HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JO!!!!

I hope you have a great day, and many more to come! Are you doing anything special today? I hope so! I am sure you enjoyed the lovely tea with Becky the other day, the photos are great! Do you think I could possibly use more exclamation points?











You all can see that I have a helper today. She loves to come and sit on the computer desk, usually standing, so I can't see the screen (unless you count bits of screen seen above and around a kitty as seeing the screen!). Once in a while, she will condescend to lie down, and then the screen is once more visible. An added bonus in these photos, you can see my blog, and the photo of Brian and Our Baby!

Anne threatens to show me the correct way to put the photos in, so they don't do this diagonal arrangement. She evidently forgot, as did I!

I didn't have any new flower photos, and decided that since it is your birthday, Jo, I really should go outside and take photos. The pickings are slim, as I knew they would be. Joel and his guys were here yesterday and trimmed everything. A lot of the blooms are now gone, but not for long, of course. I guess that is an added bonus to having him do our yard---I think it would be hard for me to trim plants and in doing so, remove flowers!

The magnolia is winding down a bit. There are still buds, but not as many. Here is one that is just getting ready to open up. You can see part of the house in the background!




Here it is from the other side, you can see one petal starting to drop down.




Most of the flowers on the new pink hibiscus were trimmed off, but here is a really nice one. Do they do more than double blooms? The ones on this bush always look like they are triple or quadruple blooms. (I guess it will always be the "new" one, right? It is the one put in after the hurricanes the first year.)




And finally, a trio of flowers on the red hibiscus. This is the one whose dead blooms Anne is using to make red dye.




No photos from the gardenia. The only flowers on it are done, all brown and icky. I hope you enjoyed the ones I brought up to VA for you, Jo? I'm afraid they probably didn't last very long, after all the time they spent crated up.

Not much going on around here, we pretty well muddle along as usual. I hear that Brian and Christine's closing date on the house has been moved up a day, and they are very happy about that! Meanwhile, they will head off on Saturday (!!) to see the Grands in Lufkin. Hurrah! I know they will have a great visit.