I have always believed that one can form a family of friends. I have been lucky enough, in this life to find many wonderful people that, although not related by blood to me, have become special and precious in their own way.

This is the relationship I have with Emily. A young woman who came into my life when she was just eleven years old. Her parents rented the house next door, and one day Emily came into the yard bringing back a dackel. I think it was Greta, although I cannot recall.

Before I knew it, I put her to work in the kitchen, as it was Peach season and I desperately needed the help!

After that we were pals and then friends and then family.

I’ve never tried to replace her parents. Goodness, they are both wonderful people, who love her very much, but I have tried to be a friend and someone that Emily could always count on. That is something that won’t change.

Emily grew to love the pups as much as I do. In fact, over the years she has “doggy sat” for me and helped me when the puppies arrived.

However, she has grown and her parents are moving west. We will be separated by a couple of time zones. At first I felt pretty sad, and then I realized that I can hop on a plane and go and visit her whenever she has a long weekend!

You see, no matter where she is, I know, and she knows that we are together in our hearts!

On Monday we spent some time going around the yard taking pictures together. Hubby helped so we could get some really nice ones.

I know she will come back, to the lake that we both love, and spend some time here again. Right now it’s time for her to go off on a new adventure.

Safely knowing, I will always be here, waiting for her to return and tell me all about it!

Love you, Em!

Our host is Gattina. Come join us and tell us what YOU did this past weekend!

This was a great weekend for us here in the Dackel Princess House. Our very own Emily was here for the weekend and we did what we love to do the best when Emily is here!

We cooked and we baked and we played games and watched movies and we hugged dackels!

This morning we took a few more pictures. I was just awake, still in my nightgown and a jacket, as we had cold weather move in last night, so please forgive my somewhat disheveled appearance.

You can see how Greta helps me write my blog!

Then it was my turn to take pictures of Emily. The pups were spreading their love onto her, and she enjoyed every minute!

After this, Emily was off to visit with her other friends for the afternoon and I watched The US Open Tennis. Hubby has been complaining that he is “Tennis-d Out” and longs to watch almost anything else on the TV. He better be careful or I will put on my favorite junkie TV show, “Ice Road Truckers”! He really hates that!

So with family, friends and dogs, my weekend was nice and relaxed and very, very, full of love!

Today at the Dackel Princess house we spent the day cooking. Our big project was the preparation, cooking and canning of our very own Plum Jam!

As you know, Emily is here, and today her boyfriend, Ben came over as well and the four of us set about putting it all together.

In the end, we had eleven half pints of Jam, and it came out very well! Best of all, we had fun doing it!

On Monday Hubby’s Buddy from the military came with his lovely wife to take us out for a wonderful luncheon meal!

We drove over to the Common Man Restaurant and had a wonderful meal. Jim and I had the Lobster Salad, and Geraldine had the Crab Cakes and Hubby had a weird Reuben Hamburger sandwich! We all had French Onion Soup as well! Yummy!

At the end of the meal Geraldine and I decided to have an ice cream puff. Now last week I watched Julia Child make these and they were the size of a half dollar coin. Small and sweet. They brought out our orders and they were just huge!!!

Can you believe how big this is? Hubby helped me a little to eat this, but in the end, there was still plenty on the plate. I do admit, though, it was very good. Still, I ask myself, why it had to be so big?

After we took a nice drive, stopped in a few places to shop and came back to the house. We walked around looking at the fruit trees and then we chatted and caught up on life.

Toward the end of the day we decided to take a picture of the four of us. Now we both played with our cameras in order to figure out how to take a timed picture. We worked and worked and finally I figured out how to do it! I was so proud!

Arnie was insisting that we include him.

We came home and enjoyed more time together before they said good bye and headed out. Hubby and I had a small meal later in the evening and then went to bed.

What a very nice day we had!

I’m sitting here writing after a lovely day. I drove south and got together with Mandy and her Grandmother to celebrate Grammy’s birthday! She turned 85 years old!

I was so happy that I had the chance to spend the time with her. You see, although she is my former mother in-law, I love her just as much as I did when I was legally her daughter in-law.

