Greenhouse and Winery

My sisters and I went greenhouse hopping today and boy do I have stories to tell you. There is never a dull moment when we get together. So I'm very sick but I was not letting these girls go without me, what am I gonna do at home while I'm sick anyway?? We took off about 2ish and since I didn't take anything to help my flu I could drive, I have the biggest truck and when we go shopping we need the biggest truck we can get. My sister DiAnn wasn't with us, she was at the winery that morning and so far we still couldn't find her. By the time we got out of town we found her so we waited at the local tavern (outside in the parking lot, we're good Catholic girls, but it is 5 o'clock somewhere). So now we talk with DiAnn and she tells us all the new wine they have at the winery..... hummmm let's go there first, see I told you it was 5 0'clock. We all tasted and bought a few bottles of wine, my voice is back to normal.....I'm cured....now we're off to the greenhouses.

We find the first one and it's crowded, we grab a cart and start filling it with fun plants and Starla had a very pretty hanging basket. We couldn't get the cart down one of the houses so we leave it at the entrance and we're gone for about 15 minutes, we come back and Starla's hanging basket is gone. This is worse than the day after Thanksgiving Day Sales, people are stealing plants.... we find the guy who stole the planter and confront him.


Starla - "That's my planter"
Guy - "Nope I bought it"
Starla - "You took it off our cart"
Guy - "No that guy over there helped me find it"
Starla - "That's my plant, you took it off my cart"
Guy - licking his ice cream cone "Nope it's mine"

Starla and Gayle go find the lady who owns the shop and explain to her and see if she can help them find another one just like it. The lady puts out an Amber Alert.... not kidding, she alerts all the checkers that if anyone tries to buy a basket like the one in that guys cart to call her back up there. The lady asks the man where he found the planter and he said "that guy helped me", she says "that man doesn't work here". It's really getting weird now!! Well they found another one just like it and now we are getting out of there. Plant thief, be careful they're everywhere.

Now we're traveling down the road and Gayle is giving directions but she calls Bill because something doesn't look right. Here's her conversations

Gayle - "Billy, what's that road that's off of 29?"
Gayle - "yep that one when your going that way and we want to go to that one town"
Gayle - "Oh that's right we're going the wrong way"
Gayle - "yep that road in that one town"
Gayle - "okay thanks, now I know where I am"

WHAT???? what the heck kind of conversation is that? How the heck does Bill know what she's talking about? I think they talk in a foreign language but we turned around and sure enough she knew where she needed to go. Who needs a GPS???

About 3 greenhouses later we have the truck loaded down with plant. As I'm loading my plants a man and his wife walk by and he laughs at how full the truck is. I tell him "Hey we still have open cup holders inside the truck so this is nothing" By the time we drove home we had one cup holder full and the backseat was full. Ahhhh the trill of flower shopping!! We stopped at 2 more places after this picture.

So after we're all done we celebrate with a bottle of wine.

We were missing our sister Sharon so we toasted to Sharon, the queen of gardening..... living in her zone 5 and up. No I'm not jealous!!

Then Gayle found a replacement for Sharon so she could pour the wine for us.

Look at her hangging onto that wine bottle and not sharing with us!!

Lynn’s Shower

Today was Lynn’s baby shower.  She wanted a springy look and she got just that on the inside and the outside.  Here are some of the decorations. 

Now we all know where Garrett gets his looks from, not from Grandma.

I printed all of Lynn’s baby blog post and put them in one book for her.  Even though I’ve read them from the beginning it was still fun to go back to the beginning and read them again, and watch her tummy grow.

These are Grandma Fran’s Fiesta dishes, Lynn has already spoken for them when I’m done with them.  At the end of the shower I asked if all dishes were accounted for and she never even noticed them…. I guess she was a little busy!!

We played a fun game where a rattle was tied onto a long string and another on the other side.  Then you take the rattle and put in down the first girls shirt and down her pants and out your pants leg…. then you put it up the next girls pants let and up her shirt, stringing through your clothes, there are usually two girls tied together while one is putting the first rattle in the other is trying to get the second one out.  The winning team gets the entire rattle/string through all team members clothes.  This was loud and hilarious, the next shower you have make sure you wear loose fitting clothes!!  : )

The winning team…. they weren’t excited or anything!!  Look at the sisters in the background all teaming up to help Gayle and DiAnn

The hard workers for the shower…. Shawna on the left, Elly, Lynn and Shannon in the back.  Lots of nice gifts to welcome little blueberry into this world.

Hurray up blueberry these two can’t wait to play with you!!

