And Now For Something Silly...

Last night Claude and I stayed up and watched the final Tonight Show with Jay Leno. We are usually in bed by 11:30pm at the latest and don't watch Jay but over the years we have watched and enjoyed his version of the Tonight Show on occasion. I especially liked the "Headline" bit on Monday nights where he showed headlines from newspaper articles or advertisements that were worded in a particularly funny manner. Jay also started a bit called "Jay Walking". This is where he takes a microphone and a camera person and they just go out on the streets armed with a very simple question that most people should know the answer to. He gets the most amazing answers. Often he'll ask the question at a graduation and still get answers that are unbelievably silly. Last night he played some of the clips of the funniest of these silly answers to very simple questions. The one that sent Claude and I rolling in laughter with tears running down our faces from laughing so hard was this: Jay: What do the letters DC stand for in Washington, DC? Answer: "Da Capital??" Okay people, that is just silly and side splitting funny. The real answer is District of Columbia (just in case you didn't know).

Did You Know???

That Claude and Sandi live on a VERY steep hill in Sadieville. Ask little Hayden as he hikes up it in Gram"Pa" Claude's bucket hat.

That Memorial Day weekend in Kentucky there are "ripe" Marx children ready for the pickin'. But you need a big strong guy like Uncle Jake to reach up and get them. (They are really filling the bird feeders Papa made for us when we moved here in 2004.)

That it is really warm enough to fill a huge wading pool and have some water madness all weekend. (Bailey and Hayden)

That crafts always abound on the hill in Sadieville and that Bailey is a 'drum' painter and prefers 2 paint brushes at one time. (This was Bailey's first time to do a painting project. Hayden goes for green (his favorite color).

That Hayden loves to cuddle and share is scrapbook about his first year at St. John's Pre-school. (Claude and Papa)

That Bailey loves to ride a push toy and play with Wild Thing.

That food is an important part of every visit to that hill in Sadieville. Hayden loves to dip foods in chocolate and Bailey and Uncle Jake have a great time sharing potato chips. (Claude also smoked a brisket and BBQ'd chicken on the grill.)

That when you cannot hear the mini-Marx's you might find them in a corner of Grampa's office reading story books.

That Gramma Sandi deliberately did not plant flowers in the 2 planter boxes on the back porch so Hayden and Bailey would each have a spot of dirt in which to play. They were using the whiskey barrels which now have Grampa Claude's tomato plants and needed a new patch of dirt. Bailey was given left over silk flowers and fixed quite a nice planter with them.

This was a wonderful weekend. Jake surprised us with a visit. His coming was much enjoyed and appreciated. Jake and I made a trip to Buffalo Trace on Saturday for more candles, pancake mix, another 1/2 barrel for the lower deck, and of course more root beer. Sunday morning Hayden gave us a little scare with a very high fever and lots of hurling. We were never so happy to hear his vocabulary come back full force in the afternoon signaling a potential recovery. Sunday Papa came for the afternoon and evening with Tiny. Michael referreed soccer games in Lexington all weekend. Monday every one headed for home in the evening. Whew!!! It was a full, fun weekend.

Just call me 'Gullible'...again!!!

Okay, today we are finishing up getting ready for company over the weekend. The mini-Marx's are bringing their parents to visit. We had a few last minute fresh foods on a little grocery list. So I headed into Georgetown to visit Mimi and Papa while Mimi ate her lunch. Then I took Papa to lunch. Then I headed over to the Georgetown Mall (WalMart) to get these few grocery items. My habit is to get inside the store and review my grocery list to be sure of what I am looking for and to see if I need to go to the other end of the store before hitting the grocery section. Toward the end of the list in Claude's handwriting was 'henway'. I looked at that for a long time and just couldn't figure out what he was wanting me to pickup. There were two WalMart managers standing in the produce section and I asked them to look at it and see if it rang any bells with them. They had no idea what it could be. I thought Claude was taking a nap and I really didn't want to wake him. His back has been hurting and I thought a good nap with no noise maker around might help. So I determined I would ponder 'henway' as I picked up the other items on the list. I stopped for a prolonged while in the cooler section to just look at 'henway' and see if I could possible come up with what he wanted. I thought perhaps he had misspelled what he was wanting. I couldn't think of a thing except 'Milky Way' that ends with 'way'. So I decided it would just have to be picked up at another time. I hurried home so my ice cream would not melt and then I quickly put the groceries away. Claude was on the sofa resting and took him the list and said, "I got everything but one item and I just was not sure what it was." He took the list and said, "On you what to know what's a 'henway'?" There you have it. Once again I was walking around with 'gullible' plainly printed on my forehead and once again the big guy had me. Go ahead...enjoy the laugh!! (Claude assured me it was about 4-5 lbs.)

Mistress Sandi...How Does Your Garden Grow???

