Life at home

We are experiencing wonderful warm weather. Yesterday it was 85˚!  I was showered by sunshine and warmth. It made me feel fabulous. 

Sunday my men planted the potatoes and onions. They got a little too much sun.  The little big guy was smart and wore his corn-cob hat and a white t-shirt.  My Big Guy well, he had some red arms later that night. 

Olivia and I spent a lot of time running around this weekend.  She has her 8^th grade trip to Washington, D.C. this week.

She is so excited!                I am not!

She is looking forward to spending time with her friends. Sightseeing and having fun!  Oh the life of a carefree teenager.  I will have sleepless nights and my days will be filled with worry. The other night, she asked me what I was going to do when she went off to college.  I told her I was thinking of getting another degree and we could be roommates.  She said no so I’ll have 4 years of sleepless nights ahead of me. I just worry so much. I want my children to have these wonderful experiences and travel, as well as be safe. Sometimes I think they are too naïve and will get hurt, lost or worse.  Yes, I let my mind take me places it shouldn’t but we live in a harsh, cruel world. There is a lot of good in our world but it lies in the shadow of darkness.

We’ll both survive the trip and we can’t wait to hear about it.

Friday is “shadow day” for Elliott. He will be in fifth grade next year, middle school, and will be attending a new school.  So on “shadow day”, the fourth graders are paired up with a current fifth grader and they spend half the day at the middle school following – “shadowing” - that student from class to class.  It is a cool day for them as they get to see what part of the school their classrooms are in and they meet the fifth grade teachers.  Elliott’s shadow day is special because he was paired with a friend, who is a football teammate. He wanted to be paired with one of two football buddies but said it was a one-in-a-million shot. This proves he is one lucky boy!

And if the day could not be busy enough, shadow day is followed by track and field events at the high school.  I can’t wait to hear about his fun-filled day.  He tells me he is on a fast relay team so I hope they do really well and have fun!

 

Earlier this month, they went fishing on Lake Ontario. Elliott had a blast as he caught so many fish. He earned bragging rights as he caught the largest, a 25" brown trout!  John caught the fattest brown trout.

 

 

Look at this fat trout.

This is my favorite picture of my fisherman.

Last month, Olivia and I took a course – the first cake decorating class. Classes meet on Sundays so that was nice. No rushing home and back to the class.  I made a lot of frosting and washed so many decorating tips, I was happy to put them up for a while.  We had fun and had the instructor to ourselves.  The other two women never came back after the first class.  We think the work involved – basically baking – was too much for them.  I say this because at the end of the first class, one of the women asked if the instructor had cake recipes.  Olivia and I enjoyed the one-on-one instruction and getting to know the instructor. We learned a lot and had fun spending time together.  The cakes below were our final project for the first class. We’re signing up for the second course in June!

 

Both of our finished cakes.

Olivia's finished cake - just beautiful!

 

Mother’s Day was very nice. I worked on the yard some and then started digging up sod around my new bird feeder pole. I love it!  The guys put this up for me on Saturday and I washed the new hummingbird feeders out that night and filled them.  Fill your feeders and those little beauties will come.  Not a lot of time passed before we spotted a hummingbird!  I am so happy.  When Olivia and I went out on Sunday, I bought a purple clematis and planted it at the base of my feeder pole. I also cleared the area of sod as I will plant more flowers at the end of the month.  When I think the fear of frost has passed.

So things are warming up, more work is being done outside (last Friday was the first time we mowed this season) and we are all sleeping soundly. Well, I was until Olivia leaves us.