Day 1: Bathroom Remodel

The one 1960's room left in Gladys is the pink and white tiled bathroom.  While we have made some progress in modernizing it by putting in a new window, a new toilet, a new vanity and adding solid-core interior doors, we know that we still have much to change.

The "before" picture showing our 1960's
pink bathroom.  Thank God the floors are
terrazzo so we don't have to change them also!

The pink tub will be a chore to remove, but
out it must go.

We want to take down all of the tile and the "sculpted" (read "ugly") upper walls, remove the soffit, change the lights, and remove the rusting cast iron tub. We plan to drywall all of the walls, add a new Stirling tub and surround with Kohler fixtures, add a new granite vanity top, and add a Kohler sink and faucet.  We will complete the room with a new toilet paper holder, and towel bars.  Of course, if you know my husband, you know that those also will come from Kohler.

With the vanity removed, we covered the floor with paper
to save it from damage.

Anyone who remodels knows that prep is just as important as the job itself.  We started our work this morning at 7:30, and we spent the next hour and a half just prepping the area.  We removed the vanity to its temporary home in the Florida room.  The old countertop and sink now reside in the garage.  The closet and hallway door lean against the guest room wall for now, and the mirror is face-down on the guest room bed.  Everything in the closet is packed in tubs or bags secured under the long hallway table in the living room.  Whew!  That was just the clean-out.

Six mil plastic with red zippers attached allow
us to try to keep the dust in the bathroom while
still having access to the room from the hall.

We tried something new this remodeling job: we bought a kit to make a zippered door for the room.  So far it seems to be working well; we'll see how it holds out for the next week or so.  We knew that removing all of the tile and plaster would be dusty, and we were SO right!  Rick bought a grinder which does help to cut "bite-sized" chunked of wall loose, but chipping them down is still a glorious mess.

To help with the dust control, we opened the window and put a small fan in it to exhaust the dusty air in the room.  It must be working, because as you can see from the picture, the fan face left a dusty reminder of just where we located it.

The dusty circle on the screen shows where the fan stood.

We worked until noon to remove the part of the tile wall where the vanity once stood.  We will gain inches in the room since behind the tile we find a thick layer of plaster and wire mesh.  The blade on the grinder cuts in an inch and a half, and it never touches the wire mesh!  This will be a messy, heavy, difficult job.

The wall "before" ...

and after our first day of work.

We called for a dumpster for the debris, and the man at Waste Management for the city said that they would deliver it this afternoon.  Yeah, right.  I had just stepped out of the shower and was drying off as Rick entered the shower.  Suddenly I heard the city truck in our driveway.  Since neither of us was wearing much, we could not go outside to tell him where to place the dumpster, so, of course, it is so far away from our garage that we can barely get both the car and the truck in our driveway.  Sigh.  If the truck had been 10 minutes earlier or later, one of us would have been able to direct him.  Timing is everything.

I am glad that Rick has an appointment with the allergist this afternoon.  If not, I am sure that he would still be in the bathroom working.  As it is, we did enough for the first day.  Now that we have the dumpster, I will be able to transport the debris outside as Rick continues to tear down the walls.

This job is going to take some time, but the results will be a totally updated Gladys in the end. If I still have the energy to do so, I will post our second day's efforts tomorrow evening.

Electrically Charged

We have been in Dunedin one week as of yesterday, and thankfully we have crossed off quite a few things on our "to do" list.  While last week was a lot of planning and calling, this week has started to be a week of doing those tasks.

We took Sunday off.  After being reacquainted with friends at church, we spent a delightful afternoon with my nephew and his new bride at their home.  We brought them some goodies from Wisconsin, and they treated us to a wonderful meal.  Thanks, Rachel and Jon!

Yesterday was one of those days where we worked hard but had little to visibly show for our labors other than the afore-mentioned items crossed off the list.  Rick started the day in old clothes so he could spray insecticide all around the perimeter of the house.  He always says that if people left Florida for a time, it would totally revert back to the jungle in about 18 months.  Just being gone five months this summer allowed every bug and spider within a 10 mile radius to try to take up residence at our house.  Thankfully, most stayed outside, so we are just fighting the webs and insects that are crawling around outside.  For those of you interested, we have not seen any mosquitoes.  Zika is not in the area and poses no danger to us.

While I tied more branches of the spreading bougainvillea to the trellis by the fence, Rick sprayed a different kind of insecticide to the gardenia tree in the back yard.  The tree is trying to bloom again, but something is making a smorgasbord of the leaves on that tree.  Hopefully the spray we bought at the nursery will help.  It seemed to have a positive effect on the tree when I used it last year.

