scarlett....

loves to read....

and at 6 years old, is reading harry potter.   

ah, a girl after my own heart......

i think the thing i love the most about this picture is the dirty fingernails.....so very typically scarlett.  she is the sweetest, most loving child.  she is so much like her mother...

shannon was the best child to raise.  she was so easy, and i was spoiled by that. 

 i was a single mom when her dad and i divorced.  she was just 3 years old and it was just her and i for the most part.  my parents were very helpful and helped with babysitting whenever i needed it.  my dad was a wonderful influence on her and they adored her, their first grandchild.  

scarlett has the same temperament as shannon did and is just a joy to be around. 

we watched scarlett a lot when she was a baby and we grew very close to her.  she is our first grandchild, too,  and we have a very special bond with her.

she is sassy...

and sweet...

and extremely smart....(yes, i am prejudiced)

we truly love this girl.

i adore this picture of her.  i love that she is sitting in the window seat reading.  i love her curled toes, her silly band bracelets and the way she is pinching her foot. 

she is the polar opposite of her sister.....  

the handful....

but we'll save that for another post.

so, we went to "ow ardens".....

as one of the day trips we did while i'm on my vacation.  

well, that's were we went when don uses the camera...
here is where we really went.....

yes, that is the shot he took after i looked at the pictures on the camera and had to recompose the shot for him.

he did, however, manage to get a couple nice ones of me.  i never have pictures of myself because i'm always behind the camera.  he just does not want to learn how to use it. i think all of the bells and whistles scare him.
 but i forced him to.  because he is never going to remember what i look like if i croak...

so, i set everything up and all he has to do is push the button.
remember me looking exactly like this, honey, but 20 years younger.  when i wasn't a grandma.

we had never been there before even though it is only about an hour from our house.
it was really beautiful.

huge trees, and i mean huge.

of course, scarlett found a frog.  i had to keep her from putting it into her pocket.
because she loves frogs.

there was a gorgeous rose garden.  i think this was don's favorite part of the venue.  he loves roses

there were hundreds of different ones and we saw some really beautiful varieties.

 i think the kids loved them too.  the colors were stunning and they all smelled so good.

 every color you can imagine.

 i think the bees were in heaven too. their legs were full of pollen.

i think these were my favorites.  i'm a sucker for pink shrub roses.

 the exposure sucked on this one but i loved the shot so i went with it....

the best part was the picnic lunch we brought.  we had chicken salad sandwiches, cheese, bing cherries potato chips and raspberry lemonade.  it was a great summer picnic.  a picnic was on my list of things to do while on my vacation.

 we set out a blanket in a shady quiet spot and ate a leisurely lunch.

 then we laid back for a while and looked for animal shapes in the clouds

and i think we got a little too comfortable with our full bellies....

it was hard to get up and get going again.
but we were excited to see the rest of the gardens....

austen and scarlett were so cute together...

when he didn't have her in a chokehold

or giving her a noogie....

they were bringing tears to my eyes with sweet images like this....austen and scarlett are more like brother and sister than uncle and niece.  they are just 6 years apart so they have practically grown up together.  i think it has kept don and i very young to have a child and a grandchild so close in age.

there were streams to cross

but i thought it would be loads more fun to land in the mud when i jumped the stream.  that was fun!!!!  walking around with a wet muddy foot is always a blast.

and just for the record, i was farther upstream and had a much wider span to jump over than the kids did...

we all loved the children's garden....

 if you look closely, this is a rainbow garden...red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. (click to make it bigger)
very clever.

those are actually real grapes on this arbor/tunnel.

 i loved the farmer made of straw who was tending the corn.

and the scarecrows made by children

 helen kell....i mean, austen loved the water pump

there were all kinds of different vegetables and fruits planted within the garden designs.  there was corn, beans, radishes, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes among others.

we spoke with one of the employees who said that when all of the vegetables ripen in august, the kids can just pick and eat what they want.  she told us the only thing ripe when we were there were radishes.  austen picked one and tried it.  not a good thing.....

 lots of insect life too.  have you ever seen a red dragonfly??

me either...until then!!!

i don't think i've ever seen a green elephant either.  until then!!!

why do kids wait until 5 minutes before we are going to leave to run through the sprinklers?
because that is what you do in the summertime.  and then you ask for the picnic blanket in the car because you are freezing cold in the air-conditioning......

it's a definite do-again activity.

long may she wave....

happy 4th of july.....

oh, deer.....

this little doe wandered into our yard a couple of weeks ago at about 7:30 in the morning....

don saw her out of the upstairs window while job hunting and quietly brought it to my attention.   

 i grabbed my camera and started shooting through the window.  deer are skittish so i had to hurry up and change lenses so i could get closer......

 i also had to lock champ into his cage because he caught a glimpse out of the window and started growling and i didn't want him to scare her away.....

 she peeked and poked around at the edge of the woods

you will have to excuse the quality of the pictures, if i had gone outside i would have scared her away so i took them through the window....

see that blue basket??  the little boy next door is twapping wabbits with it.  the same wabbits that are driving my dog insane!!

he hasn't been very successful yet.

she hung around for about 15 minutes before trotting off into the woods.  it's nice to see that there is still that part of nature in our backyard.....

oh, and i can't believe it's july 1st already.....summer is flying by.  ugh!!