Just got back from a quick trip to Georgia for annual family weekend. Mike and I played landscapers/gardeners and prepared a rose garden in memory of my mother, who died in January.

The trip outbound reminded us of why we hate to fly: plan was 30 minutes late arriving – then we sat on the runway for about 20 minutes, because Atlanta was backed up due to thunderstorms. Got inside – and discovered that baggage handling was "closed" because of the thunderstorms — with no estimates on when luggage handling would resume. We left the airport, via Hertz, 2.25 hours after we were supposed to have orginally landed. Ugh.

And it was raining – gully washers, as they say down south. Got to my sister’s house in Briarcliff, stepped out next to the curb into a river of rushing, cold rain water.

Beautiful day for the reunion on Saturday – not too hot, but sunny. We have had hail storms the Friday evening beforehand. (This year’s excitement was an unvited rattlesnack.)

Sunday and Monday – Mike and I played landscapers/gardeners and created a memorial rose garden for my mom as well as a bricked area for a bench with arbor. We also planted clematis and jasmine to climb the arbor — and have two large Christmas Box plants for someone else to plant this week, off to the right and front of the bench.