My Beautiful Roses!

This is the right side of the front entry. Everything has grown so nicely! In the middle is my small lilac tree. It is filling out and growing nicely. Next year everything will be even bigger!

This is the left side of the front entry. I love it! Three months ago everything was sparse. Now look at it! :o)

This is the varigated dark pink and white. It's grown a lot! It has over 30 roses to bloom! Yes, they all get Miracle Grow twice a month. :o)

When I bought my four roses bushes they weren't any bigger than 12 inches high. I took a picture with the gate so that you could see just how big this one bush has grown! It comes up to my chest! I'm 5'8" tall! It has over 50 roses to bloom! See what Miracle Grow can do?!

This is the cherry tree-amost 2 mos. later and it's bigger!

This is the peach tree-almost two months later. Much bigger!

Neil bought these two fruit trees back in March. This picture was take one month later. The one on the left is a cherry tree and the one of the right is a peach tree.

I love my front yard going up to the front door. Everything has filled out so nicely. It was so sparse when we first planted everything. I had taken almost everything out the development put in and gave it all to David and Angela. I have to admit my roses bushes are struggling with white mildew. Any suggestions? I've been trying the diluted soapy water spray and it's okay but it could be better. The blooms are gorgeous!

The grass is much greener now that I've fertilized both the front and back yard. The grass is baby soft under your feet. :o) The rain helped a lot. That wonderful nitrogen that only mother nature dispenses so nicely. Now were going into another hot spell and I've got to start watering again!

Dad and his Pole Peas

The finished product, or vegetable!

Finally ready to pick!


Growing taller!

Getting their first blooms.

This is the 'hard labor' of dad's pea patch!

We live in a housing development with strict covenants. You cannot have raised garden beds or garden beds in your yards. We have this one-foot wide dirt berm along the backyard fence. Dad put these cinder blocks in the low part of the corner of the yard. It was just a low spot and the fence was half a foot high over the low spot. He decided to plant peas in the blocks. He watered them and watched over them like a good farmer. He got excited when they started to grow above the bricks. After awhile he kind of lost interest.

I would report to him everyday their progress and have him look out the patio windows. When he mowed the back yard he would look at them. It came time for harvesting some of the pea pods. I picked 10 pea pods for him. His comment: "That's a lot of lot work for just a handful of peas. You'd have to grow a lot of plants to get a good harvest!"

Well, it was fun growing them. I doubt that dad will grow peas there next summer. :o)

Kirsten Goes Fishing! We got one!

This is the trout ready to go into the oven. It was yummy!


This is a trout that we caught. It was about 14 inches long. The head has been cut off. The U-Fish place cut off the head and gutted the fish for us.

They had a pen and this male peacock was 'protecting' his brood of hens! Stay away!

This is mom and Kirsten. Her friend Sammy is standing next to me. She is funny!

This is mom and Kirsten and I'm waiting to catch my fish. They had a small pond jammed full of trout! The biggest one was about the size I caught - 14 inches. They had bigger fish in other ponds but you had to pay for those! In the background next to that red building by the window is Miss Rice. She was Kirsten's tutor this winter. She is soo sweet!

The young man next to me works at the U-Fish and his name was Andy. He was helping me with my fish.

If you look really close down by my knees you can see my fish on the line! Kirsten was sooo excited!

Kirsten is looking down into the bucket watching her fish splashing around ! She loved watching it!

This is Kirsten smiling about her fish that is next to her. You can't see the fish, but it is in the bucket. I think this is a great picture of Kirsten. She is smiling so happy! It really captured her feelings about this outing!

We are getting ready to leave. I walked her around the pond where we caught her fish.

Kirsten's class went to a U-Fish about 5 minutes from where we live. It was free and the kids had a great time. They went fishing this past Monday, June 15th. Kirsten's teacher, Mrs. Cynthia Noser, took all the pictures. I forgot my camera at home. I had it sitting on the counter by my purse, but left it at home. Drats! The class had a great time. Kirsten really enjoyed herself! I was so glad I took her! :o)

Retraction - error in statement on Bates Sibling Reunion

OOOPS!
I made a side note that on June 5, 2009 was a special day for Doug and Jan Bates as it was their 41st anniversary. Well, I'm sitting here typing journal entries for a 30-day project I'm doing from June 12 to July 11th. I realize, hmmm, July 5th. Oops!

My retraction-
It was NOT Doug and Jan's anniversary after all, my mistake! It WILL BE their anniversary on July 5th. Gayle and Darlene's anniversary will be July 2nd. Sorry for the error! :o/

Bates Sibling Family Reunion-1st One!

A lot of photos - credit to Ericka who took them. Hopefully everyone will get their pictures posted and we'll have more to look at! :o)

This was a first ever Bates sibling reunion. We had 58 out of 71 family attend. It was grrreattt!

The group family pictures at the end of the above photos do not show all the wonderful little children - grandchildren, cousins, nieces, nephews, etc. All the adults were downstairs watching a slide show Julie put together. All the kids were outside playing and Bob, Julie’s husband, was the brave soul who stayed outside to watch them!

For those who did not attend I will put in a timeline. If you think it’s too long to read, skip through it. This was from Diana’s perspective. Hope you enjoy the reading! :o)

Day 1– July 5th – Friday evening – BBQ at Kyle & Janette Reeves. Family in charge-Diana’s family.

We had BBQ hamburgers and Hot Dogs. Kyle and Chris manned the BBQ grills and did a fantastic job! Chris also BBQ’d pineapple spears glazed with brown sugar and butter, ohhhh so yummy! :o) We also had chips and dill pickle spears, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, potato salad, Famous Amos Chocolate Chip cookies and good old Oreos! We had soft drinks, Capri Sun and water.

