I'm taking a trip on the train ...

Today I am leaving on a new adventure. I am taking a train from here in New England all the way to Virginia to visit my friend Julie for the weekend.

We plan to scrapbook for 3 days straight with NO KIDS! We both love to take photos and love to scrapbook but never seem to make time for it. So this weekend we've enlisted the help of Grandparents and Daddies and we're making it happen!

I've never taken the train before - I mean little things like riding the subway in NY or Boston or taking a scenic train ride in NH - but never a 6 hour trip!!! It should be interesting and fun. I have books, magazines, word searches and snacks and plan to fully enjoy the hours of solitude!

Oh and my scrapbooking goal is to finish 100 pages this weekend ... think I can do it?!

I'll be home Monday night just in time for our church's VBS - I'll 'see' you all then! =)

Art Contest

My daughters recently entered an Art contest and BOTH of their paintings were chosen as winners! Wooohooo! I am so proud!

They have been taking art lessons from my Father in law for a few years now and have made some really beautiful art work. These are the paintings they submitted that won the contest. The first one is Hope's - she is 8 ... and the second one is Joy's - she is 7.

Wacky Wednesday

Last week my oldest daughter participated in Soccer camp. It was an amazing experience for her and she had a blast! On Wednesday they had a 'Wacky Wednesday' contest and encouraged not only the kids, but also the parents to dress up wacky.

Hope begged me to please dress up too and at first I was thinking how silly I would feel but then decided that it would make Hope soooo happy so I went with it.

Leaving my house in my car I was feeling a little silly, with my hair dyed hot pink and all - but overall it was really fun and I'm glad I did it! Sometimes you gotta just lay aside your pride and make those fun memories with your kids!


{she DOES have soccer shorts on under that skirt - you just can't see it in the pic!}

Ordinary

I'm reading the most fabulous book right now. I won it on a blog giveaway a while ago, you probably remember me mentioning it. It's called 'The Gift of an Ordinary Day' by Katrina Kenison. After having the book in my possession for several weeks I suddenly realized with much delight that it's actually signed personally by the author! "To Kathy~ Wishing you many wonderfully ordinary days! Katrina Kenison"

It's been an eye-opening book, one that I have already shed some tears over and smiled wide, happy smiles over. In the very first chapter I decided that it would never be a book that I'd pass on to anyone else and I pulled out my pink highlighter and began highlighting many, many, many parts. So many wonderful thoughts and ideas that I just wanted to be able to go back to and find easily. Don't get me wrong - I would highly recommend this book for any Mom and will very likely buy copies for friends -- but this highlighted copy I will keep for myself. Forever. ;)

I know for sure I will share many, many quotes/thoughts from this book in the coming days/months/years. But for now, here is just a small sampling.

"The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest." ~~Thomas Moore

"I don't think anyone 'finds joy'", writer Dawna Markova observes, "Rather, we cultivate it by searching for the preciousness of small things, the ordinary miracles that strengthen our hearts so we can keep them open to what is most difficult."

"And it may be too that happiness is really a state of mind we choose for ourselves, a way of being that we cultivate from one moment to the next, rather than the result of realizing our ambitions or acquiring whatever it is that we think we most desire." ~Katrina Kenison

I'll be sharing more soon! But for now I've been enjoying the simplicity of long summer days watching my daughters swim while I immerse myself in a book on the deck. I'm embracing the 'ordinary' and enjoying every minute of it!

Maine

Sorry for being a total blog slacker lately ... the truth is we've just been enjoying our summer so much that I haven't had much time to blog ... but I guess that's a good thing, right?!

This past weekend we went to Maine with our friends and stayed with them at my friend Lynn's parent's cabin {wow that was a mouthful!} Lester and Nancy were very welcoming hosts and we had a very relaxing and fun time. There's something to be said for a vacation where you do nothing but relax. No shopping, no site seeing, no rushing about to amusement parks or venues - simply swimming in the lake or floating in the water - complete and total relaxation!

OH, and we did have some FUN too ... have you ever been on one of these?! If not, you are missing out - big time!

Behind the kids on the tube is the house we stayed in - it's right on the lake, has a great dock and waterfront area and is tucked away in this great little cove.

I could NOT stop smiling and laughing the whole time I was on the tube! Well, that and a little screaming when we hit some big bumps!

Each of us on the boat ...

Bob and the girls - I love this picture of them enjoying the summer so much!

This is what I did pretty much most of the time up there ... floated and floated and floated in the beautiful water!

This is what the kids did pretty much all the time - jumped and jumped and jumped off the floating dock ...

Summer + friends = FUN, FUN, FUN!!!

Hope you are enjoying your summer too! Make time to jump in the water, swim with the kids, jump off the dock, float in a lake/river/pool/ocean ---- enjoy and have fun! I want to add real quick that the whole time we were there I did not fix my hair, put on makeup or worry about how I looked. It was more fun to just enjoy the time then to worry about those things. Summer is going by really fast already - what will you do to have some fun before the time is gone?

Fun Family Fourth - the people!

What would a fun, family holiday be without the family? That's the most important part! We are blessed to be able to live fairly close to much of our immediate and extended families. Most of our families on both sides live within a 3 hour drive of us. How we got so lucky I'll never know ... especially when I grew up in an entirely different country!

Here are some of this year's attendees ....

