What Mary has been up to ...

Mary has had a couple of fun and busy weeks.   She went to see her friend, Mady, play at her piano recital and it has really lit a fire under Mary to want to play.  We are taking this summer to teach her how to read music with a piano program called Piano is Fun.  She is doing great!

 

 

 She has finished up ballet for the 3rd year and is now on summer break for that.  These are pictures of her class and their performance for their dance recital.  She really loves it and is looking forward to starting a new class in the fall.

 

 

 

 Rich has been teaching her how to cast with her fishing pole.  We would like to take her to a lake this summer and catch some trout.

 

 

Bull's eye in the target on her second try!

 

She had a fun day at the spray park with my friend, Peggy Shroy and her grandson Adric.  She loves wearing her little dance skirts with her bathing suit.  I thought is was really cute and modest.

 She planted some holly hock seeds last year and now they are blooming.  She is so proud of her flowers.  They are a double white variety.

 

She had some fun going to the Rail Road Park here in Medford.  They are just a few blocks from us.  It is free and they have great miniature train displays and a really fun train ride for the kids and adults.

We went with some friends we met in Ballet class. They are a lovely family with 8 kids.  Their youngest daughter, Iliana, is in her class and they are enjoying looking at the miniature train display.

The 3 Musketeers, as I call them, are having fun ringing the train bell.  They are Iliana, her brother, Elijah and Mary.  So cute!  Their brother, Isaac, is in the foreground walking the other way. 

Father's Day 2013

Here is a recap of our Father's Day weekend. I feel so blessed by my Heavenly Father, my dad, my father-in-law, and my husband. They are all so wonderful in my life!

 

 

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Twenty One Years

I have a friend I have known for 21 years. I met her when her first 2 were very small and I celebrated her 3rd. She and her youngest came to visit last week and we had 3 days to visit. I see her about every 3 years now as she still lives in S. California where I met her and we know live in Oregon. I so enjoyed the time. Here is a little slide show that I had fun making of our time.

 

 

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Avocado Lovin'

For over ten years Rich and I have loved raising our avocado tree.  We call it Lazarus because it has lost all it's leaves and looked dead and came back to life.  It started out like these 2 in picture below.  We let the pits dry out after we take them out of the avocado and then we put them in water.  It takes quite a while for some of them to sprout roots.  These I think took a couple of months.  I realized when I was younger and trying to grow an avocado tree from a pit, that I gave up too soon.

 

 

Once we got it to sprout leaves and get established in the soil we cute it half way up the stem, removing all the leaves. Just a stob was left but that keeps the avocado tree from getting really tall and skinny. It was hard for me the first time. I chickened out and let Rich do it. But it paid off as it branched out and became this huge tree.  We keep it in a pot and every couple of years we take it out and trim off the roots and give it fresh soil.

 

 

 

I planted this little one and set it in front of the big guy.

 

 

 

Our Lazarus tree is looking a little stressed.  It always does when we trim the roots but in about 6 weeks it takes off and is really pretty.  We have not gotten avocados off of it but maybe some day.

 

 

 

We are thinking of letting the 2 starts in the window get leaves and get rooted well and then taking them and braiding them with this little one and see if  we can't make a braided trunk avocado.  I think it will be really fun to try!