Elizabeth: My Fabulous Sister (and Twin!)

Last week I spent some time goofing around with the camera, and here are the results. I was trying different settings and angles, so these are some of the better shots. She looks exactly like Mom in the picture with the telephone!

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's . . . Summer?

Well, after a very long Winter, Spring has finally arrived . . . and gone. In the past two weeks everything has turned into Summer! Over the last few days all of the irises are blooming, the poppies opened and the Locust trees are flowering. Here are some pictures of the yard and perennial garden as they appear today.



These four pictures are of the perrenial garden just at the back of the house. There is a stand of Locust trees in the middle and plants all around. The trees are full of white flowers and the smell is heavenly! In fact, there are quite a lot of these trees around the area, so as we drove to church this morning the scent of all the flowers smelled like perfume.

Here are some more pictures showing the poppies and the locust blooms. Aren't they gorgeous?! The garden only looks like this for a few days, but it is so lovely, that it is always worth waiting the rest of the year. We do need to get out and do some weeding though . . .

Next are four different flowers --- very close up! The first one is a little, tiny viola plant that self-seeded in one of the garden walk-ways. The second is a poppy. They're beautiful up close. Finally, the last two are irises that have bloomed. The pink one is a "Beverly Sills" iris, so Elizabeth, being the true opera buff that she is, is partial to that one. We have some more irises to plant, so we are hoping that next year we will have a real variety of colors!

Last, but not least . . . all pics of the locust blossoms. I'm not sure that much else in the world is as pretty as these flower clusters. The smell is like nothing else and they look just as beautiful. It's amazing what God has created, and just think how perfect they'll be in a new Earth one day.

Well, this is what it looks like around here today. I'm going to try to get a few more posts up of things other than the yard. Hope you all have had a nice time looking.

A Peek Inside the House

Well, here it is . . . a peek inside our house! The four pics below are our Living Room. That is the new wood stove (a Hearthstone which is made of Vermont soapstone). It's decorated with flowers now that Winter is officially over and we're not heating anymore. That is my cat, Samwise, in the first picture --- isn't he cute?!

Next are pics of our bedroom. Elizabeth sleeps on the bunk and I have the double! Not bad. As you can see, we haven't got enough wall space. We're still looking for a spot to hang the poster of Buddy Davis' Creation Concert --- maybe we can use the back of the door!

My bed is the favorite sleeping spot for most of the cats. Of course, Samwise sleeps there every day! On the shelf we have all of our old "children's series" collections (Nancy Drew, Beverly Grey, Bobbsey Twins etc.). There are two bookcases built behind the door as well, but I forgot to get a picture of them. Oops. The double bed is the one that Mom's grandparents set up house-keeping with in the 1930s! Mom has the matching dressers in their bedroom.

The big white bear actually came from Florida. Our aunt had it and saved it for us for two years until we went down there to visit, but by the time we packed everything else in the van, we had to ship the bear back, via UPS, in a huge box. Elizabeth named him "Dana" after the "Dana Girls" mystery series.

Our curtains are Roy Rogers and Trigger fabric to go with the other Roy and Dale decorations. I'll try to post pictures of that later. The little garbage can matches too!

Buds & Blooms: Our Yard

Our cousin has asked to see pics of our yard, house, bedrooms etc., so here is the first installment. These are all shots of the yard, house and garage as they appear today. It was supposed to be hot and sunny, but is actually overcast and rainy --- not really a bad thing at this time of year. Dad is off to Florida today to visit his family, so he and I spent yesterday evening mowing/trimming the lawn. I love that! The new mower has cut the time it takes to mow the entire yard from four hours down to one and a half! It has also cut the gasoline consumption from five gallons to somewhere between one or one and a half gallons! Not bad.


The first picture above is of the house as seen from the far end of the driveway. You can see that the trees are budding (and in some cases leafing out). The second picture is the house as it appears from the road. That is a lilac that is growning at the front left there. If you stand in Mom and Dad's bedroom you can just see the flowers that are growing on the top as they stick above the roof! The third picture is the house as it appears from the road on the left side. That is a Pin Oak tree that is turning green. They are really nice trees and they drop cute little acorns in the Fall.

Here are some pictures of the front yard (the area between the circular driveway). The vertical pic is looking under the large Red Maple tree (my favorite tree on the property) to the garage. The other photo is one of the lilac bushes that we've planted about seven feet off the road. Aren't the flowers beautiful?!

Just in case you all are curious . . . here are some pics of the garage. This is Dad's little castle. You can see the new mower (the red one) and the bikes. This is where Dad does all his "guy" stuff. Every man needs a haven from a house full of women. Just kidding.



Here are some misc shots. That tree fell down in a Winter storm a year and a half ago, but it just won't seem to come all the way down. Dad keeps chopping parts of it off as it comes nearer to the ground, but it looks like we might have to get a tree service in to get the rest down. The other pic is the perennial garden. Everything is starting to fill out. We are hoping to get the leaves off and the ground cleared out some time this week, but they are predicting rain, so we'll see. Last, but not least, is Elizabeth bringing in the garbage can.

This should give you all an idea of what it looks like here. Next I'll post pics of inside the house!