Hello! It’s me. I don’t know why it’s such a surprise but the weather has been so strange for the past month. August was brutal with insane heat. September is starting off crazy too. Two days ago, I hoped in the car to bring my oldest son to school and when I was backing up (thank goodness for rear cameras), I noticed this rather large tree limb had landed on the fence and I was about to back into it. I am usually rather good about looking around at the trees in my yard (nature geek) whenever I go outside but that morning we were running late and I still had to go and get back to take my younger son to school. I also didn’t hear any crashing of limbs the night prior only heavy rain and wind.
I have been watching the news to see how North Carolina fares in their upcoming storm. I pray no one is hurt and that minor damage occurs. It’s incredibly stressful to see how fast our weather has gone to such extremes. We experience really high wind storms more than I remember while growing up. I have a lot of trees on and around our property and it makes me nervous when we have high winds.
I really love Fall and can’t wait for it’s arrival. It’s one of my favorite seasons and I hope we don’t skip it and go straight to winter. But only time will tell.
Well, I am going to get back to work. I was just taking a break and started thinking about it so I thought I would share.
Have a blessed day friend!
Belinda
Hello Everyone! Wow, it’s been a long while since I have written a Happy Monday post. I didn’t plan on stopping my blogging but I had decided to take the summer and enjoy my family so I think crafting and blogging took a back seat.
This next set of photos are of our visit to Pearl Harbor, a sneaky date night Leao and I had, beach time, and taking photos on the property of the house we rented. They had amazing trees, flowers, and even a mini putting green! The boys got a lesson from our family on how to make a yummy Hawaiian dessert. I had one of the yummy finished products.
I took so many pictures while we drove around of the mountains and trees so I had to include at least one in this grouping. We had a family bowling night and I have to say I am pretty convinced that my Hawaiian family is in a league because they sort of wiped the floor with us! Beach time and books were a priority, of course, being the book nerd. The last two photos are of a few of us out for sunrise photos.
Each day we made dinner together and on one night our Hawaiian peeps made us some traditional Hawaiian food. It was so much fun to try the dishes and hear stories about some of them. I decided that I wanted to pack more educational activities into this trip since past trips we spent a lot of time on the beach. So we took a trip to Iolani Palace. It was extraordinary and I was glad to be able to take my boys to see this place and learn about the history of how the US. overthrew and took control of this country. It’s not talked about when you hear about Hawaii. Most often you only hear or read about Pearl Harbor but these magnificent islands were self-governed prior to that tragedy. So I included a few photos inside and outside of the palace. 
This last grouping is beach scenes, Pearl Harbor, family hanging out at the house, visiting Hanauma Bay and cousins hanging out at the pool.
Hello! It’s been a while since I have written a post. I have to laugh at myself because I always have big plans in June and then I get into the month and realize that my kid’s school schedules consume my time. So stuff gets left undone. Like painting the accent wall in our living room, sticking to the 30-day coloring challenge, prepping the laundry room to re-arrange the furniture and appliances, cleaning out my craft closet. Yup the list goes on and on and I haven’t scratched the surface on any of them.
Well it if you have been hanging out with me for long, you would know that I have an annual plant shopping that occurs between Mother’s and Father’s day. I always give my father-in-law a gift certificate to one of my favorite garden centers for Father’s day. We learned fast that we should go a few weeks before father’s day to find the best picks. So this past week, he and my Mother-in-law came with me for some shopping! The weather was a perfect 72 and sunny. We rolled off with our little carts to see what goodies we could find and I can tell you that we scored on some beauties. We bought so much that we had to put down one side of the middle row seating to accommodate them.
This year I bought a mixture of perennials and annuals. My goal is to buy more and more perennials and to eventually only need to buy a few annuals for quick pops of color.
My FIL bought some salvia, yarrow, lupine and some other beauties. I snagged some zinnias and snapdragons which are my favorites and I bought some more bee balm to add to my others, fountain grass and many others.
After my FIL left, I got right down to business and began planting and writing in my garden journal. I managed to plant about 70% of them before my allergies and back started talking. I saved the rest and finished up yesterday. 
We spent Saturday on the Cape attending my niece’s high school graduation party. They rented a beautiful place on the waterfront and I walked near the water and remembered how much I used to love seeing this flowers along the beach when I was growing up.
There were two large grassy areas for the kids to play and the food was quite yummy.
Apollo and my other nieces played in these funny inflatables. They would run and bounce off of each other. Some kids even went in the water at the beach but I don’t touch the water until July. It’s too cool for my taste.
Overall a great week and weekend. My allergies are slowly subsiding and I am hopeful that I can spend more time outdoors.