Baby Lilly

Jason and Hannah had their first baby...Lilly Evangeline. She arrived on May 28th at 9:38 am weighing 6 lbs. 15 oz. We had been anxiously awaiting her birth and are thrilled that all went well. She joins two big sisters, Alivia and Audrey...a houseful of ladies!! Jason is still deployed in Iraq but has been able to arrange a short leave to the states in the middle of June. He'll only be 'stateside' for 18 days, not long to get to know your newborn and reaquaint yourself with your new wife and daughters. (Jason was deployed about 9 weeks after he and Hannah were married) He is scheduled to be home for good in March. I'm sure it'll be a long winter for Hannah with three little ones and all that Colorado snow. For now, her mother is with her helping out. Yeah for moms!! Wish we could be closer. Just when things were getting exciting we had to go and move across the country! First Riley's wedding and now this little grandbaby. Honestly, I should have bought stock in Southwest Airlines years ago!!!

Lost kitty

Gus, our crooked tailed kitty, went out Monday night for an "all nighter" and didn't return. He and Gracie are new to this going outside thing since they had to stay indoors in Tucson. They've eased themselves into going out and every once in a while they both would stay out all night. Gus is more of a pansy and stays pretty close to home, even trying to scratch open the front door at times but this time only Gracie came home. We've posted 'Lost' signs all over the neighborhood hoping someone might have 'rescued' him. Gracie has been meowing and following Chelsey all over the house the past few days, acting like she's in mourning. When she and Gus were separated, even for a bit, they would always greet each other like they'd been apart for a long time so I know she's missing him. We are all very sad and miss stepping over him while he napped on his back in the middle of the floor. We miss rubbing his belly...unusual for a cat but he loved it! We miss his little cat breath on our cheeks waking us up. His personality is missed in our home. This whole episode reminds us of when we first moved to Tucson and lost our sweet cat Pepper to coyotes. She was used to going out and we were naive about the neighborhood dangers...that was a hard loss for our family. Here we thought things would be different, especially since there are tons of neighborhood cats running around. Hopefully he will show up...kinda like the movie Homeward Bound.

Lawn care

It's been a little over a week since we bought our property and yesterday Ken and I went out to "mow the lawn". Thank heavens the neighbors have a tractor complete with all sorts of handy attachments including this 'bush hog'. It's a monster riding lawn mower of sorts. I am constantly amazed at how fast things grow here, especially the grass and once it gets past the regular riding lawn mower stage, you have to use this huge bush hog thing. Even tho we're not building yet, we're still responsible to keep the grass cut in order to keep the snakes down. The neighbor found a cotton mouth a bit ago and that's NOT good. So, it looks like we'll be mowing every couple weeks if we splurge and buy a regular riding mower...otherwise, Ken'll be back in the monster tractor.

Closer to home...we still have our rental house yard to take care of. I usually start with the front and leave the back for Ken to finish (I run out of gas before the mower does!) Honestly, we just mowed the lawn here at home and I turned around and all these tall, grass seedy things are shooting up all over the yard! The actual blades of grass aren't too long but these tall shoots have to be mowed AGAIN! I think they grow inches each day!!

Land Ho!

Yesterday we officially became Mississippi land owners! We bought a beautiful four acre piece of meadow surrounded by other tracts of meadow with a few homes dotted here and there. It's north of Brandon, east of the Ross Barnett Reservoir and out in the country a bit but it's within 3 miles of a "Dr.Pepper stop" and 10 miles of shopping. The pictures may all seem the same but let me walk you through. The lot has road frontage to the west, a small pond behind to the east, mature trees to the south and open meadow north (with a new home just being built). The top left picture is from the road looking east, top right is in the back southeast corner looking toward the road...look closely and you can see my red explorer thru the trees and the roof of our across the road neighbor. The land gently slopes down toward the back of the lot. The bottom left picture is looking from the northeast corner toward the road at our other southwest kittycorner neighbor. The bottom right picture was taken in about the middle of the property looking south at our row of oaks and the neighbor's barn and pond. It's so hard to get the full feel of the property with just pictures...you'll have to come out and see for yourselves!! We've met all the neighbors (3 families), they're great local families and we definitely will be the "oldsters" on the block! There's horseback riding (south neighbors have 5 horses), fishing (2 acre stocked pond just to the west) hunting (one neighbor shot a 4 point buck out his back yard) and just lazin' around. Most have four wheelers to get around...we'll just have to get one to fit in! Ken's been looking at riding lawn mower/tractors and drools over the huge gardens people have here. He can't wait to put in his "sustainence" garden. I'm happy with open, breezy space, huge trees and green in general. We feel so fortunate to have found this little spot of heaven on earth. Now...all we need is to sell the Tucson house...just a small detail!! Then we can begin building our dream home. I'll keep you posted!

Canton Flea Market

There is a tradition among Mississippi women, that twice a year they flock to a little town north of Jackson to attend one of the south's largest flea markets. Hundreds of arts and craft vendors come from all over to sell their wares. It's a real big deal! For years I'd heard about the Canton Flea Market from my cousin Leigh. Yesterday I actually got to see it for myself! My sweet new neighbor invited me to go...otherwise I wouldn't have even known it was happening. Chelsey and Natalie came along as well. We had fun looking at all the crafts and trying to find that one item that we wanted to take home for ourselves. Chelsey found the perfect purse, Natalie the perfect ring and I found a pottery bowl. Among the thousands of people there, wandering around somewhere, was my cousin's wife, Kim...and guess who we ran into right at the beginning! Yep, Kim! That was a fun surprise. AND we ran into her AGAIN as we were headed to our car to go home...she was dropping off her second load with her friends before heading back for a third go 'round. She has stamina!! Canton has a traditional town square with old buildings and many homes dating back to the 1850's. I'm anxious to go back when the crowds are gone just to drive around and gawk at all the amazing homes and ancient trees.