October 2017

In October,

Thomas turned 6 months old.

I turned 63 years old. Phillip asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, and I told him that I wanted to watch him turn this dresser into a patio table. He did, and I'm very pleased with it.

Catherine had eye surgery.  She did very well and everything is fine.

She is growing into such a big girl!

We celebrated our 44th wedding anniversary with a trip to Savannah.

We tried to take a selfie with the Tybee Island lighthouse in the background but we had some technical difficulties.  It is back there, I promise.

We carved pumpkins.

Our grandchildren enjoyed dressing up and had a fun Halloween.  

September 2017

Catherine came to visit and met her cousin Thomas.

  

We celebrated Hannah's birthday

and Abram's birthday.

We had two scary events this month which could have ended with serious injuries.  

Jonas ran full force into the side of our car.  He hit it hard enough to leave a sizable dent, but he wasn't seriously hurt, not even a bruise or bloody nose.  

Lilly was riding in the Teryx with her dad (It's some sort of off road vehicle, I think.) and this tree came through the passenger side.  

The Teryx was totaled but Lilly only had scrapes and bruises.  We are very thankful that both Lilly and Jonas are safe.

Catherine went to the beach for the first time. 

 On August 1, Thomas turned 4 months old.  This boy gets cuter every day!

Our family celebrated Catherine's first birthday. 

She has certainly come a long way. We are all so thankful to watch her growing and thriving.

Grandpa, Grandma, and Catherine

We had an eclipse party.  It was an amazing sight to watch.

The kids played in the pool.

 We made eclipse cookies.

Abram enjoyed licking the icing more than decorating the cookies.

Lilly and Lucy, along with their neighbor, opened a lemonade stand.  We were proud to be among their customers.

Thomas met a friend of the family.  They hit it off very well.

It was Lucy's turn to have a sleepover.  We had fun polishing our nails.

Phillip made this tray for me to hold the salt and pepper grinders.

Work is progressing in the remodel of the house.  The floors are down and the kitchen cabinets are installed.

The French doors and deck are finished.

July 2017

We celebrated the Fourth of July.

Thomas 

Abram and Lilly

Jonas, Lilly, Lucy, and Abram in the background

The garden was productive.

Catherine turned 11 months old!

We made the move into our new apartment. Work should start on the main part of the house in a few weeks.

Lilly spent the night with us, the first sleepover in our new space.  

July Gardens

Squash.  It's almost finished bearing but we've gotten enough to put several packs in the freezer.

These are the green beans with a container of tomatoes in the front.  We really didn't plant enough this year, but it was such a busy summer that it was all we had time to pick and can.

We have most of the tomatoes in the raised beds and a few in containers.  They've all had tomato blight and blossom end rot.  They look awful but they're bearing fairly well.  It's not the best year but it's not the worst, either.

Cantaloupes and watermelons

There are lots of good looking cantaloupes hiding in those vines and a couple of tiny watermelons.  The herbs are in the very front, overrun by the vines. I think we cut the cilantro too aggressively and it died, but the rest is thriving.

Corn, okra, pumpkins, and more green beans

This is the garden that is outside the fence. You can see the cardboard that we laid down as a weed barrier.  It's helped a lot. We have more okra that we can possible use.  Mark and Cindy have been picking some, and we've given most of it away to other people.  The corn did very well.  We had plenty for us and to share.  There are some kershaw melons but we haven't seen any pumpkins yet.