Welcome Visitors

My sister and her boyfriend visited us for a few days. Lynn joined us for a few hours on Thursday before leaving to go to a concert in Gainesville.

Yesterday we went to Harrisonburg so Peggy could see the Virginia Quilt Museum. Then we made a stop at the Brethren Mennonite Heritage Center and drove through Dayton before going to dinner.

Our guests always enjoy seeing the geese that visit the lake. 

This afternoon we joined Peggy and Bill at a folk festival near Aldie.

Parking Lot Greeter at the Festival

Beautiful Fabrics

Today at the Quilt Museum in Harrisonburg

Orange You Glad It's Friday?

Near Winchester Medical Center

The Medical Center is a sprawling complex but all I shot was this apple and a sign in the parking lot. I was there on Monday for an eye exam.

After lunch I drove down a side road outside of town and took this picture of a fence.

A New Set of Ducklings!

Barns at Long Branch

Visitors, Water Fun, and Mountain Scenery

Random-osity

The Good: Frank's brother and his wife drove down from Pennsylvania to visit us on Saturday and left this morning.

The Random and Fun: Yesterday they had a chance to enjoy our pool. Frank promptly organized a version of keep-away,

Sharing with Mosaic Monday

In case you spotted the scenery behind the pool, here's a better look. This view is the main reason we bought the house!

Bonus Fun: Allison and Dave showed up Sunday afternoon to take us all out for a Father's Day meal. We had a nice dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Allison also brought a gift for her dad: a painting she created at a paint party!

Fathers Day 2017

I haven't posted this photo in 11 years so I can reuse it now without boring you. This is my dad's high school graduation picture from 1935. It doesn't look like the way I remember him except for the eyes and the high forehead.

He was intelligent, as the picture suggests. Unfortunately he later suffered from a bipolar condition that caused him to retire early, so some of his brilliance went unused. But my mom stuck with him and they both lived into their 80's.

Today is also Sunday so here's a church for the InSpired Sunday linkup.

Bethany UMC, Purcellville, VA

Another Picture from Leslie Avenue

We lived in Delray for over a decade. Here's Marie as a student in the yard of our townhouse. I believe she was heading off for college at Antioch in Ohio.

I was taking a photography course at NVCC. I printed this photo from a negative in the school darkroom and dodged (lightened) the face a little more than I intended, but that's not so noticeable in this scanned version. Back then we didn't have digital images or Photoshop so alterations to a photo were done under the enlarger.

Five for Mid-June

Friday's a good time to catch up on posting miscellaneous photos and the Willy Nilly Friday format works well for that.

1. There are two Canada Geese families on the pond with adolescent goslings. Here's one of them swimming along. There's lots of green reflected in the water.

2. This is a scan of a slightly faded picture from 1973. My girls were reading with friends in front of our townhouse in the Del Ray section of Alexandria. On Wednesday I was shocked to hear of a shooting incident at Simpson Stadium, which was less than a block from this house. When we lived there, I walked through the park there almost every day and my children played there.

3. On a pleasanter note, here's a bright orange daylily.

4. Recently we found ourselves in Purcellville on an art tour. I drove past the house where my sister lived before she moved to Kentucky. I still miss her!

Skywatch Friday

5. Last of all, I have a somewhat odd-looking cellphone picture. We were in a restaurant and I noticed the late-day sky was showing through the translucent shades.

Have a nice weekend!

Twelve Years of Blogging

I started blogging in June of 2005. At that time we were living near Montross, Virginia and all that was available there was a very slow dial-up internet. For those who don't remember dial-up, you accessed the internet over a phone line that connected to your computer. The lines in our area there were old, which made the connection unbearably slow. I usually turned images off before connecting in order to speed things up a little. I could literally click on a link, walk to the kitchen and come back with a cup of coffee and still find the page had not finished loading!

So I didn't blog every day. About twice a week I drove to the library about 15 minutes away and used their high-speed internet. We only lived there for the summer, although we had planned to stay longer. Our community there was too isolated for me and the lack of fast internet made it seem more so. We wound up renting out the house there and moving back to our little chalet in Bryce Resort. It was still in the country but the community had more amenities and (ta-da!) high speed internet!

Fast forward ten years: We had moved a couple more times, first to a larger home in Bryce and eventually to a house in Warren County. These pictures are from Spring of 2015. By that time I was blogging just about every day.

These are from Garden Week Tours.

Sharing with Fences Around the World