Summers End

Home Sweet Home

We have been fortunate this year in that that we have been having an extended summer. The weather has been perfect the last several weeks with no humidity, blue skies, cool temperatures at night, and no unwanted bugs. This is what makes living in the Midwest this time of year a great place to be at.



In spite of having several a weeks of perfect weather if you look closely you will be able to see that fall is starting to make its appearance . . .


. . . a little color in the trees . . .


. . . the last of the farmer's crops to be harvested . . .

. . . vibrant sunsets . . .

. . . but with all of the beauty that fall offers us the only drawback is what will follow . . .


Winter 2007
. . . not really looking forward to the snow.

Barbies Anyone?

Another garage sale find! A beautiful Barbie Grand Hotel with furniture, an elevator, and working telephones. Knowing that I had the Barbie Hotel waiting for some play time I called and got permission from Cara's Aunt Cyndi to see if we could play with her stash of old Barbie dolls that were in the attic. Given the go ahead we had an afternoon of fun, even grandpa joined in. Yes, real men can play with dolls.

Helping Grandpa set up the hotel.

Getting the front desk in place.

Inspecting the elevator.


Answering the front desk phone.

Thanks Aunt Cyndi for letting Cara play with all the Barbie stuff!

Never Forget

A Day At The Parade

A local town in our area had their annual fair and parade this last weekend. We enjoyed this fair and enjoyed visiting the different food vendors and the handcrafted items offered for sale by local artists in the area. Today would be different, however, as this is the first time we were going over on parade day. Saturday morning found Cara, daddy, mommy, grandpa, and myself getting up early in the morning to be ready to head over to watch all of the excitement.

With a beautiful cloudless blue sky and cooler weather we scouted out and found what we thought would be the best place to see the parade. The parade had veterans from the different services, bands, floats, politicians, balloons, old cars, classic cars, tractors, bands, scouts, policemen, and firemen. Emily and I helped Cara to collect a small batch of candy that was tossed from the floats as they went by. Cara, of course, thought this was great.

After the parade we spent some time enjoying eating curly fries, strawberry shortcake, carmel corn, and hot dogs. With full tummies we walked around and saw some of the crafts and we treated Cara to a ride in an Amish buggy.

After a busy morning we headed back to our house for a nap, more playtime, and a big surprise! I will post about the surprise next.