More outside work included adding fertilizer to our bottle brush tree in the back.  I also fertilized the flowers planted under the Florida room windows.  I hope they don't grow too much, though, or they will block the windows!

Our last task yesterday was to prep the garage for the work we had done today.  The electricians arrived early this morning to move the electrical mast and service on the house from the back to the north side.  We needed to have the service moved because the wires originally were over where we want to add a roof and lanai to the slab.  Codes state that electrical wires must be at least 10 feet above any aluminum structure, so the wires had to be moved before we can move forward on the lanai.

The new meter box awaits installation on the
north wall of the house.

The gutted meter box hangs next to the cable box.
By the end of the day, the meter box was gone and
the service in the mast above it was moved to the
new location.

We were without electricity most of the day, and I found watching Rick very interesting. He is so addicted to researching any question that pops into his head, that being without his trusty computer almost drove him nuts.  I say "almost" because he still had his wireless connection on his iPhone, so he continued to research what he wanted even without a full screen on his computer.  (Yes, we know that we could have run the computers on battery, but we chose not to do that.  Had Rick not had a phone, however, I think that the computer batteries would been quite worn down by now.

One of the two electricians inserts the new mast
through the roof to connect to the new box.

The removed box left a BIG hole to patch.

At the end of the day, we had the meter box removed from the back of the house and a new box and meter installed on the north side.  We asked the electricians to put the connections from the breaker box to the new box inside the garage to avoid having that conduit on the outside of the house.  The cool thing is that we now have a meter and shut off outside the house, and we also have room for eight new breakers (16 circuits) in the outside box.  The electrician told me that if we want any new electrical service outside (like lights...  or a fancy outdoor kitchen...or perhaps an electric fireplace???), we can use this outside box.  Smile!

The new mast and wire location sits securely behind the garbage
cans on the north side of the house.

The new box easily is accessible to those who
want to read the meter.

The connections between the two boxes runs along the back of the garage.

We still have to get the cable box moved from the back wall.  (That's another story in itself!) Then we will be able to patch and paint the wall in preparation for it to be a nice wall inside our someday lanai.

Scrubbing, Planting, Planning, Oh My!

Yesterday was supposed to be a "down day" since we did not have too much scheduled on our calendar.  Yeah, sure.

We hauled out the hose yesterday, filled a bucket with soapy water, and Rick took out the long-handled soft scrub brush that we had used to wash our last gigantic truck.  We learned last year that the brush also is just about the right size to reach the underside of the soffits and the peaks of the house (when standing on a ladder) so that we can give Gladys a bath.  And scrubbing she needed, indeed!

While I mentioned earlier that the inside of the house seemed to be critter- and insect-free, the same could not be said for the outside of the house.  Spiders had a field-day while we were gone for the summer.  We have webs and left-over spider lunches everywhere.  Since the front is the most visible, we decided to start with that side of the house.  Florida is sandy, so dirt and sand fly everywhere.  Rick spent the morning scrubbing while I followed with the hose to spray the walls, soffits, and windows down.  The result is a cobweb free front of the house that has clean windows and screens and looks about a quarter of a shade lighter in color.  Amazing what a bath will do!  Naturally, we still have the south, east, and north sides of the house to complete, and the fence needs a good bath also.  Another day...

Yesterday afternoon the Schwan's man arrived.  We love Schwan's food, so we saved the majority of our small freezer in the refrigerator for the food that we had preordered before we left Wisconsin.  We were happy to see him come, and he was very happy that we were back.  Let's just say that what we did yesterday was probably one of his larger orders of the day; however, the freezer is full and we will be enjoying the food for many meals.  In fact, I just baked some Schwan's Southern Style biscuits to go with our meal tonight.

This morning a representative from an insulated roofing system firm for a lanai came to give us an estimate.  His company usually builds the "cages" around swimming pools, but they do lanais also.  He was excited because our request for an insulated roof was a small, easy job set up on a square footprint.  This afternoon we received his bid.  Let's just say that we are NOT excited about the price.  His bid came in about $1500- $2000 more than I had anticipated.  His lanai roof system is not in our budget.  That might be all right, though, since we had never heard of the system he was selling, and it was not the system that Rick had researched this past summer.

We know that we can install the roof and the screen walls ourselves, and that is probably what we eventually will do.  We can get the materials for the lanai at a fraction of the cost of having it installed for us, and we think we can do just as good of a job. The gutters may give us a little trouble, but that, too, can be overcome with a little thought and planning.

