Balloon Festival

Here are pictures from the yearly balloon fest in our area. The kids enjoyed dancing to the band. M and P were asked to come on stage and sing! S loved rolling down the hill in front of the band and staying out late with all the other kids. The whole event is a fundraiser for children with diabetes...next year we need to bring more money as we all went pretty hungry and thirsty when the cash ran out!

There are several balloon races during the weekend. Only 4 balloons took off on Saturday night. I don't know why...last year they launched all the balloons and we were able to watch them go right over our heads. It really was exciting. I would love to ride in the basket someday...I love the idea of not knowing where we will land...I'm all about adventure like that.



I loved this part. I loved the whole culture of this hobby...

Thistles in bloom

The thisltes are out. I didn't get any good pictures of the actual thistles because I was too busy swimming in the beauty of these big purple flowers. Aren't they lovely? I love them! We still have years and years of landscaping ahead of us so that being the situation, I am going to enjoy our weeds and wildflowers while we have them because one day they will be gone...that is the goal at least!

Well, we weren't really lost...

We went for a drive the other day and discovered a section of the countryside that we had never seen before. It stretched all the way to the Mississippi River and back around to where we live. While back inside this piece of our world it felt as though we were far away from home, on vacation, in another world for awhile. "I think this is where that body was found," said D as we rounded a tight dark corner. We had read about it for weeks and the trial ended in a conviction. I'm sure that whoever did the awful crime thought that nobody would find her it did indeed seem like such a remote part of the world, even to us being only a few miles from home. When we finally came out from the winding roads onto the main highway, a familiar spot it all made sense as to where we were for that short time. I was taken by the two trains that crossed our path.

Month in Review

Well, school is out for the summer and I have no internet connection. I have three children and it's challenging to get out of the house with all of them to a public place to make a post...So, I'm 11 days late on my second monthly report. I guess I'm still HERE and I'm moving FORWARD...it's difficult sometimes to not want to move backwards...to not think about what WAS. This blog has helped a lot. Surfing other people's blogs has helped as well. I'm going to miss my daily dose of the few blogs that I really look forward to reading such as Urban Veggie Blog, A Kinky Hair Monologue, Opening the Door Walking Outside, and Gateway City Girl. It's only been a month since I discovered this blogging thing but so far these are then 4 blogs that I connect with the most.

Busy Bee

9:00 am I noticed this little nest hanging on the garage on the way to M's piano lesson.
11:00 am I was surprised to see the progress in such a short time.
Here is the busy little bee at work.
I thought the wet ring around the base was interesting...I watched it go around in circles for about 10 minutes.

Ongoing Landscape Projct (before-after)

BEFORE
Here is another installment of our landscape project...remember we live on a steep rocky hill. The manufactured stones in the back were put in two summers ago. Last summer we took some time off. D has done most of the hard labor. I have been the one to search the premises for usable stones. When I find them I dig them up with a broken hoe and then tip them over gently to let the bugs go on their way before bringing them down the hill for D to stack. I did a lot of weeding this weekend...not on this particular segment of the project...

AFTER