What a Father's Day Alyssa and I had!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

PJ had to work today so Alyssa and I decided to enjoy Father's Day by ourselves. We headed to Amityville to an 'Ecuadorian' Garage Sale. I must have misunderstood the nuns from Saturday's sale that told me about this sale. When we got there we realized that there was no sale! Oh well. There was a park a few blocks away that I had wanted to check out so we headed there. This is a very cute small park. It would be the perfect place for a picnic or to read a book. There are benches to sit in and also a gazebo.

There is a Memorial wall and 2 benches dedicated to Peter O'Neil. He was killed on 9/11 and his friends built this memorial in memory of him.


I'm glad that we checked out that park. It's one of those 'gems' that are often missed!
NEXT we headed to Tackapausha Museum. We weren't going in the museum but were going on a hike in the woods. We were on our first LETTERBOXING adventure!! I wanted to try this for years! I printed out our clues from http://www.atlasquest.com/ . I found this one and the box was hidden by Vera, one of our St Williams scrapbooking buddies!
We entered the trail.....
... you will see a tree that fell over with the most unusual root system...
... keep heading North.....
.... continue walking until you see a large wooden bridge on your left.... Is this the large wooden bridge?
NOPE! This is the large wooden bridge!
... cross the bridge....
... and in the NW side of the bridge, you will find the Spider under the bridge!!
We found it! The box was about 6" down under the bridge. It had a spider stamp in it. That was so much fun! I can't wait for the next one. There's a few in my town so I will have to check them out!
Next, Alyssa and I headed to a craft fair at the Seaford Train Station. She saw a sign for pickles and just had to get one!
Then we went to 3 stores looking for Lobsters. Alyssa was buying one for PJ for Father's Day and cooking dinner. When we got home she put one on the floor to see Huckleberry's reaction. If there was a fight, I think the lobster would have won. Huck was a little afraid of the lobster.
Then we went to visit my father for a little while.
PJ digging in!
We had a very adventurous day today.

Mother of all Garage Sales...

I hit the MOTHER OF ALL GARAGE SALES yesterday! It was at a convent in Amityville, NY... just 15 minutes from my house. First, we hit Crabby Amy's in Seaford, for a nice breakfast wrap. It was so relaxing to watch the boats with the sea breeze.
Then we headed to the sale.
It was held under a huge tent that had 2 rooms full of items. One room was mostly furniture, tv's, Christmas, wicker and books. The second room was mostly housewares. The nuns had their tables in a large square where vendors had their items along the back.
My friends and I went through the rooms about 10 times and each time, found more items! The nuns just kept putting out more and more. Even as we shopped, people were still donating their items! This was some of what I got...
Above... I got 3 crocks and 8 Au Gratin dishes. The others were in the dishwasher.


My 3 favorites...
I got all of that for LESS THAN $10 ! The wrought iron coat rack thing is 3 1/2 ' long and only cost $1. Those frames were .15 and .25 each! We had to leave because Louann's car couldn't hold any more items! Before we left though, we went for a nice walk to check out their organic garden. You can actually buy 'shares' for a season full of fresh veggies!


I really liked their perennial garden. The Clematis was an unusual variety. I have to look that one up! The bird bath was just a pretty glass bowl on top of the cement stand. Very nice.
We had such a fun time. After I got home, I was itching to go back! I told PJ that he has to make sure he's off from work next year. This is one NOT to miss!!!

Strawberry Jam...

I picked up a few packs of beautiful strawberries that just happened to be marked down. They were $1.99 for 2 Pounds of these beautiful red morsels! I cut some up and froze for later use in smoothies, sangria etc. Last night I decided to make this sugar free 'jam'. It's not really the jam we know of but made with sugar free Jello. It was VERY easy and actually tastes pretty darned good! The recipe will be on my cooking blog www.mamazukecooks.blogspot.com

This is truly a HUGE day for me! Dave showed me how to add a column in my cooking blog http://mamazukecooks.blogspot.com/ so I can categorize my recipes! I've asked this so many times of others and I could NEVER understand what they were talking about. Dave gave me step by step instructions and within about ONE MINUTE... I had my categories! I was so happy. It didn't take long to add labels to my recipes and wha-la... it's done! Thank you Dave.
1. Log in to your 'dashboard'
2. click on 'Design' tab
3. click on 'add a gadget'
4. a box will appear and you click on the one that says 'labels'
5. that's it for installing that but now you need to add label words at the bottom of the posts.

Yesterday was PJ's first day off in quite a while. We ran some errands, went food shopping and mowed the lawn. It started to get really warm by noon time, or it just felt that way, so we decided to go to the beach for a little while. We were expecting rain for a good part of the day so we thought a lot of people would have made other plans and maybe we could get into Field 6. We arrived at Field 6 and actually got a front row parking spot! It was EMPTY!!! We set up our chair and blanket and then the sun decided to come out! We stayed for only 2 hours and we ended up BURNT! As we were driving home it started to drizzle for a few minutes and that was it!
Photo 1 is when we arrived at 1:30
Photo 2 is at about 2:30 with a few more people.
It was so nice to be at the beach on a beautiful day (at least it was at the beach) without the crowds!

