Tuesday

We had a fun day today.  We finally made it to the Cedar Valley Arboretum!  It is 40 acres and has some beautiful flowers!  It was a nice day for walking among God's beauty!

Aren't they pretty?!!

We had lunch when we got home and Dave went to Bryan's to mow.  I uploaded pictures and read for a bit.  

More later...

Hot one today

It was another hot, humid day up here.  Dave had to help one of  the guys here by putting things in his gutters to keep the leaves out.  So he didn't get home until about 11:00.  We then went to ride our bikes.  I only wanted to do 1 mile, but at the end of 1 mile, I decided to go another half mile...then I decided to just finish off the 2nd mile.  I was hot, hot, hot when we got done.  I couldn't wait to get into the a/c of the truck!

I've got a couple of pictures to show you tonight.  This first one is from the Ox Yoke Inn - they took our picture for our anniversary!

This is taken at the water lily pond outside of main Amana.  I had my big lens with us, so we got a closeup of one of the lilies.  

Tonight we're just hanging out watching the White Sox/Royals game.  The Sox are behind...but I don't really care about either of these teams.  It's just something to watch!

More later...

Busy 48 hours!

Yesterday morning bright and early, we went to Waverly to try to find a place to live.  The day was pretty much a bust although we did find a condo that would work.  We're going to try to find something in Cedar Falls...maybe we'll have better luck.  I'm here to tell you that for the most part pictures of homes are totally misleading!  The houses we saw looked pretty good in the pictures, but were completely awful in person.  We've still got some time, so we'll keep looking.

The day wasn't a complete bust, though.  Dave had misplaced his rings and yesterday afternoon he found them in the pocket of the shorts he was wearing.  They'd even been through the wash!!  We also got to have lunch at The Fainting Goat - cute place and good chicken!

Today we had to be in Burlington at 8:30 for a softball game.  The girls won their first game, but lost the second one.  We came home after it and after eating lunch at the Maidrite Diner!  Dave needed to mow the yard, so he took a short nap after we got home and then mowed.

My peonies are beautiful today.  Some of them are as big around as a salad plate and as tall as my armpit.

This pink one smells wonderful and it's huge!

More later...

Memorial Day 2014

I hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day and that you got to enjoy your family and friends.  We had a productive day...not necessarily a fun one!  We did take time out of day to thank God for the men and women who fought for our freedom and to remember those who have gone on to their afterlife.

As for our day being productive, Jim came over and worked on the ceiling in the dining room today.  It looks almost 100% tonight.  There is still a place or two where Dave or Jim needs to sand and touch up the paint.  Evidently some of the plaster was still a little damp so we've got a bubble or two, but nothing like the hole we had!!

We even got the house cleaned up again.  With construction, it doesn't take long to get messy!  We're ready for showings now!!  Send in the potential buyers!

I was able to get some of my pix uploaded today.  I also went outside and took some flower pictures in between the raindrops.  Plus I had to share a picture of one of my hummingbirds.  He looks cold, doesn't he?  I took this several days ago on one of those rainy cold days.  He's all fluffed up against the cold!

 This is my red petunia.  I got this just to attract the hummers.  As soon as I put it out, I started seeing the little ones!

 My peonies started blooming today.  This is one of those wonderful, smelly ones!

This is an early peony, but it bloomed the same time as some of my pink ones!

 I love this iris.  My Aunt Wanda had beautiful iris and this is one from her gardens!  Looks like I should have dead-headed it before I took the picture!

More later...

Monday Musings

It was a good day to take pictures today.  That means it was pretty much gray outside.  For a while I thought it was going to rain, but it never did.  Got pretty dark at one point, though!

I had BRT this morning at 9:00.  We normally meet at 10:30 so this was early for us.  We only had 8 of us today.  Mary's in Colorado, so we missed her.  We did finally get to Chapter 16 of John.  I don't think we'll get done with John before we leave for Florida.  I think there are 21 chapters and we don't get far in an hour!  That's okay though; we're learning a great deal.

I just realized that it's really hard for me to see the computer screen.  I'm about 6 inches too far back for my trifocals to work!  I guess I'll have to scoot the monitor closer to me!

I started out saying that it was a good day to take pictures and I took some neat ones.  I bought two new hardy hibiscus plants this spring and this multi-toned pink is what I got.  Isn't it beautiful?  I have one on each side of the front door.  The deer don't seem to like them, so hopefully they are safe!

I also have these next two out in our back yard.  They are as big as dinner plates - very showy!

I especially like this red one.  It is just loaded with flowers and they all open up wide like this one.  The white one doesn't open up as far as the red one does.  

We summer ding-a-lings practiced our bells this afternoon.  We didn't do quite as well today as we did last Monday.  We had a lot of trouble with the syncopated rhythm of the piece we're working on.  Becky's probably wondering why she started this group!!  I felt like I personally did better today, so maybe I'm finally getting the hang of it!

Twenty three years ago, Dave and I got married.  It's really hard to believe that it's been 23 years.  Sometimes it seems like it's been just a very short time and at other times it feels like we've been married all of our lives.  I think we both feel that we got it right this time around.  Happy Anniversary, Dabe!

More later...

Sunday

Dave got up early and took Bob & Ann to the airport.  I slept.  Something woke me at 6:30, though, and I couldn't go back to sleep.  By that time, Dave was home, so I just got up, had breakfast, and got ready for church.  By the time we got out of church B&A were home in Iowa already!  Dave & I had some shopping to do after church.  We went to Lowe's and to Sam's Club.  Yuck, yuck, yuck!!  The weekend before Thanksgiving was NOT a good time to shop!  Now I know why I buy Christmas presents online...I hate to shop!!  Sam's Club was a complete zoo.  You could hardly get around the aisles, it was so busy!

The rest of the day was a lazy one.  We watched the race, read the newspaper, and just hung out.  Neither of us did anything worthy of telling about!  Our guy (Jeff Gordon) won the race!!  Woohoo!!

I've got a few more pictures to share with you.  I really like taking closeup pictures of flowers.  This is my amaryllis which was blooming this summer and is now blooming again.  Pretty, isn't it?

This rose is up second street from our place.  It is so fragile looking!

This is a picture of a kite that was on the beach when we went to the Sanding Ovations on Saturday.  It was fascinating to watch.

Of course, I must have the required fishing picture!  Here is Dave fishing on Lido Beach.

 Just a picture of some of the crowd on the beach at Sanding Ovations.

Interesting story...this guy is from St Louis.  My next door neighbor when I was growing up (Susan) has a daughter who lives with this man!  It's such a small world, isn't it??!!!

Hope you enjoyed my pictures - more later...