Our daughter Joy.
Aunt Debbie and Hope

Joy, cousin Thomas, Hope and cousin Jonathon

All 5 cousins eating homemade red, white and blue pops {more on that later}

Cousin Jonathon

PopPop and GiGi

Aunt Debbie and Uncle Rick

My in laws - Dan and Robin

My lovely Mom and I

My wonderful sis in law and I

Cousin Thomas {or I guess to me he's a nephew}

Hope

Joy {love this shot of her!}

Cousin Andrew

Uncle Danny with Jonathon in the pool

Family is truly a treasure to us. We are blessed beyond words to have been raised in the families we have. We couldn't think of a better way to celebrate a holiday than to be surrounded by our families.

An important article on drowning

When I read this article yesterday I was shocked. And scared. We have a pool in our backyard and we spend lots of time swimming in the ocean. Our girls are both very good swimmers but you just never know what can happen. The article scared me because I don't know if I would have recognized the signs of a drowning person had I not read it.

I really hope every one of you will take a moment or two to read this and pass it on. It could save the life of someone you know and love someday.

Click here to go to the article.

Fun Family Fourth - the decor!

Fourth of July has to be one of the most fun holidays to decorate for! Oh and did I mention easy too? Yep - I think it's super easy because I just look for items around my house that are red/white and blue and use them and it all comes together beautifully!

First, here is our deck area. On the deck we have one of those canopies and we have colorful Christmas lights strung up all over the inside of it - it looks so neat at night when it's dark out and you plug in the colorful lights!

I bought these paper Chinese lanterns that were patriotic for $1 each and hung them up from the ceiling of the canopy. I have two long plastic tables which I covered in plastic tablecloths {also $1 each}. And the flag hanging behind the table was given to me for free from my Father in law many years ago - actually I have about 8 of them that he gave me and I just keep them in a box and use them year after year for our 4th of July BBQ.
I like to keep it simple for clean up purposes so I bought all disposable dishes, silverware, napkins and cups. Most of these items were also just $1 a pack.

A cute tin to hold the plastic ware ... paid $1.99 for it.

This is my favorite part ... first of all, I think everyone should have at least ONE red vase. Think of all the holidays when you can put it to good use - Christmas, Valentine's Day, 4th of July, fall time, etc. Flowers just seem to POP in a red vase! I have two {what can I say, I work at a flower shop, I get to see the cutest vases and get them at a discount!} and I just love the way my blue hydrangeas look in the red vases. I also bought some inexpensive ribbons from my local craft store and simply tied them around the vases and candles.

Oh yeah, the candles - I seem to have this thing for collecting too many candles - I actually have a whole cupboard for my candles! So I just went through it and chose some that were red, white or blue and added the festive ribbons to those too.

My other red vase - I love the pedestal and the shape of this vase!

The tin cans have candles in them - the girls did a punched-tin craft with them months ago and I just added more ribbon to make them festive.

A 'Happy 4th of July' banner that cost me a dollar - and yes you better believe I will save all of this stuff away in a box for using next year!

I have had this milk jug vase for years, can't even remember where it came from - but I love it with the blue hydrangea {are you seeing a pattern here with my obsession with hydrangeas?!}

More of the flags that my father in law gave me - we have hung these on the fence like this year after year and I always love them!

A pop up tent out in the yard to provide some shade - I added the star garlands which also cost me just a dollar.

And that's all for now! Decorating for a holiday or party doesn't have to be fancy, expensive or take a lot of time. Just keep it simple and have fun with it!

PS. for those that live in New England - all of my good $1 bargains were found at The Christmas Tree Shop. Love that place!

More of my Gardens and Yard

I absolutely love gardens, flowers and gardening. Unfortunately I tend to have a bit of a brown thumb and also just don't know how to do things properly when it comes to gardening. My dream is to have all perennials that come up in stages so that from spring to fall there is always something blooming. But for now I'm slowly adding a few new perennials every year and it's getting there little by little.

I also have a LOT of gardens around my house so it's expensive to try to fill all the areas with plants and flowers. But when we moved into this house there was basically nothing so we've definitely come a long way in the 9 years that we've been here.

This is one of my favorites ... I'm embarrassed to say I don't even know the name of them! I think they are some sort of Lily. This one is a little past it's prime which is why the petals seem a little thin.

Another fave - again not sure what it's called. I just added some of these last year and they add such a beautiful boost of color!

I have lots of Lilies and I still want more! Lilies are simply gorgeous and so easy to grow. I hope to keep adding more and more every year.

These are my white Easter lilies .... there is something so simple and beautiful about white lilies!

I added these cute beachy signs to the fence gate this summer. I love all things related to summer and the beach ...

The garden between the driveway and the fence - this is where a lot of my lilies are ...the buoys are all hand painted by my father in law. I'll have to post more pictures of those another time - he is a very talented painter and the buoys make a great addition to the garden area.

More gorgeous lilies - I love the bright orange!!

This summer I added a couple of hanging plants to the side of the deck area.

This is the other hanging planter ...

The side of the pool deck ... my little corner garden is below the hanging baskets.

I love this tiny little garden area but I don't plant a whole lot in it because my crazy puppy still likes to climb in there and mess with it sometimes.

I have some annuals - love this gorgeous hot pink geranium!

This is the patio area - this summer I added some pretty colored gems scattered in the rocks - I love the little burst of color that it adds! I actually would love to get even more gems at some point!

This is my little patio area - looking back toward the back of the house and garage...

When we bought this house 9 years ago I bought some hydrangea plants and planted them that summer. This is the FIRST time in 9 years that they have ever bloomed! I am beside myself with excitement that one of my favorite flowers has FINALLY bloomed for me!

And that's all for now! I hope you have enjoyed my garden tour - I would love any advice and tips!