A wonderful lunch with Marian

So here is my dear friend Marian. We got together at Bonnie's for lunch. Marian has cancer (although I'm still in the denial stage). Doesn't she look good? She is preparing to eat a lot of dessert so she doesn't lose so much weight. Good job Marian! Now if we could only get her to take her pills. Marian has lived an amazing life of putting Jesus first and never being shy about sharing that with others. I appreciate her so much. Thanks for being a wonderful role model.
This is a picture of me, Anne, Marian and Bonnie. It is such a pleasure to share quality time with Marian. Bonnie was nice enough to prepare a wonderful lunch for all of us. The four of us have been friends for a very long time.


Here is Bonnie getting lunch on the table. In the picture to the right is Marian's friend Jenny, who is visiting from England.

WILDFLOWERS AT THE CABIN

I went to the cabin for Memorial Day weekend. The day I left my new camera was delivered. I was so excited to have the weekend to read about the camera and play with the f-stops (whatever that is). I needed to find something to photograph. I was at the cabin with three fishing maniacs and all they do is fish. (Actually, they also spent hours clearing the pine needles from around the cabin in the rain. They did it in the rain so they could fish when it wasn’t raining. Yes, fishing maniacs!) But, you can only take so many pictures of pine needle clearing in the rain. I decided that I would walk and take pictures of all the different wild flowers that I came across. Much to my surprise, I found over 19 different wild flowers. There were probably more than that, but I only wanted to photograph brilliant ones. I am now feeling pretty confident in my flower photography. I also took pictures of the upper falls, so I could get so movement pictures. I love the area around the cabin and my camera makes it more fun to take walks and observe the beauty of the Sierras. Here are some of the photos.

Here is the cabin that was built in 1975 by Don’s parents.

Flowers The first flower is known as Kit kit dizzy ,Mountain Misery and Bear Clover. When we first built the cabin, we spent hours clearing this beautiful, but invasive flower from our property. It is everywhere in Cascadel.

I realize this last one isn't a wild flower but I loved the way the rain drops stayed on the leaves.

The rain helped make this picture of the falls look pretty good. The falls are a short walk from the cabin .

Clean up time. This happens every year. We have to clear 30 feet from the cabin. Don, Ron and Ron’s friend Steve came up to do the clearing this year. But, sometimes things don't work out as you plan. They did manage to rake everything into piles. They figured they would have about 4 truck loads to take to the dump. They did most of the raking in the rain. After taking the first load to the dump, it rained so much that they couldn't finish. I think the plan is to hire someone to take the other loads to the dump. It was much to wet to finish the job.

So, the guys still had time to take the boat out and fish in the rain. They caught a lot of fresh water salmon. We enjoyed them for breakfast this morning and brought some home too.

Katie's Baby Shower

I know this post is about a shower for Katie, but I had to post this picture that I took a few days before the shower. Aren't Katie and Steven cute? They came over to big Steve's for lunch. The grandma joined us and so did cousin Krystin who came up from San Diego. We all had a nice visit. It was great to see Krystin.

Here is a picture of the very elegant table at Erica's house set for the shower. We used all of Erica's beautiful dishes. It looked great. Thanks goodness for air conditioning. It was about 96 on the day of the shower.
Here is Katie with her dear friend, Carolyn, from college

Katie just opened the quilt that Erica and I made for her. Actually, we made it for Megan.

I had to include this picture. Jess made the shoes and coordinated he appliques on the onesie. I love it!

We all posed for the camera.

Here we are loving Katie

Mother's Day Hike

What a nice mother's day. Laurel, D.B. and I went for a hike at Briones Park. Briones in maybe 15 miles from our house and I hadn't been there for a long time. As you can see by the pictures, it is beautiful and we ran across some of our favorite things. I'm really fond of cows (not!). Laurel shared how I taught her to fear cows when she was young. Then in the bottom picture you can see that D.B. caught a lizard. with his bare hands and Laurel wanted to kiss it. The good news is that he didn't make me kiss it. We did have a lovely hike with lots of green hills and wildflowers. It was nice being out in the great outdoors.


"I can't believe I got that close to a cow!"

Maryn & Lucy The final days

Here we are on our last full day with the grandchildren.



Laurel came by often and spent a lot of time playing with the kids. They had great fun!

On Monday we went to The Little Farm in Tilden. The kids loved it. Maryn even got to feed the cows. The pictures tell the story.

This was Cino de Mayo. Laurel spent the day with us and then took Jess out for drinks later in the evening. Jess stayed really busy on this trip. I don't know how she does it. But, we all had a great time.

Maryn & Lucy visit Day 5 & 6

Sunday evening we went down to the boat. A very windy day turned into a perfect day.These two fishermen aren't fishing, but DB is doing a great job a rocking Lucy to sleep in a lovely setting.

Grandma enjoys hanging out with Maryn. It's happy hour!

Steve and Debbie came by to play with us too.

Paula and Chet came for a visit on Sunday.

We stayed busy with lots of activities from hanging out to cooking. We played inside and we played outside. Maryn loved playing with my dollhouse. That was probably her favorite activity. I think we took over 500 pictures during their visit. I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we enjoyed the kids.

Lucy liked her perfect kitchen bath tub. Now I know why I got such a big sink!

Lucy loves to check herself out in the mirror!

Jess's friend Melissa came from Sacramento for a visit.