A Day in my Life - July

 Here we are in July already!  I had a really nice first day of the month, and here's how it went.

It was Saturday so I got to sleep in a little.  I was up a little after 8, got ready for the day and started some laundry.  I made up some buns for supper on Sunday, then went out to walk around the yard.

Bob built a raised garden bed at the back of our garage, and we have tomatoes, peppers and fresh basil growing. Here's some of the basil I picked.  I love being able to go outside and just pick it!

The Spirea blooms are so pretty right now!

The oak leaf hydrangeas are blooming on one side of the house.

And here's what's happening on the other side of the house.

I stopped in Bob's barn to see what he was up to.  He said he had plans for this old board.
I also said good bye as I was leaving for a while.
My sister Cheri picked me up at 10 and we headed out for a fun adventure.

We had about a 50 minute drive, and we saw this nice barn with the flag flying in front of it along the way.

Just being out driving on these country roads is fun for me!

We had a great time on our outing, which I'm going to tell you about later.  I don't want to make this post too long!

We got home a little after 2pm.  Bob had the mail on the counter and in it was this sweet thank you.  It's from my friend Jenny's granddaughter, to thank us for a Michigan t-shirt we brought her when we visited.  I love mail like that!

Bob had to show me what he did with that old board. This isn't quite finished.  He plans to paint the word Grace on the bottom right of it.

I finished the laundry I started in the morning, and made something for Sunday lunch.  (I always get something ready, so when we get home from church about 12:30, it's not a lot of work or wait)

When I came into the living room, this baby squirrel was hanging out on the front porch by the door.

We didn't have a lot of time before it was time to leave again. We are emptying my Dad's house to get it ready to sell. We had set up a time for all the grandkids to come to see if there were things they wanted.

Here are my brother, my 2 sisters and I in front of the house.  My parents built this home about 50 years ago, so we all grew up here.  Lots of memories, so it's kind of sad, but it's time.

Bob, Laura, my brother and BIL working in the kitchen.

Cheri found this old sign in Dad's barn from when he was farming and selling seed corn.

The little girls were there too and got to pick out some things that they wanted.  One of the things Alaina picked was a picture of her and Great Grandpa.

It was really a blessed time, lots of laughs and memories, a few tears, but we said Dad would have been proud.  There were no arguments or people being greedy.  Everyone just wanted the whole family to leave with something that would be a memory of Grandpa and it was really sweet.

We didn't get home until almost 8, so we stopped at Arby's to grab something for a late supper.

Then we sat down and relaxed.  This is something I saw as I looked at Facebook which was the perfect end to the day.

Our daughter Heather posted this about what she took home, with these words:
"The most precious and meaningful thing I could have of my grandpa's. This is something that I saw next to his chair every time I visited. The only thing missing from my picture is his large print Our Daily Bread book. He used this magnifying glass to read both every day. I can only pray that my Bible looks like this when my time comes."

What a great way to start the month of July.

Happy 4th of July

Smoke, Fog and a little bit of magic

 Like many of you, we have been dealing with smoke from the Canadian wildfires.  It astounds me that this smoke is covering such a large portion of the country!
Here's what it looked like last week.

These pictures were taken after 10 in the morning.  The haziness is from smoke, not early morning haze.

Then on Friday morning, we had a heavy fog advisory.  Here's a few pics from my drive in to work.

And here's the magic.  I saw these mushrooms growing outside our office. You can still see a little fog in the distance.

If you look close, I think you can see fairies under the mushrooms!