Friends, NUTS, Chicken Salad and Red Neck Wind Chimes! All in a Weekend!!

We have had a wonderful weekend chock full of fun things!!

Our sandbox welcomed its first visitors!!

This is Payton and Brady - children of our favorite synchro swim coach in all the world!

Megan coached Amber for many years. Wonderful times!

Louis Dean made the chicken salad and I put the sandwiches together as soon as we got up Saturday morning.

I also baked up a batch of chocolate chip cookies!

CHILDREN were coming to visit!

We ate and visited and the kids played.

Just as we were getting a bit drowsy - okay - just as CANDIE (Megan's mom) was getting drowsy - we remembered how much we used to love to play NUTS!!!

You CANNOT be sleepy when you play this game!!!

Payton will soon be 11 and she played so well she WON a round or two!

The weather was perfect for playing out in the gazebo while Brady was content in the sandbox!

I LOVE these people!!! They moved to San Antonio last year and that makes a visit from them very special indeed!

Oh, NO!!! I lost another round!!!

Not really!!! I was trying to get Louis Dean to STOP taking my picture!

I regret I didn't get a group pic and I regret NOT getting a photo of Louis Dean giving Payton a recorder and a page of instructions. She was practicing on it minutes after she had it in her hands!

Well, the afternoon passed all too quickly and they went off to visit other friends.

I actually did the same.

I headed over to my Ladybug from Texas blogger friend, Debbie's house!

She formed a Fun Girls Group a few months back and graciously invited me to join her and many of her friends from childhood! They are a great group of awesome ladies and I try never to miss the opportunity to spend time with them.

We all gathered and ate some really good food! Then we fixed our drinks and went outside to the picnic tables to do our craft project!

Red Neck Wind Chimes!!

I used a vintage grater and several ladies used wire baskets, colanders and various metal things for a base.

We strung up metal bottle caps with fishing line to make the wind chime.

I LOVE mine!!!

It makes the nicest sound in the wind and it HAS been windy!

This morning we enjoyed listening to it as we had our coffee. I must admit there is another sound - not nearly as pleasant - as we sat. One of our turbo vents is grumbling and I guess Louis Dean may as well go to Home Depot and get a new one.......soon. We went to church and came home to chicken salad sandwiches. LD made a LOT of chicken salad!!!

While I did housework - HE went to work on the sandbox!

He was GOING to do this tomorrow! He MEANT to just get his tools out and get everything ready.

Instead it is now a DONE DEAL!!!

All bolted together and finished.

He said he will work on the cover tomorrow.

Louis Dean is BACK!!!

He feels better and looks better! He even lost a few pounds because he was so sick.

My main accomplishment today was washing all the bedding in our room.

I stripped it ALL off! Even the mattress cover!

It took all afternoon to get it washed and dried but everything is as fresh as a daisy!

I also packed an 'emergency' overnight kit using my vintage Gucci bag.

A nightgown, toiletries, a pair of glasses and a paper back book and a pill box with AM and PM meds.

This will live in my car truck just in case I want to spend the night somewhere!

I always had little suitcases in my van back in the day when Amber and Benjamin were young.

We each had our own and that came in handy more than once!

We are enjoying the pleasant mild weather!

Our allergies are well under control now and we love being outside as much as possible.

Our day is done! I think I will sit here a little longer (I am in the gazebo) and listen to the night sounds before going to bed. It's a peaceful Sunday night in Texas!