Joys of June

Ok - I am SO FAR BEHIND in my story-telling.

Don't know if any of you out there in this silent blogging community have noticed, but hey - I'm back!   

It's actually the end of July and I'm trying to sort back through my June pictures.

And no one wants to skip through June without paying tribute to the beauty that shouts for attention everywhere your gaze happens to fall in this stellar month.

Because June was full of so much beauty, joy and glory, I'll just tell my story mostly through pictures.

At least that is my goal - I may break into wordy passages because, I am who I am.

A woman of many words.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll simply pop in a few headers to make sense of these memories when I look back.

Because of my rather extreme case of "extroversion" I have a variety of groupings of friends.

Sometimes they overlap which is always fun, but this little combination of friends is very precious to me.

We were getting together to celebrate Donara's 60th which had happened back in May but she brought us all gifts! 

Quite a delightful little turn of events.

So many favourite things fell out of heaven that night, the most exciting being the little bottle of "sleep aid" which Donara picked up for Lisa and I in the States.

It has provided a tremendous boost to my ability to get through the night - with less time awake and more time in actual deep sleep.

That is a gift that surpasses many others in this stage of my life.

Our Wednesday night prayer group was invited to join in with some others again this year, up on Knox Mountain.

And because I know that unity is a big deal to God, I jumped in my car and joined the radical prayer people up on the hill.

Such a beautiful place to spend an evening.

Heaven touches earth as we cry out on behalf of our city, this valley and our nation.
Kingdom of God, come.

My friend was there with her sweet little gal so I managed to squeeze in some snuggles for a perfect ending to the evening. 

Dusk, shadows and pine trees.

Father's Day also happened in June and Dad came up to the orchard!!

We were so excited to have a picnic on the patio to celebrate him.

He is 91 and hardly comes up here anymore.

Exhaustion, dizziness, an unsteady gait, and a touch of depression are all factors in this, but he overcame and blessed us all with his presence! 

What a very sweet and kind man.

Somewhat tormented in his old age, but 

so incredibly precious to us.

He actually ASKED for a wallet and a belt this year. 

That is quite something because he usually complains when we give him gifts. 

He is living longer than he thought he would so he finally needed to replace his very worn out ones. 

I bought him some new handkerchiefs just for good measure since he's not a Kleenex sort of man.

June also looks like this.

The field in front of our house sings a very happy song and the weeds show their best colours.

Seems a shame to call them weeds so maybe I need to do some investigating and find out their proper names.

Gotta show some respect. 

I drove to the school for a good bye luncheon and one of my lovely students had a thank you gift for me. 

She's definitely a little favourite. 

I have so many of them...

There's an organization in town run by one of my friends that has a fund raising walk along the lake in June. 

As you can see, because of the severe flooding this year and the high level of the lake there are barriers up on the beach behind us.

I LOVE what this group of people do so I am ALL IN!

They bring groceries and salad planters to homebound people, help the disabled to get to appointments, clean their homes and are basically the hands and feet and heart of Jesus to a suffering demographic in our city.

Patrice and Anna were my extremely cheerful companions.

Anna was also 'covering' the event for one of her journalistic endeavours.

There is more to come for June but with this lovely closing shot (taken on my way home one evening) I will get ready for my regular Wednesday evening prayer group!

The one in the valley and not on the hill.