A Walk in the Woods

Mom and I went for a walk on the Wildflower Trail at Tourne County Park today. It was warm and breezy, a beautiful day for our outing. It was thrilling to see this beautiful Pink Lady's Slipper near the beginning of the trail. This is the first time I've ever seen this rare flower.
There are markers all along the trail in addition to a trail guide booklet. There are various flowers in bloom from April through August.

A brook meanders through the trail. Part of it is visible behind Mom.

Very tall ferns.

So picturesque.

Oh no, I've forgotten the name of this little flower. Post a comment if you can identify it, please.

Can you see why this is called Elephant Rock?

Next year we'll go earlier in the spring so we can see different flowers in bloom.

Like New

This is the way the closet looked before.
This is during.

This is after installation. John did a perfect job.

This is John's side totally finished.

This is my side all finished. A big project successfully accomplished!

Count the Cousins

On Sunday Jim, Sheryl, Trenton and Oliver met some friends at the Children's Discovery Museum in Paramus and then they all met us at the Greek Festival for lunch. Christian, Jessica and Elise arrived by bus from New York. Trenton put that sticker on Jim's left hand.
Oliver was all smiles and entertained everyone with his antics. Trenton had a great deal of fun playing with Chrysanne and all the toys.

Oliver enjoyed playing with Carolyn's Mother's Day balloon.

Christian turned 22 this week and Elise turned 25 this week! Christian and Jessica came to visit Elise in NY for a few days. They've been having lots of fun sightseeing.

9 X 5 +2 = their combined ages!

They were thrilled with their edible presents from the Georges. Count the cousins: Oliver, Trenton, Chrysanne, Bryan, Peter, Jim, Christian, Elise and Christopher (George). Plus Sheryl and Jessica - us old folks sure were outnumbered!

Carolyn's Graduation

Carolyn received her Master's of Arts in Education degree on Saturday from the College of St. Elizabeth in Morristown, NJ. Congratulations! She's now looking for a job as a special education teacher.

The bagpiper played before the ceremony, outside and then inside the huge tent.

Carolyn's very happy as she walks down the center aisle.

She receives her diploma, well, not the actual diploma, they were given out later.

The proud family.

After the ceremony we headed back to her house for more fun. First we went to Bryan's excellent band concert and then to the Greek Festival for fantastic food. It was an enjoyable, busy day.

Brown Trout Fishing, Oswego, NY

Our boat finally has its name on each side thanks to Sheryl and Jim's Christmas present. It certainly brought us good luck on this fishing trip!
A beautiful sunset over Lake Ontario.

This is the first trout we caught last Sunday; we ate it on Monday - delicious. The weather was just incredible this week - warm, sunny, no wind and calm seas. We successfully fished 5 out of 7 days, amazing. One day we caught 7!

These 23 inch beauties will be perfect for smoking.

This was the longest, measuring 24.5 inches. My arms were tired from reeling it in.

This was the heaviest, weighing 7.9 lbs. They really give you a great fight. One day we went to Kay and Jerry's and had a wondeful visit with them. They live only about an hour from here. We hope to meet up with them in Montana this summer.

Dinner at Chili's

We met up with Jim, Sheryl, Trenton and Oliver at Chili's Restaurant in the Hamilton Marketplace. We had a nice dinner and family time. They gave me my Mother's Day present - professional pictures of the family, the boys and Oliver at 6 months. The pictures are phenomenally good. You can see some of them on Sheryl's blog.

After our dinner we went to a nearby Chik Filet where Trenton was able to play in the play area and have a free ice cream cone and Oliver had his dinner. Fun! In the picture above I'm on the restaurant side with Ollie and Grampack's making him smile like crazy through the plexiglass wall by the play area. Ollie was quite happy, as usual. See Trenton in the tunnel near the ceiling?

Ollie's reaching for everything now. At 6 months old he's very curious.

Excellent family picture.

No More Sizzlin'

You can tell by the indoor-outdoor thermometer that our new central airconditioning was up and running and keeping us delightfully comfortable during the recent early heat spell. :-)