I'm ba-a-ack!

Hi - I think my life is beginning a return to normal - finally! Thank you for all the comments over the past couple weeks - I will be answering you and checking in with your blogs in the next couple days. Feels good to be back!





This is the first time I've seen a caladium flower - looks kind of like a jack-in-the-pulpit, doesn't it? Very cool. I have caladium in two iron planters on the patio (street-side). They are growing like crazy and very pretty. And there are 3 flowers - maybe more in the works.

We've been kayaking a lot - I love it. As this photo shows, you get a whole different perspective in a kayak than you do in a boat. Big cattails!

My parents were at our house for about 2 weeks. We had a ton of fun with them here. We spent a lot of time just sitting at the end of the dock or under the shade trees in the yard - relaxing, catching up, enjoying happy hour! They mowed my yard twice - and deadheaded both of the big rose bushes down by the lake - you know, the ones with a zillion blooms! We went to the Arb and the Noerenberg gardens, to a working farm that is part of our county park system (more beautiful gardens), to hot rod night at the local drive-in, out to lunch, to dinner, Mom cooked, Mark grilled, we hit some garage sales, etc etc. It was lovely! One of my sisters came for dinner one night, and my nephew and his wife and daughter (7 1/2 month old Kajia - our family's first "great") were here for lunch on the Fourth.

It was a fun visit, and we hated to see them leave.

Tonight we were outside with the dogs and saw a couple "chitty-chitty bang bangs" go over. This guy was nice enough to fly right over us. Unfortunately Mark didn't have the good camera, so these aren't real clear - but I knew you'd want to see them anyway! There are several of these over the lake almost every night - it's very fun to see them. The parachutes are always very colorful.

I'll be talking to all of you soon- can't wait to see what you've been up to!

lotsa lily pads and a beaver lodge

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, EVERYONE!

it takes two

I was out in the kayak the other day, and Mark came out in the canoe. He was bringing me some water ski gloves because I was getting a blister on my thumb from holding the paddle wrong. After giving me the gloves, he followed me back around the lake to our dock. Problem: my kayak was WAAAAY faster than the canoe. Yup, about 2 hours later, he had a lovely sit-in kayak from the same rep we bought mine from. He gave us another great deal on one of his demos. Mark is thinking that next year he might want to get into a sit-on like mine (the rep only had the one this year), but until then he's having a lot of fun with this one. (Oh, do you see I got a back for mine? Way more comfortable!)

I slipped on the cement steps going to the lake yesterday (OUCH!), so we haven't had a head-to-head competition yet - but I think mine is still probably faster. :) For sure it takes less work to move it through the water. I think we're going to have a lot of fun exploring the lake together for the rest of the summer.
Early this morning Mark took his kayak back into a channel area across the lake from us. This area has houses and bigger boats, but last summer when we took the pontoon back there, we decided it was a good place for the canoe - not a boat with a motor. The kayaks will be perfect for exploring that area. There are lily pads, cattails, reeds, submerged logs, blue herons, frogs, muskrats, beavers, etc. Today he mostly got photos of the lily pads. Next time I'll post a photo of them in bloom - it's very pretty.