Fifteen years ago today….

 …..we headed out from our home (at that time my Danny’s home) to Ebey’s Landing where we planned to go on the most beautiful hike on Whidbey Island. 

We sat on a bench high on the bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca with the spectacular Olympic Mountains towering to the west.  

And there we cuddled for the entire afternoon—telling each other all the stories of the last 60 years of our lives….sharing so many memories. As the afternoon turned into evening, we had not taken our planned hike, but the history of our families and our lives had joined together to become our shared history.

Before the sun set over the mountains we climbed to the beach beneath our special bench on the bluff and took our first photo ever.

As you can see, just a week after our first date, we were already inseparable and madly in love!

Our first dance video….

 ….fifteen years ago today in our home on Whidbey Island.

This was two days after our first date…..

The most lovely evening….it was magical.

So much gratitude and love……

Mother’s Day….loving phone calls, texts, and cards from those who we love so very much.

Thank you to all our precious children and grandchildren for the most wonderful Mother’s Day ever….and thank you also to my dear husband, my soulmate, my love!

This was a beautiful day in my life and Danny’s too….

God bless our Mothers….

 A tribute this morning to me from my love, my Danny….

 

Dad and I are passing on this tribute on to all the exceptional and special Mothers in our family….Emily, Rachelle, Alison, Candice, Mila, Jessica, and Kathy.  

….and we are sending our deep gratitude and thanks to our own Mothers who are in Heaven guiding and protecting all of us.

God bless all our Mothers who we love so very much.

Where are the old products?

Here is a list of the brands of recent items we have purchased on Amazon:

 Molasus

Jeelligular 

Kriddo

XSRYT

Jieitive

SCUNCI

bropapa

SERISSA

mifengda

fhutpw

SIKOO

Zeagoo

Loona

E ECSEM

Giflcai

 

You get the picture.  We are being invaded. 

Our little girls are all grown up….

Marina is home for a week from her college in Japan.  Stella is off to Trinity College Dublin in the Fall.  And our daughter, Candice, now has TWO college-bound daughters….she will soon have an empty nest!

What happened to our little granddaughters?   

They’re all grown up!

Even Candice is no longer our little girl….

We are so proud of these three girls of ours!

The Lusty Month of May…..

From the musical Camelot—and our love story!

Fifteen years ago in May we went on our first date….eleven days later were engaged!

And we lived happily ever after….

Nuestra Casa gets a facelift

Nuestra Casa, our home in Mesa, is in the middle of a vast desert.  In fact, the entire Phoenix metropolitan area was once a desert filled with scrub brush, creosote, tumbleweeds, rattlesnakes and scorpions.  Man has tamed the desert, but the desert is winning and having the last laugh, due to a decades-long drought.

For this reason, all of the Southwest, including Arizona, has needed to cut back on its water use. In fact, Arizona is using less water than it did 60 years ago, despite a massive population increase.

One way that Leisure World has decreased our water usage is to water only golf fairways, not the grass surrounding the fairways. This has affected us, since back of our home Nuestra Casa is a vast expanse of the golf course.  Hence, the grass behind our home has been slowly dying the last few years.

Eight years ago when we moved here we planted gardens….and now our beautiful cacti and blossoming gardens totally surround our home.  It has become a virtual Garden of Eden.  

This  Garden of Eden is now surrounded by dead grass!

But since we live in such a special community, the Leisure World amazing landscapers had a solution.  They installed four water bubblers on the edge of our property….

They spent a few weeks watering the area of dead grass, to let the nearby grass roots rejuvenate….

Then these hardworking men cut out the area of damaged grass, and yesterday they installed sod!

Doesn’t it look beautiful!

It’s simply wonderful to live in such a friendly, well-run community. We love it….and now we once again live in a Garden of Eden!