A delightful 48 hours!

I'm having a slow start today.  We had such a fun weekend, and apparently it takes me longer to recover than it used to.  Plus I'm having some technical issues.  Since I got a new iPhone a few weeks ago, my pictures are not syncing as well with our Mac desktop.  It's a dinosaur and needs to be updated, so I have been figuring out ways to overcome that.  And then YouTube was giving me trouble too.  In addition to my own channel, I also manage one for the church.  I used to be able to quickly switch back and forth between accounts, but this morning the "switch accounts" was missing from the dropdown menu and I had to waste so much time just to figure that out.  So here goes!

First of all, this picture I took on Thursday evening when I happened to notice the beautiful sunset after 8:30 pm.  I'm going to say it again, I LOVE JUNE!!!  Because I love these longest days of the year and knowing that we've got months of long days ahead!  

I also want to show you this basketful of the perfect, beautiful shells Dick found at the beach when we were in Florida last month!  He has never found so many of these in such perfect condition!

I was so excited on Friday evening when Sam said that he would come up Saturday after work to help Dick with the mulching.  We had had a load of it brought here on Friday morning.  

So on Saturday morning I was MOTIVATED!!  I cleaned the whole house and went for groceries.  Sam and the kids got here around 4 pm.  He and Dick got right to work on the mulching.  

It went so fast with Sam's help!  What would have taken Dick several evenings was done in one shot!

After I was finished making a batch of peanut butter rice krispie treats (with almost no Rice Krispies, because I discovered the box was almost empty, so I used Cheerios and Corn Flakes),  the kids and I decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood.  It was such a beautiful day!

As we walked around the block we noticed two familiar-looking guys hard at work, haha!  Can you find them?

The kids ran across the neighbor's yard and jumped behind our tall grasses for a picture. 

We cooled off on the porch for a while. 

When the guys were done mulching we had a cookout.  Hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob, watermelon, and s'mores.  I was too busy to take more pictures.  It was the most perfect weather for this, and we were out there till almost 9:00!

I just had to get a few more pics of the mulching as I walked into the house for more things for our cookout. 

When we had brought everything indoors, the kids each took a bubble bath in our big tub, Sam brought out a box of some of his collectibles that he keeps here, then Dick brought out his coin collection.  So it was a LATE night!

But somehow we all managed to get up for church Sunday morning and were there shortly after 8:30 am!

When we got home from church I immediately started making chili.  The kids were eager to start playing Monopoly, but they put this floor puzzle together while they waited for me. 

Then the hours-long Monopoly game began!  We couldn't interest the guys - they were watching tennis.  

At one point we paused the game to eat lunch - "Mexican Pile-up" as we call it.   Chili and rice with all the fixin's.  Bianca set up some of her "friends" to guard the game while we ate, lol!!

We paused our game a few other times too - once for a photo shoot and once when the tennis match got really intense and we wanted to watch.  But we did keep playing until we got to the point that each of us owned so many properties with houses and hotels on them, but we each had so little cash on hand, that we could no longer afford to pay the high rent when we landed on each others' spaces!  So we quit!  

Sam's babies are getting too big!!!

They were so disappointed when Sam said they needed to pack up to leave, and they begged to be able to stay over.  I said they could and I would take them home the next day. 

After Sam left, we decided it was time to get out of the house.  We went to Talleyrand Park in Bellefonte.  We had the greatest time walking around the entire park for a couple of hours.

We were so fascinated by the ducks and the huge fish. 

We were getting hot and hungry and walked to nearby Maria's for some air conditioning and yummy pizza!

We got back to the car just in time!  The rain came and then the STORMS!!  We watched the movie Rio, and the entire time we watched it, and until about 11:15 pm there was storm after storm, with crazy lightning and thunder and so much rain!  

I had never seen Rio before, and I loved it!

Of course Monday morning was a work day for Dick, so we were up early, as usual, to take care of his breakfast and his lunch packing before he left at 7:30 am.  

But the kids!  Bianca woke up around 9, and Sammy slept till almost 10!  I had made bacon and pancakes for them. 

They had one thing on their minds when they woke up - LIFE!  So we spent a couple of hours playing that!  In the end Bianca won, to Sammy's complete surprise.  She had so many children, he had none.  She was making only $20,000 compared to his $100,000.  But she had collected so many LIFE cards, and in the end they were worth a lot of money!  All that while she was a teacher and he was an accountant!  We had so much fun.

We had leftovers for a late lunch and then headed to the arboretum.  The weather app said there was a severe thunderstorm watch, but there didn't seem to be a dark cloud in the sky. 

They had a lot of fun in the children's area of the arboretum. 

Of course, before long there were a darkening clouds!  Grrr.  So we hurried to the fountain for some pictures before the rain hit us!

I was hoping to recreate a picture from May 2016, but there was no time.  We were practically running!

We went to Dairy Queen for Blizzards and then went home to pack up.  Bianca slept almost the whole ride home, and Sammy was playing a game on his tablet, so it was a really quiet drive!  Luckily I had had an extra cup of coffee before we left! I met up with Jenn at a Giant where she was getting groceries, and we said our goodbyes till next time.  We had packed so much fun into those 48 hours!

I drove most of the hour-and-a-half trip home in rain.  According to pictures a few of my local friends posted, I missed a really amazing rainbow!  Our friend Ross Hardison captured this incredible view!!!

Time to get on now with some real work!  Have a good week!