After a number of “quick trips” in the southeast (and Michigan), it’s time to stay home for a while as Margie gets her cataract surgery done. While we’re not exploring much, we’re getting the house cleared of any dust that could cause problems, working on the yard, and enjoying life at home. Wish we could see pictures of how you spend time at home!
Memorial Day
staying cool on the porch
While we have a room air conditioner for the porch, the sun coming in from the west really heats up the room.
Barney had the great idea of hanging a blackout curtain over the west windows that we could close to keep the heat out.
summer events
Does the following picture look familiar?
4th of July at NPCC
Since the 4th of July fell on a Sunday this year, our home church decided to have an outside service and provide food booths and music for after the service.
Soon after we arrived, this was our view. 
At the beginning of the service, I took this picture of the same view.
Don’t know how many people came for the morning, but those who did had a wonderful time.
We’ve often shown you pictures of our friends Tom, Sintya, and Liliana who lovingly let us store our RV on their property. We spent this 4th of July with them in our adjoining circles. Sintya became a U.S. citizen a few years ago, and I gave her a shirt like mine in honor of this accomplishment. So glad we got to wear our shirts today.
other events
As we were anticipating our trip to visit our California family in August, Barney wanted to start getting back into golf. One hot Sunday afternoon, we each took out a couple of clubs and practiced pitching and putting.
lining up the putt 
waiting to hear the “clink” of the ball going into the cup
yard project
One of our final projects in our back yard was to cover up the weeds that were growing under the deck.
staying fit
One of the highlights to staying home for a while is being able to work out 3x a week with friends from both a previous gym and from this gym.
First was the front squat: 2 reps at a fairly heavy weight (for us) every minute on the minute (EMOTM) for 15 minutes.
Then we did 100 hand release push ups (HRPU’s). Every 5 minutes we had to stop and do 25 kettle bell swings (KBS).
The nice thing about these workouts is that we can do them at our own abilities and at a weight that is challenging but not too much. Our goal is to do the workout in the fastest time we can.
I did the workout my way in-between taking pictures.
Margie’s birthday
Later in the morning, our good friends came by to wish me a Happy Birthday.
Liliana (2nd grade) played the birthday song on her violin. 
Tom and Sintya brought me the beautiful red roses. Sintya’s mother from Brazil had just arrived for a long visit with them.
We had invited different friends over for dinner, but everyone already had plans. So I announced that I wanted to go to Chin Chin’s for beef and broccoli.
The serving was so big that I saved half for lunch the next day. 
I made myself chocolate mousse for the first time for my dessert. Yummy, but way too rich.
This almost finishes our activities for the summer. The one trip that I’m putting in a separate post is our day trip to Newberry, SC. Why did we go there? You’ll have to read the post.
