one...

We just love this little princess so much and can't wait to celebrate with her today and at her big party on Saturday!

I'm back...

I'm back from a wonderful vacation with these two princesses...

and their parents. We had a wonderful time and met a beautiful baby boy for the first time...can you guess where we were? I'll be back with more photos and the location of our trip after I catch up a bit.

Lady slippers & other wildflowers...

I've lived out on the MN prairie my entire life, it's farm country and the only "woods" are the farmstead groves, so I was thrilled to spend our long holiday weekend camping in the northwoods of MN. An even bigger thrill was seeing all the pink lady slippers in bloom on our cycle rides. On Friday, we crossed the border into Canada at Baudette, MN and rode the backroads of Ontario up to Nestor Falls. One of the roads turned into gravel about 35 miles in so we had to slow our pace down and really enjoy the scenery and I was surprised to see such big bushes of wild roses as well as so many lady slippers.

I got a good start on conquering my fear of working in the garden and have a few of the pathways and other areas weeded. So much is blooming now that I would love to take photos but it has been a windy couple of days. I'll have to do a end of July garden tour (if I can get the weeds taken care of by then).

July cuties...

mosaic Monday...fireworks

I hope everyone reading this had a wonderful long holiday weekend! We sure did and while I catch up in the office today, I thought I would share a few mosaics of the fireworks we attended on July 3rd.

We spent two of our 4 days of holiday time on the road traveling to Waskish, MN on Upper Red Lake. It was an almost 6 hour drive each way but the two days we spent cycling in the Chippewa National Forest and Canada were well worth the drive. More photos on that tomorrow.

Granddaughters and garden woes...

I can't believe a place I used to love to come to almost daily (this blog) has fallen to the wayside. Life just gets busy sometimes and that's the only excuse I have :) In the meantime here are a few mosaics of my beautiful granddaughters for my family and friends to see...

I was lucky to spend a few days up north with Brooklyn last week. We had a "girls" day on Thursday complete with a picnic at Leif Erickson park overlooking Lake Superior and a drive up to Two Harbors while she napped in her carseat and grandma enjoyed the views. Then we stopped to watch a big ship docking and finally had a few hours of fun at a big playground.

I am very thankful that little Miss Bailey lives locally and I get to see her several times a week. She has her own little playground and pool in her yard so it is fun to see her play there. She is now 11 months old and walking all over the place!

I haven't been out in the garden for weeks and I'm disappointed to say that it is the weediest it has been since I began gardening. My former joy in gardening has been taken over by fear of snakes. It seems I have an infestation of garter snakes this year and I know they cannot hurt me but that doesn't stop them from scaring the bejibbers out of me when I am suddenly startled by one! I can let out a good scream even when I am home alone and it takes a good 15 minutes for my heart rate to return to normal :)

WARNING TO ANYONE SCARED OF SNAKES A PHOTO IS NEXT!

I am seeing them in the pond as I assume they are eating fish eggs or baby fish since I haven't seen any live baby fish yet this year. I find them on rocks around the pond and especially around the big rock fountain. They crawl across paths I am walking on and the last straw was when one was in my fairy garden...Yikes, I'm crying Uncle. I've purchased every last container of a product called "Snake Away" from the shelves of a local farm store and I haven't spotted any for 3 days so maybe it is working! As part of my year of renewal I am going to try and overcome my irrational fear and put my "big girl pants" on next week and get back to the garden. I'm motivating myself to overcome my snake phobia with some of these quotes found on pinterest...

He said it more than once...

Let's hope I can get myself cured of definition 1 so that I can choose option 2 and start enjoying life in the garden again.

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of this holiday week. We have fun things planned starting with a local fireworks show tonight already and then some days of cycle riding. I'll be back next week, hopefully showing off a weeded garden...wish me luck!