Cousins gathering back in Grandma's rocks/woods

It's that time again, us cousins grew up living beside each other, we are like brothers/sisters more than cousins and we love to gather back in the rocks in grandma's woods, everyone brings a covered dish OR we just do dogs n burgers on the fire, sit around and catchup on gossip

 one cuz has a new wife

 and the sister has a new boyfriend tee hee remember that handsome neighbor

 yup this time it decided it would rain on us, that's ok we still had a blast as usual

Rocks for around pond, window painting & new strip beds

Finally we are getting some things done around here!

Remember I said when I had time I was going to go out back in the pasture field and haul home some field stone? Well I did, have now gotten enough for a fire pit, around some trees for flower beds and I built up the field stone around my pond :)

adding rocks around some trees, will fill in with a little more soil and put some hosta around there, maybe some black eyed susans too

and remember the fish pond, I have a bed full of field stone now to choose from so finished the pond rocks, and I love it, the old hand pump was my grandmothers, years ago it was in her kitchen!!

I love how it is turning out, we also ripped out those privet hedges along the house, gosh now you can see even more how steep that area is

now to concentrate on getting the window trim painted, going from brown to off white

I painted up as high as I could reach, need to get the step ladder out, but hard on that slope!

yes, I think I like the off white trim on these old windows, eventually I will have some new windows put in, ones that can open from the inside to clean, these are hard to clean!!

Scooter says "howdy"

a great picture of my nephew taken back in my grandmother's woods, he's up on top of the rocks with a view of grandma's house in the background, AWESOME!

since we are at grandma's house, if you look above where my explorer is, up there you can see the rocks my nephew's photo was taken from and  I am digging up some peony and hosta that I planted for grandma many, many years ago, since Grandma has passed, I am moving the plants down to our new home

There's my daughter, age 15, not quite ready for her permit for a few months, but let's get some practice in while we can, she did a good job, didn't plow the tree or hit the house LOL

now back at the homestead, I have 2 new flowerbed strips, the front row has now some peonies planted

and the other side end, showing the new planting strip, with some hosta from grandma's house, hubby has the ladder up there, I had said I wanted to do away with those chestnut trees because they are soo very messy, and I think it's almost time for them to come down, when hubbs gets the ladder out, I know the chainsaw is next . . .

Fun back in the woods

Thought I would share a secret hideaway we love to go to when we can, I grew up in these woods, playing all over these rocks, it's so nice that my grandparents property is still in the family and that we all have gatherings here when we can all get together!

isn't it just beautiful back here

there are beautiful rocks and caves on the property ~ I spent alot of time running wild back here as well as mushroom hunting each year, what fond memories!

We are just around the corner from Dundee Falls

it's the perfect spot for family nights at the fire hidden back in between the rocks

and what is even better, the 3rd generation now enjoys these gatherings too

and well, for some you just still can't get off the phone, even out in the woods LOL

This was supposed to be a gathering of the cousins, however one of my cousins cars was here, but he was nowhere to be found, so the kids decided to take their uncles car and hide it HA HA HA and no, none are licensed drivers yet LOL

 well hell, the keys WERE left in it . . .

 and what kid could resist that!

just look at them heathens

so an hour or so later we go to his place to find him

look at them, all still crackin up over what they did

and we find him having a nap!

so we snuck back out, then thought, oh shit, we better go double check on him and make sure he's alive!

he was tee hee and joined us, never having a clue that he walked past where his car should still be parked but yet it was gone, hours, many hours later he realized it was missing, or "he thought he parked it over there"

kids busted a gut

Break at end of June 2009

Well hell . . . we still are working on figuring out which fish to move to the new house LOL

I think we picked a few to take, now it's time to get away from the flower transplanting and the new house painting chores and head to the lake, what do you say? Grab a picnic lunch and just go for a drive!

yes, sometimes you just need to stop all the rushing and hurrying and just relax and enjoy the scenery

today was one of those days :) 

and we ended the weekend with a cousin cookout back in Grandma's rocks in the woods