Progress on the new flower bed

About halfway done here. I think Judy and Darin left to visit Home Despot again. I believe that if we hadn't been in the process of building this flower bed that they would have had to close Home Despot and Lowe's for the weekend.

This is the real working crew. Darin had lots of help from Hayden and Hunter. Those three really "moved" the earth to make this.


More of the guys
"sweating" in the cool of the day. Is 94 degrees considered cool?

Yep, it really looks like it is finished. After a couple of weeks and a few dozen trips to Lowe's, Home Despot and Wal-Mart, the guys placed the border blocks, spread the soil, peat moss and a little mulch to get the finished product. The dogs don't even miss their old trail. (Daughter Kari in a comment to another post, tried to spell their as there, and then corrected it to say thier. I really think I taught her better spelling.)

Pond and Garden stuff

No, we didn't have a major blight attack the grass, well, yes we did. Judy and Darin (gardening cousin from Hereford) decided to put in another flower bed, and this is the result of 1 gallon of RoundUp mix.

I think they plan to plant lots of flowers and stuff. I had to cap off the sprinklers for this area, but they will use drip irrigation for the bed.

Three blooms in Koi pond

Major Appliance Woes

Since the latter part of June, we have been beset by major appliance disasters. The same week that daughter Kari left for Virginia, our washing machine (some 13 years old) decided to lay down on us. We shop for all our appliances at a locally owned appliance store. They provide us with quality products and their pricing is actually better than Lowe's or Home Despot. Best Buy is not even considered. While Judy was checking the washing machines, our favorite salesperson, Bobby Bird, made her an offer on a new diswasher. She snapped that item up, and son Brad installed it (with my supervision) mainly because the old one was in the house when we bought the place 11 years back. It was suffering from corrosion, made lots of noise, and we had to wash the dishes before we washed the dishes.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a strange fault light on the oven panel. the oven was only 7 years old, but has given us lots of problems (and related costs) by blowing the control panel the only time we used the high temp clean that it was equipped with. Replaceing the control panel was about $550, and a new Kitchenaid oven (with all the new bells and whistles) was only $800.
So.....We replaced the durned thing.

This has been a fairly expensive month! Sometime, I don't know when, where or whodunit, but our Suburban was attacked in a parking lot. The damage was mostly to the front bumper. We drove it for a few weeks, finally I called Jeff, my trusty State Farm agent, and a close friend. We decided to have it repaired.

When the kids were home, it was almost an annual trek to Kenny Stidd body shop. He repaired all the dings and crashes that kids can accumulate, and I took the "burban to that shop for the repairs. Would you believe that a new front bumper repair, replace one light and touch up the paint was over $1300? I also had the windshield replaced, so the total cost was something over $1600! Anyway, I managed to settle with only $200 deductible on my part. Now tell me why I refuse to do business with GEICO, or any of the TV touted auto insurance companies. Jeff and State Farm have been my anchor for over 30 years, and I intend to stay a satisfied policy holder.

More later.....

Sunday Stuffing....

We try to have the kids and grandkids over at least one Sunday a month, and yesterday was the day for -----CRABS! When the kids were all small, and we lived in Virginia Beach, it was our habit to cook up a bunch of blue crabs and eat in the back yard, or on the screened porch. The kids could pick a blue crab as well as anyone I ever saw, and the table was easy to clean, since we layered newspaper all over, and when eating was finished, just roll up the paper and toss everything out.

That was our setting for Sunday, except these were King Crab (On sale at Albertson's for $10 per pound) and we had some grandkids to introduce to the fine art of "crab picking." I didn't get photos, we were too busy picking crab, but I do have some old photos from the '70's and our crab feasts then. When the spirit moves me, I'll scan them and post a few. I am also digging through boxes of old photos of the kids. I may be severly chastised by the kids when I post a few of their old pix.

Later........

The whole gang

In early June, all the kids and grandkids were here in our backyard. This is the first time we have been able to get good photos of the family in quite some time. Now that Kari, Wayne and Carson have moved to Virginia, family gahterings will be happenstance. The grand kids range in age from 15 years to 15 months. All of them are unique and exceptional. The intellect of all the youngsters bewilders me. They excel in looks and intelligence, it must have come from their other grandparents.

Opening gambit

In response to eldest daughter, and shamed into posting a blog by a 12 year old grandson, I opted to utilize this space to quell the murmerings of wife, daughters and grandkids.

My name is Kit Sanders. I am married to Judy, and we live in Amarillo, Texas. Our "younguns" live here in Amarillo: son Brad and Paige and son Peyton, daughter Wendy, Richard and their three precocious dynamos, Hayden, Hunter and Hannah. Daughter Holly lives in El Paso with husband Mike, and two sons, Zach and Will. Daughter Kari, who is the instigator of all this mishmash, lives in Fredrickburg, VA, with husband Wayne and son Carson.

I am a retired pilot, I flew for PanAm based in New York, and Berlin, and was sold to Delta just before PanAm failed. I was based at JFK, Dallas and Atlanta with Delta. You know you are an old aviator when all the airplanes you flew are in museums, and all the airlines you flew for are in bankruptcy! I am an OLD pilot.

Retirement has been good. Eleven years in retirement really makes me appreciate working for a living. Time weighs heavy unless you have a hobby, spend time as a volunteer, or opt to work with kids. I chose to go back to school, not as a student, but as a substitute teacher, and it has been grand! I get to spend days with all sorts of kids with all sorts of problems and promise, and I get to go home after school and not have to grade papers! I don't have to call parents to tell them that Little Johnny is not performing up to task, and I don't get calls from parents demanding that I explain why Little Johnny failed my class. It's all plus and no negatives.

I'll add more as time permits, and I promise to keep things light and upbeat. Photos may be in the offing, I'll have to do some major editing.

Thst's all for this evening....