Day with Mimi

Isn't this gorgeous? Mrs. Robertson ask me if I would like her Mink Stole and of course I was honored. It is a greyish - tan color; very unusual. I love it!

Another view.

And another.....it has pockets which I didn't realize at first.

Another meal from "Everyday Food"- Linguine with Sausage and Peppers; Dave really liked this.

I made cupcakes for our neighbors who had a daughter- Ella - so pink cupcakes were in order, although you can't tell by this picture.

Another attempt.

A little crochet is being done - these great granny squares are for the "Larger than Life Bag" from Interweave Knits.

I found this cute little sheep mug at Tuesday Morning .

Alex loves giving Mimi kisses.

Meighan in her Grandma's pink shoes! This girl is going to have a thing for shoes too.

Oh well, they almost fit.

Mom has her hands full with these two.

Meg not happy for some reason??

Mimi and Alex.

Meighan and Alex love to visit Mimi.

Yard update and visitors

Emmy spent the night on Tuesday and she enjoyed driving the car - our neighbors got in on it too.

Tasha was cremated before we moved from the lake. Her ashes were in a beautiful purple bag and kept in Dave's room. When we were at Virginia Beach we found this stone. Dave painted Tasha's name on it and buried her ashes in our rose garden. She was a great dog, a very hairy, shedding dog but she was so lovable.



Our first veggie from the garden - a sweet banana pepper that will make it to our salad tonight.
The garden is doing great. Sugar snap peas climbing up, corn in the back is about 1 - 2 feet high and I put in a few more tomatoe plants to the left:

Brussel sprouts to the right are huge, green beans, rhubard, okra to the left and cukes, melons in the back:

Tomatoes in the back, cabbage to the left and lettuce to the right:

I made this for dinner tonight - Shrimp Pad Thai from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food "Great Food Fast". This book is great, I want to make everything from it. This dish was scrumptious; I couldn't find anchovy paste so I substitued. It was a little spicy but we enjoyed it. We ate it here:

Under our pagoda - the lights really add to the ambiance. This is becoming our preferred spot for our meals. We cooked hot dogs when Emmy was over and then made s'mores on the patio.

We have 14 fish in the pond.

Dave found two turtles in our yard. This little guy and one that was a lot larger. I didn't get a picture of the other one. We can't find him - Dave found him in the pond and put him back in; don't know if he got out or if he is hiding.

My yard man!!

Flea Market Finds

Dave and I love going to yard sales and the flea market. Sometimes you go and don't see a thing you want and other times you hit the jackpot. We really found some great bargains last weekend:

This kitchen set was $4.oo.

This metal dollhouse, popular when I was a kid, was $5.00. I had seen one of these at an antique/thrift shop last fall and it was $35.00. Glad I didn't buy that one. And this little Harley leather jacket for Alex - I know he will look too cute in it:

And this little beauty. We had been looking for one of these for quite a while. It is very cute. Runs off a car battery, goes forward and reverse, lights on the front that work and a walkey talkey that works. We know the kids will love driving this.

Bird Happenings at the Metz's

Dave and I love birds and have quite a bird sanctuary in our yard. We have a total of 6 birdhouses and many bird feeders, including hummingbird feeders. We had quite a few visitors in our yard the first year but this year has been very active. We have had 2 blue bird families - these are such beautiful birds. The male is such a striking shade of blue. I love walking by the blue bird houses and hearing the baby birds chirping! I would love to see them leave their home and learning to fly but no such luck as of yet. Early this spring whenever Dave and I sat on the front porch, we thought we saw something flying off the porch but just couldn't figure out what it could be, we thought it may be a bat. Then I discovered that there was a bird nest on the wreath on our front door - mystery solved! When I peeked into the nest there were bird eggs and one blue egg was sitting on top of the wreath. We tried to limit use of the front door and before long there were babies - it was hard to tell how many there were. It was such a small next and we think there were 3 babies. They were really stuffed into that nest. Here are some pics:

This picture was taken from our bedroom. Can you see the blue bird on top of the birdhouse?

Another bird nest in a not so likely location. I use this old tea pot as a planter. Recently when I was cleaning off the back porch I noticed what looked like a bird nest in the making. We have a canopy on the back porch and I had not zipped up the panels for the season and a bird was entering through the opening and making a little home. I hadn't thought about it for the last couple of weeks, and was on the porch with Alex this past weekend and was doing some re-arranging and discovered 6 little white eggs deep into the nest!

I hope mama and daddy haven't given up on these guys with all the activity that has been going on. I won't zip up the closures on the canopy until I know for sure.

Virginia Beach Trip

We headed to Virginia Beach for the beach music festival on May 19. The weather wasn't very good the first 2 days, but by Saturday the weather was great. Some of our favorite beach bands performed. We went to "Stepping Out" on Thursday night, a local dance club and reallyenjoyed it. So much so we went back on Friday night, but it was a little disappointing. The band wasn't very good and there weren't many people so we left early.

This is the second year we have stayed at the Econo Lodge at 27th street. It is only 2 blocks from where the stage is for the beach music festival. We were in a room at ground level on the very end. These fish decorate the walkway from Virginia Beach Blvd. to the boardwalk.

Dave reading the newspaper on the patio. It is great to be sitting here and seeing the ocean and all the passer by's.
One of our favorite restaurants and always on our list when we vacation in Virginia Beach. I always get an artichoke, a veggie you don't see in many restaurants. We also go to Mahi Ma's - the food is great and they have a band outside every night. I didn't take a lot of pictures this trip, I must do better next time.

Garden Update

Dave built this pergola in just a few days ( he amazes me, so very talened). It cost about a $100 and a lot of Dave's sweat, but he did a great job and we are very pleased with it. We recently saw a pergola in a catalog that was $1000! This isn't a very good picture but it will look better with some lumination and decoration with plants. We moved the grill here since this side of the yard is right off of our kitchen. A lot of meals will be eaten here.
Have I said what a great husband I have? Well I do. When I got home from work one day last week, this beauty was waiting for me. I have want a wicker lounge to add to our wicker set for a while - and there it was. I immediately reclined and I got this:

My favorite cocktail- Apple Martini, which Dave has perfected. Better than any I have had at any bar, restaurant, etc.

Dave under the pergola, painting it.

Our garden is doing great - this is the sugar snap peas climbing up like crazy, in the back, our corn about 2 inches high.
These are brussel sprouts. I have never had much luck with these, one of my favorite veggies. So far they are looking very good.

This section has cucumbers, melon, green beans, okra and rhubarb.

This is our rose garden - Dave loves roses, they are his favorite. We have never had much luck with them but we won't give up. The latest one we bought was a beautiful peachy-yellow color and was named "Princess Diana". I love the titles they give to roses - there is a deep velvety red one called "Mr. Lincoln".
Another type of rose - climbing roses. We have two of them and their blooms were absolutely gorgeous this year. These are light pink, I took the picture a little too late, a lot of the petals have already fallen.

This is the climbing rose in the front yard.

This is my favorite, one of many - hydrangea - the first bloom of the season. The bushes are looking real good but not many blooms yet - I keep hoping.