Busy Day

This we started the morning finishing up homework to turn in for Sean's math class to finish out the nine-weeks. I pulled out the mower and mowed the yard while Sean was cutting up with a friend.

Once he got into class, however, we were surprised to find that he had a final exam to take and another chapter quiz. Panic setting in he managed to get them finished just a few minutes after class. His teacher told us that he made an 87 for the final nine-week grade.

Afterwards, we headed out to do several errands and ran into Walter on his way out of town - again. This time he was heading to West Virginia and the company camp out.

We have been "sitting" a couple of planters full of herbs for Walter while he has been away. This is his planter of Cilantro, which seemed to jump about a mile up before it began to bloom.

These are the flowers that it produced. Now...following instructions I have snipped the plants back so that they will produce more leaves., but the flowers were very small and delicate.

This little fellow was having a fine old time splashing around in the bird bath. It has been fun observing the birds in and around the birdbath as well as the feeder.

This evening we all ended up "celebrating" the end of the school year. Sean went out to Skate-Away to do some socializing and skating; while Dean & I trekked out to TGI Friday's for dinner.

Mirror Babies

Danielle sent me this cute photo of Faith checking her self out in the mirror. I dug through the old photos and found a shot of her Uncle Walter doing the same thing. They both looks so cute.

Baseball Celebrations

The Junior Yankees got together last night at Bottom's Up Pizza to celebrate the 2006 season. The turn out was terrific. Everyone had a great time and surely got full - those pizzas were huge. The boys presented me with a very special Thank You card and a gift card. I will treasure the card. They made it fun to be the Team Mom. - Thanks Team!

While the Jr. Yankees were partying - the Minor Devil Rays were playing the 2006 Minor Division World Series game. They won the series. Congratulations Andrew. They had a team party at the field after the game. From what I hear it was wet and wild.

Cul-de-sac Doings

We'll this morning, I've managed to get a gate built for the deck. I thought that by having one at the stairs it would be an excellent way to keep the little ones on the deck as well as Carla, when she doesn't need to be roaming. I even was able to get it mounted for easy use and removal.

This way when Mr. Terry comes over to visit his mommy and I will be able to sit and talk while he is in a contained space. It will also put the sister-in-law at ease, since our yard isn't fenced and the kids don't quite know the "boundarys" here. Then too I am looking forward to having Miss Faith over to visit and this way she won't get away from her Mamaw or Mom, especially since she really likes the outdoors.

Our neighbor across the street has had two trees taken down and it really opened up his yard. Sean enjoyed watching them take the trees down and haul out the huge tree trunks and put them into a dumptruck.

A Rainy Day

The backyard is humming with activity this morning - although it is raining the birds are out and about. Mom Cardinal is out with the two little ones having breakfast. Mrs. Woodpecker is working on cleaning out the ant hills in the back of the yard. A big thanks goes out to her for that one. There were several different birds that I am unable to identify yet hanging out also.

I have set up an appointment with the woman in the DAR who will be taking over doing the yearbook and chapter website. She'll be picking up the CD with all the information on it on Friday. I wish her well in the many upcoming battles that she will have and the frustrations that the administration and members will give her when it comes to dealing with both.

Sean completed his final Science class today. That only leaves 2 math class periods to attend and then he is through for the year. My only wish is that someone would hurry up and grade the math work he has turned in thus far.

While Sean is taking his Math class today I am busy working on burning CD's of the 2006 Junior Yankees website for each of the players. They will be distributed to them at the up coming team party.

This afternoon we are running a couple of errands for Walter, since he is out. I got a surprise phone call after I got back from Walter's house. He called to check in since it is also raining to beat the band where he is located. Not having much else to do, he though that he would kill some time with me. He also informs me that he may be going out of town again next week too! He got his apartment just in time to pay rent on a place his furniture gets to hang out.

I am also suppose to attend a short choir practice at 8 p.m. Hopefully Sean will buck up and go with me.

Sean's Grades

We are getting glowing reports from the teacher's so far. He has received his final nine weeks grade in Language Arts (95), Science (95) and Social Studies (right around a 95). We are waiting to see about Math, as he has had a couple a substitute teachers during the last couple of weeks. (His teacher went out for medical reasons.) So far so good, keep up the great work Sean! We all knew that you could do it!!!

The Plan...

I received this via email today, whether you agree with "The Plan" or not is does give you something to think about.

The Plan!

Robin Williams, wearing a shirt that says "I love New York" in Arabic. You gotta love Robin Williams...... Even if he's nuts! Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan. What we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message. Robin Williams' plan...(Hard to argue with this logic!)

"I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan."

1) "The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those "good 'ole' boys", we will never "interfere" again.

2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea, the Middle East, and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby.

6) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH... learn it... or LEAVE... Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?

"The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'you want a piece of me?' "

Today

It was amazing to wake up this morning to temperatures in the mid-50's. What a change from the past few days.

Mom told me that her baby wrens had all left the nest and were finally gone. Now they can start cooking out if the weather warms up a bit or at least put a couple of steaks on and bring them in the house for dinner.