Two workers start to dig the hole for the first tree as Rick sets
up his SawsAll.  A stake to the right marks the spot for the
second tree.

Right after the lanai roof man left, a truck from Palm Trees Direct pulled up.  We now have two new additions to our yard: two fairly good sized foxtail palms.  They are the start of the second phase of our front yard landscaping.  Rick and I took stakes, strings, and tape measures yesterday to plan where we wanted the two trees.  We had the stakes in place where we wanted each tree planted.

Rick saws through one of three roots that had to
be removed for the first tree.

As expected, since one of the trees needed to be near to where the old bottle brush tree had been located, the landscape people hit roots as they started to dig the hole.  Rick brought out his SawsAll, popped in a new pruning blade, and made short work of the three roots that were in the way.  The landscape workers who were digging the holes were very grateful for the saw and for Rick's help.  He made a miserable job much easier for them, and we ended up with the trees located where we wanted them to be.

I was impressed with how carefully the woman on the two-person crew positioned the trees and made sure that the berm around each tree was high enough to hold the necessary water.  The younger man of the crew cleaned up around each berm, and before they left, the woman showed us how to water the trees each morning.  If we follow instructions, we should have two healthy trees when we leave in May.

Now the front yard does not look quite so bare with two new
foxtail palms to adorn it.

Later this year, if our money holds out, I may put in the garden under the bedroom windows behind the trees.  I also want to plan a garden with the palms anchoring both ends, but I may not do that garden until the trees have had a year to establish themselves.  To everything there is a season... and I cannot be impatient with my plans.

We have made great progress this week, taking in bids, setting up Gladys, scrubbing her inside and out, and learning what we can and cannot do this year.  And as a reward for being a strong, sturdy, leak-free structure, we bought Gladys some new trees to make her even more beautiful.

Busily Going Broke

Is this really only Wednesday?  I cannot believe that we have only been in Florida for a day and a half, and we have accomplished what I thought would take us at least a week.  In the process, we also have spent or committed to spend quite a bit of money.

Yesterday afternoon we took a trip to Eden Nursery where we had purchased our bottle brush tree.  It suffered this past summer from the heat and lack of enough water (although the locals said it rained quite often here), so we went to buy some fertilizer to try to save it.  We got advice on how to trim our bushes and on how to effectively treat the bottle brush tree.  I trimmed the dead branches last night, and tomorrow we will take time to fertilize it around the drip line.  I have been trying to water it each day to keep it going, and my attention to it seems to have helped.  It is far from lush and healthy, but with some love, it may flourish yet.

After trimming, our bottle brush tree looks
thin but better.

After our nursery visit, we traveled to Seminole to Palm Trees Direct to buy the foxtail palm trees for our front yard.  We picked out two trees that matched in height, and they were 1/3 the price than were the foxtail palms at the nursery.  These folks specialize in palm trees, so their inventory is always full and healthy, and they are experts at planting them the right way.  They called today to schedule delivery and planting.  They are coming on Friday to add the foxtail palms to our front yard.

Yesterday afternoon, in addition to trimming the bottle brush tree, I also trimmed the gardenia tree and the lemon/lime bushes in front of the Florida room windows.  Lastly, I tied the bougainvillea onto the trellis by the live oak tree.  I planted two little bougainvillea bushes last spring with the hopes that they would thrive through the summer.  They did. We purposely planted the bougainvillea to fill in the space between the tree and the fence, knowing that bougainvillea love to climb structures.  As I tied up the branches, I remembered (painfully!) that bougainvillea have large thorns.  Ouch!  I am happy, though, that the thorns will keep critters from trying to climb through the gap in our fence.

The gardenia tree is about to bloom with
beautiful white flowers.

The bougainvillea frame the live oak tree.

Today started with me tackling the overgrown bushes in the front yard.  The may bush at the side of the house was overgrown with tall weeds, and it badly needed reshaping.  I think that it will bloom this year with its white flowers now that it has had a "haircut."

The may bush once again has a rounded apperance.

From there, I moved on to the bushes in the front garden which have grown at least a foot since we left in May.  Once I cut them back, I could actually start to see the slower-growing crotons behind them.  The front garden actually looks civilized again!

The "before" picture of the front garden.

The "after" picture which allows the back
bushes to peek through to the front.

The final outdoor task, which I completed just before the sun made the job too hot to handle, was to weed the areas around the stepping stones which temporarily make up our front walk.  Now the house looks like someone actually lives here.  I cannot wait to get the pavers in so that job will disappear before next year.

