Father's Day Weekend Wrap - Up!

Our party last night went great, met some fantastic new people and enjoyed conversation about gardens and where our food comes from with people whose eyes don't glaze over - you know what I mean, don't you?!  :)

Lots of kids here last night, I lost count LOL but they all seemed to have a good time in spite of temps in the mid 90's still at 6 pm.

Some of the "grown-ups", I'm in the blue ball cap and the gal I'm talking to in the black shirt is the much loved Gina of the  "Miss Gina let us gather the eggs, mom!" fame :)

not children, but not really "grown-ups" yet, either... LOL

More kids... it seemed we were growing them on vines last night!

Is this the best hostess gift ever?  Two guesses where the zinnias & eggs came from  :)

Thanks, Gina!

On to today - I did not get around to dealing with all the green tomatoes, but I had enough ripe Amish Paste to make a quart of sauce.  I also harvested some marjoram, oregano and basil to go in there with the last of last year's garlic.  Not much, but it will get used this week so at least I didn't have to fire up the canner just yet.  I will definitely be getting to the green tomatoes tomorrow.

Other than sauce making and bread baking early, it was Father's Day, and Daddy wanted to go swimming so that's what we did.  We didn't go to the beach but instead the pool on base, knowing it would be much less crowded today as well as a bit cooler, since their whole pool deck is full of big umbrellas.

Even though it was 91 out today, it stayed pretty gray and windy which made it tolerable.  We got our swimming done just as they were talking of closing the pool before the t-storms moved in.

The beans are finally coming in!  Hubby got a nice Father's Day meal with his favorites, steak, stuffed potatoes, beans and bread.  Maybe not the most imaginative thing, but definitely comfort food.

My dad was off flying to CT this weekend having a reunion with old submarine buddies so I'm sure he had a great Father's Day weekend even though he's in the air right now and I can't call him - Happy Father's Day, Dad!

This video is for my mom - she doesn't care for swimming at all, although she is very happy I'm sure that all of her offspring do swim LOL - but Loch went off the diving board today and wanted to "freak out grandma", so here ya go, mom - that's 12 feet of water your 8 year old grandson is jumping into :)

And Happy Father's Day to all of you, hope you were able to spend it with a special Dad, enjoy being that special Dad or talking about memories of a special dad with your family!

Happy Easter!

Here's our day, in an "eggshell"...

We started off with an Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard for all the boys, below is Loch in the back, and friend "T" who lives next door.  Last year I remember dressing them in winter coats at 6 am, today... shorts - it was 89º today!

Here's the boys with their bounty

There's been a lot of talk amongst my blogger friends this week about their Easter traditions and it made me think, and we don't really have any...

So I made one up - 

Below, prepping for the 1st Annual Peep Shoot!

I know some of you love the Peeps, but we hate 'em!  The only good Peep is a dead Peep as far as I'm concerned, so we set 'em up for a lovely Redneck Easter :)

As Chicken Mama told me earlier today, "that's sick & twisted" LOL - but that's how we roll :) - and I know if she was here she'd shoot Peeps, too!

The boys had a blast!  Above is Loch, always serious...

Below, Finn in his combat pose...  (check his outfit, he dressed himself)

Below, neighbor "T" getting some instruction on BB gun skills from hubby, for his 1st time he was a pretty good shot!

Poor Purple Peep...

  

After a lunch break, it was back out to hit the sprinklers, it was that hot!

Marley was a mess, I wasn't too keen on her getting this dirty, but she is a farm dog forced to live in the suburbs, and was having a huge amount of fun for such an old gal, how could I say no?

No Marley vs. sprinkler day is complete without a few neurotic dog videos (some of you may remember her obsession about hoses), so here you go:

In between all this, hubby and I managed to get a huge amount of work done in the yard.  My energy came back at least for today, and we did a lot of chores that have been on my list for a long time.  The kind that always get kicked to the bottom of the list:  a burn barrel going, cleaning the woodpile, raking up leaves and pinestraw from behind the sheds where no one goes, cleaning up random objects back there like broken patio umbrellas, trellises, PVC pipe... do any of you have these dumping grounds?  Not sure how I'll feel tomorrow, but today was very productive.

We finished it off with low-key burgers on the grill in the backyard with the neighbors, a really nice evening.  The kids played today until they were ragged, and I think they will sleep well.  Good thing, since Spring Break is over today and it's back to school tomorrow, YAY for me!

Below, Finn & T dining al fresco, about 82º at 5 pm, beautiful weather...

