Paul and Dave in the top pic. Bottom one - Charles, Lee and Ida.

Monday morning - The sun is out! Actually, we've been having Florida-summer weather. NO, it is not hot, but for the past couple of days the sun shines in the morning, the skies are cloudless and as the day progresses, the clouds appear and by mid to late afternoon we have a shower.

I would consider labeling this to be The Year Without a Summer. An excellent choice this year was to buy a hottub. I guess that's an exaggeration about the weather because yesterday it was mentioned that there was a year when it snowed at least once every month...including June, July, August and September.

It hasn't been that bad.

Yesterday I helped out at FUMC (which people pronounce FUM -C) Stands for First United Methodist Church. The teenage musician who was supposed to play, couldn't, and Thursday I got a call from the music director. Would I be available to play on Sunday? I have several musical pieces I can pull from, so I agreed. It went fine. Its nice to be able to choose from several beautiful arrangements.

We need some outside work done:

We're having some work done outside to an area that floods after rains. It seems that our clay soil is doing its job of not letting the water subside. I suggested making a reflecting pond with waterlilies, etc. However, its location near the septic system vetoed that idea. Yuck. It's going to be more expensive than we planned, but it needs to be done.
We invited Sharon and her family and Lue to a barbque yesterday. Of course, as I mentioned, after they got here it started to rain a bit, but the kids managed to get in the hottub and ride on bicycles. Ida came in with an extremely worried look on her face and a wheel from her tricycle in her hand. Not just the wheel, but the whole section. That's life, I told her. Not to worry. We'll just have to look at garage sales for another one. She, of course, was too big to be on it in the first place. We had a very low key dinner - hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries. I don't think I've cooked french fries more than two times in many years. Once,being a couple of months ago when Sharon's kids were staying with us while their parents were at a convention. Needless to say, they weren't the best. Lue had

her Bernaise Mountain Dog, Maggie, with her because it looked like it was going to thunder. If you know BernaiseMountain dogs are very big, and always have a smile on their faces, which is beside the point. Maggie needs comforting if it thunders, as most dogs do. She's getting old, however, and Lue felt she'd be more comfortable with her than without. Lue has a very comfortable spot for Maggie in her van and that's where she spent her visit with us. Lue feels Maggie prefers being there rather than in new surroundings (our house). Maggie knows Ella, as she's visited with her when Lue has kindly catsat her for us.