Karina's great campout!

This is a story about a little girl who went camping in the great outdoors with her mom, dad and grandparents. Her sweet Papou (grandfather in Greek) even brought her a camper to sleep in instead of a tent!

And so after being well rested to help with breakfast she did go. It was such a yummy one that everyone had to tell her so!

Then before too long she was ready for an outing. So her mommy took her for a bike ride to do some bird, deer and gator scouting...

When she returned her dad had caught some fish. She said she would rather see it swimming and putting it back was what she wished...

And so after a quick chat that is just what they did, so she could go for a boat ride which is so much fun for a kid!

Well after a while her tummy was needing some snack. So she settled right in to her camp chair and decided to kick back..

Then some fishing of her own was in order. For with this little girl nothing about playing in the water could bore her..

That same weekend she also went to the beach. Her mom and Dad just watched her play and laugh in the water for that is one thing they haven't had to teach..

This little lady has so great a time playing in the sand. She really does thoroughly enjoy the water and the land..

She would run and swim and play all day until she could no more. And who am I to tell her no for lounging on the beach is no chore...

After a weekend of fun and some during the week too, this little girl had some fun with her cousins and saw animals like at the zoo.
Well not quite for they were stuffed and quite still and silent, yet she still got lots of joy, out of pointing each one out and then was ready to go get a toy...

Her mom had promised her a surprise and so that's what we did. She picked out a sea urchin looking ball and had lots of fun with it!

Then going back to the campsite she played and had fun some more. Her little cousins were so sweet and them she does adore.


Her Yia yia and Papou could not be more wonderful or great. They made a delicious meal of which she ate and ate...


Then after getting all cleaned up on one last adventure she did go. She took a walk with her dad and family on the pier to hear the sound of the waves and she thought that you should know.

With one last snack that night and one more kiss from her Yia Yia and Papou she said goodnight and see you soon and ONE GREAT BIG NEVER ENDING HUGE AND HAPPY THANK YOU!

*The End*

piles of pear preserves!

Well I tried my hand at some preserves and I must say that it went well. There is something fulfilling about canning fruits and veggies that gives you a sense of fulfillment. That is until you read the recipe that says put in TONS of sugar. Oh well, I did it anyway, though I did cut out some of the sugar and it was fun!

These pears also made a wonderful cobbler that I was able to share with my family and friends and since this picture was taken I have canned 9 jars all together. I think I will give some away as gifts and store the others for some yummy warm pears over vanilla ice cream or maybe another cobbler to celebrate when the cool weather arrives. Whatever it is I know it will be yummy so maybe I'll be giving you a call to come and join me for some coffee (Tyler hehehe) and cobbler soon. How do you celebrate the arrival of autumn?

Way too much fun at the water park!

A couple weekends ago now we were blessed with a lovely day to go to a nearby water park. I was so glad that our extended family also decided to join us and Emily beat me to posting pictures ( you go girl! ) so some of you may have seen a bit of the fun we had already. Jeff's parents came along and also his brother's sweet family. It was a wonderful day and the kids couldn't have had more fun. OK so the parents had a little too.

This park is the perfect size for little ones our Karina's age. Plenty to do, but it is also easy to keep a close eye on your kiddos too. The pool for the kids is great in that it gradually gets deeper from 0 ft, but is still only 3 ft at it's deepest. You will see in the last picture that Karina thought she would brave the "deep" end with Daddy close by. :)

It was so sweet for me to watch Karina with her daddy at this place. They had such a great time together. Jeff has been working so hard and I knew this would be the perfect family day out to give him a break. I think anyone looking at this picture would say he enjoyed himself.


I had to include this picture of our sweet family because it just makes me smile. They are so precious to us and we praise God that we have them so close and are able to spend so much time with them!

And last but not least our little fish of a girl thinking that she is a little bigger then she is.

I hope you all are still enjoying a bit of warm weather to get out there and have fun before Fall is upon us. I will say we have thoroughly enjoyed our summer time weather, but I am really looking forward to those cool breezy days that come with autumn.

Camping picture coming soon...

A free date and wonderful evening...

No we did not have a date on a pirate ship, but pretty close. It was a restuarant that was at the dock where they keep the ship. And it wasn't really a date although it felt like it since it was a night out without our daughter. It was a wedding and reception of a sweet friend of ours and it was lovely. So here are a few pictures from it....

I loved the flowers and my brother in law captured this photo of the clouds with our camera.

Me and my hunny enjoying dinner, fun and fellowship on the water.

Family fun!

Last month we had a great time with some of Karina's little cousins for the day. Their mommy was out of town and their daddy was at work. So we pulled out the play dough and had a great time. The girls kinda did their own thing but Ethan and I had a good time making a cool blue jet flying through some clouds and a big white whale. I can't wait to see how these little creative minds grow over the years.























This road was made out of my efforts to make something to play with that would be fun for a little boy when most of our toys are girly. They all loved it. I didn't get pictures of this until the cousins left but I am sure it will be played with in future days at our house. We had a really good time that day and I was blessed that I could help out our sweet family. Hope you all our having great family times and enjoying precious moments with your own sweet kids.

All God's creatures...

Isn't this an amazing grasshopper! He's actually so amazing that he has managed to eat some on all of my amaryllis plants. Of course those are also a part of God's creation so they don't really belong to me anyway. I just planted them. I saw this guy from my kitchen window one Sunday morning. Jeff caught him and we decided to take him to church with us and let him go there so he could enjoy other plants to munch on. But it sure was fun to look at him and admire God's great creativity.

Then this little guy was in our side yard one day as Karina and I were getting in the car to go somewhere. So I grabbed the camera real quick to snap some pictures.

For this next one you'll have to zoom in to see this crazy little spider. Unless you absolutely hate spiders which I can understand because most of them freak me out. This one however looked more like a cartoon character then anything that would be scary. So look at your own risk. hehehe.

Thought I'd go ahead and add one of my crepe myrtles in here too since I was so excited that they decided to bloom again. I can't wait to see what they do next year. Well that's the end of this post. Just thought I'd glory in God's creation and let you join me in that. Have a great week and don't get too busy that you don't see the beauty all around you.