The simplest plants can be the most beautiful…This impatient plant in our back patio is a combination of salmon and red color and it grew into a lovely shape!!This is a pot filled with thyme on our patio table…I use this thyme in my recipes all summer!!!

Buddha sets a calming vibe over my flowers and patio…even though our house is close to the center of the hubbub in town, it is a peaceful oasis.

The vintage turtle from my parents’ house, watches over our Mandevilla vine growing up our back porch!!

This cascading pot of flowers on my front porch is a fun combination of red and pink begonias with a mint plant to add foliage and a pleasant scent that greets visitors at our front door…

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This is the way my summer goes…I’m at home at our suburbian house for a few days and then I’m down the Cape for long weekends…a wonderful way to spend the summer!!  And last weekend was special…as our neighbors, Patty and Don, invited us for dinner…I was excited about bringing this dessert!!

In my 4th of July post, I made a Red, White and Blue Chocolate Bark, it was easy, fun and delicious (click here to see it) and so when I saw these molds at Joann Fabric, it inspired me to make this dessert!!  Chocolate cups filled with berries and chocolate shells on the side!!These are the molds to be filled with colorful chocolates and there are directions and recipes that come with them…

The chocolates come in a variety of colors at craft stores…here are some of the colors I chose…Semi-sweet chocolate for the cups, white for the base of the shells mixed with red, orange, green and blue!The chocolate cups are made by melting the chocolate in the microwave, pouring it in a larger mold and then squeezing the chocolate up the sides with a smaller mold and pop them in the refrigerator for about a half-hour. The molds come with detailed directions.  The shells are made by melting the chocolate in the microwave and pouring the white and color in a squeeze bottle and then squeezing it out into the molds, the chocolate will come out marbled!!  Click here for a helpful website.Here is the finished dessert…it’s not the one we brought to Patty and Don’s, I had a little problem!!  I made this dessert in the middle of the heatwave we had on Cape Cod last weekend…It was over 100 degrees, so when I took the cups out of the refrigerator to fill them, the sides melted.  I quickly put them back in the refrigerator, but the damage had been done.  I did the best I could at filling them and they tasted wonderful, just not as pretty as these, which I made the next day when it was cooler!! I placed a chocolate mint leaf from my garden in the center of each cup…and served it with vanilla ice cream on the side…it was so delicious!!!  I’m obsessed!!!

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And now a special visit…As I was getting breakfast one day last week, I looked out the window and saw this beautiful, what I thought was a hawk, on Patty and Don’s chimney…she sat there for a very long time and Victor was able to get some photos of her…  Patty and Don’s daughter’s boyfriend is an environmentalist and so they asked him what type of bird she is, he said, a peregrine falcon, it’s rare to get a photo of them and they are the fastest bird there is, sometimes diving 200 mph to get their prey, which are other birds!!!After a while, she flew to the fence and then flew away…always keeping an eye on us!!   The reason we’re calling this falcon a she, is that we think she has Victor and Patty’s mother’s spirit and she is watching over them…Don saw her a couple of days later too!!

As I was doing research on this majestic bird I came across this quote…”At its core, the falcon signifies wisdom, vision, and protection.”  Which describes my mother-in-law to a tee💗🦅