Visit with mom 7-28-08

We had a good visit with mom yesterday. We went in the morning so it was cool enough to sit outside. We enjoyed the swing and the cool breeze blowing. We reviewed both the Exponent and the Fresno Bee with her. The big news items here are the forest fires by Yosemite.

We picked up a couple of cards for the birthday girls and had mom sign them.

Friday July 18, 2008

This morning we visited with mom for awhile before her lunch. Our visit was delayed this week because I have been down with the flu or food poisoning. It really wiped me out so I was slept for about three days. Also we did not want to visit mom if I had something contagious.

We found her in the hall way and took her to the table at the South end of the hall to show her some pictures we had from Levi's first birthday.

Mom was asking about all for her ggchildren. She had a little difficulty figuring our exactly how old Hunter and Austin are and how far they were in school. Amanda, if you will email me a few pictures from your families life, we will include these in the picture shows.

On the way to mom's we stopped at several farm stands to pick up watermelon, peaches, pluots and strawberries. We were going to have a small fresh fruit picnic in the gazebo. Unfortunately today was the day they mowed the lawn and were blowing all the clipping and dust into the air so we could not go out there.

We have found a very interesting farm stand on LacJac and Manning. The farmer Dr. Art Lange has over 200 varieties of stone fruit. He has timed them to be ripe from the first of May to the end of September.

At another farm stand they have strawberrys, squash and onions. They have new variety of strawberry that takes the heat of the valley so will have strawberries most of the year.

The watermelon farm has the sweetest, ripest and freshest watermelon around. The Willems who own the farm became notorious when the local paper did an article about the person who identified the fruit that was sweet and ready to eat. Clarence was a 84 year old black man who could pick them. He would just cut them loose and roll them in the furrow and younger men would pick them up. We have never had a bad watermelon from there.

Today we are supposed to reach a 100 again. It has been in the mid 90 for a few days and that is such a nice relief than the 112 we had last week.

July 4th Visit, 2008

We thought that we would give mom a July 4th Visit. We found her in good spirits. Her hair was still very tight and nice. Last time we were there we did not yet have our pictures from our trip to Loanna and Jon's. We took a group of pictures from Saturday, Sunday and Monday when we were with Loanna and Jon's extended families.

She was glad to see that everyone was having a good time. Although we told her several times, she could not understand why Doug and Joanie were not there.

Today was only 90, quite cool for July 4. This allowed us to sit in the gazebo. In addition to being temperate there was a nice breeze. This made it very pleasent out there.

For lunch today they had what they called an "Old fashioned picnic" Mom could not remember what they had but that it was good. Carol checked and was told that they had hamburgers, hot dogs, macaroni salad, apple pie, homemade ice cream, and watermelon.

On our way home, we stopped at a small fruit stand on LacJac and picked some peaches and plums. This farmer grows over 70 different stone fruit. Further down we stopped at another fruit stand and bought some strawberries. They have a new variety that will produce the whole summer. The watermelon farm on McCall was sold out until Tuesday. We were very disappointed because theirs are always very sweet and juicy. The watermelons we have had, have been very disappointing. So we stopped at Simonians and bought a watermelon grown in Bakersfield. and some corn.

Now we are getting ready to start the BBQ. We will have skewers with scallops, onions and sweet peppers of several colors.