Despite the fact that it has been almost 3 weeks since we returned from our sans kids getaway to the Big Island of Hawaii, I have only managed to add a few pictures to our private family website,  this is no doubt due to technical difficulties on my part, that is difficulty finding the time.  In an effort to please my dh, George, who has askes me daily, "have  you posted those Manta pictures yet?,"  I am posting a small taste here of our trip with a promise to post more soon... Our night snorkel with the giant Manta rays was by far the highlight of the trip, I'm so glad George talked me into it:-)  

     Since our return we have been busy planting, we added two cherry trees to our expanding "fruit orchard" that we planted in early April, with those we now have 8 fruit trees and are looking forward to the yummy rewards in years to come.   We also put in a bluestone driveway, without the use of power equipment, oh the fun of raking stone, but the work was well worth the reward, it really looks nice.   I then moved onto staking out our vegetable garden which ended up being 40' x30', planted our cold weather crops, put up our homemade greenhouse and planted the tomatoes in it. George then took to making some nice looking pea tee-pees from tree branches in need of trimming.  The rose beds are starting to look like more than just sticks and while the roses are just starting to get leafy they appear to like their sunny spot in front of the house.  George also spent one entire Saturday building our new shed.  The shed is in need of a few minor adjustments but otherwise looks quite nice.  On the crafting side, I have been knitting a summer shawl, which I'm ashamed to say I started on the plane to Hawaii,  but I hope to have it done by memorial day. Today, I'm sewing curtains for Cole's room in hopes of delaying his  6 a.m. rising sun wake-up time.  The kids also finished swim team for the season as well as violin, Nikki started riding again this week and Cole got his mini-braces.   Needless to say, I'm sure there's more I could add, but as you can see it's been a busy few weeks.  Now if only those pesky black flies would disappear.....oh, I forgot this is NH, the resident black-fly state :-)  Have a good weekend.