Waves

Here's a sample video of us playing in the waves on Monday. These waves were fun, but the ones yesterday were huge!

Quick Update

In anticipation of a silence on the blog (nothing new, of course), and since I've got nothing else productive to do, here's a quick update.

Tomorrow (Sunday) is going to be a busy day. Early tomorrow afternoon, we'll head off to a combination piano recital/awards night. Now usually, the year end recital is held on a separate night from the awards, but everyone's schedules were so packed this year, that Mrs. Shugart decided to combine the two. After that (it should be around eight in the evening) we'll head off to Florida! There's a lot of preparing to do, and since Samford is in the middle of graduation, Daddy hasn't been home much to do it.

Meanwhile, there are several other projects we're wrapping up today and here are some pictures.

We've been working on these two beds for about a week! For those who don't remember, this area was once a place for a swing set, but we took that down recently, and it was just a area of dirt and rock surrounded by landscaping timbers. Well, Daddy and the boys built up these two triangular beds in the corners, we dug dirt out of the woods to fill them, and Mama's already got plants in them!

Those strange objects behind the bed constitute a make-shift fence to keep the dogs from getting in the cool, wet dirt. You can see Frisky still likes to sleep as close to it as possible!

You can tell that the new work is the yellow timbers. Mama's planted Thrift along the walls which, by next year, should fall down and conceal the wood.

 

The other project is setting up the new pool. We had planned to reuse last year's, but after it sprang a leak we had to get a new one. Still, the old pool stayed in place all winter, and had to be emptied of the collected rain water, dragged away, cut up and tossed in the trash!

Skip through these pictures to see the new pool open up! A hard layer of sand is under the tarp to protect the pool from any punctures.

 

More pictures after it fills up!

Jesse's graduation

I had to add this picture!

Mother's day

 

The four mothers: Mary, Grandmother, Aunt Pam and Mama!

Grilled chicken with white sauce, mashed potatoes, butter beans, Italian bread, tomatoes, corn salad and...

Cake! Chocolate filled chocolate cake with chocolate filling, covered with chocolate sauce (ganache) piped around with chocolate with chocolate curls on top!

Not to say that anyone was excited about it, of course!

Little cousin Evie worshipped Nathan all day!

Isn't this sweet?

Graduation!

Jesse's graduation cake!

With the graduate!

Friends and family.

And of course he played the piano, gown and all!

Piano medals, football, basketball, Bear's jersey, Astronomy magazine, Fernando Ortega CDs, family pictures, a bible, a hymn, a cross and much more!

It sure is hard to believe!

Thanks Mr. Anderson, for the pictures! Now if we could just find out what Sam is doing...

At the reception.

One last family picture! (that's our cousin Sarah in blue)

CONGRATULATIONS JESSE!!

Spring is here again!

Another whole inch of rain last night, and you know what that means! A flower post! Mama's Irises are blooming and beautiful now, so I have to show you a few pictures!

 

It's impossible to capture their beauty in a full sized picture, so I took these looking into their little throats.

Look at the intricate pattern of veins in this one!

I love this color.

These are white, gently touched with lavender.

Here is a full sized picture of the white one.

This survived the winter in one of my containers.

The hydrangeas are still mostly green, but this one is spilling out into blue around the edges.

 

We fell in love with this lily in the botanical gardens, and Mama and I (Abby) each had to get one last year. Unfortunately we couldn't pronounce the name then, and I can't remember it now.

I just love the details revealed in a close-up photo like this!

And one humble little daffodil in the midst of all this gaudy color! This little girl preferred swinging in the breeze to having her picture taken, so I had to capture her for a moment to snap this one!

If I were a fairy, this is where I'd sleep!

Silence...

I sincerely apologize for the silence in blog posts recently. The school year is funneling down to its close and consequently, the schedule has been packed with tests, piano recitals, and of course, plans for Jesse's graduation! A few weeks back, all the kids except Jesse (too old) and Nathan (too young) went to take the SATs. We all feel comfortable with how we did, and have always scored well in the past, but we haven't gotten the official results yet.

Everyone has also been busy with piano, Jesse, Sam and Chris have been in several competitions, always with glowing reports from the judges! And Jesse and Sam were honored to get a piano master class from UAB artist-in-residence, Yakov Kasman (Why yes, he is Russian, how did you guess?). And everyone is practicing pieces for the big end of the year recital, on May 18th. Nathan has still managed to practice a short time everyday, even with his broken arm.

And a quick update on that, his cast was removed this past Tuesday and he has definitely been enjoying his freedom!

The schedule only gets tighter as we head into May, Jesse is wrapping up high school, and he and Mama are squeezing his graduation into a packed month. In honor of this, (and because we don't have any new pictures) here are some pictures of baby Jesse.

 

How cute!