At Friends’ Home | The Beauty Around Us

Posts tagged ‘At Friends’ Home’

Summer Picnic

This past Saturday afternoon we went to a picnic at our friends Mark and Faye’s house. Mark and Faye provided hot dogs and all the fixings, clams and corn on the cob.

This is how Mark cooked the corn on the cob.

Those attending the picnic brought a dish to pass.

Bob and I brought a cheese and pepperoni tray with crackers.

The food was plentiful and tasted great.

Scott looks like he is enjoying an ear of corn.

It rained, while we were at the picnic. The rain fell lightly at first but gained momentum. We had quite a heavy downpour that lasted a few minutes.

It is raining!
Note the red car with its top down!

The rain caused people to scatter. Some people took shelter inside the garage; some people took shelter in the shed; a few people took shelter under a tree; and some people took shelter under two canopies.

What’s a little rain, when you are having fun!

After about 20 minutes of rain, the sun returned.

Thank you, Mark and Faye, for hosting a great picnic. We had a great time!

Two Birthdays Celebrated

Bob and I attended a birthday party this evening. The party celebrated the birthdays of two of our friends, Corky and his daughter Debbie.

This is Debbie and her husband with one of their children and some of their grandchildren.
Debbie is in the front row, second from the right.

This is Corky with two of his children and some of his grandchildren.
Corky is in the front row, first man on the left.

Bob and I attended Corky and Debbie’s birthday celebration five years ago too. https://thebeautyaroundus.com/2010/08/04/two-birthday-celebrations-one-party/

Granddaughters’ Christmas Photo Shoot

“With the click of a shutter I am able to freeze a moment in time, preserve a family’s history & ensure future generations will come to know their ancestors.” ~ Beth Forester

Ms. Forester’s quotation aptly characterizes my “Days to Remember” photo journal blog. As written in the introduction, it is my desire to capture a moment in time and place, preserving it, so that I might share a particular slice of time with others through my photographs and words. This quotation also characterizes my zeal to photograph our family members and friends, whenever we get together. I am a prolific photographer, both in taking and in printing pictures. I feel that a hard copy picture is more valuable than one uploaded online. Who knows where the pictures that have been uploaded online will be 5, 10 or more years from now. If some catastrophe happened to my hard copy pictures, I would want it to be possible to obtain printed copies once again. This is why I feel it is important to store digital copies of images on storage devices, such as DVDs and external hard drives.

I photograph our twin granddaughters A LOT! Since their birth in May 2012, it is a rare month that I have not taken at least one picture of the girls. My granddaughters’ progeny WILL know their ancestors!

This past Sunday afternoon Bob and I went to Stacey’s mother and stepfather’s home to take pictures of Harper and June in front of their Christmas tree. Both girls had not had their naps and were tired; however, the girls did cooperate most of the time during the photo session. The photographs that follow are some of my favorite ones from that photo session.

Both Harper and June enjoy books.

June

I love their smiles and laughter.

Harper

What a treasure these girls are! I love my granddaughters with all my heart.

Family Photo Shoot

My friend Marge has two sons. Marge’s two sons and their families would all be gathered together at her house on Friday, June 28. Marge said it isn’t often that the entire family is together in one place. Marge asked Bob and me to join her family for a picnic on that day. She asked if we could come a little early so that I could take some pictures of her family before the picnic got underway.

My friend, Marge, and her husband

Marge and I used to work for the same catalog company. I worked for the catalog company from September 2008 through May 2009. Marge had been employed at the catalog company for many years; she retired in early 2011. We have kept in touch with each other via Facebook.

Marge’s son, Michael, and his family

Michael and Andrea’s son is such a loving child. After some time had passed, he ran up to me, out of the blue, and gave me a hug. He gave me a hug goodbye too. Perhaps the hugs were because I asked him to help me, while I was taking pictures of his aunt, uncle and cousins. He stood next to me and made funny faces to make everyone smile. Nah, I believe he hugs people whom he likes.

Marge’s son, John, and his family

This is a blended family — one child is hers, one child is his and two children are theirs. John, Missy and their children interact well together and genuinely care about each other. If I hadn’t been told that theirs was a blended family, I would not have known it was so. John and Missy’s youngest daughter was not so much into having her picture taken. It was a rare moment indeed when she smiled or even looked at the camera.

Marge and her family

Sisters
(and finally a smile from the youngest family member)

Marge, Neil and their grandchildren

Bob and I had a great time with Marge, Neil and their children / grandchildren. Thank you for inviting us, Marge!