On this day we celebrate LIFE, and I hope you all had a great day in church, with family, friends, or just celebrating the life around you that Spring brings. Even though we are apart from extended family, we have hubby/daddy home with us this year and are very thankful for that.  Our thoughts are with those that are deployed and serving our country right now so hubby can take his turn with us!

From Redneck VA - Happy Easter to all y'all!

Holiday Exploring

The past week has been absolutely beautiful, and couldn't ask for better weather. I got a ton of work done in the garden and will post on that tomorrow, but today I'll focus on the 4th of July! Since getting so much work done, we played hooky on the last day of nice temps to go and explore our area and have some fun! We have such a variety of places to explore all within 20 minutes of our house, unfortunately the heat, humidity, and snakes keep us from enjoying it to the full extent! We have the ocean, bay, salt marshes, woods, and swamp. We tried to do it all yesterday! We started out Saturday night by camping in the tent in the backyard. Sunday morning, I packed lunches, bikes, hiking shoes & snakebite kit (no joke!) and decided to see if hubby and I might start being able to "get our life back" a little bit by seeing how much the kids could handle LOL! We biked a little, hiked a little, and paddled a little, although we had to rent a canoe since I can't load ours by myself and the kids are still too little to help.

Loaded & ready to explore!

Crossing bridge over brackish marsh of Back Bay headed to the swamp

Beautiful drive with no traffic - it seems everyone flocks to the oceanfront, which is fine with me!

Finn ready to try out his new bike

There they go! While this camp road sufficed as a "trail" for today since it's the first time they have been off the pavement, I intend on exposing them to a little more "trailness" in the future. Singletracks get a little hairy around here, not because of the difficulty, but because of the swamp sucking you in or snakes in the trees and trail!

A little redundant, but daddy will enjoy the video, they were barely off of training wheels when he deployed.

Lunchtime break near the boat launch

Finnegan is about to discover why I told him not to feed the animals...

Northwest River

Heading towards the swamp

Heeeeree, snakey, snakey!

The views and sounds of the swamp are absolutely amazing

The kids have a ways to go yet on stamina, but it was a good day and we were all tired! No water moccasins dropping out of trees today, no bandages required, and we must have used enough bug spray because we emerged intact and still happy! It was home for a couple of hours and then to the beach on the Naval Base for fireworks. I gave up years ago trying to take pictures of fireworks displays, but I will show you the sights on our hike out to the beach:

Atlantic Ocean

Unspoiled beaches not on the resort strip!

I'll leave you with this morning's harvest:

Orange Wellington tomatoes, 4th of July tomatoes, cucumber, raspberries, blackberries

I hope you all had a great holiday weekend and got to do something fun! It's in the mid to upper 90's again for the foreseeable future so I will be trying to get some work done indoors... it all kind of fell by the wayside this past week!

Weekend Fun!

The past weekend was unbearably hot and humid, with the exception of my Saturday morning harvest, I didn't venture out in the daytime AT ALL! Heat index was 100 degrees and that's too hot for me!

Saturday night, however, as the sun was going down, I took the kids to the beach to see a concert. The USO was putting on free concerts all weekend in appreciation of the military, and Saturday evening was Hall & Oates! I have always wanted to see them, so not even the humid evening would stop me. We got down to the Oceanfront and luckily the sun had gone down behind the hotels on the strip, so most of the beach area was shaded at that time. (These hotels are an unfortunate side effect of an economy based on tourism)!

Anyway, great concert, love that everyone was my age or older so we all sat in our beach chairs and the view was mostly unobstructed save for a few morons who didn't seem to know who Hall & Oates were... (passing teens and drunk college kids commenting "who are the lame guys on stage")...!

Here's some photos of the evening, the kids actually had a great time, so now I know that I can bring them to concerts outdoors at least!

Loch & I (the kids hates watermelon I found out... would have been nice to know before I planted it!)

we got there early to stake out our sand

bringing sand toys was one of the smartest things I have done recently!

You might be old if... you are knitting and at a Hall & Oates concert!

They sung the National Anthem shortly after this was taken, with the crowd all military and military families, it was very moving and always nice to see how completely silent military families are during this, even the kids

Check out this guy! Who the hey brings a bag o'warm beer and a CAT to a concert? Yet another single guy who will still be single tomorrow...

Music in full swing now, I am so far back because the kids need room to play and we need to be near porta-potties, LOL! I had my binoculars though.

Finnegan waving a flag for daddy

My kid was obviously born in the wrong decade... what's better than videotaping someone who doesn't know they are being filmed?

p.s. as I was finishing up this post Finn yells from the other room "hey mom, can we go to the Caymans?" The Caymans? Where do they come up with this stuff?????