In China Now!

After a LONG 4 year wait, a co-worker (and friend) and her husband are now in China picking up their beautiful baby girl, LaiCie. Last week we gave her a shower at work, which was lots of fun. They got some great gifts.


This is their beautiful little girl.


Part of the food table with cherry blossom decorations. We had some great food.

Some of the other table decorations.

Everyone got fortune cookies for favors.

Look at this cute panda cake that Linda made. Brenda and L.C. decided not to cut it yet, but freeze it and bring it out in October for LaiCie's 1st birthday. We ate the sheet cake!

Even though I begged, Brenda isn't doing a blog while she is in China so we can't follow along, but they have promised to email us updates. They should have arrived in China sometime early this morning so I'm assuming they are very tired today. The next couple of days will be sightseeing in Bejing, then sometime this weekend they will fly to Nanching and their lives will change forever. Keep them in your prayers. We hope they are having a wonderful time!

A Great Time

was had by all! Granddaughter, B, has been visiting for the past couple of weeks. Last week she found out that one of her favorite Christian groups was going to be in concert in Lynchburg Friday night. No tickets were required in advance and the tickets were only $5.00 each (you can't beat that)!


DH decided a Christian rock concert just wasn't his thing so she and I headed out on our own Friday afternoon and it was one of the best decisions I've made. She had a wonderful time and that made my day! She is growing up so fast and I feel honored that I get to be a part of her life.

While standing in line she took her money down to the t-shirt booths and was able to get shirts from two of the groups that were playing - 33 Miles and Building 429.

The sanctuary doors weren't open yet, so this is the line from our vantage point in the lobby of Thomas Road Baptist Church. It is a wonderful facility! (Sorry my pictures are so terrible. I had trouble with the settings on my camera all night!)

33 Miles performing.

Getting autographs. (and handshakes) All the groups were great and so nice to everyone.

She had a wonderful time and I loved getting to see her enjoy it so much. She got to go onstage and dance when Building 429 performed since she had one of their t-shirts.

How Fun!

You've probably already seen this today - I saw it on GMA this morning, but it is priceless. How great all their friends were willing to do this.

I actually am knitting - a little!

I've started this lace scarf , The Waltz , and I'm using Malibrigo sock yarn, which I love! I'm making it just a little wider, hoping it can be used as a small wrap/shawl also.

Yesterday we drove most of the day to pick up 12 yr old granddaughter for another visit and I had some knitting time in the car (when I wasn't napping or reading!).

B and her family were at their church doing a car wash to raise money for the kids to go to camp, so while we had our car washed I got these pictures of N. She's growing so much! My son is tall and the girls definitely take after him.

Here she is checking out a baby chihuahua. She would have loved to squeeze it a little, but just looked - good girl.

This morning, B was eating her breakfast before church (with wet hair) when Magic paid her a visit (or she cornered him). Good thing she had on black. You have never seen a child love cats more than she does. When she was little they ran from her, but in recent years they have had a change of heart and often I find one or the other of them on her bed in the mornings.

Wildlife

Or....as wild as it gets around here - although a friend who just lives a few miles away had a bear in his backyard recently - so who knows.

But, at our house except for cats and squirrels, this is wild enough. This little fellow is cute as a button, but....he/she is eating our tomatoes! We find him in the yard almost everyday and he isn't even too scared of us - I walked out on the deck and he just looked at me for awhile before he decided to run into the woods.

More hummingbirds! Look closely.

Last summer I had a huge butterfly bush, but it had gotten overgrown and woody and so we cut it back last fall. It never really came back this spring, so we planted this little one. It doesn't attract quite as many butterflies yet, but I did manage to capture a few pics.

We are just having beautiful weather for July in Virginia. Low humidity, clear blue skies, not too hot. We're trying to enjoy while we can. I have a feeling the humid, hot summer days are still to come.

Catch Up Day

Very random post - just catching up. The last few weeks have been busy and somehow (can't be age!) I don't recover as quickly. I refuse to give in to it though - age isn't going to get me!

Is this not a pretty sight? Our own homegrown tomatoes and they are sooo good. We don't have a lot yet so we treat them like gold!


4th of July weekend we stopped by an old cemetery that dates back to before the Civil War. There are several of these graves - mauseleum type crypts above the ground similar to those in lowland areas. One of them is the burial place of a young girl who attended a girl's school here. It is reported that she died of fright after another student played a trick on her!

Granddaughters exploring. Of course the most interesting thing to them was a dog lying on the rock fence at the back of the property!

I had never seen anything like this before. These are on the graves of twin baby girls of a prominent old family. So interesting, but so very sad.

Many of the family plots were surrounded by these pretty iron fences.

N napped through our late lunch, so she got to eat and watch TV alone (not really alone, she brought her stuffed dog and cat with her).

Today I cleaned, shopped, cooked and now am generally pooped! Think I am going to knit and watch a movie! Have a good weekend!

Socks and Hummingbirds

This afternoon as I watered my porch flowers two hummingbirds came back again and again to the feeder. I ran and got my camera and sat really still. Little stinkers are too little and too fast! If you look really closely I captured one to the right of the feeder, just in the edge of the tree. The prettiest one was iridescent green, but I never got a good shot of him/her.

Finally finished! If you carry a second sock around with you for almost a year, even if you only knit 2-3 rows at a time - it finally gets finished. Proof is below! I loved knitting the first one, but got severe Second Sock Syndrome with the next one and it took forever!