My Entry for a Photo Contest...

I have been loving a blog called Ellis Hollow http://remarc.com/craig/ for quite some time now. It is written by a man who works in the Cornell University Horticulture Dept. I just LOVE his pictures of his gardens. One thing that he does is he enters a photo contest every month. The contest is on the Gardening Gone Wild blog. http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/?p=12270
I decided that I would like to partake in the challenge being that I love taking pictures, especially of flowers and critters! For the month of June, I am submitting the above picture. I don't stand a chance but I'm happy to finally join in!

The Exploding Whale...

Two days ago a 25 foot dead whale washed up on Jones Beach. I had read in the newspaper that they would normally bury it in the dunes but that area is a protected nesting ground for the Piping Plovers so they couldn't bury it there.
Last night at volleyball, a few of us were discussing just that... what to do with a 25 foot whale? One of the guys mentioned a Youtube video about a beach in Florence, OR that had that problem and how they solved it. It was from way back in the '70's. I have to say... it was pretty funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_t44siFyb4

The Many Faces of a Single Allium...

I love looking at the flowers in my garden to see what's new and especially what's changing. Flowers go through so many stages and each stage can have it's own beauty. Take the Allium for instance. When it first flowers it has a big ball of smaller purple flowers to make it look like a globe.
When the flowers fall off you are left with spikes of seed heads.
The last stage is where the seed heads have fallen off and you are left with the spikes. Even in this bare state, they are still beautiful. The stems of the spikes are bright red and still showy.
I wonder what tomorrow will bring.....

PJ, Chris and I went for a visit to see Pops. He's 89 years old now. His health has rapidly gone downhill in the last month. I'm pretty sure he knew who we were but his mind was mostly somewhere else. He did perk up though when I asked him if the 'lady's' were still after him. He had a grin from ear to ear! We had lunch with Pops and then had to leave. Chris was flying back to OR later in the day and he still had to pack.
Just before leaving Pops told me to look at the photos that were in the corner and if I wanted any, to take them. I found two that I definitely wanted. I took them out of the frames and thanked Pops. He then said "you know that you have to bring them back don't you"? Ok! I thought that was funny.
This first picture is of my Great Grandparents Amy and George Bauer along with their
3 children Dorothy, Veronica (my Grandmother) and George. The photo was taken in 1924.

This next photo is my favorite. It is of the 3 Bauer children... from the left... Veronica (my Grandmother), George and Dorothy. My Grandmother was born in 1909.
I made extra copies of these pics and will give them to my brothers. I'm so glad to have these pictures.

A FUN DAY at the BELMONT STAKES!

Judy and Dave and Megan joined Alyssa, Chris and I to the Belmont Stakes yesterday. What a fun day we had. Besides enjoying the big race, it's the perfect setting to people watch. Some people really get into the whole crazy, funky dressing and some don't realize that they are added to that category!

This lady had a cute hat with a whole scene of horses etc glued to the top and her picture ended up in today's Newsday newspaper!
As we were walking to the backyard area we saw this well dressed jocky signing autographs. I took his picture just in case he was really 'somebody' to know. Judy and I asked some guy who he was and we got a whole speel that he's Mike Smith and was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame. I decided to bet on him for every race that he was running in.


Dave and Alyssa
This guy had the best hat in my opinion. It was all LEGOS! He said that between the beer and it hurting his head, it took him days to construct a hat that would be comfortable and not fall off his head.
The green lady has serious orange streaks on the back of her legs from self tanning!

Yankee lounge pants and a 3 color toupe!
PJ
A great band, Funk Funkharmoni, in the backyard area was playing. We had such a good time listening but most of all, watching the dancing. The guys were soooo into it and very funny.

The 3 Zukes! Mom, Alyssa and Chris.
Lovely pants
This guy had 'happiness' tattoo'd on one side and 'virtue' on the other.
Chris and Megan
The Belmont Blanket being constructed
Dave and Alyssa
My FAVORITE Mutual Clerk. I've been going to him for years and he always brings me good luck or at least lots of laughs!
Alyssa
Dave

I don't even know this guys name but we met him 3 years ago at Belmont. He was sitting in front of us and we had such a good time with him and his 'lady friend'. We bumped into each other again this year!
Lady's sandal that was in front of us

PJ and crew in Post Parade
Judy and I
Curtis Sliwa of the NY Guardian Angels

Larry David look alike. We saw him last year also
Bringing the blanket out to the winning horse
The winner was #7.. . Drosselmeyer and Mike Smith was the winning Jockey! If we didn't see him in the morning, I may not have bet on him! I bet on the horses that came in the win, place and show positions but only to show.... and only $2 each!
We had a fun, fun day!!!