A memory from the boys!

When my boys were small, they loved to find old locust skins "hanging" around on stuff! Sometimes, they're referred to as Cicadas, although they are unrelated. Little boys thought it was hilarious to find the skins, gather them, and then find things to put them on....such as mom's clothes, the side of dishes or basically anything or place where a locust skin should not be!

Gotta love little boys!

So, imagine my chuckle yesterday when I walked outside and saw this little buddy hanging on the screen to our porch! You can even see the slit on its back where it slithered out of the old skin. Yet, sigh~~~~~little boys turn into big boys and go their own ways. I had no one to show this to or laugh about it with..........so I brought it here!!

Do any of you have small, crazy things turned memories from the past, that continue to make you smile even now?

Tweet, Tweet!!!!

LoveBirds!! Seriously! If anyone needs a pick-me-up, come on over to Rio Bonito for awhile and witness the sweetness going on between these two!!

OMG........they came to spend the afternoon with us and the other chirren and their friends.....goo goo eyes, smilin', telling secrets to each other, laughing lots!!!! Sigh...................so much fun to watch!! Brings pure joy to my heart...........to see my youngest and his "fiance" SO happy! It's been a crazy weekend for them and I don't think the cheeks have quit smilin' once!

A Mama's Huge Heart...

Oh My!! How to describe it? Pride. Nerves. Excitement. So much love that I can't even put it into words.

Tonight.....my babyboy son asked his sweet girl, to marry him. To spend the rest of her life with him. To share her heart, her love and her dreams with him. AND SHE SAID YES!!!!!

Between the hours of 5-7:15, when I got the call, I was a piece of crap. I knew he was going to ask her, we don't think she had a clue and all I could think about was how this was one of the most important nights of his life........and I wanted it to be perfect. and more perfect. And I think it was! She sounds so happy tonight, which in turn, makes this mother of a sweet, sweet babyboy, very happy!! And they got engaged on our 33rd wedding anniversary!! How cool is that??

~Sigh.......................the circle of life goes on........~~Congratulations Josh and Hailey!! May your lives be as full as mine has been!!

33??

Can it Be??

33?

oh, yessiree!!...Oh Gee. 33? Wheweeeeee....HeeHee!

A friend of ours, when he found out we were celebrating #33....said...."Do you realize that a person can kill someone and get a life sentence in prison.....serve his time and still be out before 33 yrs are up?? You've done more time than a murderer!!" Bwahahahahahahaha......that has got to be the best analogy yet!

"You dont marry someone you can live with - you marry the person who you cannot live without." By: Author Unknown

Happy Anniversary to the cap'n from his bride

Let Me Entertain You .....just for a minute!

Featuring my grandpuppy, EmmyLou! Look closely and you can see the object of her attention..

Whew!! Close call but no..........she did not get stung. But it was a hard day's work!!

Buoy's from the Sea!

A blog post from my good buddy, SimpleDaisy, this morning made me think of our buoys!

Ya see? Everytime the cap'n goes out to sea, he collects old buoys that have been discarded or floated to shore. He hauls them all over the caribbean, central america or wherever he happens to be sailing! The first one we collected came from Polly Tilley Bite in Roatan, Honduras.....we actually had accidentally run over some fishing lines and one of the buoys popped up close to the boat. It was begging to come home with us. It brought so many happy memories to us that we decided to start collecting them from places we"ve traveled to!! I, of course, felt the need to paint, so I did...........the cap'n strung them up and now every time we hang by the pool, we enjoy the memories of trips made and buoys collected!!

Happy Father's Day, Cap'n!!

Whether he's:Or:

Or:

Or even just: We all think he's the "PICTURE PERFECT" dad!!

For some crazy reason, I cannot find the perfect pic of him with all of his boys right now. I will correct that today when they're all around him cooking and pampering him!!

*Back to add some goodies from today! Middle son, his sweet wife and glorious ms. Lilli...and youngest son and his sweet galpal came over today for marinated crab claws, stuffed mushrooms, burgers&fries and margaritas.........to celebrate their dad. Oldest boy and his wife were out of town so I'm including a pic of them with their dad from their trek to the top of an active volcano in Guatamala a few months ago!

And this may be one of my most favorite images to date! Three generations of our family! On this Father's Day..........I thank him for being the father that he has been to my children and will be to their children!!

Anyone else hungry??

Summer Sweetness!

Fresh summer tomatoes....YUM! YUM! Nothing better than sliced tomatoes and tomato sandwiches on a hot June day. Exactly what I had today....a sammich at lunch and sliced at dinner. Right now, they are at their best...before the hot toll of the summer sun drenches the plants and burns them up...........and I plan to eat them until I can't eat no mo!

And know what makes my tomatoes even sweeter? My boyfriend was thoughtful enough to stop at a side of the road veggie stand to buy me some, along with some squash and yukon gold potatoes!! AND????? He brought these home to me this afternoon!!

So..........Summer Sweetness means alot of different things to me......Maters and My Man!!

Fun....Fun....Fun. And more Fun!!

“Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone.”
--Anonymous --

...and our memories of the beach, the foods, the drinks!, the shopping.......and most of all--the laughing and talking and storytelling.........will linger in my memory forever!

