Gifts from my children...

Don't you just love the sweet gifts that the children come up with on their own?

My daughters made this beautiful cake for me for Mother's Day... all by themselves. I didn't see it till they presented it to me completely finished! I was impressed!
Later in the week a knock came on my office door. I called out for whoever it was to "Come in!" but no one did. So I opened the door to find this cheery nosegay hanging on the doorknob!
Attached was this "mysterious" note...
I wasn't sure if they meant they were late for Mother's Day or May Day, but anyway, I appreciated the thoughtfulness behind the gift.

I really do like dandelions. I just wished the blossoms lasted longer and that they didn't have such "weedy" tendencies of growing in inappropriate places, and insisting on being taller than the grass!

The children were tickled to find out that their bouquet was called a nosegay! They thought that was a hilarious name for it.

Stuck in the snow in May...

It's 84 degrees at my house today... our warmest day of the season so far. It was not, however, this warm in the mountains yesterday where we went for a Sunday afternoon drive!

We knew there was still a little snow, so it was fun to take pictures of the melting snow along the road...
...and the merry little mountain streams carrying the snow melt down to the river...
As the road switched-back through the mountains we could even see the snow back on the road behind us, which was now across the valley!
We hit a couple of spots further up the mountain where the snow was still across the road. No problem! Our truck has 4-wheel drive... so we just plowed right through it...

...until we came to a patch where we didn't plow right through it! Instead we got stuck!

I opened my door and the snow was up to the running board...
The only thing we had to dig with was a small metal bowl the kids had brought along for the dog to drink out of. It was not very funny at the time... It took Lyle an hour of digging in wet snow, crawling around in the mud, jacking the truck up with a hand-cranked jack to put pieces of wood under the wheels, and a whole lot of frustration and grumbling, to get us "unstuck"!
After Lyle backed the truck out of the snow, he and the kids walked back up to where we were stuck to retrieve the jack and bowl...
Then Lyle, in his ultimate wisdom, decided that since there were tracks now, we could make it through if we'd just give it another go! I was skeptical... but, hey, I wasn't the one who was cold, and wet, and muddy. If he wanted to risk it again, I was willing to let him!

Can you believe he did it? And he was right! We did make it through.

However, just around the next bend we ran into more, even deeper snow. Fortunately, he was wise enough to decide that no, we definitely wouldn't make it through that section. And that explained why there hadn't been any traffic on the road for the whole hour or so we had been sitting there!

So we turned around and went home the way we had come (back through the snow patch we had just dug out of, for the third time!), rather than completing the loop through the mountains that was our intended route.

It took close to 2 hours to get home, and Lyle fidgeted in his wet jeans all the way home. But his attitude was, "Hey, we always say life is an adventure, don't we?"

And it wouldn't have made nearly as good a story if we had been able to get out right away!

There's a birthday on A Romantic Porch!

Last week when I told about picking Mayflowers with Rachel, Tatting Chic commented: "What a sweet story! I didn't know that Rachel from A Romantic Porch was your Auntie!!! How sweet! :)"

Yes... she's my "auntie"... and today is her birthday! Last year for her birthday I posted a picture taken the same day this one was:
The other one is a better pose, but the resolution is sharper on this one.

I wonder what we were looking at?

Don't you love Rachel's curls?

Oh! And lest the antique buggy make you think we are older than we really are. No. It was antique then! The picture was taken in 1966.

Times of Refreshing

Earlier this month I planted some annuals (plus a new rosebush) in the backyard one morning. Soon after I got them planted it started raining... but then later that evening the sun came out, and I was able to capture the beauty of the fresh raindrops glistening on the flowers...
The leaves of the plants seemed to perk up, and the colors seemed more vibrant after the rain...It was as if the plants had become so weary of living in a confining pot in the greenhouse and were so relieved to be able to put their roots down and take a long cool draught of refreshing, life-giving water.

This rose was blooming when I bought the bush... but it was drooping so badly that I was sure it was "done". I figured I would just snip it off and wait for the next bud to bloom. I was so amazed at how the rain brought it back to life, and I enjoyed it for several more days after that.
Isn't life that way sometimes? We get so weary of the confinement of our every day routines and the burdens we carry, and then God provides us with a special "rain shower"... a time of refreshing... just when we need it most!

Mother's Day Camp-out

Our first "real" camping trip of the season was for Mother's Day weekend. My younger daughter asked me if that was my Mother's Day present. I said, "Well, I guess so!" I hadn't really thought about it... but it was interesting: later in the weekend I was reading about "love languages" and realized that my love language is "quality time." So, yes... this definitely fit the bill! Spending quality time with my family was a perfect Mother's Day gift!

It was partly cloudy and cool when we left Friday evening...
We set up camp and built a fire to cook hot dogs on for supper...After supper it started raining. Some of "us" bravely enjoyed the campfire anyway...
...others of "us" (waving my hand!) enjoyed the view out the window with a good book, inside the warmth of the cozy trailer!
Saturday was sunny with just a few puffy clouds...
It was a great day for bike riding... in the campground...
...and on forest roads...
I always look forward to beating Lyle at a game of Scrabble after dark when we're camping...
...only this time he beat me! Hmph!

He said he felt real bad about it.

But I didn't believe him.