The cleaned-up path to our front door.

A major step forward happened this morning when Arry's Roofing Service came out to give us a bid on a new roof.  Dave, the estimator, was wonderful.  He gave us our options, made some suggestions, and put together a bid for a new shingled roof with a moved kitchen vent, a new sloped roof for the Florida room, and a solar-powered roof vent to keep the air moving freely through the attic.  We were pleased that the bid came in at a reasonable price that was within our budget.  Arby's is booked out for a couple months, so we probably will get our new roof sometime in December.

Dave also gave us a lead for a company that could install an insulated lanai roof.  Rick set up an appointment for an estimate from that company.  They will be here on Friday.

The last bid of the day came from a local electrical company who agreed to move the electrical mast on our house.  Before we can add a lanai roof, we have to move the overhead wires.  We need to move the mast and the wires before we have the new roof put in since the mast will leave a hole in the roof.  By moving the mast, we also will be able to take the meter off the back wall of the house.  That will give us a smooth, blank wall in our future lanai, making that porch much more inviting.

Rick has done an incredible job of researching what needs to be coordinated and calling in all of these contractors for bids.  So we have taken care of the landscaping, roof, electrical service, and lanai... all within the last two days.  We have committed a lot of remodeling money, but by the time we leave in May, we once again will make drastic changes to Gladys.  I hope she appreciates the cost and effort.

Home in the South

The great thing about having a home in Wisconsin and a home in Florida is that no matter where we spend a season, we are always "home".  We traveled down to our Florida home (Gladys) this past weekend.

We arose at 2:58 on Saturday morning and were heading out of Green Bay by 3:40.  We drove as far as Racine before stopping for breakfast at America's most well-known restaurant: McDonalds.  Thankfully, traffic in Milwaukee was light, and we had an equally easy trip through Chicago.  We were pleased to learn that the navigation on our new truck works very well.  We paid for a map upgrade last month, and we found that the system kept us on track all the way south.  The upgrade was well worth the money.

While we love not having the dual tires on the truck, we miss the large 84 gallon (regular plus auxiliary) gas tank that we had on the old truck. Having only a 26 gallon gas tank forced us to "fill up" at least twice a day.  The old truck was diesel, so at least this gasoline truck made filling up easy.

We packed sandwiches for lunch, so we stopped by a wayside near Rend Lake in Illinois.  I am attaching pictures because this was probably the prettiest wayside that I have ever used.

The wayside had beautiful views of Rend Lake.

Lots of lawn offered plenty of space to walk and
to stretch our legs.

A covered bridge allowed weary travelers to walk a path to get
a better view of Rend Lake.

We spent the night in Clarksville, TN, and got an early start the next morning.  Nashville usually gives us weather trouble, but we had sunshine the entire trip down.  Rick drove most of the day as I battled a killer headache.

We experienced construction at various points on our route, but we had very little delays except for a stretch just south of Atlanta, GA.  We also found that traffic was more heavy in that area.  With all of the evacuees from Hurricane Matthew, we wondered if some of the traffic were those evacuees returning to the east coast to learn what was left of their homes.

Cotton was growing in the fields as we drove through southern Georgia. Our goal was to travel to Lake City, and we pulled into that city very tired but safe on Sunday afternoon. Our hotel was clean and comfortable, but since it was located near the highway, we had traffic noise all night.  We saw many trailer parks in Georgia or northern Florida located right next to the highway.  I wonder how they can tolerate the constant traffic noise.  I think that would drive me crazy!

Our front garden needs a bit of trimming.  

For some reason, the front bushes grew much more
tall than the crotons in the back.  Time to trim!

We arrived home by 10:40 on Monday morning.  Gladys is in good shape.  We received no damage from Hurricane Hermoine earlier this summer.  The only chore that immediately presented itself was lots of overgrown shrubbery.  That chore, though, I can handle.

This past winter we cancelled our pest control service and Rick started spraying the house instead.  We were a little worried that we might find the place crawling away since we no longer had anyone come to spray around the house this summer; however, we found the house virtually bug-free.  Yippee! Our system works!

Everything works the way we had hoped it would.  The car started right away, the refrigerator purred to life after we plugged it in, and the water flowed with no leaks when we turned it back on.  Even the cable re-connect was not much of a hassle.

While we miss family and friends, we were welcomed back warmly by our neighbors down here.

