Summer photos

Hello reader!

In my last post, I mentioned a few of the things we did this summer.  I thought maybe you'd like to see a few photographs of our adventures!


First up, our trip to Philadelphia!

Here is a picture of the Christ Church.  This place of worship hasn't missed a Sunday service since 1695, when it was founded! 

 

 Next up, we visited the famed Liberty Bell.  Let freedom ring! 

 

Here is a shot of the mall area, from the Constitution center.  Independence Hall looks sort of dinky compared to the buildings that now surround it!   

 Here is a picture inside Independence Hall.  In this very room, the Constitution was written and signed. 

 

 The Bourse Building- we ate lunch here.  There are many neat shops and eateries inside this beautiful old building. (It's the brown one in the middle!)

Here we are in the Constitution center 

 

Just across the street is the United States mint.  If you have coins in your pocket at this moment, chances are some of them were minted in this very building. 

A few weeks after we visited historic Philadelphia, we were on our way to Virginia to visit with Scott's cousins!

Our first stop was at Colonial Williamsburg.  We fearlessly hoofed through the streets in the hot and muggy 98 degree weather!

Here is a photo of the Governer's Mansion:

Here is a shot looking down the main street.  It was so quaint and lovely.  I'd be happy to go back, although I would prefer the weather be a tad cooler!  

 

We stopped at beautiful Yorktown Beach and had our picture taken here.  You can see the boat "The Alliance" in the background.  You can pay a fee and take a trip on this old fashioned sailing ship.  

The next day, we stopped and took a tour of the Yorktown Battlefield.  Here is a photograph of the Victory Monument.  It is HUGE!  It's also on a beautiful spot- you can see the York river just on the other side of those trees. 

 

We took a side trip to Virginia Beach on our last evening there. 

 

I thought this photo of the pier in the fading daylight was beautiful.  It was nice to dip our toes in the ocean 

 

before we returned home!

After our trip to Virginia, we went out to my parents to celebrate!  My brother Mike, and his fiancee, Barb, were recently married!  They had a reception at my parent's home.  

My Aunt Kathy surprised me with these:

 

It's an old set of Fire King dishes!  We had these in our family camp when I was growing up and we always called them "The camp-y dishes" as kids.  I love these bowls and mugs and was thrilled that she found them for me.  What a wonderful surprise!  :)

Anywhoo....


Back to the festivities! 


My niece Kendall was all tired out from drinking a delicious bottle, so I watched her and helped my mom inside while everyone was busy setting up the tables and chairs outdoors.  Isn't she a cutie pie? 

Here are the Mr. and Mrs.!  Congratulations, Mike and Barb!  

When we have parties, my dad typically cooks chickens on a spit- this time was no exception.  Don't they look delicious?  This is just before they were taken off and chopped up.  Yum yum! 

After the reception, we spent the night at my parent's home and caught up with my family.  We had a great time hanging out and getting to see Kendall was a fun bonus, too!

The weekend after that, my mother-in-law came out to stay with us for a few days and visit.  Here we all are at R B Winter State park.  My 2 year old niece, Abigail, is having a fun time playing in the chilly waters of Halfway dam.  I tried taking a few pictures of her, but she is always on the go and wasn't really in the mood for pictures!  lol  

 

Scott and Maggie (his mom) at the overlook in RB Winter State Park.  

Whew!  We've been busy this summer- running here and there.  When we finally had a weekend where we didn't need to do anything special, we decided we wanted to go to Briar Creek park and grill up some burgers.

Here is Scott manning the grill.  (This is just after we lit the charcoal, he doesn't really burn our food!  lol!) 

After eating, we took a walk around the park and posed for a picture. 

 

My husband managed to paint our back back to a nice glossy red this past month.  Doesn't it look spiffy?  He got some retro "Starcraft" stickers to put on the side of it, which made him a super happy fella.  I doubt you can see them in this photo, but they have the arrow running behind "Starcraft".  I would guess it was their logo in the 60's or early 70's.  

