Memorial Day with Matt and Emily

Happy Memorial Day

This seemed like a good time to tell you about my military background. There's a lot to tell, but I'll limit today's post to the piece about my Dad and I serving in the Army together in Goeppingen, Germany. You see, after a life as a military brat I just couldn't get it out of my blood, so quite literally followed in my father's footsteps. The newspaper article and picture below are documenting possibly the first father-daughter team assigned to an Army base together, or at least this one. If you could have seen his face you would see the pride and honor, as you would have also seen on mine.

This is me home on leave all dressed up in my uniform and there's my Dad.

Above with my Mom and grandparents.

Below is a picture of my baptism in the Jordan River in Israel during the time I was stationed in Germany. More about that later.

More flowers

Here are more pictures of the flowers in my garden. They are really loving the rain the cool temperatures we were having here for a little while. {oops I just realized these are the same pictures as the ones on the previous post, but for those who would rather look at stills instead of a slide show, here they are!}

My Spring Garden

This picture slideshow made with Smilebox

Azalea's in full bloom and Hostas growing

Aren't these Azaleas just the most perfect and awesome flowers on God's green earth? They were here when we bought the house five years ago and I think this year is the best yet. If there were only some way to keep them blooming year-round I believe I'd be in Flower Heaven!

The red in contrast with the perfectly formed green leaves reminds me of Christmas. As I zoomed in on the pictures and noticed the tiny hairs on each leaf it reminded me of that scripture in Matthew, Chapter 10 verse 30. Since I've already posted a picture of the robin that died on the chair on my front porch, even though it wasn't a sparrow I thought I'd include the verses that come right before and after, just seems appropriate.

²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. ³⁰And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

The hostas are looking really good too. They really like the cool, damp weather we've been having lately. I'll post pics of them again when they bloom.

That bluish green hosta in the corner will eventually get quite large, maybe 3 or 4 feet in diameter. I've never been one to label all my plants or keep track of their names, but if I ever remember what it's called I'll post an edit. I think the grassy plants are some kind of lilies. Yeah, you wouldn't believe that I was once a Master Gardener, huh? lol!

We have ants!!!

Well it's that time of the year again when those pesky little black ants make their way inside. They ALWAYS come in through the kitchen window and scout around on the counter. We don't leave food out and try our best to keep everything clean, so they migrate towards the coffee pot and hang out there. I refuse to spray poison in the kitchen or really anywhere inside the house, so googled natural ways to get rid of ants. One thing suggested was borax which I happened to have on hand, so what you see below is the borax powder dotted with bloated dead ants that accumulated while we were at work today. The pic below this one shows some red pepper flakes that I sprinkled on the ledge above the sink just because, I'm sorry, but I can't stand those nasty little critters and didn't want to see them crawling around. I read that they don't like it, so they won't cross over it. I've never seen an ant run so fast as the one who found an opening in those flakes and scooted across back in to hiding! Tomorrow Mike will buy some of those non-toxic ant things that lure them in, then coat them with some kind of magical product that kills the rest of their friends and family when they go back to the nest. Hey, I'm all ears here (or should I say eyes?) if you've got any suggestions for more natural, clean and non-toxic ways to rid my home of these annual invaders! Oh, by the way, that toothbrush is for our dogs.

Girls' Weekend!

This past weekend my two sisters, one niece and my daughter all got together at my home for food, fun and scrapbooking. We set up tables with our supplies and set to work doing whatever paper craft or other task tooted our horns. My niece got over 40 pages made, my daughter got tons of cards made, sister Michelle sorted hundreds of acrylic letters and numbers, sister Kathy and I got a few scrapbook pages made. We discovered how much alike we are in our crafting skills and had a wonderful time renewing old friendships/sisterhoods. They both live over two hours away, so this was a very special time for us all.

Below are my niece and daughter hard at work. That grey box on the lower right side of this picture is what my sister spent her time filling with acrylic letters and numbers left over from the sign company she works for. They make awesome embellishments on our pages!

Friday night the big girls dipped our hands in paraffin for a soothing end to the day.

It felt soooooo good!

My two sisters coloring hair.

Here we all are with samples of our work.

My sis on the right is holding some of the acrylic letters.

We all had fun eating homemade pizza, homemade cinnamon rolls and yummy delicious Sleepin' in Omelette that I found on the Pioneer Woman blog. Sorry I didn't take pictures of the food or of us eating it, you'll just have to trust me... it was awesome! After all that eating I fully expected to find that I'd gained weight when I stepped on the scale this morning for my office's Chubby Club, but praise the Lord I actually LOST almost a pound! Of course I lost exactly what I'd gained last week, but hey, I'll take whatever I can get, especially after all the snacking I did this weekend!