Blogger's Bloom Day - July

May Dreams Garden hosts a monthly "what's blooming in your garden" entry. I thought it would be fun to participate this month.

Unfortunately, today, the 15th, we had some tremendous rain storms off and on, so quite a few of my flower blooms took a beating. Despite the rain, I was able to get a few good shots.

I know most of the names of my flowers, but not the specific varieties. I do a lot of my plant shopping when things are on sale...often, no tags or incomplete ones! I don't mind really, it is often fun to see what I get at those 75% off sales. I also swap with friends and they don't always know what they are swapping either. It is fun.

Anyway, here are some of my the flowers blooming in my garden today

Coral Bells

Hosta

Water Lily

Pink Yarrow

Yellow Columbine

Blanket Flower

Cardinal Flower

Centaurea

Clematis

Coneflower

Elephant block

This is my latest cross-stitch block. I think he came out very cute!

Snippits from our Week

A few last minute photos of our week camping in Maine.

The girls love playing with my hair

Gabe plays with some bubbles

Gracie always watching the action

Gabe has some downtime with his GameBoy

Hannah relaxing

Bri does a lot of the cooking

Clean-up duty

Bessie taking pictures (we sure do a lot of that)

Dan plays with the Fisher Price animals

(check out Noah in the tractor)

Bri works diligently keeping our old van running smooth

Our annual family picture on the rocks

One last shot before heading home

S'mores

Our last full day ended with a campfire and s'mores. It was a wonderful vacation. We had a great time, some good family bonding time and lots of fun too.

Bessie, Gabe and Rachel roast their marshmallows
Yum, gooey s'mores
Bessie assembles the s'mores

Thursday

Our last full day. This vacation was much too short this year! We tried to make each day count and we had very full days.

The day was clear and lovely, blue skies and warm temps. We went out to Pemaquid Lighthouse, one of my favorite spots. It was just about noon when we got there, so we had lunch first. Always a hit with the Littles.

We spent several hours enjoying the rocky beach area, looking for beach glass and interesting rocks. The kids searched all the tidal pools looking for crabs and other creatures. They seemed to enjoy walking around on the large rocks as much as anything. We chatted with other visitors. Our large multi-ethnic family seems to attract attention and conversation. People are curious and we try and share our story of adoption and how God has blessed us. We met one young woman who had never been to the ocean before. I can not imagine and what a treat for he to have this wonderful day to enjoy her first visit.

Rachel enjoying the view from this high perch

A flock of ducks

There were lobster boats in plenty

Gabe took this picture of me on the rocks

rocks and surf

more rocks and water...I never tire of watching it

Rachel and Gabe hunt for treasures

Bessie finds a crab

Bessie hunts for beach glass

Isn't Bess lovely!?

Brian hunts for beach glass

Gabe searches in a tidal pool

It was a wonderful day, a perfect ending to a very enjoyable trip. We stopped in Damariscotta at a fun store called Remy's. It is a soup to nuts type store where you can get almost anything from toys to housewares to shoes and food. It was great fun browsing through the place.

Wednesday

This morning found us heading to Reid State Park. In all the years we have been coming to this area, we have not visited this park and after we arrived, we wondered why in the world we have missed out on this great spot!

We were meeting a friend that I had met on-line through an adoption yahoogroup. Felicity and John are waiting to bring home their precious little girl from the Philippines.

Me and Felicity

The day was very foggy and a bit cool, but this did not deter our group. The kids couldn’t wait to hit the water. The tide was going out and the waves were great. Bessie went right in riding the waves back and forth. She was so thrilled. The younger set enjoyed having the waves chase them up the beach.

Rachel and Gabe love the waves

The bigger kids brave the surf

Bri trying to get some sand out of his water shoes

Dan and Fern

The kids lost one of the sand pails in the surf. We thought it might come back up, but it went further and further away. I’m not sure where the tides will take it. Dorothy, keep a lookout of an orange sand pail. It might be washing up on a beach near you!

Dan, Fern and Randy

We had a picnic lunch and a wonderful visit. It was so nice to chat about their upcoming adoption and get her impressions of the Littles after a year. Sometimes we are too close to the situation and don’t always see the improvements they have made.

Dan and Hannah enjoy their lunch

Gabe and Dan making sand angels

We arrived back and the campground and everyone needed a good hosing off. I took some of the kids down to the showers to speed things up and Brian kept Dan and the camper and gave him a shower.

We had a quick snack and then went down to Boothbay Harbor. I was missing one color for my stitching block and I’m almost done! We also went to the greenhouse in town, which has a nice selection of perennials. I picked out of few nice varieties.

We are having a great camping vacation and I’m sure everyone will be sad to see it end.

Tuesday Afternoon

We arrived back at the campground around 4:30 and we decided to have a quick snack and go out to Ocean Point. Bessie was really antsy to get into the water and I must admit that I was needing an ocean fix. The tide was coming in fast and the kids had a blast. Bessie got right in and Gabe even went under. I didn’t put bathing suits on the Littles, as I didn’t think they would go in. They got soaked! Dan kept running out into the water and then back up on the rocks. They giggled and had a great time. Of course, Gracie the dog enjoyed her nice swim. She loves the water.

I made sure to give a wave to Dorothy in England. I wasn’t sure of the exact direction, so I’ll bring a compass when we go to Pemaquid Point and make sure I’m waving at England and not Spain or Africa! I also collected quite a bit of beach glass. Gabe found several really nice pieces of blue for me. He loves to find interesting colors and is so pleased to give them to me for my collection.

Brian lets Gracie take a swim

We love the ocean!
Dan and Hannah enjoying the waves

All the kids needed a change of clothes in the van. We stopped for pizza on the way home…pepperoni and onion and mushroom…yum, yum. I gave everyone a shower to get off the salt water and the Littles went to bed. Gabe and Bessie stayed up for a bit longer and I ran down to the office to check my messages. Brian and I are enjoying lots of hours for reading and stitching in the evenings.

Tuesday Morning

We woke to another cloudy day, but the weatherman assured us that the chance of rain was less today.

I called Lisa Berry first thing and set up a time to meet them at the Maine Wildlife Park in Gray. The kids were excited about going to the park and I was glad to be able to visit with Lisa. We made it to the park around 12:45pm. We ate lunch in the van on the way there. It took about 1.15 hours to get there which wasn’t bad at all. The clouds had burned off and the sky was blue and the sun nice and warm.

The park was fun and it was nice to see so many native animals of Maine. It does make me somewhat sad to see all these wonderful animals in cages, but I have to remind myself that they are animals that have either been injured or have been in captivity in other places prior to coming to the park. It looked like they were doing a lot of work on different habitats and are trying to make them more natural looking.

The kids had a great time. Gabe and Ben especially hit it off, talking and compare their park maps about which way to go next. Gabe was beside himself taking pictures of all the animals. He did a great job and got some very good shots. He enjoys doing the photography.

Gabe enjoying his new camera

One of the rangers was feeding the birds of prey when we walked through that area; serving up little white mice and rabbit pieces. It was very cool to watch the birds snatch up the tasty morsels. The Raven particularly was fun to watch as he took the mice and hit them around his enclosure and marked the spots with a rock. They are such intelligent birds.

Look at all those kids!

Lisa and me

(We remembered to take a picture this year!)