Saying Hello?

My Mom's favorite flowers in the garden were zinnias. These came up volunteer all over the garden this year, so I gathered them up and put them in a special place by the fence. Maybe Mom is saying hello! I miss her...lots.

Hydrangeas

The Hydrangeas have been beautiful this year. They are one of my most favorite flowers. I don't know if these are pink trying to turn blue or blue ones turning pink. They look confused but I love them anyway.

Veggies Everywhere I Look

Dolmas for Dinner

We have grape vines growing in the garden so we thought we would try to blanch some of the leaves and make dolmas. I usually buy a jar of grape leaves but why buy them when we have them. They were a bright green when we picked them but two minutes in the boiling water turned them this rather drab color. But that's what they look like in the store bought jar.

Ron drained the leaves and patted them dry. I made the filling with brown rice, onions, parsley, walnuts and lemon juice and let it cool. We put a spoon full of the filling on each leaf.

We folded the top down, the sides in and rolled them up tightly and placed them in a dish.

When we had rolled them all, I steamed them for about 30 minutes until they were nice and tender. I dressed them with olive oil and lemon juice. They were good, really good. Will we always make our own leaves, probably not but it was fun and easy.

Cruise

We took a family cruise a few weeks ago and had a lovely time with the kids and grand kids. Our ship is the big one in the background.

Birds and dolphins followed the ship. Seas were calm and the food was good.

The stewards left us friends each day. They were very cute. This one was made with two towels.

A good time was had by all and that makes me happy!

Blueberry Pie

Hubby has been asking for blueberry pie so I finally got it done. I didn't think I even liked blueberry pie but I have changed my mind! This was good...really good if I say so myself. Wish all you friends and family could have been here to enjoy it with us.

Foggy Morning

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Here is a sample of one of our foggy mornings this time of year. It is hard to believe but if you drive inland a mile or two, it will be nice and sunny. The sun usually breaks through for us by 10 or 11. I think we have had more than our share of fog this year.