JUNE FAVES

 June is well underway and I absolutely love it. I'm bascially living outdoors this month either in the backyard, or on the deck in the backyard, or at a lake, or in the woods and next week on a mountain top. And  at the end of the month, at the Atlantic! And every evening, outdoors until about 9 when it finally gets dark and the mosquitoes come out. June is just glorious in the Northeast and we are having a gorgeous...although a bit hot....this month. We've had hotter than usual days this week (it's been feeling more like July and the central air has been going on around 2 pm to cool our house down for sleeping). 

Besides the blessing of central air, I'm sharing FIVE blessings that top my list....called FAVES with other bloggers who do the same and we all link up at Susanne's blog.  Head over here to learn more and join in! 

FIVE FAVES

Noodle bowl with veggies, chicken
and their specialty spicy chili sauce

veggie miso ramen noodle soup

• DATE DAY!  After  church, Dave and I had a date for Sunday dinner. It was kind of spontaneous but because we both were more  dressed up than usual for church, and it was such a perfect late Spring day, we headed to a ramen noodle place in the next town over that Dave has been to, but that I had never experienced.  It was fantastic!  There were only a few people in there at 1:30 pm. I love living in a diverse region with lots of diverse, ethnic restaurants. This place is affordable and we will be back even though it's not right in our own town. Dave had the ramen noodle soup and I had the noodle bowl. Everything was delicious and we had a nice time to really talk about some upcoming vacation plans as well as the sermon we had just heard. I'm thankful I didn't have to cook on Sunday and for my husband suggesting a date day! 

Lake Bonita from the west side trail

SoulSteps Hikers
l-r: Shawna, Annette, me, Dave D

Lake Bonita from the east side trail 

• MORNING HIKE:  I had originally had 6 people signed up for a Tuesday morning hike but 1 person actually dropped out of the group entirely the day before  and the other person injured her knee so had to cancel.  The 4 of us decided to leave an hour earlier than planned so we began hiking at 9 AM.  We wanted to hike the 3 mile lake loop followed by the trail to another smaller lake named Lake Ann.  Nope. The air was starting to get super hot and humid, so we started on a side trail just to see what it was like and after .2 miles we turned around as it became super thick, ankle deep mud!  So we finished the loop trail at just 3.4 miles and called it a day. We all enjoyed this hike and it was my 4th time hiking around the very pristine Lake Bonita. (no boats are allowed on the lake so it is super clean).  The hike is only 30 minutes north of my home so we were home by 11:30! I'm thankful the members liked it as it was their first time on it. I'm also thankful we got the early start and that everyone was in agreement with it! 

growth!

• GROWING!  My buttercrunch lettuce is finally taking off and growing!  I've been so careful with this gardening in a pot thing.  I move it to under the umbrella during the hot sunny mid-day and today I'm bringing it indoors because we are expecting a severe thunderstorm later with a cold front coming through (Yay...temps back to the 70s where they belong!).  I'm so thankful that this weekend we will enjoy the first of some home grown greens. I read to pick the bigger leaves first leaving the centerl leaves to continue growing. 

Spring semester small group
l-r: Shawna, Jill, Anita, Maggie, Cindy

• DINNER ON THE  DECK: Tuesday night was the last night of the small group Bible study at my house. I'm now on break from leading a women's small group until mid-September when Autumn begins. We decided, since we were done discussing the book, to have a deck dinner. I provided 2 large chicken pesto pizzas from this place (We took a vote on which pizza we'd have) along with various sparkling waters, lemonade, and stuff for making rum and cokes and dark n stormies.  I also made cucumber water which was a big hit as it was a HOT evening. I'm thankful each person brought something to add to the meal: salad, chocolate brownies, an Indian pastry, Italian cookies (that platter was huge so I took it to the church the next morning and gave it to our pastoral and worship teams to enjoy as I didn't want all that sugar in the house), chips and 2 kinds of dip. We all had a great time of fellowship and  sharing what we would be doing this summer in the way of vacations. This was a fun group.  My friend Cindy, who used to go to our church, joined us this semester. She goes to a different church down in the town where she lives. I'm thankful to have led this great group of women and that we had a fun, relaxing evening on a perfect night that felt more like summer than Spring! 

Schroon Lake Town Park/Beach
central Adirondacks 

• SPONTANEOUS SWIM DAY! My two friends Maggie and Jill and I decided rather spontaneously to go to one of my fave lakes that they had never been to on Thursday morning.   Maggie gave me gas money and Jill paid for my iced coffee when we got to the village as I introduced them to the best coffee shop in the ADK. We set up in the shade under a large oak tree and I snapped this pic from my beach chair. We couldn't even sit in the sun it was so hot. It truly didn't feel like June. This mountain lake is huge and the town park is one of my fave  places in the central region of the ADK. Neither of them had ever been to the town park/beach or to swim in the lake!  They loved it. I had fun showing them around the village and then we swam, ate good food, and I had made a carafe of Mai Tai's which were a huge hit. The lake water was beautiful...we stayed from 10:15-2 pm. The village of Schroon Lake/the lake is about 1.5 hours north of where I live, located in the lower high peaks/upper central region of the Adirondacks. and because our schools are all still in session, the beach was basically just retired folks and a few families with preschoolers.  There was a family from VA there and we just think it's so funny that those children are done with school because we go until the last week of June! We had a blast and I'm so thankful we had a fun day. 

Maggie, me, Jill

Those things totally made me say "Thank You, God" .  Of course there are always more than 5 blessings to our weeks.. .....I should mention that another blessing that tops my faves would be the evening my husband Dave and I sat outdoors on the deck well past 9 pm just talking and sharing about our day and planning our upcoming Anniversary trip.  

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!