Alanna's Got the giggles

Alanna is coming up on 7 months pretty soon. What fun to be around her. Here, listen to a little of the giggles that she has!

I don't know if I like this new thing, swimming! Grampa. Are you sure you have a good hold on me?

Just gotta find the hole in this thing!

Alanna's On the Move

We visited Alanna this last weekend and got a few shots of her as she ate green peas (She loves them Big D) and then in her breast stroke stage. Thought you might enjoy some stills and one quick video.  Carol and Katherine

French Award for WWII American Pilot

Between 1944 and 1946, Dave's dad, CF Kelley served in the military as a pilot over Europe. On May 11,  2011 the French Government is awarding him a medal for that service.

Here is a plaque displaying four of the eight awards he was given as he was discharged. The unseen four awards came in the way of "patches" and are no longer recreated.

Bees. Life on the farm with swarms

Last year, about this time, we were visited by a wandering swarm of bees. They landed on the upper floor of the house and found a little niche to get into the attic. However, after one day, they left and formed a ball in the nearby tree. We were relieved, thinking they were headed to another part of the world. Silly us.

They returned to the house and began to set up house keeping. Knowing that we didn't want bees in the attic, we sprayed  and killed them. Hard thing for a gardener to do, but the cost of having them professionally taken out of the wall was high...and the keeper told us there are too many Africanized bees hives here in the south. That no self-respecting keeper would take on wild swarms. He would kill them also.

Well...fast forward 12 months. This lovely swarm landed in our front pine tree. It was there for five days before the exterminator could come and take it away. He wrapped the entire ball in a bag and then gassed them. Again...sorry fate for the bees, but our house and the lingering smell of last year's honey was too tempting to hope they would move  the woods. 

The keeper thinks there must be a huge bee tree somewhere nearby that is "throwing these swarms" off. I will buy my honey in a jar thank you. I am thankful also for zoom lens!

New Bunny, Phil

After working toprove that she was reliable, dependable and trustworthy to feed and care for animals....Katherine go to go to the feed store and pick out a bunny. We didn't know whether it was a boy or a girl so the name had to be gender-unspecific. "Phil" filled the bill.

"Sleeping is what I do Best" Alanna

At 5 months, give or take, I am a great sleeper. I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I do some of my best sleeping in the car, in the high chair or in Mommy and Daddy's bed. Here I am at Grama's doing what I do best, sleeping and being loveable.