Walter is off on another week of work out of town. When he gets back, I do believe that he is heading out on the company camp out for the weekend. He'll have a great time . One of his bosses is even trying to get my dad to come out for the weekend with him. Who knows.

Danielle & Sean only have one week left of school. Danielle may have already finished all of her end of year exams, but Sean still has till Friday. Then we'll all be able to put down the books for at least a few months.

I've had an excellent time watching the coming and goings at the bird feeder. I've even borrowed Dean's binoculars in an attempt to get a close up shot of the the birds that my camera will not necessarily do - not that much optical zoom.

I went out to visit with Mom and Dad tonight and ended up falling asleep on their couch. Luckily they had phoned home for me to let them know that I was asleep. I guess some days you just need to snooze.

Cardinals at the feeder

This mother cardinal and her two little ones were hanging out this evening at the bird feeder. It was really interesting to watch her going to the feeder and then feed the little ones.

Homework

We have been spending the majority of the day hammering out the final bits of homework that Sean has to complete for the school year. There isn't much left to get done and I hope that we are able to finish it up either this evening or first thing in the morning.

Morning Yard Walk

Here the japanese bamboo bush, I got at Mom & Dad's is putting out new leaves.

A yellow finch drinking at the front bird bath. This is as close as I could get without frightening him away.

New growth on Great-great-great-grandma Parsons' rose bush. I moved it out of season and am greatful to see that it has taken hold in it's new location.

Mimosa blossom - it looks so much like a tiny firework explosion.

Chef Walter

Chef Walter invited us over to have dinner at his new place this evening. We had a delicious dinner of roasted chicken, stuffing, baked potatoes and rolls. He was an excellent host.

Camp Thunderbird

This morning we attended an orientation at Camp Thunderbird. We were given a tour of the facility and introduced to the counselors that would be working at the camp during the summer.

As we passed by Lake George we spotted the "Hippogator Crossing", a turtle sunning himself on a log and a Monarch butterfly sampling some of the bog plants.

Sean always with an eye out for frogs and such found this red toad, which had an uncanny resemblance to "Brick" the toad he had when we first moved onto the Mews.

The camp is offering horse/pony back riding this year and these are the horses and pony that will doing the job.

This horse looked like he was able to take a bit of a break away from the others. I guess he was just resting up for the upcoming summer adventures.

Farewell to the Little Brick - Sean left him at the camp to find once again in a couple of weeks.

New Growth!

As I took a walk around the yard this morning I ws examining the new plants that I had put in when much to my surprise I saw new growth had appeared on one of the crape myrtles, that Walter dug up for me from Alice's house. I wasn't sure that any of them would live at all, and even if they did I surely didn't think that I would see any growth until next spring.

But as you can see there it is....YEAH!

Thank you Alice for allowing us to raid your yard and especially thanks to Walter for strapping these things onto his car to bring home, and digging holes for them too.

I am so happy, I have a new tree....Hehehe!


Later on in the morning I was "looking" for something to do outside when I took a notion to put together a "shepherd's hook" to hang my bird feeder. The boys having an ample supply of leftover lumber from the construction of the tree fort, gave me a great place from where I could commandeer a few pieces of scrap. A few cuts with the skillsaw and a quick hole dug with the post hole diggers and voila a bird feeder complete with pole.

This is a close up of the actual birdfeeder. We received this as a Christmas gift from the Patnaude's way back in 1998, and now I have finally found the exactly right home for it to be placed.

Little League Play Off's

Go Junior Yankees!!

The team pulled off a 6 to 3 win over the Junior Rangers and have advance to hte next round. They will be playing their next game on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. At this point I believe there are only three teams left in this double elimination Chesterfield Little League World Series.

Meanwhile, my nephew's team the Devil Rays won their game and have advanced to the next bracket. They are currently undefeated in the playoffs and have their next game on Saturday at 1:00 p.m.

Mom & Dad

Morning Yard Work

This morning while out watering the plants I got the adventuresome idea to trim out all the dead limbs and parts out of all the shrubs, trees and roses! That was quite a time consuming endeavor. One rose bush alone took nearly an hour, but it looks spectacular now. I even trimmed out some of the lower branches on the birch & mimosa in the front yard. I especially trimmed the mimosa for the mail lady since her truck is tall enough to hit it as she passes by.

Mrs. Chong tells me that I have one more juniper bush to move....to where at this moment I am not sure, but I will get it done soon. I don't want to do it after it gets too hot.

As I was rounding the corner of the house to put the hose away I came across a really neat spider web in the bush at the corner of the yard. Hope that ya'll are able to see it in the picture.

Later in the evening , I got that last juniper up and put back into the ground in our yard. I put it behind the tree fort. So now I just about have a complete line of shrubbery from one end of the yard to the other.

Hummers

I got these hummers while I was visiting with Mom & Dad this evening. Although I cheated a bit by cropping two different pictures together to get this one. However, they were too bad considering that they were taken on the "fly". Haha. I do think that the hummer at the feeder was pretty good on it's own.

Grill Babies

A close up of the grill babies, they are so hard to get a picture of as they are hidden under Mom & Dad's gas grill. I could only get a good shot of the two closest to the the opening of the nest.