Batsonland, Part ?

We visited our beloved Batsons once again this weekend. As usual, we had too much fun and too much good food (but then, is there really such a thing?). It was a beautiful weekend, and we crammed an awful lot into one day, including Joey's baseball game, fun on the river, a cookout by the pool, a crochet game, a nap, and an endless Monopoly game (which has become a tradition for each visit). Thank you, Batsons!

Family Time

This past weekend, Mom and Dad flew up to Normal and spent a night with us, checking out the house and the town. They haven't been here since they moved us in, so there was a lot to see! We all drove the six hours to Ohio and picked up Michael from the airport then headed over to Shelby, Ohio where my grandparents live during the summer. (They spend winters in Florida). We went specifically to celebrate their 80th birthdays. Since they are originally from Shelby, they have a lot of family in town, who threw them a big party that we were able to attend.

The rest of our visit consisted of touring Shelby and seeing where Grandma and Grandpa grew up. This beautiful cathedral was where Grandma attended as a little girl and where they were married. (Yes, I realize that I didn't quite make it before the timer went off!).

This is the house where Grandpa's mother (Great Grandma Rose) lived.

As we were hanging around, the men got into Grandpa's sweater and hat collection and had a little fun.
Dad liked the hats so much, he wanted to try them all.

On the way home, we dropped Michael back off at the airport, and Mom and Dad flew back out of Bloomington. Now it's just us again for a while.

Well, It Ain't the Garden of Eden

We returned home from vacation last week to a big gardening mess. The weeds that had been ankle-high before we left town now reached above my head, and the tree that had sported a single dead branch had died half-way down. The tree concerned me first, and I did some research to discover that a fungus called fire blight had attacked the apple tree. Unfortunately, the cure-less disease spreads by wind, water, insects, birds, or pretty much anything else that you can find outside, so our other trees were also infected. It didn't help that a huge swarm of Japanese beetles had moved in and made lace of the tops of each tree. Panicked, I called an arborist who came over and, upon seeing our dead tree and its contamination of the others, quickly pronounced our case hopeless and left. On the way out, he told me to get outside that day and kill the beetles. Real helpful guy. So, this weekend, JD rented a chainsaw and hacked down the fire blighted tree, and we spent the rest of the day on ladders cutting off dead branches in our other trees. We won't know until next year whether they'll survive or not. Sunday, we headed back outside to spray Seven for the beetles and to weed whip (or wack) all the weeds in the garden. In this picture, you can see the work JD did on the left getting rid of weeds. On the right, work still to do. We discovered all kinds of vegetables as we weeded!

But don't think that we're hopeless at this gardening stuff. We do have some wonderful things growing in our backyard. Corn, for instance:

We also have blackberries, blueberries, basil, cilantro, parsley, catnip, mint, tomatoes, bananna peppers, cucumbers, watermelon, broccoli, and pumpkins growing. Our bell peppers, green beans, and green onions were lost to a sea of weeds. Ah, well.

We also have some beautiful flowers blooming here and there:

So, as I go back out to continue the assault against nature, I leave you with our biggest weed yet. It took a saw to take this guy down.

Cross-Country Beach Extravaganza

As most of you know, for the past 11 days, JD and I have been enjoying two back-to-back beach vacations with our families. It was a nice, long trip full of sun and sand and quality family time. Yearly, my family vacations in Hilton Head, SC, so we headed there first. To make the 15-hour trip, we took two days, stopping for the night in between at our favorite camping spot, Max Patch in Hot Springs, NC. We went to bed with a beautiful sunset, and we woke up in the clouds.

Once at the beach, we enjoyed our traditional pastimes of swimming, beach games, biking, and eating out.

Michael had to leave a day early to return home because he bought a house! His closing took place on the last day of our vacation. Mom and Dad had to leave a night early because Mom got a new job! Her orientation took place on the day we were supposed to travel home. Although the trip was a bit shorter because of these appointments, it's nice to have so much good news in the family. JD and I then traveled up the coast to the Isle of Palms outside of Charleston, SC to meet up with the Pond family. Our beach vacation continued there with more beach time, biking, and eating out as well as a forth-of-July celebration.

Although Phil and Nim's flight was delayed by 24 hours! they were able to make it. JD and I took 2 days to drive home as well, stopping in Greenville, SC to stay with our friend Kevin for the night. When we returned home, Gizmo was crazy with missing us. She's now driving me crazy, wanting attention.