Here is the boat and truck right before launching at Rickett's Glenn State Park. 

 

It was the best fishing we've ever had at Lake Jean!  (Inside Rickett's Glenn SP).  

Here is Scott with a really nice perch. 

 

This was perch number two- he was a tad smaller than perch number 1, but we measured him anyway.

He also caught two chain pickerel while we were out there.  Unfortunately, due to the sunny weather and the bimini top on the boat, most of the pictures came out kind of like this one- 

 

rather shadow-y.  

All fishies were safely released back into the water.  They took off in a big hurry!  

So, there you have it, reader.  Just a glimpse into what I've been up to since June.  

As you can see, we weren't spending a lot of time at home- we were out running around like nobody's business!  

I hope that you liked my little photo tour.  I had a fun time putting it together, although it took a long, long, long time for my internet connection to upload all these photos.  Slow and steady wins the race!  lol 

Have a wonderful day and thank you so much for stopping by.  

Feel free to comment or ask any questions.  

May God bless you!  :) 

Country apple blessings

Hello again,

I'm so sorry that I've not posted anything for quite some time.  This summer has gotten away from me.

I'm ashamed to admit that most of July was spent in worry/anxiety.  I got notice for jury duty up in Scranton.  I wouldn't mind serving jury duty, except that I would have to drive into Scranton by myself.  I feel as though I must have mentioned it before, but driving sort of terrifies me.  If I never had to drive a car again, I would be okay with that.  At any rate, I mostly laid low...well, I felt as though I did, although we had tons going on! 

In fact, this has been one of the busiest summers I remember. 
My parents came out to visit 4th of July weekend, and my mother in law was in that weekend, too.  Two weeks later, we were off to visit my hubby's cousins in Virginia Beach.  Whew!  That place is crowded!  (We had a great time, though!!)  We had a week or two off again before more visitors came our way, my company picnic, my brother and new sister-in-law's wedding reception, and plenty of picnics, family get togethers, and lots of warm weather in between! 

Whew!  It's nice to have had two weekends in a row where we didn't have any plans.  In two weeks, we will be leaving to go on our vacation- which is really just a trip home to my mom and dad's house.  We'll be stopping at Chapman State Park first.  We'll stay two nights there in a camping cottage and hopefully catch up with a friend we haven't seen for a couple years. 

Next, we're heading down my parent's home, where we are planning on visiting with my family, and as a special treat, we booked a 1 day Anderson Bus trip.  It's called "Brown Bag Amish tour" and we'll be touring all sorts of Amish homes and businesses in Holmes County, Ohio.  At each stop, we get another free goodie for our brown bags!  Doesn't that sound like fun?  I know I am looking forward to it.  In addition to this, we're dragging the boat behind us and I'm sure my husband will be thrilled to fish Pymatuning, Conneaut Lake, and Presque Isle. 

After that, we're traveling to Tionesta, where we'll be meeting up with my Mother-in-law and we'll stay at my family's camp to celebrate her birthday.  I hope that we'll have a fun time and I know we're both looking forward to the trip! 

Anyway, that's what I've been up to lately!

So, here's the focus of my blog post today...

Do you have a park nearby?  Have you looked around at all?  Some of the parks in our area are loaded with apple trees that produce quite nice fruit.  They are tall and it's not like you can just climb up and pick the apples, but I do walk around and pick up the "drops" to make applesauce with. 

I'm sure not every place is the same, but our park has almost 12 old apple trees.  Some produce a lot of fruit and some produce...well, not very much.  At any rate, it's been a blessing to have a little early applesauce.

I would recommend checking with the park before you just go ahead and start picking apples in case they use them for some sort of demonstration (cider pressing, etc) but ours told us it was okay to just go ahead and pick up whatever we wanted. 

This was a wonderful find and a great free resource. 

I hope that you'll be able to find something similar where you live.

Have a wonderful day and may God Bless you, reader!  :)