More painting

This weekend I painted the wood wall between the dining room and kitchen. This is one of the first projects we did in the house, the wood came from the sawmill across from Mom and Dad's house, and Fritz's been gone for 18 years so it was a long time ago. We wanted to tear it down but we did such a good job of gluing and nailing it on that we'd have to tear the wall down and build it again so the next choice was paint it. The kids wanted us to leave it as is since it's what they remember but it just didn't go with the decor any longer. I was having a hard time getting this job done since I also didn't want to cover up one of our first memories in fixing up this old house but I tackled it today and it looks really good. The old wood was so yellow from age that it made the kitchen cabinets look yellow, which they're not.

Here is the view with the old wood.

And here is the view with the wall painted. The dining room looks much wider and longer, the kitchen actually looks like part of the house, you notice the cupboards. No more busy yellow old wood, I'm not real sold on it yet but it's better. I may need to hang some pictures or curly iron pieces on it to break up the diagonal pattern.

Easter at Home

During holidays we all spend so much time running from one house to another and eating at every stop.  This Easter we decided to not go any where and to have all of us together for a sit down meal.  I tried to soak up the sun while John and I wait for the kids to arrive.  He thought he needed to take my picture and he’d be disappointed if I didn’t include it.

   

The day started with Elly, Garrett and Blueberry finding their baskets and hidden eggs.  Elly is a horrible finder so you have to play the hot cold game with her.

  

We had a meal of Ham, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Coleslaw, Asparagus, and Rolls with lots of left overs.  I forgot to take a picture of the set table it was so pretty with my yellow and white dishes and now the black and yellow chairs.  I even did the fancy multiple plates with the pretty napkins on them….. darn why did I forget?  Now it’s time for the dishes, and I don’t have a dishwasher.  The girls and John helped me so it wasn’t so bad.

Adam and Elly really miss each other so when they get time to play it’s pretty wild.  They both love it and we all giggle at them, Adam better watch out when Garrett gets old enough to join in he’ll be the one pinned!  Michelle tried to help Elly pin him but I’m not sure it ever happened.  Elly yelled “ding, ding, ding, ding pinned” lots. 

 

We ended the night with a sleep over.  Wow it looks like a tornado went through here.

We had a great Easter and I hope you had the same with your family. 

Elly brought John a dozen boiled Easter eggs that Adam and Michelle helped her with on Friday.  Elly said it was her collection, so John takes 2 of the eggs to work on Monday and when she came back on Monday night, John told her that her eggs were very good.  She got so mad at him for cracking 2 of her collection eggs.  Then later that night she thinks it’s fun to hide the plastic eggs and let Grandma find them so I told her she could hide 10 of them.  I found 8 and couldn’t find the other 2 and asked her for help.  She says “Oh I’m so sorry Grandma I put them in the carton of my collection since Grandpa cracked two of mine”  We laughed so hard, it’s just amazing how those little minds work.  Then we had to play again so she hides the 10 eggs again and I go look for them and I start to put 10 jelly beans in the basket.  She says very seriously “Grandma why would you do that” with her confused look on her face.   Oh she is so much fun and getting way too big.

Easter Bunny..... Chicken?

I always thought the Easter Bunny just used the front door, he's not like Santa Clause and comes down the chimney but this year there must have been some confusion. John hears something in the basement, it sounds like someone is scratching and struggling to get out. He goes to investigate but first he calls me. I'm in the garage so he uses the intercom and says "Connie can you come in here", "there's something in the basement and I may need some help". So I come in the house and we find something has come down the chimney and it stuck in the pipe.

Now how are we gonna get it out? Is it the Easter Bunny? nope it's the Easter Chicken, he must have taken the wrong flight and now he's in a pickle.... or pipe.

So now while John is taking off the cover we both are ready for this stupid thing to come flying out of there and scare the crap out of us.

I'm hiding behind a pair of snowpants as John is on the front line of Operation Easter Chicken Get Away. I opened the doors in the house just in case he flies around he'll have the door open to just go out, before he drops his jelly beans all over the house.


He's still too big to get out on his own, we're not even sure which side is the head. He's lucky it's warmed up or he would have gotten a little warm in his new home.




Here he is the Easter Chicken!



Have a very Happy Easter and don't eat too many jelly beans!

Prom

Adam and Michelle went to Prom this year.  Lynn was here to help her little brother do his hair and get those darn cufflinks on.  His vest is hanging behind Lynn and yes it’s camo, typical Adam. 

We took quite a few pics of him before he left to pick up Michelle.  He wasn’t to thrilled about sitting on the dresser but he did it.  Ignore his camo slippers that he wore, yep he wore them to prom, he didn’t even order black shoes.

And more pictures when he returned with both of his special girls.

They had a fairly large group that they met up with for more pictures.

 

And of course I need to get pictures of the girls shoes…. and then Adam felt left out.

And a few of just the guys.

Then their ride came to pick them up for dinner

I love all the colors of the dresses and these kids were so darn excited about the whole evening they had planned, it was so cute, they were so cute.

 

See ya later buddy, have fun and be good!!