I just love watching my flowers bloom as we progress to summer. I thought I would share a few pictures of our yard and the flowers we are enjoying right now.

This first picture is of my very first Knock-out Rose bud. Claude built a flower bed by his altar on the hill in the back yard. This bed goes on either side of the steps down to this altar. We put some tiny, tiny Knock-out Rose bushes in these beds last fall hoping they would come back and grow big over time and fill in this spot on the hill with some summer color. Knock-out Roses are supposed to be really hardy and they will need to be to grow on this clay and rock hill of ours. It was a pure delight to finally be able to walk that far down the hill and then find a little bud on this bush. Of the 6 bushes we planted 5 have growth on them. The 6th bush has green at the base of the stalk but the limbs are dead. We're going to watch it to see if it will try and send out shoots from the base and the roots.

These next 2 pictures of of the iris bed. We have 2 places where plastic piping is buried under the lawn to the place where our hill REALLY slopes down. These pipes are for rain water that runs down the gutters and away from the house. Claude had a depression in the grown below this gutter. He framed the top edge around the plastic pipe with rocks and then built up the ledge and filled it in with dirt to make a place for our concrete bench. It is under the shade of some trees and is a beautiful place that is very quiet to sit and watch the creek and the birds. It overlooks the ledge with the sandbox and the next ledge below it with the altar and the flower beds. These irises come from Utah. Joann, Claude's older sister, gave them to me. So it is a treasure to have family flowers when we live so far from family. The picture on the left is of a single iris and looks up the hill to the concrete bench I mentioned earlier and out across the empty lot which we own next to the lot our home is on. The second picture is just a little iris that was nestled next to the rocks that frame where the pipe comes out.

Now we move to the front of the house. Claude built a 3-tiered flower bed along the front of the house. This picture is of red Columbine in the level in front of the front porch. Columbine is the state flower of Colorado. We lived in Denver, Colorado for 8 1/2 years. So we wanted some Columbine in our beds.

The middle bed is my Peony bed. The pink Peonies in the middle of this middle bed came from Utah and were in Bonnie's garden. Bonnie is Claude's mom. They may have come from Gramma Chris' garden before that or from the ranch site. I'll have to have Bonnie refresh my brain about that portion. They have a long pedigree with the Christensen family in Utah. Again, it is totally fun to have them with us in Kentucky. The red Peonies I purchased here to fill out the bed and give some variety to the color.

The 3rd and lowest of the 3 flower beds is under Claude's office and is full of Lilac Bushes. Claude remembers Lilac's from the ranch growing up and really wanted them in our yard. We purchased these in Kentucky. We actually only put 2 or 3 bushes in and they have really filled out and grown taller and are blossoming great this year. They are not completely blossomed out but I couldn't wait to take pictures. They smell sooooooo good. The first picture is a close-up of the flowers. The second picture is taken looking from the 3rd bed of Lilacs up the hill to the 2nd bed with the Peonies.

This is just a shot of the front of the house showing all three tiered flower beds. The ring of vines in the front of the lawn is our water meter. We just built a bed around it so it didn't just stick up in the yard. The little tree at the right corner of the house we started from a tiny little thing that was about 12 inches tall that we ordered from the Arbor Foundation. We have another on the other side of the house and several on the hill. It takes a little longer to get them big tree size that way but it is fun to watch them grow and we only spent $40 total for all the trees we got through them.

Now, you ask, "Why a picture of the deck?" I shall tell you why. We have 2 decks on the back of our house. One came with the house and is above the concrete patio you see in the left side of the picture. This decking in the picture is the lower deck and we had it put in a couple of years ago. I put the picture in because my hubby has worked very hard this week to stain both of the leves of decking. It is just so pretty and all the same color and I'm really proud of his hard work. Tomorrow he will put the white adirondac chairs and the hammock on two levels. The whisky barrels are from Buffalo Trace Distillery where we go for Dr. McGillicuddy root beer and pancake mix. Claude is growing tomatos in this this year and he has bell peppers some flower pots that will go on the steps to the yard. That is our flowers at this point. Hope you enjoyed them as much as are enjoying them.

Kentucky Fried Chicken...Home Style...

I did it! I did it! I really and truly did it!! Yep folks, it has been 2 months since my last cooking event. Tonight I actually cooked dinner myself and cleaned up my own kitchen. A tiny miracle to many but to me it is HUGE. Claude has cooked every meal and washed every dish since before my surgery in March. So tonight it felt extra special great that I actually cooked. I wanted fried chicken, so we thawed some chicken breasts. Claude had been craving deviled eggs, so I boiled eggs. This evening I fried chicken, cooked rice, made fruit salad cups, fixed deviled eggs and made gravy from scratch. We even sat at the breakfast table to eat instead of the living room in front of the TV. Then while we chatted I cleaned my kitchen. Now, tell me, are you hungry for fried chicken and deviled eggs???