And Summer Goes On And On...

I never want it to end. 

 Summer is the best time of the year. Here, it doesn't get dark till around 9:00. 9:00. When your little, that's almost cruel, because it's your bed time and it's still light outside. That was annoying, but it also meant more time to play outside. Instead of having to come in at seven, when you're not ready, you get to come in and fall right to sleep.

 This summer, my brother and his wife got their dog, Frannie. She's a rescued mixed breed. They're trying to think of a better name than the one she was given at the rescue center.  It looks like she is  going to be a fairly large dog, because she's only around 14 weeks old now, and she's the size of a beagle. Is she not cute? I already love her. :]

How could anyone say no to this face? She was such a good girl too! Now I have a new buddy whenever I go to my brother and sister-in-law's house. Their cat, Mr. Kitty (xD), isn't that social, but Frannie is so sweet. Is it bad that I get along better with dogs than people? Oh well. At least dogs are always there for you. :D

 My sunflowers are coming up nicely, although, so far, they're heads aren't as big as they usually are. They're already very tall though! Several or at least two or three feet taller than me, and I'm 5"7. I'm always proud of my sunflowers. They grow so big and tall, making them perfect models for my photography. One of my favorite pictures that I've ever taken has a sunflower modeling in it. ( Go to my Photography Page to see it. It's the very first one, with my old blog name on it.) Sunflowers are by far the best flowers out there. I remember when I got my first sunflower head. We had visited my Aunt Julie and she had a bunch of the Russian Mammoths (Those are my favorite types of sunflowers. Many people think they're the only type of sunflowers but there are plenty more, like Autumn Beauty, Lemon Queen, which is the type of sunflower above, and Teddy Bears.). Anyway, she gave me the head of one and I held it the whole way back home. It wasn't till around two or three years I go, when we moved into the house we're in now, did I start planting sunflowers every year and cooing over them as they grew. Like I said, I love sunflowers. (And guess who does a painting of them! VAN GOGH!!!!)

These are my mom's roses that have moved with us three times and are still living. They've been through a lot, but they're still fighting and looking beautiful. This is not my favorite picture of my mom's roses, but it's the latest I've taken. (All these photos where taken yesterday.) And, these roses have never really poked me, or made me bleed, which is a plus for them. I've actually never really been a rose fan. I never found them as pretty as everyone else. I do like white roses though! But sunflowers are still the best. Tall, strong, bright, and full of tasty food!

I'm actually not sure what these are. They're a type of flower my mom planted and I had no clue she did. I'll have to ask her about them...

Another flower! Whose name I don't know. xD Yeah, I do SOME gardening ( although this year I didn't do too much.), but I never really learn names. Don't worry, I'm not bad with human names. I learn those very well.

When we first moved into this house, all it had was some bushes for plant-life. Not a single tree stood in the yard (well, there was a dead one that was threatening to fall on our house, so it was removed.). We've been at this house for 4 years, since I was 12. Since then, we've brought some life to the yard. We've added three raised garden beds, planted flowers along one walk way, planted flowers around the bushes and our front porch, and torn up some of the terrible plastic from around the bushes. We've also brought a little life to the sad looking grass. Sure, our yard doesn't look 100%, but I think it looks a lot better than it use to. I'm sort of proud of what we've accomplished.

This is one of my favorite parts of the house. You can't really see it, but there is a walk way that leads from the road to our front porch and our side door. The one that leads to our side door runs along this brick wall with a flower bed in it. It's really hard to explain. Anyway, I love to jump of the small, brick wall and into the soft, spongey grass that sits there. In the summer it's a nice to relax against the brick wall. It also makes for great pictures and, when you're playing a imaginary game, make a perfect spot for a river. And when I'm feeling inspired, I head there, because it reminds of some place you'd find in a story book.

Gracie. I've made a post about her before. Goodness, what a cute dog she is. Grumpy too. She's sitting on the couch with me right now, growling at Frasier (our J.R.T), for no reason at all. Mr. Big'n'Bad (a.k.a Frasier), jumps up every time. Ah, Gracie. The one dog that will model for me. She's around the age of 9 now. You never realize how much white hair she accumulated  until you look at older pictures of her where almost all her face is black and brown.

Yesterday, I got to end my brief photo session with cursing a butterfly for not sitting still. This is the best picture I could get because every time I got close enough to actually get a picture, it flew away. My zoom on this camera is pretty freaking amazing, but if I want to get pictures of insects, which I always like to do, I'm going to have to expand my lens collection. That defiantly doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. :]

Much Love,

(I own none of the example sunflower pictures.)