Finishing Up For The Season

Where has the time gone? The last post was in mid-February, and here it is late May already! So much to catch up on...

February and March were very busy, with a steady stream of visitors. Bob and Jennie Stundtner came up from their apartment in Negril for a couple of days to sample life in the hills. We had a good time! Then Bill and Lisa Turner, Bob and Nicelee Hollenback, and Charlie and Lily Mayer came down to Jamaica for a break from Ithaca's non-winter. Bob and Nicelee stayed up on the hill with us for a week of their vacation, and Tom got Bob to work on the patio with him. Tom and Binghi finished up the tile work, and we're loving the new Patio.

Between visitors we continued with gardening, visits from the kids, quilting, and all the usual ways we spend our days. The plants all keep growing at an astounding rate, and the flowers have all been spectacular.

In March Tina Spiegel came down for the first time in way too many years. She launched into a very busy schedule of work on their house, sewing cushions and curtains, commissioning Mr. Coke to complete the replacement of all of the rotting wooden columns on their porch, and hiring Binghi to put glass block half-walls on the showers in both bathrooms. Quite an amazing amount of work for a week long visit! We really enjoyed her visit and hope she'll be back soon.

Towards the end of our stay Barbara finally gave in to the kids pleading and we took them all to the beach for a day. Great fun, in spite of the fact that it rained for the last two hours of the afternoon.

The last week we were there Tom and Binghi launched into a manic project to install a non-slip tile path from the end of the porch all the way to the front door. It was a huge amount of work, but it really looks great. Next season we'll try to do the rest of the porch!

Back in Ithaca Tom finally finished Barbara's new sewing desk, a project that has been in the planning and construction phases for several years. It is huge, and has the sewing machine set into it, which makes working on large sewing projects much easier.

Click on any image to enter the slide viewer