My Jade Plant in Bloom

I love that we are in bloom all year long! As many of you may remember, this Jade plant has lived with us for several years now. She has traveled thousands of miles and lives to bloom and bloom!!! She begins her bloom in mid November and as you can see, she continues to bloom through January. She has doubled her size since her arrival in our new home. She stands several feet high and wider than she is tall! She has been lucky to have had guests the last several months. It is always during my morning coffee that Jade is visited by our local bees. They love her and she seems to shine as they hover about. It has been a true blessing to watch her outgrow pots and continually grow beyond. She no longer can be moved as her weight is past what we can lift. She is joined in bloom by plants all about the neighborhood. It is truely amazing to see so much bloom in January. Our Calla Lily is blooming strong as is our Kangaroo Paws. Our Annuals are all in bloom. Annuals...plants that live for an average of 3-5 years here before they must be replaced I am told. All is different and so much to learn. As with the new knowledge I am aquiring with plants, I am also beginning my first try at a new language. Having grown up in a community where learning a second language was not a priority, living here it is a must. I am lucky to have students who are kind enough to help me as well as my children who are constantly correcting me. I am at the beginning stages and am quite enjoying it. To learn about a whole new world...this is good and the planet continues to grow smaller with each new word. If we would each take the time to learn something new about those throughout the world, imagine the layers we would peel back and the friendships we would acquire. May we each be blessed by learning about those persons living throughout the world and not just those in our backyard.

The sweet, sweet smell of the Meyers Lemon!

It was fun to spend a bit of my weekend picking lemons from our tree! We have been living off these beautiful fruits for a several weeks now! Brit downed huge amounts during her recent illness with gallons of tea and local honey! Our salads have been bathed in fresh lemon juice picked right from the tree. We have for years been blessed with different fruits and veggies growing in our yard! I have spent many long days putting up fruit and vegetables with my girlfriend Bon. The children have always been spolied by being able to walk out back and eat fresh from our gardens! It was all new however when we moved! We are fortunate to live in an area where there are Farmers Markets and roadside stands everywhere you look. Some of our local grocers also fill their shelves with locally grown produce. Our backyard produce has now stretched a bit beyond our own backyard and our imagination grows as we try new fruits and veggies. With the busy schedule of teens and working out of the home for the first time in 18 years, having access to all these beautiful foods grown locally has been an amazing asset to our table! It would not be right however, if we did not have at least one form of fruit or vegetable growing right outside our door. Soon after arriving in our new home, we had many long days, weeks, and months of adjusting. During one of those quiet days while the children were at school and Wayno was off busy learning all he could baout almonds, I decided it was time to plant a lemon tree! Of all things to plant, one might think! This idea had been seeded within me long before we traveled the many miles over mountains and through deserts to arrive at this new home. This idea was planted by a dear neighbor from back home who said her favorite tree to grow while she lived out here was a Meyers Lemon tree and that I should try it once I got settled. You will receive hundreds of lemons each year, she said. I thought of Mary often this first year as I watched my tree change. First came blossoms which of course brought the bees! The scent was amazing and could be smelled from all over the yard. Soon, the blossoms gave way to teeny tiny lemons. We checked their progress often and wondered when they would be ready. There were times when I would question others as to if perhaps I had planted a lime tree because it could not possibly take lemons this long to ripen!!! As I read the local stories of restaurant owners rejoicing in the Meyers Lemons they can now use in their recipes as all the markets are flooded with them these days, I smile and rejoice as well because my kitchen is filled with the sweet scent of lemons and my hands are covered with their freshness as I spend hours today juicing them all and freezing the juice so that we will have months of juice at our fingertips! Thank you Mary for planting this idea in my heart so that we could share with you the experience of having lemons just out our door!

