Long time since last post!

WOW! Facebook has changed the world of blogging. Cannot believe it has been almost been 8 months since I posted in here. A lot has happened in those eight months. We had more snow than any of the grandchildren had ever seen in their entire lives this past February! We had a new grand son born on February 13th, the day after the snow storm. Thanks goodness the snow had almost all disappeared by the time he was born, making the roads easier to travel on for trip to the hospital. Pictures of course.


Aidan and Emma build a real snowman!


Welcome to the world Henry Maxwell Groach
7 lbs. 14oz. 21 inches.

Audrey's 3rd Birthday - July 25

Audrey had a fun pool party for her birthday with all of her family and a few friends.





I just had to include this picture of Audrey in her terry turban, which she
loves to wrap her hair in after her after swim shower! Emma too!

Another wonderful Gulf Shores Vacation

We just cannot seem to get enough of the wonderful beach at Gulf Shores. It is our favorite place to go for summer vacation with the whole family. Once again we went this summer and we all had a great time. There was some wonderful fishing that Harvey, Josh and Kim, Josh and Heather and Aidan participated in this year! We had some delicious grilled fish when they returned home from fishing on Tuesday 6/23. This year was Aidan's first trip out and everyone was anxious about how he would take it and HE LOVED IT! He cannot wait until next year. I am told that is Emma wants to go next year she can since she will be old enough then! I will tell you all one thing, those fishing trips are not for me. I went once many years ago and it was not a pleasant experience and I will never, ever do it again. I just love the sand, sea sun, and pool!
The last picture of the fishing trip is a video of Heather bringing in a mackrel fish!





McDonald Family Rembe, Aidan, Audrey, and Emma
Tried as we might, we could not get a photo of the Groach family this year.

Waiting for our pool!

We are getting ready to go down to Orange Beach this Saturday and upon our return in one week, our backyard pool should be almost finished. It will be 20' by 40', with the shallow end being at 3 ft and the deep end at 8 feet. The electrical work was done today. We are now looking at the leveling of the area around the pool and then they should be ready to come in and do the concrete work and upon that setting, we should have the liner installed. They tell us we can plan on swimming in the pool over the July 4th weekend. Yipee!

The digging began

Strawberry Picking 2009!

As mentioned previously, with all the rain in May, we also found it hard to find a good time to pick the ripe strawberries. Since the last week of May brought us much sunshine, we planned to rise early and go to Southern Belle Farm and pick us some strawberries on Monday, June 1. We had a beautiful morning, school was out. What better way to start the summer than to go strawberry picking. We brought home 4 gallons of strawberries! Now, that does not count what the children ate while they were furiously picking them!

Waiting for their containers.....all were wearing their garden boots!

May activities....baseball....birthday and flower girl

May was a very busy month. Most of it was filled with lots and lots of rain, until the last few days, then we finally saw some sunshine. In spite of the weather, we had Rembe's 3rd birthday, Aidan had some baseball games and then on May 30th Rembe was a flower girl in her Uncle Keith's wedding on May 29, up in Germantown, Ohio.
We finally got to plant the garden after days and days of rain shortly after we had it tilled. It was too wet to actually plant, but that is all done and it is coming up very nicely.

Aidan is playing for the Florida Gators this year!




Had lots of water fun for the birthday party!






Flower girl Rembe.....so pretty!

2009 Garden Preparation - Full Crew!

Due to Harvey's heart surgery in February, he was under orders not to do the tilling this year. Well, Liz and I did the first tilling, then Kim did the second round and the children helped with getting chunks and rocks out of the way. Then another day and Heather came down and did some tilling. It certainly will turn out to be a victory garden for all!