Winter. Enough Said.

It just started snowing again. . .so here are some images from Winter 2010, so far. This one is off my front porch of my pink dogwood tree. There was a drip from the gutter above, so only this branch was frozen. I spent a lovely morning with Nancy and Heather and their families, so I stopped to snap a few at the Cedar Creek waterfall.

It was quite cold that morning.

Black and white makes it look even colder, I think.

I love living in the Midwest. I love the changing seasons.

Christmas, 2009

We were dreamin' of a white Christmas - and that's exactly what we got!Valerie enjoying her new boots, while Charlie looks on.Beautiful sissy, Kathy.Chris was very happy with his new set of tires. Dan was not believing what he was reading - - tickets to Yonder Mountain String Band. On February 13, 2010. In Tampa. With airline tickets. With his mom - -woo hoo! Here we come, Angie!

Miss Betty, looking beautiful as ever! Sweet, sweet Daddy - celebrating his 90th Christmas.

Very, very, handsome nephew - yes, he is available (at the moment!)

Not too much has changed since 1962 - except maybe the jolly old man. Santa - not George! Merry Christmas to all. . . .and blessings for 2010!

Christmas Eve Blizzard

We'll start with a few images of Christmas Eve. Yep - snow. A lot of snow. We ended up after three days of snow with eight inches in the middle of the yard. . . as much as 24 inches in drifts!

Dan scraping. No matter the weather, the kids think they need to go out. I did, when I was that age, too.

This shot is quite blizzardy! Is that a word?

Chris gets in on the scraping, as well.

Now all that's left to do is wait for Christmas morning!

Fall - Chapter Two!

Well. Fall decided to stay very late here in Lenexa. In fact, it was only about a week ago that I had to start wearing a coat and gloves. I was very interested to see how my spring and summer flowers were so kind as to share space with all the fall leaves. Above and below are the yellow snapdragons and pink begonias in the front yard flower bed.

I like the way this rose thorn looks. Simple. Ahh.

Many of you recognize the fall form of the beautiful hydrangia. The rusty, green color gives it a wonderful new look.This was fun - - a VERY late blooming clematis. Look carefully and see a visitor buzzing in the middle!

This is the reason I brought the camera out on November 22. This lovely yellow bearded iris decided that once this year was not enough when it bloomed in early summer - it wanted to come out again for a late fall hurrah! I have never seen and iris bloom so late. I really love this image of the red maple leaves and the cool grey sky of late November.

But I must say, of this batch of images - this one is my favorite. This sweet maple leaf sure does spiff up my 15 year old Ford van. I love it ! ! !

Extremely Thankful Thanksgiving

The Saturday before Thanksgiving is not the day we usually celebrate the holiday . . .. . . but this one is very special. Please meet Tommy C. here with his daughter, Shelley.Several weeks ago, Tommy went in for a fairly straightforward surgical procedure, and then - long story short - no one (except God, of course) thought Tommy would ever see another Thanksgiving. So Shelley and Tommy's sister Bev hosted a wonderful afternoon full of friends and family. Here is Tommy with Bryan.And, being who I am; I got some grandchildren shots for Bev, and we just kept rolling for awhile.

We needed shots of each family group

as well as Bev's entire gang. To keep the kids attention, we promised goofy shots at the end. . . .. . .they were all very impressive!Thanks so much Bev and Shelley, for including us in this most wonderful Thanksgiving celebration!

Autumn Beauty - not far from home

I have a wonderful friend in Tampa, Florida. Over the past few weeks, she has been lamenting the fact that the temperature has been in the upper 80's there. As a transplanted Kansan, she has been longing for a taste of home.

So, I went out to my yard yesterday to capture a few images.

I didn't have to go any farther to get a wonderful variety of color and texture. The last of the yellow roses, with their beautiful orange rose hips, to the fabulous deep veined red leaves of my new viburnums, everywhere I turned, there was something beautiful!

We have had an unusually cool and wet year.

I'm sure that must have helped the trees and shrubs give us such a wonderful, colorful fall.

I love the sunlight pouring through the leaves.

Angie - this post is for you, kid. Miss you tons - and I hope you're enjoying these images of home. . . with the breath of autumn you just can't get at the beach!

The beautiful blue sky was an extra treat yesterday. We have had so much rain, I thought I was in Seattle.

I love this one - so simple, yet so beautiful. These are the little crabapples from our three-year-old pink flowering crab that I love so much. It is a beautiful little tree, and was featured in my blog when we got a dreadful late snow. Fortunately, it didn't ruin the tree.