Summer "Vacation"

Since I knew we were going to be out of town for two days, before we left on Wednesday morning I completely shut down my computer.  I do not do that often, but with summer storms rumbling across the U.S., I thought unplugging the computer might be a good idea.  However, since this computer is now at least six years old, I held my breath as I booted it up a minute ago.  Would it start?  Would I have a screen image even if it did start?  Your reading this message should confirm that the computer did, indeed, come to life once again. Yet, it has started to post warning signs along the boot-up highway.  For the second time in a row, when I rebooted this computer, I have lost my selection of a desktop background.  The background always reverts to one of the "canned" photos from Apple.  I can almost hear the computer saying, "I am cooperating, sort of, for now, but I am getting old and forgetful, so I may not last forever."  Warning heeded...

We left yesterday morning for a short trip to Spring Green, Wisconsin.  Spring Green is known for three things: the American Players Theater, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin home, and the House on the Rock.  We availed ourselves of the first two selections. The third we leave to those with little children who enjoy more of a carnival atmosphere than an architectural experience.

The stage for the production of "A Comedy of Errors."

We had tickets last evening to the APT's production of Shakespeare's "A Comedy of Errors."  Although we have seen stage productions of this particular comedy before, we both felt that this company's interpretation of the play was the best we have experienced.  The actors were exceptional. We laughed throughout the outdoor production, enjoying the scenery in the wooded theater, wonderful weather for a summer evening, virtually no bugs (thanks to Deep Woods Off and a few bats who swooped across the stage and ate their fair share of the insects), and an appreciative audience.  We could not have asked for a more enjoyable way to pass a summer's evening.

We stayed at the Spring Green Inn which was located just down the highway from the theater, so our drive back for the evening was not long.  The hotel is well-appointed with Frank Lloyd Wright furnishings and posters.  They carried the theme through from the indirect hallway lighting to Wright-designed furniture and lamps.  Our only complaint was that the mattress was a bit lumpy and our air conditioner was on steroids.  We had a hard time controlling the temperature so that we were not icicles in the morning.

This morning, after a very nice breakfast in the hotel, we had some time to use before our 10:30 tour of Taliesin.  I had found a brochure in the lobby for a nearby cheese factory in Plain that produced one of our favorite cheeses: Butterkase.  "Butterkase" is German for "butter cheese," so named because of the creamy texture of this semi-soft cheese.  A short drive to Plain allowed us to buy a couple of bricks of butterkase and one brick of smoked cheddar.  Yum.  We will enjoy it all.  Ice from the hotel machine and a styrofoam cooler kept our purchases cold all the way back to Green Bay today.

Wright uses buildings and walkways to frame landscape elements and views.

Taliesin was Frank Lloyd Wright's Wisconsin home, built on ancestral Lloyd-Jones property handed down from his mother.  The property originally housed a home-school run by two of Wright's aunts.  The original school Wright designed was a storied Victorian monstrosity that Wright had raised after he had designed a new school for the property.  The second school was in the angular prairie design which we associate with Wright. While the K-12 school no longer teaches students,  Taliesin, since the 1930's, has been the home of FLW's own architectural school.

Wright's use of Oriental and Native American
statues are well-known elements of his houses.

Our tour was doubly fun in that most of the people on the tour were present-day architects on a group tour from a firm in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.  One man in particular was just enthralled with the opportunity to see Taliesin up close and personal. I had as much fun watching his reactions as I did in experiencing the property myself.

Sadly, we have been to several other Wright properties, and I have to admit that I liked Taliesin the least of any of them. The house, while designed to take advantage of the magnificent hilly terrain and the cool breezes of the summer, still felt more chopped up and disassociated than did his design for Falling Water or Wingspread.  The house was typical Wright construction with hidden doors and low entries opening into magnificent, vaulted rooms filled with light from walls of windows.  Wright carefully controlled the entrance into spaces and how the light filled those spaces.  Sadly, both the architectural school and the house itself are badly in need of expensive repairs.

The view of one of the ceilings shows the triple
lines (representing three sunbeams) that are
a symbol of the family name.  Sadly, the
darkened spots shows water damage to the structure.

Wright believed that a house should be a
continuation of the landscape, but in this case,
the tree that he planted is a bit too much for this
wall which Foundation money will have to repair.

Frank Lloyd Wright was not a great structural engineer.  The sagging cantilevered expanses of some decks and the cracked plaster corners of many walls shows how gravity and age have stressed the structures.  Wright also did not understand (or care to pay attention to) the effects of water.  Many of the beautiful wooden ceilings were water-stained, and the majority of windows and floors showed the damage that water has caused through the years.