I guess some things don’t change with the signing of divorce papers. Isn’t that wonderful?

We had a three hour lunch just talking about the old days, and Mandy’s birth, and how I’ve known her since I was just 15 years old.

We shared so many of the happiest days of my life, the saddest too. But today we talked about the happy ones, like Mandy’s birth and the wonder of her grandchildren.

Love never dies, does it? I know with my first marriage, sadly, we went to different places after the accident, but the love for some of my ex-husband’s family, has stayed with me all of this time.

I am a lucky woman!

It was just perfect weather today here in New Hampshire, for a good old fashioned barbecue! I’d found a great technique for making pork ribs and so today was all about experimentation!

Me, as I readied myself for the day at hand.

My trusted assistant, and sister, Melodie.

I really hated to try this with such expensive ribs. Baby-back ribs are not cheap, but the gentleman in the video seemed to know what he was saying and doing, so we followed each step, carefully.

First you clean the ribs and remove that thick membrane from the bone side of the ribs. You wash them and pat them dry with paper towels, and then use a barbecue seasoning rub, on both sides and really rub it in.

Now here is the part I worried about. It said to wrap the ribs securely with plastic wrap and then aluminum foil. Then marinate overnight. Then take the wrapped ribs, and place them into a preheated 300 degree (F) oven and cook for two and a half hours on a cookie  sheet.

Now my mother always told me to NEVER put plastic wrap in the oven! So, I really had a problem with this. But I decided to persevere, and throw caution to the wind! Here is what happened after I removed the ribs from the oven and allowed them to cool for 20 minutes.

4th of July Ribs from Dackel Princess Maribeth on Vimeo.

After we allowed the ribs to rest, we coated them with our favorite barbecue sauce (Sweet Baby Ray’s) and then grilled them on a charcoal barbecue until they were not only aromatic, but fabulously beautiful to behold, as they sizzled, barbecue at it’s finest!

The ribs came out so well and everyone ate them pretty quickly. I did manage a shot of them just before people dove in and started to help themselves.

And then I made up a plate and…

Mmmmmm, they were so good!

We went to the fireworks and they were fabulous. My little town puts on a great show down at the docks. The show lasted close to half an hour and my sister took some great pictures!

One of my favorites.

I thought this one was also great.

And if you look very carefully, in the bottom right corner is your very own Dackel Princess!

Now it is time to kick back just like my man, Arnie. He has had a big day and relaxation is what it is all about!

Happy 4th of July, everyone!!!

I promised you all more pictures from this past weekends Family Party. So here they are, in a short montage. These are my family, my loved ones. All special to me in their own ways.

Family Party June 2010 from Dackel Princess Maribeth on Vimeo.

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My drive home was so much less stressful and I made it in 3 hours and 50 minutes! A personal best. I didn’t speed (too much), and until I got near the speedway, the traffic was light, but I am still shaking my head about the man who wanted to drive 30 miles an hour in a 65 mile an hour zone! Why, by all that is good, do people do this? Thankfully I was driving my car (a Cadillac), with a big powerful engine, and eventually I was able to fly by him! Thank you General Motors!

I slept for an hour and a half after lunch, cuddling with my dackels. They are all so happy to see their Mommy. Fritz said hello, and then was off with Hubby. My feelings would be hurt, but I know, he is Hubby’s dog!

I plan an early bedtime, and hopefully a good long night’s sleep!

Happy Monday, Everyone!

Oh yes, and Happy Birthday, Mom!

Sometimes you have one of those wonderful fun days when family gets together, and you talk up a storm, and eat some good foods, and make memories.

Today was one of those days.

One of our cousins was unable to come at the last moment, as well as another cousin, due to illness, and although we missed them and wished they could have joined us, we still enjoyed each other and the perfect day that we had.

I was able to swim in my sister’s pool with her grandchildren, and this gave me a real special thrill! I love children and playing around and joking around was so much fun!

Here I am with my grandniece, Abby.

My grand nephew, Taft.

My grand nephew Luke, making his shirt blow up like an airbag!

My beautiful cousin, looking happier than she has in so long. That just made my day!

Dave and Janet.

