Around the house

Garden Update
We are still planting! We have had so much rain that it has been a challenge to get things planted in a timely manner, we hope to finish this weekend. We have about a hundred potato plants up, rows of onions, peas, beets, and greenbeans are growing rapidly. The lettuce I planted has not come up yet. Forty-eight tomato plants are in, and we will finish putting out the pepper plants and the cucumbers. I picked the first of our strawberries yesterday, we will not have nearly as many berries as we had last year, I think partly due to a couple of very late frosts. A cherry tree we planted five years ago bore fruit this spring, there were not many cherries, but the few we ate were very nice! The peach tree has about 100 little peaches on it, hopefully some of them will make it to maturity.
I spent some time yesterday afternoon weeding, a horse shoe hoe makes clearing weeds a cinch. Grandson Henry ran around the gardens with his plastic hoe and rake and had a good time playing in the dirt and eating strawberries while his Mommy and baby brother Patrick watched.

Sewing Update
I finished a quilt for new Grandson Patrick. I am currently working on a quilt to donate to a silent auction fundraiser, the proceeds will go to assist with medical bills for a man with cancer. A local Walmart is getting rid of it's fabric department, initially the fabric was marked down 25%, then 50%, and now 75%, although the reduced prices are nice I am disappointed that they will no longer be selling fabric. I have stocked up on fabric for several projects, Henry and Patrick have new matching shirts, and will have a few more over the next weeks, Dave has one new shirt, and one to be made.

Family Update
Son, Benjamin, will graduate from high school next Friday, he plans to attend a local college in the fall. Ben doesn't want an open house for graduation, he would prefer to have a bonfire with friends a little later in the summer. We want to celebrate his graduation with friends and family, but are fine with skipping the whole "open house" thing - instead we have invited close family and friends to enjoy some pizza and refreshments with us following the commencement excercise.
Daughter Emily left yesterday, with her friend Katie, for a four week visit to Europe, the girls will be travelling from Venice to Amsterdam with my parents, staying in campsites all along the way - it sounds like a wonderful trip - and one that they will both always remember. I am being an anxious Mom this morning, they are due to land in Venice any minute, I was up at four this morning to check the United website to make sure that they landed safely in Munich, they did, and I just checked the website again and they have landed in Venice, I should be getting a phone call shortly! Phew!!! The girls will be exhausted, they left at three-thirty yesterday afternoon, and arrived at their final destination at six-thirty this morning, which is twelve-thirty in the afternoon Venice time. Ahhh, life in a tent for four weeks!!