Where do I begin?

Um..........let's just say we relaxed a wee bit with some beverages!! All week long! Ice cold beer with bloody mary oyster shooters...martinis...amazing vino...margaritas..lotsa grapefruit vodka..not EVEN gonna tell ya about all the empty bottles of vodka that were thrown away!wonderful bourbon drinks called Ode to Joy...made me joyful!!

Our galpal trip to Destin, Florida was dee-lightful. Relaxing and hilarious all at the same time. The road trip? Well, lemme just tell ya that on the way to Pensacola to pick up our PNW ho.....the three of us memorized 'I'm In Miami, Bitch' (the opening song on the MTV awards show) and performed it, according to us, perfectly!! SO funny! Spent the first night in Biloxi MS at the Beau Rivage casino hotel. Drinks and a marvelous meal before crashing in the most gorgeous suite. On the next morn to pick up my buddy from the airport and then only an hour from heaven. (laughing ALL the way....performing our rap. And V....was gonna post my verse for you but it's kinda r-rated for blob, so I'll email you my part...Heh!)

Condo was perfecto.....2 bdrm 2 bath, great kitchen and a view of the Gulf from the living area that took your breath away....not to mention the patio that we spent every morning and every evening on. Coffee in the am and cocktails in the pm! Could you ask for any more? (not to mention the umbrella dude for easy on the eyes! Imagine pool boy/yard boy with deep tan and gorgeous smile..heehee)

I wish I could tell you that we did all sorts of exquisite activities....but NADA. We hit the beach about 10 and stayed there till he took our umbrella and chairs away at 5! I took 2 new books to read. Did I read a word? NADA. We talked, we slept and we kept our bloody salads and cold brewskies closeby. One word? Perfecto! Exactly what I was craving.....what we were all craving. Some nights we went out for dinner. Some nights we just stayed in and enjoyed cheese platters, prepared by our personal chef, clisa! Oh........and we didn't JuST drink, we ate so much good food. Looky!One night was fondue with lobster, scallops, pork, tuna.....dessert with the most delicious chocolate ever. I fondly remember one of us almost turning the chocolate pot up and into her mouth after dunking all the goodies into it!! Right, Laura?? hahahahahahaha..... One night was grilled scallops over gryuere polenta, mushroom stuffed ravioli, shrimp pasta in the sweetest outdoor screen porched restaurant. One night was crab/bacon lettuce wraps, to die-for filet mignons with hand picked GLORIOUS wine. Lotsa glorious wine!!

The week just flew by. Over before we knew it. I really don't have alot of beach pics to share because to tell ya the truth? I just didn't wanna haul the camera around and feel like I had to shoot all the time. It was vacation!! But we do feel like we may have been a part of history because I am so afraid that our Florida beaches will not look this beautiful for a very long time. The oil had not gotten as far as Destin but on the news yesterday, they said that the Pensacola waters were suffering and that was only an hour away......we saw no destruction of wildlife and the seafood is still plentiful. But I fear that is short term. I am so appreciative of every day we got to enjoy the joys of the beach, waves, sun and beauty.

Sunny, Sandy, Scrumptious Beach Days!

No time to write now....................busy doing this!

Good Times! Memories being made daily!!

The Notebook.

Anyone who knows me, knows how important journaling is to me. I feel like it's a great way to save important times in one's life and also to have a real, written form of those times to preserve for future generations. Now......after my mom and daddy's passing....I crave to know more about them and our lives when I was growing up. Yet, I have no way to find those bits of history because nothing was ever preserved. I can remember rolling my eyes when my daddy tried to tell "his war stories" or stories of his family. All the time, thinking there was plenty of time to hear those 'later'. Later never came and now it is TOO late.

That's why I write this blob......so my children will have some type of recollection of the ordinary, everyday things we do in our lives. Then, at the end of the yr. I have it made into a book for them to have, so one day, they can look back and remember with a smile. (I hope!)

The blob is typed, of course, but the journals of our travels are hand written. So, they'll have just a piece of me when my time is up.....I love the recipes I have of my mom's that were written in her own handwriting.

So why all this talkety talk of journaling? So I could show you the journal I've made for the Chick Beach/Road Trip of 2010!! Every time my girlfriends and I get together, somebody always writes down the funny things said and done on the trip...well, not everything!

And we bring those notes each time we get together and re-read them and laugh all over again.

Sometimes, it's a good thing.......sometimes not so much......but always therapeutic.

I only hope the pictures that will accompany our stories will be beautiful ones of white, sandy beaches and not slimy, oily, sick birds and fish.............:(

Guess who has a new bikini??

Ms. Lillian Leigh!! She came over for her first swim on Monday and, of course, was dressed to the nines...heh. She had a pink cover-up, a new bikini and a fish float for her first adventure. Did she love it? Oh My!! So precious!! Looky!

And she loved swimming with her daddy!Lilli also met her new girlfriend for the first time....Zoe, who is 4 wks. old. It was so funny because when Zoe began to cry, Lilli began to laugh and wonder why in the world would that lil baby be making that noise!!!
Me thinks summertime is gonna be pretty much fun at YaYa's house!!