I will do a longer post tomorrow, but for now, gentle reader, I need to kick back and put up my feet. After all, tomorrow I drive 4 + hours back home to Hubby and the fur kids!

I drove the 4 plus hours to, my sister’s home today in some of the worst traffic that I have seen in a while. In fact, I saw 4 or 5 accidents along the way and nearly ended up being a statistic myself. I was so grateful when I finally arrived and could get out of the car and just breathe a little.

Unfortunately, today was a busy day. Groceries needed to be purchased, and I wanted to go and get the special dog food for Anneliese that I plan to use during her pregnancy. (Yes, I do think she is pregnant, but I won’t say for sure, because I’m terrified of jinxing it!)

I arrived back at my sister’s in time to change and head over to my mother’s house. For her 81st birthday I had gotten her a bottle of her favorite perfume. Oleander Perfume, from Bermuda, made by Lily. I was really pleased to have gotten her this.

The funny thing was that she had gotten me a small gift to keep with me always as a token of her love and affection. What did she get? Yes, a silver Oleander Blossom on a chain from Bermuda!

Coincidence? I think not.

The Oleander perfume and flowers are just something both Mom and I loved and shared over the years. Something that is just us.

Tonight we took Mom and Mel’s mother in-law out for dinner. I have known Nan since I was 8 years old, (so nearly all of my life) and it was great to have dinner with them. We went to “The Rustic Oak” and had a delightful meal.

I had soft shell crabs. I had never had them before and they were fabulous!!!

They were so very good! Everyone tried mine, except Mom who is allergic.

Mel had Scrod and said it was very good.

For dessert they brought Mom a dessert of her choice with a candle and sang to her.

And Nan also had dessert. I think it was Key Lime Pie!

So dinner is done, and the ladies are back home, and now Mel and I get ready for Saturday’s Family Reunion!

I started Saturday saying good-bye to my dearest Uschi, and her husband, Volker!

The trip home was definitely eventful. I got a good seat out of Berlin, and I reconnected with a pretty  woman who works as the security check person at the Berlin Airport. She was working again and remembered Anneliese and me from last year. Anyway I chatted with her while I waited and then was boarded before most of the other passengers onto the flight in Business Class. This was great because I had a chance to settle Anneliese before the other passengers came on board.

I settled into my seat,  and once we were airborne, I put my feet up and used pillows to prop them up more, so that they could rest. It did not do much good, as my feet and legs swelled more and more and by the time I reached JFK in New York I could hardly walk.

I made it through Customs okay, (they did spend a lot of time going through Anneliese’s documents, I think because her coloring stated her as: wild-boar!) and then I tried to get to the earlier flight to Boston but missed it by 5 minutes!

I called Hubby and we were busy trying to decide what to do, when I learned that my regular flight from JFK (set to depart at 7 pm) to Boston was delayed due to a mechanical problem. So we decided I should take a taxi cab to LaGuadia Airport across town and fly up on the shuttle. So, off I went to get a cab.

Luckily I got a good cab driver this time, and I made it over to the other airport quickly. Anneliese and I checked in and also got good seats up to Boston. The weather was rainy and the flight a bit bumpy, but we arrived 2 hours earlier than I would have with the JFK flight. When we landed I asked if the JFK flight was still delayed. They told me then that the flight had been canceled! How lucky I was to go over to LaGuadia and get the shuttle flight to Boston!

Hubby picked us up in the cold rain and brought us home. Oh how wonderful it is to be home.

We arrived home about 9:45 pm and we had a light supper. Emily arrived for the night and we visited with her until 11 PM and then we all went to bed. I slept well, although I woke with painful feet and had to walk around the bedroom a while and use the heating pad on my feet for a while. But mostly I slept well, and didn’t fully wake until 5:45 this morning, so I think I am getting on schedule.

My garden did pretty well in my absence, but I will need to do some work on it tomorrow. My pea plants need to have string, strung and I want to plant some extra squash in the garden as a few plants are not thriving the way I’d like.

Emily left us at 11 AM Sunday morning.

The rest of the day I caught up on the laundry and cooked a few meals for Hubby. It was a nice, relaxing day. A very good recovery day!

Have a great Monday Everyone!