Our Southern Vacation

Hello everyone,

    As you may already know I just returned home from a trip to Florida and also Savannah,Georgia so I thought it would be fun to put together some mosaic's of our holiday.

   My husband and I went a few days ahead of our daughters and their families this year so we took a drive up to Savannah. It is a beautiful old city with lots of historical interest and beautiful architecture.

We took an evening stroll around the city.

We also spent a night in Saint Augustine and took in this colorful parade.

I love Mount Dora in Florida so we spent a night there as well. It is a charming small town by a lake so we enjoyed walking around and taking in the sights.

The Garden Gate Tea Room was a definite for lunch again. We discovered it last year when we went for a day trip from Orlando.

It is so charming and the food is delicious too.

We took a drive through Celebration again as it is a short drive from where we stayed and it is so pretty there.

We enjoyed seeing colorful flowers and Olivia took time to stop and smell the roses.

Our three daughters and their families joined us again this year so we had a great time around the pool etc.-sixteen of us in a lovely big house and pool in Emerald Island Resort.

As I already mentioned in my last post I had another special treat as I met my  friend Becky( with the beautiful blond hair and smile) from One Shabby Old House and we had lunch at another beautiful tea room Lavender and Lace  in Lake Alfred.We had a lovely time together and of course I loved seeing all the pretty china they had too.

We enjoyed beautiful sunsets-this one in Mount Dora.

And when we came home this is the beauty(above) that greeted me in our own garden.Just as my Mama always says 'it is nice to go away but the best part is coming back home'!

I am so happy to see the garden coming to life again and to be able to get out and dig in the dirt again.

Thank you to all for your generous comments on my last post.

Take care,

Carolyn

Romantic Homes Feature

Hello Everyone,

      How are you all? I have been away for the past couple of weeks (Florida) with some of our family so this is the first chance I have had to share that I have been featured in Romantic Homes this month. I know some of you had already seen it but it was pretty exciting to walk into Target in Florida and pick up my copy of Romantic Homes and see my pictures featured there! A big thank you to,JoAnne Coletti for choosing my pictures to feature in this lovely magazine-I am so honored!

Sorry for the quality of these pics but apparently I shouldn't have left the magazine by the pool with several splashing little ones!

I will share more on our trip later but for now I want to share my very first garden bouquet of the season. It was such a joy to come home and see these little beauties blooming in the garden and know that there is so much more to come!

This morning I woke up to this peaceful scene on our pond as we had a couple of Canada geese and a mallard duck swimming around on our pond in the mist before the sun was up.

Thank you for being patient with me in my absence and allowing me to brag a little when I returned.

One of my treasured memories of Florida was getting to meet my friend Becky from the beautiful blog  One Shabby Old House. Becky and I enjoyed a lovely lunch together and some shopping at one of her favorite haunts.We have been writing back and forth for a few years now when we met through blogging and I always enjoyed hearing from her and knew I would enjoy meeting her someday.I am touched by Becky's very sweet post on our visit and hope you can pop in and say hello-Becky has a real talent with words and told the story much more eloquently then I ever could.Thank you Becky for taking the time to meet with me-you are beautiful inside and out!

Have a lovely weekend!

Carolyn

Shades of Pink

Hello everyone,

     It is Pink Saturday today at How Sweet the Sound so I went looking though my photos for some of my favorite ' pinks'.

      

Our little granddaughter practicing her ballet moves.

Looking forward to warm summer nights but not wanting to  rush spring as I enjoy it too.

I love my roses-this one is Heritage an English David Austen rose.

A pink hydrangea in a vintage vase.

Some shades of pink geraniums.

A pretty pink foxglove, alas not from our garden.

Thank you Beverly for hosting Pink Saturday at How Sweet the Sound.
And
Thank you for visiting me,

Carolyn

Garden Statuary

Hello everyone,

   As most of you know I love gardening and anything to do with gardens.So,one of the additions to gardens that I love is statues so over the years we have collected a few to place in our garden. The statue above is placed in our enclosed garden with a mirror behind her. The mirror is in a shady spot so that the sun does not reflect off it which can be a fire hazzard.There are vines that grow around it and ostrich ferns on the side of it

Now you might notice that our statues get moved around from year to year so this is the original statue called Martha's that really belongs in here.She is a locally made cement statue from J&S in Albany.

Another locally made statue from J&S 

Love that face!

As you can see they do get moved  to different settings.

This statue is a lighter resin one from Wal Mart-easier to move but not as durable.

This  angel statue was a Mother's Day gift to me last year from my children. 

This is one of my favorite setting in the garden last year-I am looking forward to it's rebirth.

I think a well placed statue adds so much charm to a garden-don't you?

Thank you for visiting me,

Carolyn

Calling all Tea Lovers!

Hello everyone,

       I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. Now, for all you tea lovers I have some photos for you of some of the most beautiful teacups and teapots I have ever seen. Some of you may remember a few weeks ago I shared some photos of the most amazing antique lace collection, and now from the same lovely American friend (that I  met through my blog) I have some photos of her amazing tea things to share with you.

     

Peek inside!

Wow!

Beautiful !!!

Many of you will recognize the beautiful Shelley teacups and teapots in the collection.

It is hard to pick favorites because they are all so beautiful-don't you agree?

It would be hard to get me away from these two  beautiful cabinets full of gorgeous china!

So pretty!

Gotta love all those pinks!

I hope you tea lovers enjoyed seeing this beautiful collection as much as I did. A big thank you to my friend for taking the time to take these pictures and send them to me and allow me to share them with you!

If you missed her beautiful antique lace collection you can see it here and more  here.


Please note that I am taking a short blogging break this week but I have posted a couple of posts ahead for you and I will be back next week, with hopefully lots to share!


Thank you for visiting,

Carolyn