Heart Bone-Heart Hug

Thursday turned out to be a long night after a long, full day.
All of our usual daily activities, homework prep, making lunches, then evening activities for 3 of us. GM and I were home, and finally at about 9pm we were all set for her to hop in bed.
Phone rings.

Grandpa on the phone telling me that Grandma's defibrillator went off, and we need to come over and drive him to the hospital -- she's going by ambulance.
Oh-so we rushed out the door.
She is fine today, so don't worry.
Their hospital is in St. Paul so it was a bit far. She arrived and seemed to be doing well.
Finally Papa came to sit with her so we could drive Grandpa home and go home to bed.
About midnight.
Late for me, and really late for a 7-year old.

Next morning, I sent a quick note to GM's teacher letting her know that she might be a bit tired. Also gave her a few details.
Grandma had a bunch of tests and ended up going home in the afternoon Friday, before the kids got home from school.

So GM gets home, and I ask, how did she do, was she tired, was she worried about Grandma?
She says:
- "My friend said she hoped my Grandma was feeling better soon, and I burst out crying."
Oh. She was not outwardly upset when she said this, so I think she was OK.
Then:
- "My other friend asked how Grandma was doing, but I couldn't say anything because I didn't know what to say, like what bone she had broken or whatever."

I had to laugh at this. Despite the worry and potential tragedy of the day.

Big hug to Grandma!

Peppers from Seed

Here are GM's peppers that we planted from seed. They are Banana Bill Hybrid Peppers from Jung Seed Company. They mature from light green to red. Guess I'll have to wait a while to pluck these. Hope it is soon -- because we will surely have a hard frost in the next week or so -- maybe tomorrow, who knows! But regardless, the 65 day maturity that they report doesn't look to be too terribly accurate.

This little section of the garden is mostly filled with Asiatic Lilies, that need to be supplemented with new bulbs. We'll be digging up the area right behind these plants in October and re-positioning our existing bulbs and adding new ones. Hmm-so I'll need to work around these guys when we do this project.

These peppers are right along our front walk, which I think is kind of a funny spot for vegetables and not expected. But it is a nice sunny patch in our very shady plot o'land.

Confirmation

A was confirmed last Sunday. Along with 162 other 9th graders...yes, that's right. We belong to a very large Lutheran church. Nice service, though we had to get there an hour early to get a good seat. Our photos after the service -- our family members got separated, so we didn't get very many of all the various grandparents, aunts & uncles. I was a little disappointed, especially since family members came from out of town, and it was the first time in a very long time that relatives from the two sides of our family had been altogether. Plus I love to chronicle these moments (my husband says photos are for people with bad memories...).

We had a very nice casual get-together for family afterwards. Then she invited some friends over, and my husband cooked some more -- chicken caesar salads for them, yum.

Nice day!

Family Fun-Visit with Grandma & Grandpa W.

Last weekend my parents came to visit to help celebrate A's confirmation. We had a wonderful time visiting, then on Sat. we had to go shopping (yes we do this with Mom every time we get together and of course the girls love it!). MOA-Nordstrom's Rack-great place!! Afterwards dinner at their hotel -- we were in a private dining room!

My folks had a swanky hotel suite, so after dinner we checked it out.

Fall Soccer Day

Saturday was a beautiful, bright, fall day. A perfect day for Notre Dame Soccer!!

Butterfly #5-Release

This I believe is our final butterfly of the season. Re-named Taylor (from Tyler), as after the butterfly hatched, we saw it was a female.

So we gathered outside with the little cage, and G. opened it. Nothing. Hmmm.
I grabbed a short fat stick and coaxed it out. It sat there on the stick, for a while...
Then off it flew! Fantastic!

Sunflower Patch

One of my greatest pleasures in the summertime is just watching all the flowers/plants grow. My husband always smiles to himself as I come in after "surveying" the garden, and give him a detailed run-down on which flower is budding, how the tomatoes are getting ripe, ooh ouch the stingweed got me, wow golly it's dry, or yay! don't have to water because it's been raining straight for the last 2 weeks. What a joy to walk around and see Mother Nature doing her thing.

When the daughter plants the sunflowers, we just go and observe their progress, look at the bugs on them, catch the bugs on them, then after a while observing in the little bug catcher, let them go. It is fun.

The awarded photographer took this first one of the sunflowers blooming, can you tell by the perspective?Flowers are so bright, so cheerful, and I marvel at the fruits of her gardening efforts. *grinning their behind her sunflower patch* I love it.
I don't know, too many of us spend too much time griping about this or that -- oh the traffic, oh my gosh it's 40 degrees out, ugh errands, did you hear what so-and-so said to such-and-such about this-and-that, they are mad at me and I don't know why, I have so much work to do, blah blah blah...

But this little sunflower patch is a break from all that, a great big smile.

New Butterfly

Butterfly #5 hatched yesterday...and the wings are beautifully formed!! After a while we noticed, as the wings opened and closed, that it is a girl (no spots). So we had to re-name it, from Tyler, to Taylor. I haven't seen it eat, but otherwise it looks fantastic.


The second little fuzzy caterpillar? It climbed up the side of the little cage, and I thought maybe it would go into chrysalis or something. BUT the next morning, uh-it seemed to break into 2! Then on further discovery, we realized that it had shed its fuzzy covering for new "skin". The second little "caterpillar" was just a little skin of fuzz. Funny!

First Day!

Here we are...first day of school already. Wasn't it just "school's out"?

The requisite photos...highlighting new shoes... My how time flies! Seems like yesterday I had the 2 older girls mugging for the camera preschool and KG age -- with new elmo backpack, new lunchboxes. It WAS yesterday, right? And tomorrow, uh, college, yikes, weddings...ah-not to think of that now.

I'll just look at these shots...
*sniff*

Greased Lightning

Meet another caterpillar, fuzzy little guy. Wonder what he will turn into? He likes milkweed, so he's happily munching in the cage. We'll see...!!

He's named Greased Lightning. I have no idea why.