Flowers and HOT weather! (for a day)

I'm so thrilled to be posting pictures of flowers again!  And this is only the beginning!! 

The tulips at the front of our house outdid themselves last week!!  Then we had extremely hot weather on Sunday, and they started to shrivel up.  I'm not sure they'll totally recover from such a shock.  They handled freezing temps and snow like champs, but 83 degrees?  Not so much!

Last year I decided that I'd like to have more colors of tulips besides red, so Dick bought a bag of bulbs that were various colors and planted them last fall.  But when those tulips in front of the house bloomed,  we could find only a few that were not red.  Dick said he thinks he planted more of them in the flowerbed at the edge of our property.  But the stalks were very slow in growing over there, and I didn't have too much hope.  Then this morning I walked out to the car and couldn't believe my eyes!  Pink and yellow tulips!!  I'll get a closer pic when it's not raining.

On Friday afternoon I decided to walk through the arboretum for the first time this season.  I really did expect to see tulips, but was disappointed that there were none.  However, the hyacinths were gorgeous!

On Saturday Dick and I drove to our hometown, Manheim for Björn and Jess's baby shower.  We visited Grandma Arlene first.  We had a great time catching up.  I forgot to take a picture of her this time, but I did take a picture of her beautiful orchid on the window sill.  We of course were reminiscing about Dad Stauffer.  Last week it was two years since the sad day he passed away.  As Dick and I drove, I had been reading old blog posts to him of previous Aprils.  In one post I had a sweet picture of Dad and Arlene.  I saved it so I could show it to her.   She looked at it and said, "Why I have those same clothes on today!"  And sure enough, she did!  We got a good laugh over that.  That happens to Dick and me so often, and we joke that now we know how long we've been wearing the same clothes!

Then we left to go to the baby shower which was being held at a place called "Supply."  We had never heard of it, but recognized the address in a more forsaken part of our home town.   Were we in for a surprise!!  It was a gorgeous, very modern office and event venue.

 

The baby shower was fun, especially because I sat at a table with sister-in-law Deb Stauffer and her daughter Laura and her little girls.  They have been family to Björn ever since he came to the States from Sweden for his senior year of high school and lived with Deb and Fred.  

What fun to watch them open their gifts!  Their little boy will be so blessed with them for parents!

While I was at the shower Dick had been visiting with an old friend and really enjoyed catching up with him.  He picked me up around 7 pm and we left for home.

As I mentioned before, Sunday was suddenly a hot summer day!  Remember we had just had snow the previous Monday??   

In the afternoon we went to Spring Creek Park.  It is close to where Anthony and Lori used to live when we first moved to State College, and Destiny has fond memories of going there often when she was younger.  It has a creek and a covered bridge to walk through.

It was so hot that people were wading in the creek!  We were HOT because there were no leaves on the trees for shade!!  How crazy is that?

Elizer could have climbed those steps and gone down the slide all day!

We came home to have our first hot dog roast of the season.  The temp cooled off as the evening progressed.  Anthony and Lori and the boys came too, and we had a wonderful evening together around the fire.  Hunter and Elizer were having so much fun together with a ball and running around.  In fact, I was having such a good time I forgot to take any pictures after this first one before everyone got here.  I was so mad at myself.  I said, "How will I ever remember that we did this???"

I'm not sure if I have mentioned here before that we are planning to leave for Portland on Saturday!  Jeremy and Mike's good friends, Megan and Jordan, are getting married.  Jeremy and Mike are both involved in the wedding, so we will be spending time with Brennan doing other fun things.  We'll be coming home Monday, May 9.  We always have a great time out there, so we're really looking forward to it.  

Not sure if I'll post here before we go or not.  Lots to do between now and then!