Showing Gratitude and looking on the Brightside!

Just a little update:

                     

Our most priceless blessings in life, our family, are all doing 'Wonderful'!  In fact our family has been blessed beyond measure! Our sons have all now graduated, settled down and are doing well in their practices...

 This cutie pie and her cousin 'Jakers', started kindergarten this year.  Where does the time go?

We have been blessed with 5 and soon to be six more precious grand babies since our little Maggie was born! 

This makes us a grand total of 15 precious little Grandchildren who fill our lives with much joy!

A lot of this post is remembrance of our beautiful flowers which also brought happiness and joy to my heart. 

Most of our lovely flowers have all died, along with many shrubs and 7 of our full grown trees, each one planted with love, hopes  and dreams of a gorgeous, shaded and peaceful sanctuary where family and friends gather. 

  It fulfilled those beautiful dreams for 12 happy years, with many family and friend get to-gathers, barbecues, and peaceful evenings.

I am glad I was blogging, because I learned to take tons of pictures...

We even hosted her wedding ceremony

and three wedding receptions, and one being hers.

Our little ones use to think we had our very own river, out behind our back fence, which really was an extra wide irrigation ditch!!! It was used for the tree farm we enjoyed for a long time, which is now gone and beautiful Villa condominiums have been built in it's place.  Another blessing is a beautiful stone wall has now replaced our chain link fence.  The best part is we have wonderful new friends and neighbors!

I think some of our little ones were the very saddest when they realized Nana's and Papa's little river was gone!!! 

 Our lush yard use to provide hideaways for our precious grandchildren. One grandson even exclaimed to his grandpa one day, while they were sharing a peanut butter sandwich, "It's a real jungle out there, Papa!"

 Our Tulips planted in my sister, Marcia's memory, in her favorite color, hopefully will continue to come back each spring!

 Our bleeding hearts made my heart sad when it was realized they too, hit the 'oily' dust.

 These trees are gone now. I am grateful for pictures which remind me of their magnificent beauty in the spring.

 These peonies were near our vegetable garden which is now barren. The experts suggest we dig down 8 inches and remove all of the the soil and add new. Ugh.  The good thing is even our weeds are struggling to grow:)  We decided to to just cover the ground with decorative bark, this fall.

 Our beautiful roses were some of the hardest hit areas. They dripped with oil and yet they are the hardiest and are showing us their beauty still!!!

 Columbine and the strawberries which seemed to spontaneous bloom everywhere, are now gone,

 along with their neighbor, our prized pink and peach colored poppies.

The real beauty of it all though, is we now will have a MUCH EASIER  yard to maintain, going into retirement in just a few years!!! It will give us freedom we wouldn't have had, if we wouldn't have gone through this bit, of a disaster.

 

 Who would of thought our little (or I should say major) oil catastrophe would end up being a blessing in disguise? Our home was coated in the front, besides the back, with hydraulic oil because of  60 mile an hour winds were whipping the oil every which way. 

This is some of our windows, as we trying to look out that cold Febuary day, almost 2 1/2 years ago. It all looked like white Karo syrup had been sprayed on everything!

 The tree I am really missing the most though is this beautiful Japanese Maple tree, which reached almost to the eaves of our home and was tucked in between the 2 front bedroom windows. This area is now bare. This is a earlier picture taken about 5 years prior to the accident. Many of these shrubs are also gone and the Mt Fugi Cherry tree is really, really struggling, although we have had experts trying to save it.

Sometimes we have experiences in our lives
 which really cause us a ton of distress. 


 So many times afterwards, I realize they can and often do become blessings from our loving Heavenly Father. 

As my husband and I have aged, we realize we are not able to keep up with all the weeding, dead heading, dividing of the flower beds and, care our yard use to entail.

These little ones are growing up and now we will have different

activities for all of our new little ones to enjoy and lots more time to spend with each of them, when they are visiting!

 I hope I will look on the bright side, next time when something happens, and immediately turn it over to the Lord and always remember to thank HIM and show Gratitude for all the many blessings we enjoy! 

Who knew when the construction company working behind our home, experienced an accident, when their hose on their backhoe broke, spraying ours and our neighbor's homes and yards in hydraulic oil, we would end up, saying to ourselves, perhaps this truly is a welcome gift?  

Anyway for us, we believe it truly had been!    

Love, Beth

Drive By Beauties!

I decided tonight to post an old, yet fond post just before Halloween.  I have had so many emails and friends contacting me to see if I was alright.  A sincere thank you!
 Yes, we are doing great! Just very busy.
There are not enough hours in the day to get to some of those things I would really love to do. Blogging is one of them.

I wouldn't trade these past two years though of having my precious mom live here in Utah. 

I was happy Melissa at the Inspired Room decided to host another wonderful Fall party.

Especially giving us a reason to drive around, looking at homes which we love to do and enjoying their beautiful fall decor.

I did risk limb and the wrath of my husband when making him stop, as I spied another beautiful home, all ready for Fall. These pictures were taken while on a trip to Virginia. It wasn’t his idea of a vacation activity, but he was such a great sport
and played along with me!:)

If any of your homes are pictured here, it is because they look great!

This home had a warm and inviting feeling to it.

I liked the simplicity of the wreath on this door and then using cabbage and pumpkins as the centerpieces as the theme in their planters on their porch and also hanging from their tree.

These two homes I found around historical Monument Street in downtown Richmond.

These next homes are in a area just south west of Richmond near Midlothian VA. The landscaping around this older home was spectacular and I loved the character of the door and gardens.

This home was so beautiful!!! I tried to get much closer with my lens and physically,

but my husband and son forbid me to venture much further into this gorgeous yard saying

they would not stop for any more photos if I did!!! LOL

This family really got into Halloween and this home's spookiness was well planned out.
With Skulls greeting their guests... Even sneaky guests with cameras!The noises were errrie....
Some guests didn't make it out
including this poor cat.
Back in the car I had my camera taken away! lol until I promised not to go closer than the front side walk.
Hehehehe, Virginia had very few sidewalks in their neighborhoods, unlike at home:)

So I guess I am still free to roam!

This isn't a front door but it was a gorgeous home and loved how their Fall mailbox blended into their beautiful landscaping.
Beautiful mums were everywhere in the east. Seasonal floral mums here in Utah have already died because we have already had snow and a freeze.Garden mums are in full bloom. I loved how so many used mums back East in their Fall decor.
This home using these great squash were simply stated!
Once again the pumpkins and mums spoke a simple elegance and welcome invitation to othersbut not to those who were not allowed to get closer:)

Another fun mailbox!



Then, back in Utah last night I took a picture of our own front porch.
This witch is a special gift from my dear friend Kathy Dixon, who died several  years ago from Lung Cancer.
This witch has a special meaning for me and brings back memories of my sweet friend each year when I get her out. whom I love and miss very much.

I look forward this year to all the 'darling little pretties'
as she welcomes them to our home,
especially on this Halloween!
Happy Fall Everyone!

Visit Melissa at The Inspired Room and see all the wonderful Posts of Fall and other fun drive bys.