A little of this a bit of that

I have always been one of those moms that cries with pride when one of my sons does something remarkable. As if they are an extension of me and I helped make them remarkable. While  I didn't cry yesterday I felt immense pride as if J's accomplishment was part of me too.
On Sept 8th J rode in an ambulance for 31/2 hours to save his life. Yesterday, 5 months later he rode his bike in the Tour de Palm Springs to celebrate his life. We rode with our friends from MN the 15 mile ride and had a great time. They had over 10,000 riders in the event and I have never experienced anything like it. Great fun and we all agree next year we will shoot for the 25 mile ride.

Sept 8th ambulance ride to Rochester

Feb 9th celebratory bike ride!

Tour de Palm Springs 2013 with Lynn and Mary Kay!

Yesterday as we were loading our bikes we spotted our first big horn sheep coming down the mountain. Its so incredible to live in this little cove and have such amazing wildlife out our door.
I doubt we will ever stop getting excited about seeing them this time of year. We had quite a bit of winter weather and snow in the mountains so maybe that helped send them lower. Very cool.

I realized I have not shared one of our biggest remodel projects that John B and Timothy came and did for us in Nov. We had replaced all the carpet in our house last spring but left the old in the dining room. Our plan was when we got back from MN we would tackle retiling it. Well we all know that didnt happen so John said if Timothy would come so would he and there was no talking him out of it. He brought his Jamie and Timothy his Jammie and we all went to work.

The girls working on some pavers around the pool

The girls cruising in Jammie's 'new' bug!

Before with a mauve/brown carpet

Timothy and Jammie arrived and up came the carpet

Timothy using his mechanical engineering degree for precision!

John B using his engineering degree for perfect cutting!

John telling Jamie how to do grout and Gracie shadowing her!

Beautiful design in alcove

Beautiful dining room thanks to Bishops and Kamolzs.

I have a few other projects to share but will save them for another post. Thanks for popping in and have a lovely day!
xo

Where did January go...?

I can't believe its already been a month since my last post. I guess that is the positive thing about blogging is it forces to me account for my whereabouts. What we are probably most happy about this month is our new car! I had asked J when the Westy finally drove off if we could try and go as long as possible with just one. That night he found exactly what we had been dreaming of online. Its a 2009 VW convertible in Harvest Moon with cream interior. Here's the thing..it only had 1445 miles on it! Serious! So we drove to SD to see it and J decided on the drive over we were not going to just jump in and buy another car. He didnt know it was going to look brand new and be such a sweet ride. The previous owner bought it for his vacation home in La Jolla and forgot to use it. Yea us! Well we left it there so he could think about it and a week later it was ours. We look adorable driving around with the top down, with our silly smiles and Gracie ears flying like Dumbo! We even brought a tree (small) home in the back seat yesterday...such a great work car!

 This was also a big birthday for J....65! I felt if you almost die you need to celebrate your birthday big and so I booked us a trip to Hawaii. He was not doing well when I bought the tickets so we decided a trip to HNL would be good enough..just getting away and doing something special.
Oh my. HNL has become so crowded and Americanized we hardly recognized it. Where was Don Ho and the hula dancers?!
We had a great time just being together and celebrating where our lives are headed so well worth it.

Maitais by the pool!

Shave ice at Matsumotos Haleiwa

This is my favorite...on the left is J flying home from Mayo in Sept. On the right is J coming home from Hawaii in Jan. I would have to say the photos tell all about his recovery and this is just the new normal and perfectly fine.  Oh and he has his last appt with the neurologist today...
Other big step is this weekend we are signed up to ride 15 miles in the Tour de Palm Springs. 5 months ago exactly he was riding in an ambulance...Yea you Jerry!

I have been meaning to share another project I have going...outside our dining room they made this alcove. Not sure why because its just plain stupid and good for nothing...until now.

See what I mean about just being a dumb waste of space ?

So after a couple of trips to Home Depot I created (with Rande's help) this winter garden box. I added river rock around it and laid flagstone we had so its clean and a bit decorative.

This is what it looks like today! I love my little garden if for nothing else the smells of herbs, tomatoes and good soil. Everything seems to be doing well which says a lot for where we live. Worse soil correction clay ever to work with...but plenty of sunshine!

Ok I will wind this up with the butterfly pillow I mentioned to you all last post. I made it for the PS Woman's Club auction luncheon.  Finished it yesterday and must admit it sure wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I sewed into it about 200 beads and hopefully someone will think they simply have to have it. I have a sweet friend that started the bidding for me at $50.00 so now I wont worry about that walk of shame when no one buys it! Phew!

Thanks for dropping by and sorry I have such big pauses between posts. I'll work on that!