Tiny Balls Of Fire!

The first Habanero peppers of the summer.

The tomato plants are starting to produce.

Banana peppers too.

Somewhere in the garden the onions, jalapenos and cilantro are coming along too.

I can hardly wait for salsa time!

This Week in Pictures

Blissfully quiet for the most part.

The lilies are blooming.

Our favorite Stargazer lilies. We planted 3 plants two years ago and they didn't return last summer. To our surprise, one re-appeared this summer. 

It was so hot and humid during the day, we spent our time reading in the sun and cooling off in the pool.

In the evening the dogs came out to play. Our Miss LuLu has taken huge steps toward trusting us the past month.

The biggest obstacle is avoiding mosquitos this big. Seriously, what the hell is in the water to make these mutants! I'm going to die from DEET toxicity. 

When you're just laying around the house what else is there to do but eat. Blueberry pancakes for breakfast.

A made each of the dogs their own personal 50 cent piece size pancake.

Add Turkish coffee to give a little jolt to your day.

Birthday dinner of grilled lobster, shrimp and asparagus.

A wanted my artery-clogging pineapple upside down cake. Here she is enjoying a late night snack of cake, Cool-Whip and milk.

A movie and popcorn night.

LuLu goes absolutely crazy when she hears the popcorn hit the pan. There is much dancing, spinning and  chirping.

And the old man Giz is always there to protect his claim on the popcorn bowl and keep the youngsters in line if they get too pushy.

LuLu had to be rescued after the sticker on the watermelon got the best of her.

And I had to be rescued when a violent thunderstorm went through. The sirens went off, the power went out and I found myself in total blackness trying to round up dogs and get them to the basement. A came to the rescue with flashlights and candles...we made it through without any major damage.

Vacation Withdrawls

We've been home for days and have too easily slipped into the same old routine. That's so frustrating after having such a nice relaxing vacation. I don't want to be pulled back into reality. I don't want to live on a schedule. I want to have A back; have her all to myself and we can cruise around exploring and meeting new/old friends and sing along with the radio at the top of our lungs and dance by the campfire and flirt and play and just do whatever we want. Is that too much to ask?

When we pulled up in front of our house Sunday afternoon the dogs went crazy. They knew they were home and for the next 3 hours proceeded to run through the house and backyard until I was wishing I would have dropped a couple of them out along the interstate. Within 2 hours, A and I had the RV almost completely cleaned out and I had already washed two loads of laundry. Not bad since we spent a week packing and lived in there for 9 days.

We arrived home to find our flower beds in bloom; full of lilies, roses and daisies. There were only a few iris left after the heavy rain. We missed the lilacs but I was thrilled that we didn't miss the peonies since those are my favorites of the summer. The three older bushes were collapsing under the weight of the blooms and this year we had two newer bushes produce just one flower each. 

They are all different varieties and the scents differ but when I cut those glorious blooms, I had enough to fill 2 large vases and in one smaller vase I added a few daisies and iris (FYI: I never claimed to have any talent for flower arrangement). When I brought them inside the scent filled our house.

As I sit here, I can smell them even though they are past their prime. I suppose by tomorrow I'll have to take them out to compost.

I wrote a little about our trip almost everyday, but I need to go through and fill in some things and add pictures. Meanwhile, I'm getting around to catching up on reading blogs and my email was overflowing.