There is love

I love my children. 

One way you can tell is because though I am TERRIFIED of heights, I followed them to HIGH CLIFFS and not only allowed them to walk upon them but I, even I, walked among them.

Why yes, that is a cliff in which they could fall to their doom

Why yes, Judah thought it would be hilarious to prop himself as if he has fallen to his doom.  (His feet, apparently, were in a crag of a rock.  "Totally Secure", I'm told.  As if that offered me any comfort.)

I can't even look at these photos without getting queasy.

And my children love me too... one way I can tell is because they entertained all my silly ideas for Father's Day photos. 

 

Clown World

 Fireman Field Days...

In which I bake 4 dozen strawberry cupcakes to raffle off...

Friends come to cool off at the lake...

And we watch a parade.

COVID killed the parade for several years so it was the talk of the town.

It was too busy this year to make our own float, sadly, but that meant we got to watch it instead!

Wait... what's that straw hat poking out behind the band?

It looks like a....

a...

CLOWN!

ON A UNICYCLE!!!

Wait a second....

that clown looks familiar....

who could it be!?!

Where have I seen that face before?!

It's JUDAH!

So Newmans were represented after all.

Judah, my unicycling clown, made this the best parade I've ever watched.

(In my totally unbiased opinion.)

Just me, Making Dreams Come True

 

A friend had a funny dream in which I had an arm sleeve of tattoos.  

Adele' has had a book of temporary tattoos in her drawer for years... so I raided it to make her dream a reality.

That's what friends do.

Back in July

When I decided to get 'caught up' on the 'ol blog, I warned you of an avalanche coming... I hoped to be done by the first week.  A-hem.  My avalanche is more like softly floating snowflakes occasionally lighting upon your nose.  It looks more likely that I will get 'caught up' by the end of January than the end of the week.

A more apt warning to my readers might have been to prepare for whiplash.  One minute it is snowing and we are building snowmen, the next we are watching fireworks and discovering watermelon eating dogs.

There is no rhyme or reason to these posts, other than to anchor them somewhere for posterity, and for that I am sorry.

The first posts I published were unfinished posts- I thought it would be fastest and easiest to get them out of the way since they had already been started.  I realized today, however, that ONE of those posts was already published.  (I don't know why it showed up as an unpublished 'draft'.)  I'm sorry for that too.

I will, hopefully, refrain from posting duplicate posts in the future.  "Ain't nobody got time for that."

Onward, July!

Pennslvanians know how to do fireworks.

This salad was so pretty I put it on a platter instead of in a bowl.

(Adele' took the above two photos)

 Speaking of Adele'... she cut pants into shorts and decided that she would start this fashion trend rather than the ripped jeans trend. 

I wonder if it will catch on?

stock simmering

Nameless, the cat, trying to come into the kitchen

The rest of the photos are of the day Oom Arjo, visiting from the Netherlands, comes to dine on the porch.  His appearance drew Oom Hans, my parents, one of my brothers and my sister to visit our porch too.

Only missing Oom Elise and Aunt Jan and the van der Jagt siblings would be all together.  

As an aside: how perfect that we found out that he would be coming AFTER we had just painted the porch!  ;-)