first thing Jess sees-2 HUGE hanging baskets, that would look just perfect on her front porch. Now if you would like to have seen something funny, you should have been there in the parking lot watching us try to get all that stuff back in the van. It really was hilarious!! We finally did it though and didn’t even damage her new hanging baskets. I guess we are just talented.

Our lunch break is over and so I must get back to school. Enjoy your day and God bless.

May 8, 2012 5

Rhubarb

Our rhubarb is coming up!!! We love rhubarb. This variety comes in early in the spring. We have another variety up in the garden that comes in later in the summer. Today has been a nice day here in Floyd. Sunshine and temperatures in the mid 50’s.

Jess had to do some more work on our soap. We did some research and tried something called rebatching. We think (hope) it is going to work. I wanted to let you all know I really like the orange cleaner I made. It smells really nice and cleans good. I have another batch making now.

Well, not much going on here today. I just wanted to let you all know about our rhubarb. Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 11, 2012 5

Chicks Coming Soon

The girls and I have been busy today getting Mr. Rooster’s coop converted to a chick house. We have been planning on getting new chicks this spring. Jess and David are going in with us to get them. The girls and I went over to Tractor Supply the other day to get a new wheelbarrow tire. The breed of chicks we wanted to get were already there. We are getting Buff Orpingtons (not sure I spelled that right). We also are getting a few black chickens which I have forgotten the name of. I thought they would give the chicken house a little different color. We plan on putting them in Mr. Rooster’s coop for temporary.

The inside of the coop.

This is the area the chickens from last year are in. They will soon be moving into another house and lot area. (As soon as we get it ready.) Then the new chicks will move into this house and lot. When they get old enough we will combine them all together.

The day was absolutely beautiful here. Lots of sunshine and temperatures in the low 60’s. While we worked, as you could see from the previous pictures, we had lots of help from the chickens. Sometimes even jumping up into the new coop. Our ladies are very curious. We also had these visitors. They did not come very close though. We hope they decide to nest on the island again. The mallard ducks have also been checking the island out. Spring-I think- is definitely on its way.

We hope to get the new chicks tomorrow!! Enjoy your day and God bless.

March 1, 2012 4

Finished

Hello ladies. We are finished with our part of the redo. Here we are getting ready to texture the ceiling.

Hubby does the rolling.

I do the stomping.

The finished ceiling. There are 11 recessed lights in her kitchen now. When we started it was pretty dark in her kitchen now it is very bright.

Here we are just starting to put down the floor. Now I must say, this floor just about did us in. It took us 2 days on our knees to get it down but it was definitely worth it.

It looks beautiful! David’s sister will be coming tomorrow to paint the walls. Jess chose buttercream for the walls. After the walls are painted, the next step will be to finish taking the doors off the cabinets and stripping off the laminate. The cabinet doors will have to be sanded. Then the cabinets themselves will be ready for paint. Jess has chose black for the cabinet paint. I will continue to show you all pictures as the process comes along. I think it will all look really great.

Well, that’s about it for today. I have lots of catching up to do with everyone. Enjoy your day and God bless.

February 19, 2012 5

Having Fun

Good morning, ladies! We had a great visit yesterday with David, Jess, and the kids. It was a nice warm day and as you can see, most of it was spent outside. If you look on the ground you can see where Daniel’s boots are. I guess they got in the way of swinging.

Sam and Katie. Sam had so much fun sitting with Katie and taking pictures. Every time the we would take a picture, he would just bust out laughing. So of course, we took MANY pictures. I thought this one was the best.

