Aunt Velma has spent this week celebrating her 80th birthday. She has had parties with her family and parties with her friends! 
Here she is with her children, Art and Vicki, and with her friend, George. 
And here she is with her beautiful grandchildren: Jessica, Greg, Becky, Matt and Andy.
Should we all live to be eighty years old and should we all look as good as does Aunt Velma. Lookin' good, Aunt 'V'!
It's official! This has been southwest Ohio's coolest July on record, according to the National Weather Service in Wilmington. Records have been kept for 150 years.The average high temperature for July is 87 degrees, but the region hasn't seen a day above 85 degrees so far this month.The average temperature for July through Wednesday was 70.1 degrees. By comparison, the average temperature on record for July is 70.7 degrees set in 1947. Since the start of the year through Thursday, the region has seen 26.07 inches of rain, a very slight increase of the normal rainfall, which is 26.05. July has seen 5.12 inches of rain. (It's raining hard right now.) The normal rainfall for July is 3.51 inches.
The children and their mother invited me to go along with them to visit Uncle Walter and Aunt Bee. 
Uncle Walter is teaching Little Miss El the finer points of Sudoku. Jimmy/Joey, Andy and Archie are smitten with Little Miss El. 
Uncle Walter warmed the water to a pleasant 82 degrees with the Heatmore. We had fun swimming even though the skies were overcast and sometimes there was a drizzling rain. Even Little Miss El played in the water. We played 'pirates' and took turns swimming between each other's legs. The children are little fish! 
After swimming, the children are so-o-o hungry, they just had to have a rice krispies treat...or two. And where are the dogs now? 
Time to rest! Before we swim again! 
Aunt Bee feeding Little Miss El. Good luck with that, Aunt Bee!
Uncle Walter took us to a secluded farm pond to try our luck at fishing. 
Remember, it's called 'fishing'; not 'catching'. 
One of the fish that Uncle Walter caught. The rest of us were 'practicing'. We had our share of rain. K.K. got quite good at throwing out her line! 
May we hold the fish, Uncle Walter? I actually caught my first fish ever! I was so excited that I pulled the fish right out of the water and threw it over my head!
Aunt Bee got balloons for her birthday. Little Miss El was fascinated by the balloons but didn't want to get too close to them. 
Once she got used to the balloons, she loved pinching them. I was surprised that one of them didn't break! Thank you, Aunt Bee, for letting me play with your birthday balloons.
Thursday evening, the rain fell in buckets! For as little rain as we have had in July so far, other than the hard rain storm we had at Caesar's Creek, we got over an inch of rain the two days we were visiting!
Aunt Bee is teasing Little Miss El to make her smile. 
Uncle Walter saying good-bye to Little Miss El. 
We have eaten. Hopefully, there will be a couple of sleeping children on the way home. The sun is shining, of course, because we are heading home; we did swim for a little bit this morning. Uncle Walter has final instructions for us. Don't 'hog' the baby, Uncle Walter!
What a fun visit with Uncle Walter and Aunt Bee! Thank you, both!
It may be the middle of July, but the temperatures feel more like May. Today's high will be only 80 degrees, according to the National Weather Service in Wilmington. That's warm compared to the record-breaking cool temperatures the region witnessed last weekend. The high temperature on Saturday was 70 degrees, five degrees below the 1938 record of 75 degrees. Saturday morning, the low temperature tied the 1924 record of 54 degrees!
Those of you who have zucchini in your garden know that you can never have just one of them. 
I have sauteed them; stuffed them; sliced, breaded and fried them; sauteed them with tomatoes, green beans and onions (our former neighbors, who were originally from the East, said this was a favorite 'garden' dish); given them away. We also have a bumper crop of butternut squash in the making. So, I googled 'butternut squash' to find recipes. And what did I see? A recipe for zucchini-walnut lasagna! Who'd'a guessed? Fairly easy to make, tasty and a definite 'keeper' as far as recipes go! Served with cool, crisp cucumbers in sour cream, it makes a perfect meal!
We took a little trip to Caesar's Creek State Park in the motor home. 
It was to be a hot day, so we chose a site with some shade. Good thing, too! The first order of business, after selecting a site and getting hooked up was to complete the Suduko! 
Before it got too hot, we hiked down the lane and through the woods to the 'beach'.
Saturday morning, after breakfast, we prepared to ride our bikes up to Spring Valley - a 15 mile round trip to see what was there. "Do you have everything?" I was asked. Hmmm: water bottle, gloves, helmet, cash... "Yep," I replied. As the key locked the motor home door, I remembered. I didn't have my camera! "Too late," I was told. Who does that sound like?!?
We had a nice ride. Rode past a llama farm, corn fields, lots of really pretty homes, farms. Rode a short distance on a bike path. Arrived in Spring Valley to find everything closed! Except the post office. It was only 9:00 a.m. The sky was overcast, rain was predicted for later in the day. We rode a different way back. Our 15 mile trip turned out to be 30 miles. We got back, showered and ate lunch before the rain began. We sat under the awning out of the rain.
It was foggy as we unhooked and started home this morning. We drove through fog on our way home, too.
And look what was in our garden when we got home! One tomato has already been eaten! One will go in the potato salad, the last on the hamburgers we will have for dinner! Bet you wish you had good looking tomatoes and squash in your garden!
