June 28, 1974

40 years ago today, I married the love of my life. We were so young-17 and 19! There have been great times, bad times and everything in between. I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. Happy Anniversary Lonnie!

If it doesn't rattle....

...it's a cobra. My hard and fast rule for snakes. In the mornings I love to take my coffee and go walk around our porch. There's usually a nice southern breeze that makes the 80 F temperature and 80% humidity reasonably comfortable. (Good old North Texas summers!) The birds are singing and everything is green-it's really lovely out here in the mornings.

Evidently, this little guy thought so too. He was curled up in front of the porch this morning. For those not familiar with snakes, this is a little copperhead, a venomous snake. Even the babies like this could be dangerous, especially to a small child. I almost missed him because his coloring is so similar to the dirt. Needless to say, I was NOT happy to see him. My old adage "if it doesn't rattle it's a cobra definitely applies here. We do try not to kill the "good" snakes, so we have familiarized ourselves with the differences between them.

The shape of the head shows it's a viper and the markings and tell-tale green tip of the tail show it's definitely a young copperhead. I think what really bothers me is the fact that it's a baby, which means a group of eggs has hatched nearby and there are more out there, and probably adults too. With our grands around we will have to be careful before we let them outside! (And yes, my husband killed it for that very reason.)

I guess that's my adventure for the day. Bother adventures!

Making Memories

I spent part of the day recently picking wildflowers with my granddaughters age 8 and 5. We wandered on our property picking brown-eyed susans, indian paintbrushes, daisies and some I didn't even recognize. I ended the day with some very sweet memories and this bouquet picked just for me!

Happy Father's Day

Long time, no post...

Sorry I have been so long in posting-life gets in the way sometimes! We've been enjoying the summer and spending lots of time with our grands.(I've finally figured out how to upload the pictures on my phone to my laptop so prepare to be inundated with pictures!)

We had a wonderful cool, rainy day yesterday-it's beginning to look like our drought may become a thing of the past-sure hope so!  We spent last weekend at our son and daughter in law's house and got lots of time with our littlest man. He'll be a big brother at the end of this year. He's growing up so fast-17 months old and not a baby anymore!

We also celebrated our son's 31st birthday while we were there. Amazing-seems like it hasn't been long since he was this size.  We also did some driving the backroads and revisiting the places that my grandparents and great grandparents lived. This place is called Ft. Phantom Hill. It was a fort built in 1851 as protection from the Comanche indians and was abandoned after only 3 years. Fire and time have destroyed the log structures, but the chimneys and rock buildings remain. It's a quiet, lonely place. My great, and great-great grandparents on my mom's side are buried at the cemetery down the road from here.

Our other grands came for a visit when we got back-they're growing up so fast. Our oldest granddaughter turned 8 last month, the youngest granddaughter will start Kindergarten this fall, and our oldest grandson turns 2 in August!

I had a hard time getting good pictures of the girls-Alissa never likes to have her picture made and Alaina insisted on holding the "umbrella" she made in preschool. They're still pretty cute though-not that I'm prejudiced!  Of course, our little man always loves to have his picture taken-when he sees the camera or phone, he says "cheese" and poses!

Have a great weekend!