Heaven on Earth

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“On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.”
– Jules Renard

I visited a piece of heaven on earth earlier this week — our friends’ backyard garden.

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I will share with you lines from a poem, “A Garden Poem” by Robert Cording that I discovered this morning, as well as photographs of Shelly and Bob’s backyard garden.

A garden is both personal and private,
A place that is its own world,
A place that engages the imagination as well as the senses.

Among other things it is a passage to somewhere else –
To the personal and shared past its scents evoke,
To the distant places to which its forms allude.

Trees, flowers, water.
From the shade of a maple,
A warbler sings in Spring’s muscular blossomings.

Water spills from stone to stone and disappears into the pool below,
Everything is growing,
Changing with the light that dapples a patchwork of sun and shade,
And delights with quick transformations of colors.

A garden is full of the distance we call dreams.
Dreams of home, of family, of friendship.
A garden is a place that is its own world and ours.

To make a garden is to honor life and its blessings,
To make a garden is to come home.

Jordan’s Senior Portraits

NOTE: I discovered this blog post in my drafts the other day. That is why you are seeing the post today, when the events described in this post happened 6 months ago!

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I met a Facebook friend, Katrina “Kat”, for the first time on October 4, 2012. We became Facebook friends in July 2009, as a result of a Sean Patrick McGraw concert that was held in Warren, PA. We both attended the concert. I blogged about the concert, sharing the blog post on Sean Patrick McGraw’s Facebook page. Kat left a comment on my blog post that she had photographs from the concert as well on McGraw’s Facebook page. Here is the dialogue between Kat and myself, when we first conversed on Facebook:

July 22, 2009
Linda: “Are you the writer of the xxxx xx xxxxxxxxx blog?

July 22, 2009
Kat: “Yes I am, why do you ask?”

July 22, 2009
Linda: “You commented in my blog that I could see the pics that you took at Ribfest on Facebook. None of my Facebook friends posted any pictures of Ribfest. I remembered seeing other Ribfest pictures somewhere, so I went to McGraw’s Facebook page .. and then remembered that I had seen yours yesterday I believe. I was just following up an assumption that you were the xxxx xx xxxxxxxxx writer. Are you OK? Your blog is so sad. It was written 3 months ago. I hope that you feel better.

July 22, 2009
Kat: “Ahhh — Thank you for asking… please send a friend request for Facebook…. Yes, I am better now. That was a very dark time in my life. I should now update it.”

I sent Kat a Facebook friend request that day, and we have been friends ever since.

Meeting Kat for the first time didn’t seem it was the first time at all. Our friendship fell right in place, as though we had been getting together in person regularly, rather than conversing only via the Internet.

Now onto the subject of this post — Jordan’s Senior Portraits.

Kat lives in New York, about 80 miles north of our house. I drove there on October 4th to conduct a senior portrait photo session for Kat’s daughter, Jordan. Jordan and I are Facebook friends as well. Without further ado, I share with you some of the photographs that I took during Jordan’s senior portrait photo session.

Jordan

Jordan and her horse, Snickers

Jordan and her dog, Sadie

Jordan

FAVORITE!

What a beautiful young lady Jordan is. It was an honor for me to do her senior portraits.

Visit with Friends

I shared lunch with Valerie and Paula at Valerie’s house this afternoon.

I met Valerie through blogging. We used to follow each others blogs. Valerie hasn’t blogged in a long time; however, she still follows my blog updates. We met in person, accidentally, in July 2009. Bob and I were at Applebee’s. Shortly after our dinners were served, a woman comes up to our table. She greeted us and asked if Bob was Bob. We said yes. The woman introduced herself as Marcy of Michael and Marcy’s Wild Ideas blog. Valerie, a.k.a. Marcy, recognized Bob from photographs of him on my blog. Valerie and I have been hanging out ever since.

Paula lives in Texas and is visiting Valerie, her friend of 30+ years. Paula and I have been Facebook friends since April 2010. We met each other in person in February 2011, during another of Paula’s visits with Valerie.

Lunch (sandwiches, chips, strawberries and Boston Cream Pie) was good, and the three of us had a good time chatting about our respective physical ailments, grandchildren and other family members, and the news about town.

One of the first things I always do when visiting Valerie is to walk to the sliding door that goes out to her back yard deck and take in this lovely view.

My friends Valerie and Paula