poor (out of shape) puppy, needing to stop after 3 miles to lay in the snow and eat what he can #romeo

They survived......Nutcracker Day

Today we went to see the Donetsk Ballet (from Russia) perform a school version (shortened, but still almost 2 hours). Our friend Candace from church (Peter's age, 10) was one of the party girls and Chinese dancers. It was painful for the boys, but we enjoyed the time together after reading the book, lunch with Nick at Subway (he was on break from work at the Nike outlet), then home to make our own nutcrackers and fill them with candy from Five Below.  We'll call it a success. It made me miss the girls recitals with Wildwood Ballet in Florida. These two are too young to remember.

Boys to men

Yesterday we dropped jack off at high point camp in birdsboro for the week. He'll be 16 in a month. He's growing up fast....

Priorities and procrastination

Olivia has requested that I start blogging again when she goes to college next month. I figure now is as good a time as any to re-form the habit as she leaves in exactly three weeks. Not that anyone is counting. Or crying themselves to sleep at night about it (ahem).

My garden and flower beds are a bit out of control:

Then we had a fierce storm last night that knocked out my corn (it happened once before already but we were able to save it. Not sure this time).

So you'd think I would spend what free time I had today working on those.... No. 

The mailbox and "sewer cap garden" got makeovers instead.

 Patience other garden beds, your time will come. 

For now, let's focus on the pretty:  gladiolus and kale!

And the cutting garden...

My YMCA swimming buddy

Picture by Pete age 7

On our way

To see these two. No, we didn't get a new dog, but one of the homes where Haley babysits got an 8 week old golden retriever. Precious!

Christmas Eve

Last of the homemade presents done!

Happy 4th of July!

Foyer redo

Love one on one date days

With an almost 14 yo

Where in the world is nick? Er I mean, the chick-fil-a cow?

Any guesses? (it's the current give away so I can't tell until the contest is over)

Goodnight pete

Pete (6.5) still has a thing for pandas. He sleeps with the same one every night (Puggles) and the rest are content to sleep as a group at the end of his bed.

Testing.....

Blogging from my phone. Pictures from my garden!

paris....

next we left at 4:30 am to hop on a USO tour bus to take us to paris. it was nice to have someone else drive (and be concerned with parking) and a tour guide very knowledgeable and fluent in several languages to give us background and historical perspective.

we only had a short time there (and yes, olivia sketched there too) and then we were off to the burial building for napolean (as in, bonaparte). the gardens there were lovely too. it was a very overcast day, but we were thankful it wasn't colder or rainy (although we thought paris would be lovely in the rain as well).

next we drove through the city past monuments, lots of traffic circles, more monuments, truly awe-some buildings, some really cool cars (had to take pictures of them for the boys) and finally a stop at the arc d'trioumphe and the champs elysee. we *climbed* all 189+ steps to the top (seriously, look at the very top and see the people? that's a LOT of steps to the top). it was a tremendous view from up there.