After dinner we walked down the street to a nearby park and played a volleyball water balloon game, over-sized horseshoes for the little ones and talked and had a great time. The only down side-the sun goes down too early! It’s dark by 7:30pm! It was too dark to play the other games we had planned.

(I should mention here that July 5th was Doug and Jan’s 41st Anniversary and we FORGOT to wish them and recognize them on this special day. Oh drats! :o/ )

Day 2 – July 6th – Saturday – Double event. Family in charge - Doug’s family.
9am to 11am we played games at Skyline Park. The weather was gorgeous! I have to say the whole 3 days the weather was 92 degrees and a light breeze, just awesome! :o)

Doug did a great job organizing this and participated! Doug had a water balloon toss and the kids and adults loved it! He had a tug-o-war with kids and adults mixed and that was fun! For kick ball we had to hold onto a rope and we divided into two teams and kick the ball over a line for a goal.(Kind of like soccer.) If a team member had the ball kicked toward them the whole team had to hang on to the rope and run to kick the ball away from the opposite team. It was mixed adults and kids. That was so much fun! We did a bucket relay where we had to soak a washrag in a bucket of water and run 30 feet to another bucket and ring it out and run back to our line and pass the rag to the next team mate. That was fun! I got my cardio exercise with that one! The kids had a play structure, swings, slides to play on and the biggest hit was squirt water bottles that the kids chased each other around and had fun. Then then stepped it up to ‘buckets’ of water thrown at each other. One of Doug’ s granddaughters threw half a bucket of water on his back, he wasn’t aware, and he turned around to face her and she threw the other half bucket of water on his front side. He laughed. All was done in fun! Everyone had a great time.

We all went to Myk & Raylene’s for lunch. They had a yummy lunch! They had spinach salad, slaw, yummy BBQ shredded beef sandwiches, a fruit platter, lemonade, chips, etc. That BBQ beef was really good! Raylene had hung 3 Mylar fish balloons on her deck to add to the festivities. They had a salt water pool where the kids had a blast! Then it was FREE TIME. Everyone went off to do their own agenda for 5 hours.

We met at 7pm and caravanned out to Myk’s property where he is building a huge 2,000 sq ft. shop for his kiln and to do his glass work. Myk and Doug set up a big bonfire. While that was burning, Myk, with his able assistant and nephew Derrick, had a slide show of the festivities of the reunion playing inside his shop. Then we roasted marshmallows and had S’mores. I’ve never used chocolate stripped shortbread cookies with marshmallows. That was pretty good! Nathan had a big bag of Life Saver candies he passed out to everyone. He said that whenever his dad would come and visit them he always brought a bag of Life Savers. Nathan was carrying on the ‘tradition’. Yea Nathan! The moon was FULL and gorgeous! It was a beautiful night! The older grandkids (the girls)put on a cute skit. They were up on a flatbed truck and did a great job! We have very talented youngsters! The kids had fun exploring and running around and just being kids! The adults gabbed and had a great a time too!

Day 3 – Final event – July 7th – Sunday – Family in charge – Gayle’s family.
A Farewell Breakfast at Kyle & Janette’s. It was from 7am to 9am. She did such an awesome job! She started early for those who had to hit the road and travel back to their homes far away. Janette had a menu on the counter as you entered the kitchen area. A touch of class! She had scrumptious home-made scones with sliced almonds, cranberries and white chocolate chips. She had nutra-grain bars, assorted cereals, apples, bananas, juice,milk, water. Her sister Charlotte made yummy gravy with sausage and home-made biscuits. Wow! We sure ate good!

Everyone sat and talked and had a great time. Julie brought out the pictures she used in her family slide show plus ‘old’ pictures from my parents side that were vintage from the early 1900’s. We talked about those pictures, went over some family history, took more pictures. Then it was time for goodbye hugs and off to our separate journeys. The reunion ended.

Everyone agreed we would do this again! I would like to thank Julie for putting this together. I’d like to thank Kyle & Janette and Myk & Raylene for the use of their beautiful homes and warm and wonderful hospitality! Thank you to Doug and his family, Diana’s family and Gayle’s family for all their awesome contributions!!! Everyone did an awesome job! So maybe in 2011 we’ll do this in Utah or New Mexico for the second reunion! It’s great belonging to Doug and Jane Bates’ family! They are deceased and in heaven. I’m sure they were looking down and smiling at their wonderful family! :o)

Reflections: It was a wonderful time for getting reacquainted and cousins meeting cousins and catching up on life and families. The time was too short. At least we all know each other a little better and where we all live! Until 2011 – keep happy, healthy and cherish one another!

Love you everyone!
Neil and Diana and Kirsten

Kirsten's HS graduation is tonight!

Above is a program for the Orting High School graduation tonight. Kirsten will not be attending.

It is held at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. Too many people and with Kirsten's frail health, it's not where I want her to be. Even though Kirsten can attend school until she is 21, they like them to graduate with their senior graduating class. Kirsten's name is in the program. She also has her picture in the senior section of the yearbook. They used her student ID picture, which really was decent! I did not buy their yearbook.

I wanted to include a picture of Kirsten but you'll have to see past posts. Our other computer, which has been suffering issues and ready to crash and burn, is stuck and won't boot tonight, so no picture of Kirsten. I thought I had downloaded her new picture on to my laptop, apparently I didn't. Sorry.

Anyway, I did not send out graduation announcements, but I did want to post this because she is our baby, child #6 and graduate #6. So you are seeing her announcement via this post. Thankfully she is NOT leaving the nest and going on to college, etc. She's still going to be nestled snugly at home with her mommy and daddy! :o)

Congratulations Kirsten! Glad you are still with us! We love you sooooo biggy much :o) XOXOXOXO