Mama Puff

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Back in July, Nicole flew home for my birthday. What made it even more special, Chuck flew home, also. What a wonderful birthday present. Now if that wasn’t enough, Nicole, Chuck and Buddy all bought me a new computer. It’s the Mack Daddy of all computers! I was just getting use to my old one (7 years oldd), and now I have to learn things all over again. I’m not a computer literate person. My darling Chuck worked his entire time home on getting it up and running. Bless his heart. Chuck then proceeded to give me a Nexus 7. I never heard of it before. He is dragging me into the 21st century whether I like it or not.

Buddy bought a wonderful birthday cake! I told him it had to be chocolate and had to have butter cream frosting. He bought it at a small bakery in Hendersonville. It was yummy!!

I am most happy to be celebrating this year. I have so much to be thankful for. Now, do I look happy or what?

I took a bad fall in the beginning of July. I got up in the night to go to the bathroom and I stepped on one of my cats. It was a nasty fall. Bruises on my body and a lump on my head. So, for my birthday, Kelly, Buddy’s daughter bought me a head light. Cute, huh?Buddy hopes that I wear it when I get up in the night.

Here I look like a cyclops with it over one eye.

As you can see, Nicole is just thrilled that I have it and won’t break my fool neck.

I know this picture doesn’t fit in here, but it was taken the same time as my BD pictures. It’s my finished stool.

Nicole and Chuck really only wanted to do one thing while they were here. (I planned so much more). They wanted to go on the Parkway and go swimming. The water is too warm in AZ for them to really enjoy swimming. When we headed out, it was raining, but that did not discourage them.

I packed a picnic lunch and we were off. When Nicole was growing up, we went on picnics almost every weekend. They are so much fun. Food just seems to taste better outdoors.

My family enjoying the picnic.

My precious son in law.

Nicole and Chuck getting ready to walk down to the river to swim.

Great teeth!

The water was ice cold, as mountain streams usually are. It took Nicole and Chuck a while to get wet, but once they did, there was no getting them out. We stayed for a couple of hours while they went swimming.

They were all smiles when they got out. Either that, or their mouths are frozen in that shape.

A real treat was when Nicole’s best friend came to spend the weekend. We were having a family reunion on Saturday, and Christine came along.

Nicole and Christine looking over the menu and trying to decide what to have for lunch. A serious matter.

BFF

A cute couple.

Another cute couple.

Buddy and Amelia, Richard’s sister. We had a wonderful turn out for our family reunion.

Here is Uncle John, the head of the family, and his wife, Martha. It was John’s birthday, so we had a cake and sang Happy Birthday.

Cheli’s oldest daughter.

Cheli’s son and Tracy’s son.

Tracy and her two children.

Herbie and his wife talking with Rodney.

All the grand kids. It was a wonderful surprise that Gigi flew in at the last minute. Herbie, Cheli, Gigi, Nicole, and Tracy. Chris and Amy could not make it to the reunion. They were missed.

Clowning a round.

Very pensive.

Tracy’s family.

Herbert and his three children. Tracy, Gigi, Cheli, and Herb.

Cheli’s family.

The Men

The Women

Nicole and Christine having a grand time. It was so good to see family once again. Richard’s absence was truly felt. He was always the life of any party, and oh, how he loved family. All those who have gone before us, were truly missed. They would have had a ball.

When I got home from the reunion, I had to take some pictures of my window boxes.

The window box on the right doesn’t get as much sun, therefore, it’s not as plush. These pictures were taken in July. Right now the vines are down to the first floor window.

My garden in July.

Blessings!

Wonderful Weekend

One of Buddy’s many gifts to me is a year’s pass at the Biltmore House. I haven’t been in about 15 years, so yesterday, Saturday, was the day we decided to get over there and see what changes have been made. Oh!My! There have been a lot of changes. The beauty of the house is still breath taking, however, we were very disappointed to see that the outside of the house needs a good cleaning.As you can see in the close up pictures, there is a lot of mold and dirt on the outside of the house.

This is a picture of a dragon on the side of the house facing the stables. They have turned the stables into a restaurant. I remember when we would visit the house, the stables were stables, and not a place to eat. It really is quite nice. The hayloft is also part of the restaurant, and you can look down from the loft to see the restaurant below. We had lunch in the Stable. You can see part of the original stable in back of Buddy. Yes, I know he has his eyes closed. He tells me he can’t smile without closing his eyes. Go figure.

After lunch we roamed around the outside and took plenty of pictures.

I’m sitting on the veranda pretending I’m having a glass of wine. The view was spectacular!

This little fellow was standing right nest to me while I was sipping my wine.

As we were leaving, I snapped this picture of one of the waterfalls on the property. We toured only the first two floors of the house and said we would come back on Sunday to finish.

We got a late start on Sunday, I like to sleep in and have a lazy morning, so we decided not to see the house, but to go to the Antler Village on the property and have lunch at the Bistro. We both had the pork chop on the asparagus risotto. Wow! It was delicious! I had sweet tea and Buddy stayed with water. We were too full to even consider dessert. After lunch we walked around the new (to us) Antler Village.

Buddy standing next to the arbor leading into the Bistro.

Standing next to one of the many planters with loads of flowers. Wish my flowers did as well as these looked.

Does anyone know what kind of flower this if? The berries are shiny black before they turn red. It looked so pretty mixed in with other plants. How come I can never find this kind of unique flower when I am planting in the Spring?

These begonias were in hanging baskets and they were really beautiful.. They looked like tiny pink roses.

We went into one of the gift shops just to look around. They had a wall of really cute clocks. I would like the red heart on the left for my kitchen.

This sculpture was outside the store. I had to take a close up of the girl’s face because she had such a sweet face.

I didn’t want the dog to feel slighted, so I took one of him also.

After all that walking around it was time for ice cream. Biltmore has delicious coffee ice cream!

While we were eating our ice cream, there was live music being played in the center of the village. They were singing folk songs. Really nice.

On our way to the car, I snapped this picture of the fountain near the square.

It wasn’t until we reached our car that I realized that after two days on the estate, we didn’t have any pictures of us together. Now Buddy gave me a new camera for my birthday and I really don’t know how to use it. I’m learning, but I really need a book to find out how to do things. I fiddled with the camera some and told Buddy not to move, and I ran next to him hoping a picture would be taken. And it worked! See below.We got home and I looked at my flowers and realized they weren’t that bad at all! So, I took some pictures to remind me this winter what it was like.