Easter with our family

 A quick photo recap of Easter... 

After church we had lunch with Husband's family at his parents' home, and Nanie made cupcake bunnies for dessert.

Note: If you live in lower Alabama and use cotton candy for the bunny tails, the humidity will get to the tails before you do!!

Easter Eggs were hidden...

...quickly found...

...and then hidden again!!

Family pictures were taken:

Cousins

Grandchildren

The "Children"

Husbands and Wives

Family portraits

Sisters

Our family

The whole gang (plus baby Stinson whose mom was the one taking our picture)



**Thank you Nanie for documenting this family function and letting met post your pictures!**

Daylilies

As promised....

My pretty, pretty daylilies!

What a fun way to be greeted as you walk in the door!

Flowers make me happy!

The truth...

Okay...it is time to address an important issue.

Many of you have asked how Little Gertie is doing now that she is back at home.

Well, the truth is that she did not make the trip back home with me.

I know...I know...

She is now a resident of my hometown and living the easy life with these retirees.

Adoption papers pending...

 

Hopefully they will at least bring her for weekend visits.

(hint. hint)

Slay House

Picking up where we left off at the Slay's farm...

We spotted this...barn? building? house? Place...

It was hard to tell what exactly this was hidden behind the large pomegranate bush.

So Dad just asked Mr. Slay about it.

With a sly chuckle, Mr. Slay replied, "Well, now! That is a long story...come on in and I'll show ya."

"This is where my wife and I first set up house keeping when we got married..." he explained, "...but it wasn't located right here."  As it turned out, when he and his wife moved to their current house, they just

picked this house up and moved it with them! "My wife has a lot of old stuff," he told us, "and this is where I let her keep it all." He proudly showed us around this starter home and our tour revealed many treasures collected over their lifetime together.

Sewing machine...lamp...books...furniture...

... the heater in the corner of the living room...

...bedroom with a cotton mattress made in the 1920s...wooden ironing  board...

...toys from their own childhoods stashed in the corner and a wooden chest that he built...

...and tucked under the dresser was the wash pot where Mr. Slay's mother used to bathe her children!

...their old stove...

Mrs. Slay's original (manual) butter churn.

Mr. Slay explained to us that Mrs. Slay spent a lot of time churning butter, so he bought her this new butter churn (below) and he knew that she'd never leave him because of it! :)

Mrs. Slay's pie safe full of their first dishes.

...."washer" on the back porch...

...the back porch well...

...and even an out house!

Just past their old house was a barn with a car that 'has never been any further than Opelika."

Don't think that this house of treasures has been forgotten. Mr. and Mrs. Slay have opened their home and give tours to groups of elementary school kids so that they can learn about life back in the day.

Mr. Slay's Greenhouse

Husband and I made a trek to my neck of the woods for the weekend to visit my parents and grandmothers. For this particular venture, Dad made arrangements for us to tour Mr. Slay's Greenhouse.

He and his wife have been in the Greenhouse Tomato business for the past seven years and before that they ran Slay's Apple Orchard.

Mr. Slay was gracious enough to give us a tour of his farm and even a few quick lessons on tomato farming.

There were rows and rows of tomato vines tied to support cables that were suspended from the ceiling. In the center of the greenhouse was the thermostat that controlled the temperature inside as well as the watering and fertilizing schedule.

The tomatoes are actually planted in bags (two plants per bag) above ground and the "body" of the plant is trained to grow sideways along the cables. The arms of the plant grow up, diagonally, and are attached to strings hanging from the top cables. (you can see the orange strings in the picture above) The water system consists of pipes that run down each row and have smaller tubes that carry water into each bag. When the thermostat gives the signal, the water runs through fertilizer barrels to pick up the fertilizer before spraying the bags for a couple of seconds at a time. Who knew greenhouses were so technical!?!?

Then the tomatoes are on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday picking schedule.

Perhaps my favorite thing about the whole process was Mr. Slay's store. He has a section of a barn with shelves of tomatoes just like a grocery store. Anyone can come up at anytime and get what they need.

His cash register runs on the honor system!!

It was such a neat place, and this was just part one of our tour. As we were walking out we passed an old house that was mostly covered by a pomegranate bush. There's a neat story behind this old house...

...but I think that story deserves a post of its own. Stand by :)

Homecoming

Remember Sweet Gertie that has been on holiday at my parents? ...I talked about that here.

Well, one LONG year later and it is time for her to return! Let me note here, in a public forum, that I have to drive to their house to retrieve her! YES! My parents have fallen in love with her (can't say that I blame them) and are holding her hostage trying to let her live with them permanently. Let's hope Sweet Gertie will like her new home!

...and Louie.

Softball and Sleepovers

Spring Break for the girls consisted of Softball games and Sleep overs. After school on Friday, they each had a friend to come home with them. We kicked things off with a pizza and movie night the girls baked some delicious cookies. (from G's stock pile of cookie dough from her school's fundraiser.) We all got up early Saturday morning to head to the Sportsplex for G's double header.

...which was delayed an hour due to an improperly placed pitcher's mound. Those pesky mounds.

The good news is that, after 5 hours at the ball park, they did win both of their games! Way to start of the season! They spent the rest of the weekend in the pool or on the golf cart...only pausing to grab a bite to eat.

They hit the pool again after church and didn't stop until parent's came for pick up. I think we all crashed after that! It was such a fun weekend and I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of these ladies this summer!

Blooms

Spring is here and you know what that means.....

BLOOMS on my Daylilies!

Adventures at the Ball Park

Tuesday night my mother in law Mimi (or MeMe or MeeMee...each family gets to spell it their own way) was doing her Grandmotherly duty of attending her youngest Grandson's baseball game. Sounds harmless, right? Wrong!

Poor Mimi! As she was walking to her car a baseball came out of nowhere and hit her right in the face! Fortunately there was a nurse and a paramedic that knows our family there and saw it happen. They found Sister in Law and, needless to say, the evening at the ball park turned into an adventure at the ER. Thankfully things weren't as serious as we'd feared, and they didn't have to keep her over night. Praise the Lord!

Mimi is now healing safely at home and explaining just how she got this shiner! (I'm pretty sure she's earned some street credit from the grandsons!)