Built before air conditioning, Wright's single-pane windows have not faired well with the addition of conditioned air.  They sweat with condensation since the warm outer air clashes on the panes with the cooler inner air.  To restore the whole complex would take millions of dollars, and the Foundation just does not make that kind of money.

One of the many hanging lights designed
by Wright is still functional today.

For now, the genius of his design is still evident.  Students and Foundation members do their best to preserve the past while working for the future.  The school is still run on the principle of leaning by doing, and although the scarred wooden drafting tables are still in the design studio, most have been abandoned for the flat work tables which students now use to hold their computers.  Sketches have given way to print-outs and 3-D printer produced models.

The magnificent estate that surrounds Taliesin highlights
the beauty found in southwestern Wisconsin. The landscape
becomes the focal point for many of Wright's rooms.

We had an enjoyable "vacation" away from Green Bay.  The play was wonderful, and the glimpse into Frank Lloyd Wright's home was an interesting look into the life of a remarkable architect.

Summer 2016 - July and August

July in Wisconsin turned out to be as warm as, if not warmer than, summer in Florida.  The United States had heat waves across the country, and our temperatures in the high 80s and mid-90s were made more unbearable by the high humidity.  Whenever we wanted to do something outside, we made sure that we watched the weather first, and that we completed our tasks usually in the early morning hours. This was a work plan we learned many years ago while working in Florida.

Rick adds paint to Lindsay's
house.

Chris and Lindsay chose some beige (Lindsay says "peanut-butter colored") paint for their house.  We helped them paint the front of the house, and Rick showed Chris how to use Bondo to make the knotholes in the old siding disappear.  The result is a much more attractive house.

Owen takes aim at the ball.

Owen tried his foot at soccer this year.  While we enjoy watching the Parkies try to teach a couple of dozen 3-4 year olds the basics of the game, we also discovered that we have had rain every Thursday for the past five weeks!

The old chandelier was showing
its age.

We compiled a list of 15 improvements that we wanted to make to this house this year.  Some were just scrubbing -- the gutter caps, the siding, the car floor mats, etc. -- while others are taking a little more effort.  We decided that one improvement we wanted to

The new chandelier updates the room.

make was to replace our old 1990's gold chandelier over the table with something that was easier to keep clean and was a little more modern.  We are pleased with our choice.

The completed swings took
a day and a half to build.

July's great building task was in Owen's back yard as we went over to help Chris assemble a new swing set for him.  He loves it, so I am sure that he will use it for many years to come.

This train took hours to piece together.

I have kept my sewing machine busy this summer, making both another picture for Owen's wall (that matches the train on his

Our little pirate will be
cute this Halloween.

quilt) and a Jake and the Neverland Pirate's costume for dress-up and for Halloween.

The butterfly is much prettier
to press than a boring old
door bell.

Our only trip so far in August was to visit Stephanie in Minnesota.  While there, we did numerous small (and not-so-small) tasks including the installation of the Michael Healey doorbell that we bought her for her birthday.

Later this month we will treat ourselves to a little Shakespeare in Spring Green while we also will visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin.  Our summer is far from over yet, so we still look forward to seeing new things, spending time with family, and completing our tasks around our Wisconsin home.

Summer 2016 - May and June

We have had a busy summer so far, but one that has allowed us to accomplish much while enjoying friends and family.  I will let pictures tell most of the story for us.  So this is the first part of the summer of 2016.

Lilacs in the back yard.

  May brought cool, sunny weather which created ideal conditions for the lilacs and other flowers in the yard to bloom.









While the flowers were blooming inside, Owen and I spent part of a day painting flower pots so I could have flowers on the patio table also.

Patio flowers.

Who is having more fun?

Owen received a sandbox from a friend of Lindsay and Chris.  We bought some clean white sand for it, and Owen loves playing in the back yard.  Just watching him have fun as he imagines the towers and towns he is building in the sand makes us smile.










On May 29, the family gathered to celebrate my nephew Jon's wedding. He and his bride, Rachel, asked Rick to make a cross they could use during the ceremony for their wedding braid.  He worked hard to put it together, and the ceremony was a joyful occasion.

June brought the City workers back to our yard as they planted a new tree

Owen blows out the three candles
on his pirate birthday cake.

to replace the one they removed last year.  We also celebrated Owen's birthday and Rick's birthday during that month, so we had lots of cake and ice cream to usher in the first days of summer.

We didn't risk fire damage
by putting on candles to
mark Rick's age!