Still here

It's been a long time since I blogged last.  I apologize!  It's so much easier to just snap a photo in instagram or post it on facebook (in instagram I'm under newjerseyoma), and move on.  The laptop gets taken out for work, and to upload pictures from the camera.  That's it anymore!  And as I said before, I don't like typing on either the smartphone or the pad.

Aaaanyway, it's all good.  We are having mixed weather days, today being a rainy, chilly day.  Yesterday was great, tomorrow more rain, and the weekend is supposed to be nice.

On the weekend we walked, but this time in the Storm King Art Center, which I had wanted to revisit.  We stepped out of the car, and there was this huge, immense, LOUD  noise all around us.  What could that possibly be?  The Thruway is close by, but not as loud by a long shot.
Cicadas is what we suspected, and and then confirmed.  I finally after all these years understood all the hoopla about the cicadas!
Yes, we saw them, took pictures of them, and loved our stay in the park.  All of it is just beautiful, the sculptures in the meadow, the hidden sculptures, the meadows, the woods - well, here, judge for yourself, only a few of the things we saw:

 Cicada and their discarded or molted remains

 mirror fence and one of the meadows

 three-legged buddah above

More Birthdays

We had the family that lives here over for a combined birthday celebration with hot dogs, grilled pork ribs, hamburgers, potato and macaroni salad, and corn.  And an ice cream cake for dessert.  

We had eight children as guests, and nine adults - a pretty big party for us!

It was a lot of fun, and since the weather was a little cooler, we enjoyed being on the deck.  

We all held Andrew, one at a time of course, and we sang 'happy birthday to you'.

Michael and Jessica's  actual birthday was yesterday, and Jackson will be six years old in a couple of weeks, but he will be off on vacation then.

So here are some photos of the party, plus I can never resist showing photos of the amazing peonies showing what they can do right now.  So I'm out there, mostly early in the morning, in my pj's, with a camera, the iPod, the smart phone, whatever takes a picture and I adore.