David helped Hubby fix the brakes on the car yesterday. It was a full day’s job but we think they are finally fixed. Thank’s again Dave for helping. Jess and I worked inside on making her some applebutter. She ended up with 5 qts. We had spaghetti with homemade sauce, rolls and cinnamon rolls for dessert. Daniel told me spaghetti was his favorite. I made a new recipe for cinnamon rolls and I really liked this recipe. Much better than the one I had been using. I got the recipe here. http://homejoys.blogspot.com/2011/02/sweet-dough.html I also posted the recipe under sweet dough in my recipe file. I did divide the recipe in half and got 18 cinnamon rolls. I will definitely be making them again. We are planning on starting a remodel at Jessica’s on Monday. Her kitchen is getting a facelift. I hope to remember to take the camera and I’ll show pictures of the process.

I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

February 4, 2012 6

Chickens

Every evening we turn the chickens loose to scratch and play. They love it!! They stand right at the fence when we go out to turn them loose. Each one wanting to be the first one out the gate.

As of right now we have 13 of these lovely ladies, 4 red and 9 white. We want to expand the chicken house and lot this spring and get more-maybe about 20.

They are extremely curious ladies. They follow us around wanting to be petted. If any of us step outside they will come running up to us to see what we are doing. They are definitely a lot of fun to have around. Today has been warm but the wind is a little strong. Jess and David and the kids are coming up tomorrow. I hope to get some new pictures to show you all. Enjoy your day and God bless.

February 2, 2012 5

Thursday

Hello everyone. It has been a busy week here in Floyd. David is gone to a conference in Vegas so Monday evening we went down to help Jess with the kids for a few days. We also had some electrical work Hubby and I needed to do for her. We finished most of it up on Tuesday. Wednesday morning, Hubby put a dimmer switch on her lights in the living room. We then left to come home.

David is having a great time in Vegas. He gave a speech the other night at the conference. He said he spoke to about 22,ooo people. Amazing. We are all very proud of him.

Today was school as usual. We had planned on going over to the Horn’s this evening but Vicki is sick. Please pray for her. She thinks she has a stomach virus. It has been very rough on her. I called today at lunch and Quentin said she wasn’t any better yet. She is never sick. Hubby has been working on cutting out the material for our chairs. I so appreciate all your advice on what color to paint them. I still haven’t completely decided yet but I have a while before he will be at that stage. I am thinking of going with the dark brown and putting chair cushions in them. That way I can change them whenever I want and today I happened to think “Wow, I could make a tablecloth for the table to match the cushions” Maybe I’ll go that route.

I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

January 12, 2012 5

Jess and Sam

We have had a BEAUTIFUL day here in Floyd. The temperature right now is 60 degrees!!!!!!!!!!!! I absolutely love it. The girls and I worked on cleaning the house this morning, then we started on school. Hubby is working on a chair design for us. He made our kitchen table several years ago and he made benches to go with it. Well, you know how we women are, now I want chairs instead of benches.

After he worked some on the chair, he decided to cut wood. He went up on the hill and cut wood while we finished school. Then we all worked together splitting the wood and stacking it. It was a great day for outside work. My menu plan for tonight has changed. I had planned on meatloaf, fried potatoes and pinto beans but it is a little too late to do meatloaf. Hubby said he would like hotdogs so we are having hotdogs and pintos. Tomorrow we will have the meatloaf.

I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

January 6, 2012 4

Monday

Today has been chilly here in Floyd. Wind gusts of 30-40 mph with temperatures in the mid 20’s. We let our chickens out every evening so they can scratch and peck. Well, this evening they just wanted to come up on the back porch and hide from the wind. We all laughed and said soon they would be wanting to come in the house.

Other than cold, today has been a nice day. We started school back today. After a 3 week break, I thought it would be difficult to get going again but it went well. We had a nice visit with Jess and the kids yesterday. David needed to work on his book and so Jess brought the kids up to play at MawMaw’s house for a while. We were sitting around talking and Daniel looks at me and says “MawMaw, we need to go cook something”. He dearly loves to help cook so we decided we needed to make chocolate chips cookies.

Well, I guess that’s about it. I need to go put more wood on the fire. Enjoy your evening and God bless.

January 2, 2012 5