Camping Weekend

We seem be be doing a lot of stuff this summer - which is A-OK with me! My family, minus the dog, went to our camper this weekend by Athelstane, WI. We have a postage stamp size lot, but it provides a semi trailer size amount of fun. One thing we have plenty of time to do there is to relax. My favorite place to do that is in this Adirondack chair my brother Jeff made and gave me for a graduation gift three years ago. It fits the body like a glove. VERY relaxing.

Don't know if I've mentioned this previously, but my daughter's least favorite color is pink. We are technically not allowed to say the word pink, so we normally just say "the P word". My husband and daughter have each had their own 4-wheelers for years. I never have and usually had to stay at the camper with the dog while they had fun wheeling around. Well, in order to have a 4-wheeler that nobody else would want to "borrow", I decided a "P word" 4-wheeler was what I really wanted. I LOVE it! I can sometimes be a bit of a girly-girl, so this 4-wheeler was perfect. This weekend the trails had some major size puddles. You can definitely tell by the state of my 4-wheeler.

Here's Alyssa's idea of relaxing at the camper.

After an exhilerating time 4-wheeling, we decided to take it a little slower and go mini-golfing. This place is close to us.

In my experience, most mini-golf courses are not very well taken care of. This is the first one I've been to that was REALLY nice. Several water features and the plastic grass looked new.

Here's Lys planning her next shot.

Here's Don showing what a pro golfer he is. He's definitely in the rough.

Lys obviously didn't want to pose for this picture with the Chinese wise guy and her Dad. Teenagers . . .

Apparently this is what she really wanted to do with the poor Chinese guy!

Sunday we woke up to rain, rain, and more rain. Good day to drive into Lakewood. We ALWAYS go to the candy store when we go there.

Little did we know it, but they had a parade at noon. Since we weren't busy, we decided to stay for it. We were really glad we did! Boy, did they throw out the candy! They had the typical small town floats like this one.

And this one (well, maybe just for Wisconsin).

But here's one we weren't expecting!

Another great weekend!
Jill

Pounding rocks!

Here's something I had no idea I was going to be doing on my week off! My brother, Eric, gave me a call asking about drilling holes into rocks. Certain people in my family have an abnormal attraction to rocks - I'm one of them. Eric has acres of rocks. Isn't he lucky! Any way, he decided to make "planters" out of some of the rocks. Of course I had to run out to his house to get in on the action. We went looking for "practice rocks". Here's one we found.

We also found wild animal havens - not high on my list of fun things to do.

Once we found some rocks, we needed to drill some drainage holes.

Didn't it turn out good?!

Now time to make the little hollow for the plants. Grinder time!

Now for the Michelangelo part. Break out the chisels.

Look how they turned out! Not bad for a couple of amateurs! Eric supplied the rocks and tools, I supplied the Hens & Chicks and talent!



We're taking orders, send your money our way!
Jill

What a fun day!

Since our daughter is camping with friends, Don and I were able to do whatever we wanted to yesterday. Alyssa is not big on gardening or shopping. Come to think of it, neither is Don. However, he was awesome and went to the Mitchell Park Domes in Milwaukee and shopping in Cedarburg with me yesterday. What a guy!

I haven't been to the Domes for years. They weren't quite what I remember, but the inside was beautiful, nonetheless. The first Dome we toured was the tropical one. Even though it's 140 feet across, it seemed smaller than I remembered. It was big enough for a pond, small waterfall, and bridge, though. There are even some fish in the pond.

There were a few different types of birds flying around, and I spent a good amount of time trying to photograph them. This was the most colorful bird. I have no idea what it's called, but it was big on Halloween colors.

Neither Don and I are big on desert plants, but the Desert Dome was nice. It always amazes me that so many plants with thorns can be housed in so small a place.

The Show Dome was done in "Riverboat Tales" while we were there. It looked like Tom Sawyer was the inspiration. I enjoyed how they put flower and foliage colors together in the beds. I even took a picture of the gazebo so that Don would remember what he'll be building for me in our backyard. Wasn't that nice of me?



After the Domes we drove to Cedarburg. We found a park and had a picnic lunch - how romantic (wink, wink). From there we started walking and visited several shops. Their Washington Street has really been done nicely. We went into several antique shops looking for cameras, but didn't find anything that "tripped my trigger". I found a bead shop that I want to take my sister to, though. We recently took a jewelry making class that we both really enjoyed. This shop had some unique beads that I think would be fun to encorporate into some jewelry. Don didn't enjoy it a much as I did, but he's a trooper!

So far I'm enjoying my vacation. Still a couple of days left, yeah!
Jill

22 years!

This past spring I was thinking about when I might like to do to change my garden. I cam across the idea to make a meditation labyrinth. I really like the idea, but decided that it really wouldn't be something that I would have time to use and I'd rather have a gazebo in the space the labyrinth would take. However, when looking for ideas I found out that Holy Family Memorial Medical Center here in Manitowoc has a labyrinth! How cool is that? Well, today Don and I went to take a look at it in 86 degree weather. I think we would have enjoyed it more had it been a little cooler, but it was still really nice.