In Just A Blink of the Eye

It seems it was moments ago Wayne was telling me it was time to call our family and friends and let them know we had a baby boy! This little babe, who looked so old the nurses kept saying. Not even like a newborn! Where has all the time gone? Can he now be an adult and ready to wander out on his own? I just turned and saw him taking his first step and I know he just said his first word momnets ago. He was so proud the day he boarded the bus and headed off to Kindergarten with a backpack almost the size of him! He grinned ear to ear the day he and his dad along with a friend of ours pulled back to shore and announced Bryant had caught the largest fish of the day! The day we filled bags with autumn leaves and covered the dining room floor to play in them because it was just way too cold to play outside seems like yesterday. Bry and I spent many years togethor homeschooling with his sister and traveled everywhere learning all we could. He and his dad spent many hours and years on the road traveling to and from soccer. Bringing home his first car was a day he had looked forward to forever. Bry has so quickly grown and turned from the cute baby to the handsome young son we are so very proud of! To watch him with friends, to listen as he drums, to close my eyes as he conquers the rock climbs over the ocean waves, these are the moments that make me realize that in just a blink of the eye he has grown up and is no longer a boy but a man! He fills his days making plans to skimboard, playing his drum with friends at local clubs, and choosing a college. It has been an amazing path, walking with him as he has grown! I am happy to have been a part of his life all these years! I have been blessed and yes, in just the blink of an eye, my son has become a Man! May your life be blessed Bry!

Happy Holidays To All

We have had a full and exciting Fall and are enjoying relaxing times during our Winter Break! It has been a while since I last had the time and energy to sit down and post so I will do a bit of catching up with you all. School has gone well for both the children and is keeping them extra busy this year. The house has been filled with many teens this Fall which is always nice. We so enjoy spending time listening to them as they laugh and dream and just have fun. We were reminded just how precious life is when a dear friend of the childrens' was in a car accident. We are happy his voice and smiles still fill our house and that everybody is doing well. Band competition once again filled our lives this first semester and it was fun to make new friends through this season as we spent most weekends traveling all over with the group. It is amazing to see the time and energy these young people and the parent volunteers put into this organization. It is even more amazing to see how dedicated the directors are to the students as well as the school. What a great experience for all those involved! The weather has been odd for us as well as for most. We seem to have a different type of weather each week, so we shall not get bored!!! We are enjoying the sights of Winter as the area blooms into color with so many bright annuals filling the gardens all around the community. Winter is a time for the poppies, snap dragons, pansies and other bright annuals to fill the scenery. This is nice to see as most of our December and January are filled with rain and fog. This is our rainy season and the brightness of the flowers makes it a cozy experience settled into the foggy mornings as I travel to school to drop off the children and then onto work. Sprinkled between these days of fog and rain are the days when the weather warms and the sun shines across the mountains which were magically filled with snow behind the curtains of fog. I love to spend my mornings in the gardens with my coffee, walking and examining each plant or flower as the peacefullness of the day begins. I am continually amazed by the neverending bloom of flowers. My jade tree is covered with thousands of pink stars blooming all over it and was recently visited by an early morning hummingbird as I sat watching in complete awe. I would hope to never trade these early morning walks. I anxiously await the smell and bllom of the Freesias that are sending up shoots and have tripled in size since last winter! The Calla Lily seems close to bloom as do the slow but steady Bird of Paradise which we check daily! We have been greatly blessed by many, many lemons over the last few weeks while Brit has been suffering through a cough. What a true blessing it is to walk out back and be able to pick these bright fruit right from the tree as I need them. The smell and taste are a wake up call of all the senses! I am happy to report that our oranges are almost ripe and this sweet little tree that is but three feet tall at it's highest has saved us four special treats which we will share soon. Many of you may recall our excitement at finding a plant named the Kangaroo Paw. One of them has begun to throw up the first of I hope many shoots! These plants were a true crowd pleaser of the entire neighborhood! This year has once again been a true blessing. Through all the laughs, sadness, visitors, trips, and explorations, we have been truely blessed by our new home, our friends across this entire world, and our family this year. I leave with you some shots of our last sveral months and I wish for you each love and light to walk with you through this coming year! May you all be as truely blessed in your lives as we have been by you and your families! Happy Holidays~

The band was such an amazing part of Bry's life throughout his Junior High and High School years. He has been very fortunate to have many teachers and directors working with him over the years on the baritone as well as on his djembe.

A cup of coffee and a spot on the backyard was all that was needed to enjoy this sight as we spent one Sunday morning this Fall watching one right after another of these balloons sail over us!

A day spent in the mountains with students reminded once again how much I love my job!

A trip to Monterey to watch the band perform and an afternoon to explore the ocean and shops along Cannery Row.

Time enjoying the crashing of the waves!!!!