THE GARDEN

The Gardener's Morning

The robin's song at daybreak Is a clarion call to me. Get up and get out in the garden, For the morning hours flee. I cannot resist the summons, What earnest gardener could? For the golden hours of morning Get into the gardener's blood. The magic spell is upon me, I'm glad that I did not wait; For life's at its best in the morning, As you pass through the garden gate.- Howard Dolf

It has been fun taking care of our beautiful garden. The tomatoes are just starting to look good, we think the late spring early summer storms took a tole on them. The Butternut Squash the Zucchini Squash, & Spaghetti Squash, along with the Red Peppers, Ivory Peppers and Green Bell peppers are all growing strong. We even have an Egg Plant! Our freezer is already full and I'm giving away a lot of zucchini bread and brownies. We are also enjoying our Spagehetti squash with our spaghetti dinners. Life is good, I'm loving it!

P.S. Cherry Tomatoes are coming out of our ears!

Collin's Baptism

Saturday, September 12th, family and friends gathered around to see Collin's baptism and confirmation. Grandpa John baptized Collin, Great Grandpa Bill and Uncle Larry were the witnesses. The children gathered close to the baptismal font and watched as Papa John said the prayer and gently laid Collin into the warm water. After the baptism, Papa John, Grandpa Bill, Larry and Bishop Smart laid their hands on Collins head and Papa confirmed Collin. It was a beautiful day for a baptism. The talks were very good, not too complicated for our young ones to understand. Our family went out for lunch afterwards. Collin received cards and gifts from family members and we all enjoyed each others company. I had to laugh with Jay, when he said he didn't know he was going to a Bar mitzvah.

We are so blessed to have such a wonderful grandson like Collin. He is such a good boy and smart.....wow is he smart! He has a tender heart too.....what a great kid!

THANK YOU RACHEL

I'm late in posting this, but I still wanted to write about our fun time with Rachel and Robin. August has come and gone, but I still wanted to blog about our great visit with them in August, so here I am at 4:15 am trying to put my thoughts into words. After Young Women's camp I came home to our visitors from Texas.

I was fixing dinner for the family and our guests when Rachel said she remembered how I didn't like using paper plates etc. this was when Robin and Paul were only babies. She didn't know that I was about to pull out the paper plates and plastic cusps. So she helped me set the table with a nice table cloth, china and glasses. If I would have had time I would have taken off the stickers of the beautiful Chrystal glasses John brought back from Germany, but we still used nice glasses. I can't believe how I have changed. Maybe because I have little grand kids running around, (but I had little children running around and I still managed to have nice plates on the table with real glasses years ago). Rachel reminded me of how I didn't like people washing their plastic cups and using them again, that just defeats the whole purpose of using disposable items! But there in my dishwasher were plastic cups. What happened to me along the way? I always loved to go the extra mile and make a dinner not only tasty, but the table setting inviting to look at also. Thank you Rachel for reminding me that it is important to make a great presentation, it shows how much I love my family and guests. Next time my grand kids come to dinner, their grandma is going to have a beautiful setting (even if the meal is only spaghetti), I can't promise that I wont still use paper products, but maybe a little less. I want to make my dinners more inviting and heck this way I'm helping out the whole environmental problem, can't beat that.