The first picture is of some Asiatic lilies that caught my eye. From the road they look like they're watermelon colored. You can't really tell they are two toned. I need some of these.

Here's the labyrinth. It was probably about 20 feet across. They had piped in elevator music, which I could have done without, but the benches and flowers were great.

I have lived in Manitowoc for twenty-two years. I LOVE gardening and flowers. At one time I lived four blocks away from the next garden I'm going to show you. This is the first time I have ever been to "West of the Lake Gardens" here in Manitowoc. Can you believe it? This place is WAY cool! You can't tell how large or beautiful it is from the front of the property. It sits right on the Lake Michigan lake shore.

If you go, make sure you pick up the self guided tour pamphlet. It gives the history of the garden and of the creator, Mae West. She started it in 1934 from a weedy 6 acre plot. Imagine the work!

There are ten garden areas. The first is the Asian Garden. It has a very angular water feature and two cute flower holding statures. They are just adorable!



Next is the Koi pond. It's gorgeous. Until now I wasn't tempted to put fish into my pond/fountain here at home. The fish were even beautiful - in a fishy kind of way.


Who doesn't love roses? You'll get your fill here. Don takes a rest from the heat under the shade tree along the way. It's right across from the oblong diamond shape fountain.




This next planting is so simple but so effective. It's just some round bushes around the outside of the tree ring, but the red coleus in the center just sets it off. I need to remember this for some place in my own yard.

Guess what the name of this garden is. Yep, the Red and White Garden. The red and white were very balanced and formal looking. Lovely.

As you may know, Manitowoc is the home to the Badger car ferry. It runs across to Holland, Michigan. While visiting the garden, the Badger was coming back from Holland. As you'll remember, it was very hot and the lake is very cold. Thus, there was fog on the lake. Makes for a very cool picture.

Here's my favorite part of the garden. The colors are so vivid. I was happy that the picture showed the colors so well.

I have no idea what these flowers are called. They look kind of strange to me. Do you see the topiary type evergreen in the back by the building? I think these trees look ridiculous and call them Dr. Seuss trees. It goes well with the blue flowers because they looks strange, as well.

This is the path for the Woods garden. Just before we got here the wind switch so that it was coming off the lake. It started out at 86 degrees like I said, but when we got back into the car it was 69! That's what they call lake air-conditioning. Felt good, though.

Hope you enjoyed the garden tour. I think I'll go back next spring when they have the spring bulbs up. If you're in the area, this garden it definitely worth the stop.

Jill

Gardening card for Mom

I wanted to send my Mom the pictures of her garden, so I thought I'd make her a card with a garden theme. Appropriate, huh? I used my Cricut (of course). The patterned background paper I bought a couple of months ago and I just love it. It's too sided. The back side is a shiny red with white polka dots. It reminded me of rubber gardening boots - too cute.




My daughter is off camping with friends till Friday afternoon and my husband and I have off all week. I hope to get some long put-off projects done and relax some. The husband is off to a Nascar race with his brother this weekend, so it will be just my daughter and I from Friday night to Sunday night. I was thinking about taking her to "Fun on the Farm" in Reedsville, Wisconsin on Sunday. I think she'd enjoy riding on a horse and checking out "farm life". If we do, you know I'll have pictures posted!


Hope you have a great week!
Jill

Trying it again

If it's not one thing it's another. For some reason our modem has been on the fritz. I'm hoping it's cured now and I'll be able to post more regularly. Here's hoping!

What have I been up to for the last couple of weeks? Here's some pictures of some hard work. I was revitalizing a flower garden for my Mom since Thursday of last week. The place had been very over grown, and it's what she looks at when she's on the deck outside her bedroom. That HAD to be taken care of! I wanted her to be able to sit on her deck and look down over a gorgeous flower bed instead of a weed bed. It took me the whole three days to get it done, but she loves it so it was worth all the work.

There still needs to be some bark chunks put on the beds, but we're not made out of money, so that will get done when it's in the budget.

The weeds are still in the path along the wall, but I sprayed those to get rid of them. The weeds in the "U" of the path I hand pulled. The paths will get done when the budget allows, too. Donations are being accepted!!


Hope you enjoyed the pics as much as Mom enjoys the garden!

Lys had a friend over and they drew chalk advertising figures all over the driveway. Lys made this little M&M guy. Isn't she talented?!



Made a couple of cards this last week for some friends at work. This one went to a friend that has three daughters. Instead of making something that's just a nice card, I figured she could take the card apart and use it on one of her daughter's scrapbook pages if she wanted.

I have Tinker Bell lifted off the page to give her a little more definition.


This is the other card I made. I was at a friend's house collecting some "baby" plants she said I could take for my Mom's garden you saw earlier. She has chipmunks and squirrels in her yard. The wildlife in my yard doesn't get very close, so when her chipmunks and squirrels were flying around literally feet from me, I jumped and let out a little squeal. She thought that was hilarious. So this card was a little inside joke between us of my adventures in her "wild" yard.

Hope everyone has a very safe 4th!
Jill