a day at the pool

it was such a bright, hot day... i should have used our little lens cover attachment thingy. it probably would not have helped much on this day. (this was one day last week.) the girls love going for a swim in the pool. it cools everyone off and gives the grass a little water, too.

it may be hard to tell, but yes, cotton is laying underneath barley.

happy girls.

the view

i'm not talking about the tv show. i am talking about what i see when i sit on my patio. i realized i haven't shown anyone the lovely sites from our back porch, so here they are.

wind blown grass, sunny skies, and mountains to the right

new houses and more mountains straight back

the dogs love running in their yard

we planted an american elm tree, which is a sapling from the "survivor tree" from the oklahoma city bombing site (it is staked to the left)

our basil is growing!

some other new plants... a chili pepper (the tall one) and a banana pepper

you can see we actually have banana peppers growing. and the chili looks like it might bloom soon, too.

and here is dave. he likes when we go outside, too, but is content to watch from the inside.

doctor dogs!

no, it's not halloween... but we did decide to play dress up. harley was over and we had a good time playing with the dogs. inside and outside. but, as the girls love to wear clothes, they decided to be doctors. (no, this isn't what they will be for halloween... they will be something else for halloween. they may even coordinate with harley.) speaking of harley, here is a picture of the little cutie...



we were playing with the dogs' tug-of-war/make-shift rope toy that jay made... it is out of an old scrub shirt. so i found some extras so the dogs could play dress up.







wouldn't you feel assured if they walked into your hospital room?! you would get excellent treatment, some extra licking, a giant lump in your lap, and some left-over fur. what else could you ask for? but anyway, the girls love playing with harley and he loves playing with the girls. in fact, this is the effect on cotton and barley after playing with harley... and for it (and other things), we love him.

marshall family reunion

jay and i spent the weekend in kingsport, tn, hanging out with family on friday and saturday, in the hot shade. we were there for his mom's side of the family's annual reunion. the reunion is usually scheduled in july to coincide with kingsport's big funfest http://www.funfest.net/, but they decided to move it up to last weekend so the weather would be cooler. who knew a year in advance that the heat would come on the same weekend?! it was 98 degrees outside but uncle larry's porch, which is covered and includes fans, helped to make it a little more bearable. we ate good food and had a great time catching up with family. let me introduce you to some of our family:

jay's mamaw stella

little cousin dacota

from left to right: cousin barbara, her husband phillip, jay's uncle rick

little cousin nathan, dacota's big brother

the new puppy, peyton mcmanning

cousins christopher, scotty (dacota and nathan's dad) and jay

great uncle kyle (stella's brother)

the brave souls who sat on the open end of the porch

uncle larry

one of the other popular annual events is the "young bucks vs. old farts" golf match. this year the old farts were the winners. barbara was trying to get the men to behave long enough for a picture and jay decided to sit to take his... this was the best we could do. :) the younger guys and some of the kids were also having a good time playing "horse" after it cooled down a bit (you know, to like 90 degrees). larry has a great yard and house to host the event. (too bad God's air conditioning for outside is only winter.)

if the young ones could have stood still....

playing basket ball in the driveway

the porch

jay and i left late saturday night so we could pick up the dogs from their play days at sparky's. they are still recovering from their weekend. (i love puppy naps!) on sunday, jay's mom, pam, stella, and rick came over for a quick visit at the house and then we took them up on the blue ridge parkway to the pisgah inn and enjoyed some good food and cooler temperatures. the laurel is in bloom and the rhododendron are beginning to bloom and made for some pretty scenery. http://www.pisgahinn.com