Making our first cherry pies of the season!As you can see, Grandma Donna is helping out as well (she's on my apron -on the cordless phone- where she usually is!)
My other helper for the day...

The filling turned out great, but pitting them was a chore. The next investment is a 'cherry pitter', for sure!!

As you can see, I decided to do individual pies this time. Too cute!

I have a darling cherry embellishment cutter, but just decided to make a traditional cross-slit this time around. Aren't they beautiful?!!

So Michael and I decided to make a berry 'cobbler' with the leftover cherry filling (added some fresh raspberries and blueberries as well). He wanted to use some of the embellishment cutouts, so we went to town and did some stars and baby cherries. Kelly thought it looked a little like a stars and stripes thing. It was cute and yummy!

The finished products!

Author's Note: Kelly made me promise I wouldn't give these pies away (I give alot - ALOT!- of my baking to others. Believe me, my dearly beloved never goes without, but... I promised just the same. ;-) Fun baking day!!

Patio Container Gardening!

Introducing the newest additions to join our family: 2 Heirloom Beefsteak Tomatoes plants; 2 Roma Tomatoe plants; 6 red and green bell peppers, assorted jalapeno and hot peppers, and a delightful little herb garden including Sweet basil (which I'm totally addicted to!), Greek Oregano (yum!), German Thyme and some curly parsley. Welcome to our backyard!!

One wee little salsa pepper peeking out (and a little green one to the upper left of him!)

NOTE: This patio gardening, and it's associated 'needs' (tools, soil, containers, more soil, compost buckets, watering can, soil for seedling starters, gloves, aprons, still more soil, etc) necessitated my need to clear some additional 'on-premise space', thus my reason for getting rid of more than a hundred of my shoes boxes (and I 'greatly dislike' having shoes without their box!) What can say but that, at the end of the day, it was for a VERY worthy cause! I'll keep you posted on my little garden...

Downsizing my Shoe Boxes

I decided to again get rid of some of my shoe boxes-(the next post will explain the latest reason). Now I didn't get rid of any shoes, mind you, just some of the boxes. Here are just a few I parted with- about 100 in total this time around.

Perfectly Swirled Hair

Okay, so this one is a little off-beat, but...

After I finished doing my hair this morning, I noticed one hair had landed in the bottom of the sink in a perfectly swirled pattern. I don't recall ever having seen that before and just had to take a pix. A random, though perfect, swirl - another first in my books.
(And yes, now you know, if you didn't before, how truly bizarre I am and the strange things in life that get noticed by probably only me!)

Michael's First Wasp Sting

Cabra and Jeremy's 2nd Wedding Anniversary Seafood Fest

Here's the tablescape I did...



This centerpiece was filled with crushed ice and jumbo cocktail shrimp, lemon slices and parsley springs- way cute!

The menu included drinks, jumbo Shrimp Cocktail, to-die-for Cheddar Bay Biscuits, Garlic Shrimp Scampi and Seafood Linguini and for dessert, individual Chocolate 'Molten Lava' Cakes- everything hand made by moi and my beautiful daughter! Intimate dinner for four!





I served the N-A Strawberry Daquiries in the darling margarita glasses pictured here. Also, though you can't see it, the square dishes (under the teal napkins)- which we served the Shrimp Scampi in- actually have hand-painted fish on them! Cute!

July 4th Celebration!

Here's my red, white and blue tablescape...

My mom sent the spangled garland to me from Oklahoma- I thought it was a nice touch!

My mother-in-law sporting the new outfit I got her- she looks so darling!

Kelly and Aric getting the jet skis ready to take to the river for the day.

Looks like somebody just couldn't wait...

Okay... all ready to go...

Brooke helping Mom down after she kindly explained that the skis work much better after being loaded in the WATER...

So... I don't have any pictures of us on the water- my darling niece and nephew got on the skis and well, we never saw those young Canadians, or the skis, again! But fun times were had by all!

Nikki's 26th Birthday Party- July 2 in SLC, UT.

We celebrated at Red Lobster- Nikki's favorite restaurant!! (Treyden,Kelly, Terra, Nikki, Great Grandma Flora {visiting from Canada}, Cammon, Carid)

Carid, Treyden, Kelly, Tristan, Nikki, Grandma, Cammon

Twin Rainbows on the drive home! I'm so in love with the Rocky Mountains and they make such a perfect backdrop for the gorgeous rainbows!

Our sweet Great Grandma - oh how we love it when she comes to visit! (I even caught a picture of the minty gum in her mouth- cute!)