The Gift

Our youngest daughter and our grandson were here last week. We enjoyed 10 days with them.
They presented us with a fathers/mothers day and birthdays gift. It was a big surprise!

Our grandson set it together with a little help from Papa!

We had our very own camp fire in our back yard. LOVE IT!

In a separate package was all the makings for S'mores. We each roasted several marshmallows and had those wonderful tasty S'mores.

We enjoyed the fire until the air turned almost cold. The heat from the pit felt warm and the smoke reminded us of many camping trips from earlier years when our children were young.
We watched the star's come out and enjoyed a nice visit.

It will be a fun thing for when we have friends over.

The Radish, The Garden

Not all the radishes are actually getting radishes under but the ones that are, ARE BIG,
MILD, CRISP, TASTY RADISHES. Here pictured next to a golf ball to see the size.

You can see how large it is when placed in a tea spoon.

I thought the radish because of it's size might have hollow spots.
It was solid and very tasty.
Ever since I have been a young girl,
I like to eat radish sliced on a nice fresh slice of butter bread.


These are two pictures of my garden. It has certainly started growing since the weather has warmed up in the 80's and low 90's.

A Angel kind of day!

Angels! 10 beautiful white angels in the early morning sunshine!
This morning we awoke to these 10 white wood angels in our yard! Our youth group from our church uses these as a fund raiser. We will have these ten angels in our yard for one week. We then have the opportunity to contribute or not contribute $ to the youth group. We also can suggest another Name, address for the Angels to be placed after they leave our yard.


They are not only used as a fund raiser but as a reminder of Gods love for us and how he sends his angels to care for us and watch over us. This is the view of the angels from a very busy road that passes by our house. We can also use the angels as a whitness of our faith and to discuse our church and invite others to learn more about the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

As I was admiring these ten angels, I noticed my very first fence hedge rose was blooming.

AAAAAAFiE/QccgFOAGN3Q/s400/2009+Zion+VBS042b.jpg"> Isn't it pritty with the angels in the background? My roses are so very full of buds due to the wet snowy winter and the moisture we have recieved durning June. We are very thankfull for the blessing of much needed moisture and we pray it continues through summer and fall.

AAAAAAAFh8/N71goNk0PlM/s400/2009+Zion+VBS040.jpg"> The sign with the Angels say's,

May God's Angels Bless and Watch over you.
That is my prayer for all who read my blog!

As the Holy Bible Say's,

For it is written;

"He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;

they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." Luke 4:10

A warm fire in June

June 11th, need I say anything else? It was 38 degrees this morning and has been cold for the past week. We are enjoying a warm house and taking advantage of the stock piles of fire wood !

We also have rainy weather. Not hard rain but light and steady. You can see how the rain drops hang on the cloths line. I guess I will be using our dryer again this week and maybe even next!

The garden is very wet. Too wet to weed and as you can tell the weeds seem to not be affected at all by the cool wet temp's. I am amazed at how well the garden still looks after a week of wet 50 degree temperature. Most of it is up and turning a bit yellow from lack of sun. We are expecting some periods of sun this weekend.

The garden pond is full up and has been overflowing for the past several days.

When it first started raining, I placed these buckets under the dripping garage roof to capture Gods rich rainwater for watering plants. These have been full for quite some time and even overflowing. We had several years of very dry summers so this moisture is very welcome and is bringing up the water level.

We give thanks to our loving Heavenly Father for the moisture and the Greenness of our parched dry land.

Retired as of today!

For the last several years my husband and I have been employed with the City School Busing.
My husband has driven a big 70 passenger school bus for over 12 years and I have been a bus aid on a smaller Special Education bus for 4 years. This was our last year, We decided to retire and so some things we love and enjoy! Like spend more time with our family.

The grandchildren are growing up so fast. If we want to celebrate a special birthday , or other occasion with them or even my aging parents, we can.

We can enjoy our old camper!

We can do more fishing!

We can do other things we need to do around the house and yard.

ONLY IF IT DOESN'T COST TOO MUCH MONEY!

No more early 5 AM digging out of the snow to go drive school bus.

YOO HOO!

This is the bus I have been on for a number of years, since I finished my 12 years of work at Spiegel Catalog company.

My husband was in the US Air Force for 22 years before he drove school bus. I am sure all the training to drive the big trucks and equipment helped with this bus driving career.
I don't think I could ever handle anything this big!

We will still be involved with our Porcupine Mission work and other

activities with our church.

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."


My oldest daughter called tonight and my youngest daughter just updated her blog

with a special Happy Retirement smile box. see the link below.
http://life-with-the-suttons.blogspot.com/

The Badlands

Just one week ago Saturday, when it was sunny, 70 degrees and calm, my cousin and I touristed the Black hills. The look is very unusual and temps normally feel much hotter then anywhere else in the state. Maybe that is why they call them the BAD lands. Just maybe the numerous Rattle snakes have something to do with the name too.

This is a close up of the rocky area. It looks like it would be very crumbly but it is hard and crusty rock. In my mind, it almost gives me the feeling of being on the moon.

It is very beautiful and the colors vary with the way the sun is hitting the rocky peeks and cliffs.

We decided to go on one of the hiking trails, that is y cousin up ahead of me.

This is me at another point closer to the end of the Badlands tour road.

While on the trail, we came up to this! I immediately wanted to turn back, but as you can see, we didn't and we made our way up these 56 log and chain steps. My cousin is afraid of heights and I think she really wanted to accomplish this feet.

If you look closely in the center of this picture, you can see those steps from across the gorge.
It was a good feeling to make it that far. YOU CAN CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE IT.

Only bad thing was, after we got to the end of the trail, we had to come back and YOU GOT IT! We had to make our way back down these 56 log steps.

It was much harder going back down then coming up!

It looks scary, right?

I could hardly believe there were flowers growing and blooming in this hard crusty rocky land.

These are creeping flox as I have in my front flower garden. I had never noticed them before, I guess unless they are blooming one would overlook them quite easily.

They were nestled in amongst these cactus.

I bet it will be pretty when the cactus are blooming too!

This picture was taken at the end of the trail, what a far beautiful seen.

GODS CREATION IS AMAZING

AND WHAT A VARIETY!