​Painting is very exhausting work.  Okay so it looks as though just Tonia is painting but I was very supportive.  In fact, I made this delicious Coconut Pineapple almost Upside Down Cake!!  

​The porch turned out beautiful.  I love our color choices.  Hopefully we won’t have to paint it again for another 5 years, but if we do I may go deeper in color!  Here is the first coat.

After two coats, beautiful.

Now we can get back to sitting on the porch, enjoying our beautiful yard, listening to the birds, and eating my coconut pineapple almost upside down cake!

It was the first time the boys saw Niagara Falls and Snow!!

Then off to Buzzy's Pizza in the Falls, I have tried a lot of pizza but none compares to Buzzy's.

A few games before Mid-night, who doesn't like to doodle on their head.

And then a wonderful New Years Day Breakfast.  French toast, fresh fruit, bacon maple breakfast sausage, ham, and pastries, YUM!

Aunt Linnie had it all planned out.  We played games, won prizes and even canoed!!  It was a beautiful day with family.  

I can't wait until our next picnic.  I will have Tonia make us her peanut butter pretzel bars!!

We were not even out of the car and my brother was sweeping us off to the closest pizza place.  The wings were called "buffalo wings" but being from Buffalo, they were just okay :)

Fun at the park with the grandkids and Loki.

Dinner with my brother Dean.  The table is so big I could not get the whole thing in the shot.  Did I mention we have a lot of children in the family.

It was a beautiful day to visit the Reedy River.  Tonia was the only one who had her eyes open, the sun was a little bright.

I taught them how to play crazy eights so after showers we would play before bed each night.  They really enjoyed it!

My dad built this screened in porch.  He sat out there all day, well when we weren't making him go on day trips with us.

Moving on, we shared some pasta fasoola and macaroni and peas. Yum.

And to finish it off, eggplant parmigiana.  One of my most favorite meals.

And I might need to mention that we stopped and got big as your face cookies from the Lexington Co-op Market and had them for dessert!!  It was a great!

Look how big Loki has grown.  He will be one year old this week!  Besides the fact that he is a plant killer (we learned after planting our garden) he is a good dog.  We even taught him to watch the Dog Whisperer :)

He loves Ceaser and the dogs.

But his favorite thing still is balls.  He loves any kind of balls, squeaky, tennis, squishy or hard.  And he can catch them too, he can play catch all day and all night.  He will just keep bringing you the ball and bringing it to you and bringing it to you.  He never gets tired :)

We always try to get to the Rochester Lilac Festival.  It is not only beautiful to walk the gardens and smell the lilacs but there are so many food vendors and the arts and crafts are amazing.

This year was nice because it was warm without the hot sun beating on your head.  We got there early so we were able to stroll around but by the time we left it was packed!!

I just love how the painted the crosswalk Lilac!!  And of course we had to stop for a picture in the fairy tree :)

 Here it is, our first gas grill!   Of course if you have your choice between a black grill or a colorful pink grill, who wouldn't choose pink?  

We are die hard charcoal grillers.  I love the smokey taste of the charcoal on my steaks and veggies but sometimes when we get home from work it takes a while to start the charcoal and wait for it to get hot. This is why we decided it was time.  Just go push a button and voila, there it is heat.

We started simple, mushroom and cheese stuffed burgers (except the one with nothing on it, that is Sos's burger, she likes them plain).  

After we get used to the temperature settings and hot to create hot and cool spots, I am going to get the rib-eyes!!