The Good...The Bad...The Ugly

Since my last posting a lot has happened around here. I can hear you all saying, "What else is new?" Trust me, life is always exciting around here. First the good news.

Our July 4th celebration was wonderful. We all had a great time with good food, fun games and warm friendships. We look forward to the event each year and this year everything was perfect....not too hot either.

Smoking hot!!!!

First sparkler.

Fun......

Fun......

Double fisted fun.

The bad ............

My mom had to return to the hospital ICU when she developed a pulmonary embolism ( blood clots in the lungs). It was touch and go for awhile, but she seems to be doing much better now. The doctor was not very optimistic when the ambulance arrived, but once again, she has rallied and is now in a regular room and eager to get home. I am fairly certain that the extended bedrest of two months contributed to the condition but there were no other options to finally close the septic hip. She continues to inspire and amaze us all.

The really ugly......

The night before last our beloved dog of 16 years was attacked and killed by what they suspect was a mountain lion. Needless to say, we are devastated at loosing him. He was one of those dogs that was a perfect puppy and a delight for all sixteen years. He was just a "pound puppy" and seemed eternally grateful that we had rescued him. He was a good sized dog at around 50-60 pounds and it frightens me to think there is an animal out there who could take him down so easily and in our own fenced back yard. The Department of Fish and Game tell us that this is the fourth pet kill in recent months and they, too, are very concerned.

In other news, the peaches and apricots have kept me busy with canning for the last few weeks. It seems as though they always ripen at the "wrong" time as there is so much else to do. It, however, is well worth it come winter and those fresh pies, cobblers, jams and fruits are begging to remind you of warm summer days.

Our #3 son, his wife and their recently graduated son are enjoying the week in Hawaii before our grandson heads off to college. They have a sitter for the other nine children half of the week and then we will have them until they get back on Sunday. We are both looking forward to the stay.

Many evenings lately have been spent at the baseball field as we enjoyed watching our grandson play on the All Star team. The park is beautiful and the weather has been so pleasant. The park happens to be where many of the old western movies were filmed. It is also about a mile from the old Spahn Ranch where Charles Man*son and his family were living forty years ago. As kids we used to ride horses up on the ranch and always laughed at the weird "hippie" people living there. Little did we know.......

Another memory from forty years ago this week was the Americans walking on the moon. I can still remember it so clearly. We were living in Pensacola and were at the naval base for a BBQ. We all rushed to be home in time to watch the moon walk. Did any of us ever look at the moon the same way again? It was so exciting. It did seem like it was forever from when they landed to when they opened the hatch to descend the stairs. I wonder if they will ever return to the moon again. I wonder what the flag looks like after all these years. Hmmmm.

There has not been much time for sewing lately, but I did manage to sew all of my nine patch blocks together. That's about all I have done in my sewing room the last few weeks. Sigh!

I did finally get the pictures from our anniversary party. They are on a disk and I just have not had a chance to upload them onto the computer yet. I will post them when I get a chance. It seems like the party was ages ago.