Last part of July 2010

We had Ed and Janie Jenkins over for dinner. Ed is the pastor at the Peace River campground in the winter in Florida. Jim and Tracy Tull were also with us at this time spending a week kicking around with the Rileys.

This is Janie and Ed's dog "Miss Molly" This is what she looked like when she arrived.

This is what she looked like after 4 hours of playing with Nicky.

The two of them spent the day racing around the yard and playing hide and seek. They kept us laughing all day.

This is the RV pad we had Jim and Tracy parked in. It makes a pretty nice camping spot don't you think????

Jim and Lee spent most of the week working on rebuilding an old wood shed. Looked pretty good when they were finished didn't it?

We took Jim and Tracy to downtown Harrisburg because I told them I wanted to show them the most beautiful capital building in the USA.

Back side of the Capital complex

Isn't that incredible?

The capital was designed in the American Renaissance style by Philadelphia architect Joseph Huston (1866-1940), who envisioned the building as a "Palace of Art". Built and furnished at a cost of $13 million, the Capital features paintings, stained glass and furnishing by some of the best artisans of the day.

This capital is a National Historic Landmark.

The Senate chambers

The Supreme Court

The House Chambers

That is Joseph Huston's head (the architect) covering the keyhole.

The dome
Twenty years have been spent restoring the inside of the capital and renovations are now finished.
The outside renovations are still in progress and it will be a total of 25 years into that project.

The front of the Capital building.

Harrisburg sits on the east side of the Susquehanna River. This picture is taken from the west side of the river.

Tracy and Jim fixed us a Mexican dinner one night. Brandon, the youngest of our 5 children, happen to be there for dinner that night and Tracy and Jim sent him home with food for later also. Brandon works for Comcast and is presently helping them open up an office in Charleston, SC. What a great opportunity for him. He's already spent a month there and will probably spend another month there. He was leaving the next day to go back.

This is our eldest daughter, Suzanne, who lives in St. Petersburg, PA. This is in the Lancaster area. Every so often I have Suzanne come up for what I call a girls week-end. This time I had a brunch and invited 2 of her friends she has not seen in a long time and got them together. Those girls spend hours catching up and it sure was good for all of them. Later we spent an evening around the campfire talking.

My two boys were thinking--company is gone and we can just kick back and relax now. WRONG I told them it was now time to get that hall floor laid.

Lee worked hard all week. After pulling up the carpet, Lee found an area of the floor that he felt was compromised and needed redone. There had at one time been a water leak onto this section of the floor.

He also put new flooring under the furnace. He spent the majority of the week getting the floor ready. It only took him one day to lay the floor. I know he is glad that job is done.

Didn't it turn out well?

Our yard has been constantly filled with butterflies this year.

Our neighbor just started a bee hive this year and featured above is a jar of the first honey taken from the hive. The bees are really doing well and we are thrilled to have a source of raw honey.

Thought you would all get a kick out of this. This is Lee and I about a year after we were married. I always enjoy the old pictures Jane Rankin puts on her blog so thought I'd include a few also.

The Riley family in 1973.

The Riley family in 1976. This was Centennial year and I had made these outfits for us and told them we were going to have a centennial picture taken. They went kicking and screaming but I got it.


HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED LAUGHING AT THESE PICTURES.

Next off to Myrtle Beach for a Riley family reunion.

As you get older don't slow down, Speedup. There's less time left!!

Busy June 2010

My sister's children and I planned a surprise 60th birthday party for my sister, Jill.


There were about 24 of us. Lots of good food and time with good friends we had not seen in a long time.

This is a picture of Morgan and I, a sweet young lady from our church, whom I have watched grow from an infant to a lovely young lady. She's very special.

My sister doing her best with the candles.

My sister and her very special group of girlfriends.

Jill and her husband, Barry.

From left to right: my daughter, Michelle, me, Lee,Jill,Nigel, Jill's son, in front of Nigel is Brooke, Jill's daughter, next we have Ashley, Jill's daughter and behind her Barry, Jill's husband and on the end my brother, Graham.

For 12 years we have had a red Cabrio convertible. We really wanted to find something a little more versatile since this is our only car. We can actually haul some stuff around in this vehicle. If you've ever seen these hard tops you know the two front panels pop out easily or you can remove the entire top. It's a 2008 and it only had 15,000 miles on it. It's a 6 speed manual transmission and lots of fun to drive.

Jim and Tracy Tull and their grandson, Alex, have been at the Hershey TT campground for the last 3 weeks so we have all spend some time together. Alex loved playing with Nicky.

Jim and Tracy were at the Hershey campground on June 2o, when the tornado touched down in the campground. They along with many others lost their awning. Check out Tracy's pictures of the storm on facebook.

Jim and Tracy will be spending the week of July 2 and the week of July 24 at our place. As a matter of fact they will stay here and dog sit for us the last week of July while our family has a reunion at Myrtle Beach.

Tracy and Alex enjoyed fishing in our pond.

We all went to Gettysburg one day and toured the battle field with an audio self-guided tour.

We had a lovely lunch in the town of Gettysburg. We had battlefield fries and they were awesome. They are cooked in peanut oil and fresh cut. I don't normally care much about French fries but these were delicious.

A few shots taken on the battlefield.

The next big happening in the month of June was my 50th high school reunion. In the collage below are pictures taken at a brunch at the home of Carol Brightbill on the Sunday following the reunion dinner.
My very good friend, Nancy Helms is in the picture at the bottom left hand corner. Nancy just lost her husband in May and did not feel up to the big event but was able to join us at the smaller gathering on Sunday. We were so glad to see her.

What is unique about our class is that the majority of us grew up together. Many of us were together from 1st thru 12th grades.Our class was under 100 and we all knew each other. I loved my high school years and had some really good times to remember.

These pictures were taken the night of the dinner. For those of you who live locally, we had this event at the Sheridan off of Union Deposit Rd. and they did an excellent job. The food was tremendous and they were very helpful.

Two of our high school teachers are featured above. How special that they could join us for the reunion. I'm standing next to my Biology teacher. Above and center is my English teacher. I want to be like them when I grow up!!!

This is a picture of all the class members who were able to attend that night.

Marsha Gerber and I

The week prior to the reunion Lee and I were busy replacing the carpet in this room with tile. It turned out really well. We call this Judy's room. It is loaded with family pictures, all the porcelain dolls I have made and every thing else in the room is beach. I love the ocean. In the far corner sits the elliptical machine which I absolutely love. I have been working out on one of these since they first came out. I started saving to buy one for home about a year ago and Costco had a really good deal on one when we returned from Florida. I hop on that in the morning and it gets everything moving.

We have also been busy helping our eldest son and his family move to Pittsburg, PA. They now live 4 1/2 hours away instead of 40 minutes. I will miss the spontaneous get to gethers we could have when they lived closer. On the bright side---Pittsburg is a fun place to visit.

We have 2 more floors to lay before we are done with our inside projects and then I'd like to do some day trips from here.