Project Updates!

Hi, everyone!

Our summer weather continues and so do our projects!  It’s been hot and we haven’t had rain for over a week! James and Thomas like to eat Grandma’s pulled pork, so Grandma bought another pork shoulder and cooked it up.  I helped  pull the meat apart when it came out of the oven.  We had a yummy family dinner the next day!  Grandma finished the bottom border on Thomas’ new blanket and started crocheting the pattern.  One afternoon, she visited with Nancy-san and got a lot more rows done.  Guess what?  Tilly and Moose-san asked Joe-san to pick some strawberries for me, and Grandma brought them home!  I helped Grandma wash them and get them ready for strawberry shortcake.  The shortcake was yummy!

That Thursday, Grandma and Grandpa took me back out to the bay.  We had a pretty sunset!  Grandma paddled her kayak around Thornton Point and up Second Creek on Friday.  There were lots of bullhead lilies in the creek!  The cottonwood trees gave us fuzzy driveway and the catalpa tree next door was in bloom.

We went home on Saturday because it was supposed to rain, but there was a pretty sunrise first!  While we were away on Friday, a crew took advantage of the good weather to put sealer on our driveway in Fairport.  Sealer is gooey black stuff and has to dry a while before anybody can walk or drive on it.  When we got home on Saturday, look what we found!  A delivery person walked right across the driveway about an hour after the sealing crew was done and left black footprints as well as the package!

The last day of June, Grandma made pizza for dinner and invited Uncle Steven’s family to come over.  It was nice enough for our first family dinner outside on the deck!  We had apple pie with homemade cinnamon ice cream for dessert!  When James and Thomas come for dinner outside, one of them helps Grandpa open the umbrella shading the table and the other one gets to help Grandpa close it.  It was Thomas’s turn to crank the umbrella closed and he almost closed it on himself!  After dinner, James and Thomas made a parkour course in the living room.  Aunt Kara helped Grandma with her Mt. Fuji jigsaw puzzle project.

Grandma had a half cup of heavy cream to use up, so that gave her an excuse for making another coffee cheesecake.  I did my usual batter marbling task before it went into the oven.  Then I sat in my spot in the front window to greet anybody passing by.  The impatiens in the window box are blooming more and more!  Grandma was solving the Mt. Fuji jigsaw puzzle by matching each piece to the ones next to it according to the pattern printed on the back of the pieces.  When she finished the lower right quadrant of the puzzle, she had three pieces left that didn’t match anywhere!  So she had to turn the entire quadrant over to figure out where the problems were.  When she fixed that quadrant, she decided it would be easier to do the next quadrant upside down to begin with!

Last Thursday, Grandma finished crocheting Thomas’s blanket!  I got to go along to take it over to him.  Thomas was waiting outside for us when we got there.  I think he likes his new blanket!

Friday morning, Uncle Steven came over to start restoring the jet skis he inherited from Uncle Bill.  They’ve been sitting on a trailer beside Grandma and Grandpa’s garage for as long as I can remember.  The red one needs to have engine repairs, but Uncle Steven didn’t know whether the white one would run or not.  There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on them!  I said hello to my other impatiens friends before I helped Grandma put the chocolate ganache on the cooled cheesecake.  Then I sat down in my greeting place! Can you see me through the reflections?

Saturday was the Fourth of July!  Because of the bad virus, there were no official parades or fireworks displays anywhere.  Uncle Steven’s family came out to stay with us overnight at the bay.  James and Thomas showed me their Minecraft projects.  After dinner, we all watched Onward on the Disney channel.  That is Thomas’s favorite movie!  Grandma and Grandpa thought some of the neighbors might shoot off fireworks, and they were right!  Uncle Steven built a fire and he and Aunt Kara watched for fireworks from there.  Thomas and I went down to sit on the dock with Grandma for a better view, and James came down too.  We had a full moon rising.  There were fireworks to watch from all directions!

Sunday morning, the bay was calm enough for another set of kayak lessons!  Thomas got to go first.  He paddled several circuits past the trees and docks that snagged him last time and made it back to our dock all by himself!  James paddled all the way to Grass Point and back!

Uncle Steven’s family left after lunch on Sunday, but Grandma and Grandpa and I stayed until Monday.  Sunday night, Grandpa got takeout from the new chef at the Back Alley Grill.  She was a contestant on one of the television cooking shows!  Her specialties are Asian foods.  We had her sushi Trash plate and some bao.  They were yummy!  On Monday morning, Grandma and Grandpa got up early so they could put the marine railway in the water while the bay was calm.  The marine railway tracks go out along the dock so a cradle for the powerboat can roll on them from the end of the dock into the boat house.  Grandpa’s trick for getting the sections attached and into the proper place is to tie the out-most section up under the rowboat and float each section out and into place as it gets attached to that one.  When everything is fastened together, he unties the track and it all drops into place!  There wasn’t much a little lion could do to help, but I liked sitting in the sun while Grandma and Grandpa worked!  Once the track was in, Grandma scrubbed the hull of the powerboat before it went onto the cradle.  I helped by pointing out dirty spots she might not see!  I got to ride into the boat house with the powerboat.

Today, Grandma is back to work on her jigsaw puzzle project.  Looks like her new strategy of solving the back side is working!

Love,

Lion-san