Flowers and "Slower"

The main reason for me going down south was to see my 88 year old ailing father. These next picyures are of a plant my husband and I drove down to southern Ca. to give my father 4 or 5 years ago, and to this day I believe it is by far the most beautiful in his patio.Since my hubby did not take this trip with me I took pictures of this plant to show hi how well it is still doing. It is absolutely beautiful, would you not agree!

 

  

The next pics are of our family's pet tortoise. We got this tortoise when I was a mere 2 years old. We had it checked by a veterinarian at the time and it was estimated this tortoise was between 50 and 60 years old then. So you are looking at a picture of a 100 to 110 year old tortoise. He and a female showed up literally on my parents driveway. It was a brand new development of homes going up and every thing around was being un earthed. The remarkable thing about these 2 were they were a mating pair and had babies every year. They did these huge holes in the yard, lay there eggs, and then you have babies! (no sex ed here folks! LOL!!!) But it was quite remarkable.They had stories wrote up about them in the local papers in those years. The female died about 6 years ago. They hibernate all winter long, and Dad said that he had only been out of hibernayion for a couple weeks when I arrived.After them being nameless for a couple years my parents allowed me to name them. I was around 5 years old at the time. They were named by me a 5 year old girl, slow and slower.

May I introduce to you slower

 

  

  

 

A Special Friend and Person

December 2nd it was off to see a very dear friend of mine, Gayla. Gayla  is the sister of a man that I considered to be my best friend, Wesley. Wes had a lot of people who considered him their best friend. Cancer finally got the best of him 5 years ago this past November 9th. It was he, as explained in my intro entitled "How I ended up in the town of Westwood" that was the reason for my ever even checking out this town. His sister Gayla has a special place in my heart that I have never had the joy of knowing before and I doubt I ever will again. There really is not a descriptive word for her in connection to how I feel about her. I do know I am more than blessed that she is a part of my life. She is a friend and a VERY TRUE one.

 

She has a beautiful home. This is new to my eyes, and I just had to have a picture of it, made out of wrought iron, I would love to do something like this out of wood.

 This is a gift to her from her brother Wes and it hangs from her ceiling in her living room. It is truly something special.

 

This is in her backyard and is self explanatory.

 

Her husband is now retired from the United States Postal Service, and she happened across this at a flea market of sorts. She has this on her hearth. It is a old letter weigher for letters. Can you imagine weighing the mail one by one nowadays! LOL!!!

 

And this is she. Gayla has on her lap her 2nd born grandson Zachary. Zachary was born one hour and 10 minutes after my first born grand daughter Katie Ann in the same town but not the same hospital. Wesley would have just loved this!