Today's weather was perfect ~ highs in the low 80s. Ruthie and Maggie went to Virginia for the weekend with my Dad. Bad mistake since I miss Ruthie so much. I took Anna, Lizzie and Allen over to Dad's pond (at his Maryland home) to go fishing in their paddle boat. It is so much fun.
We got a nice surprise when my nephew, Dustin, and his puppy, Dixie, showed up to fish. I guess great minds think alike! Poor little Dixie didn't enjoy the boatride. She whined the whole time. She should've stayed on the pier with Auntie Kathie:-)
Remember last year's drought? Well, here are the before and after pictures of the same spot. Even though Dad has a lot of cleaning up to do with fallen trees, this year's picture (bottom picture) looks so much better!

These pictures show the other side of the pier. See how low the water is below the pier? Now the water touches the pier. Dad is going to raise the pier a few inches.

Well, we went ahead and did it ~ we got high speed internet!! It was a breeze downloading my pictures. It used to take 3-5 minutes per picture. Tonight it took me 3 minutes to load all the pictures in this post. I am enjoying this so much!We also finished cleaning out half our basement. One third of the basement is now a game room. Here are the foosball table (gift from neighbor) and the air hockey table.
And here are the pool table and ping pong table, both from freecycle.
We also got this 8 ft long table from freecyle. It's great for playing table games. I like that we can stack all the chairs and use the table for craft projects. If you haven't discovered http://www.freecycle.org/, you're missing out! Fortunately, I give away just as much as I pick up.

So we are feeling blessed to have this nice area for our children and their friends. Tomorrow I have the house to myself ~ rare treat ~ so I hope to accomplish great things. Hope you have a restful weekend. Many blessings ~ Kathie