Nature

I've been slacking. ...Well, not really - just took some time off to do yard work.
The flowers are all in now, so to finish up the travel photos.

Our last 2 days were about exploring nature - some great parks in the city that make you forget there is a city out there;

Cowan Park looked more like a jungle than a park...


This burned out tree managed to still have living limbs... how did it do that?


Love how the moss covers everything - we desert rats are not used to this much green!


Trickling stream


Rustic bridge



At the end of the park was a group of really tall trees - they looked like an average stand of pines until you peeked inside...
Looking up from the inside of the trees;



Below was this amazing gnarled bunch of trunks - perfect for climbing
The treehouse gang;


The rocks at the entrance of the park had little bird sculptures on them;


The hike back to the U District was a colorful one - Rhododendrons and Azaleas everywhere - Love them!





...and even holly trees


An interesting sculpture on the UW campus (apparently mistaken for a trash receptacle/homeless shelter.)


The UW campus had some interesting Gothic architecture.
Library


The Library is the home of the World's Largest Book...


...Which is nearly impossible to get a good shot of.


Brad thought the study hall looked like a Harry Potter room. (And it did!)



The General himself (Washington) guarding the entrance to his namesake school...



Tuesday was our Last Day - we went to Golden Gardens park, which opens out onto a beach on the Puget Sound. It was a pretty cool beach - lots and lots of sand, and not many people (it being a weekday.)

Trudging through the park


Cool mossy tree


We did the typical things one does at the beach...

Catch some rays


Watch the sailboats


Look for shells


...and shiny pebbles


Watch the birds


Get buried in the sand


All the time we were there, we could hear barking from what we thought was a boat out in the Sound - but later, Brad found an article in the paper that showed flocks of seals sunning themselves on a buoy. I double zoomed my photo and sure enough, there they are.


After we were all properly sunburned, we went to see another attraction of the city... (as per my request.)
Seattle may not have a toll bridge, but they do have a Troll bridge.
(We met a nice couple there who offered to take the pic so that we could all get in the shot.)

The street adjacent to the troll was cool too - it goes off underneath the bridge. (Troll's eye view of the street.)



Vacation is over now and we're all rested up - until this weekend when the girlies will be coming for a sleepover.

Crafting and fun - but no sleep, I'm sure. ^.^
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Oregon!

Day 2 - we have some really good friends who relocated to Portland several years ago.
Brad made arrangements for a get together with them, so Friday we packed up again and headed for Oregon.
We visited Friday evening, then the next morning the plan was to head to Cannon Beach.

The Oregon Coast has ranked pretty highly on my bucket list for a long while, so I was excited at the proposition to finally get to go there!
The beach was HUGE with lots of things to see - even if it did choose to rain on us that day...

Group at the beach, enjoying hot chocolate. (We needed it!)


The tide was low, and the tide pools exposed lots of interesting creatures.

I've never seen so many colors of starfish!


Anemone waiting for lunch to swim by...


Anemones are not so attractive when they are closed up - Ick!


Shell Creatures

Barnacles (?)

The birds' island hangout


Haystack Rock
*Oops - I just realized, this is NOT Haystack rock. Just one of the bigger ones to the side of it. My bad. >.<


One of the fun statues in town (the Chicken or the Egg?) Sorry about the raindrops on the lens - had a hard time keeping the camera dry...


After doing lunch and visiting all the little shops in town, we took one more look at the beach. The clouds had lifted a bit, and we could see Tillamook Lighthouse.
Cool!


Had a great day at the beach - then back to the house to relax (and dry out!) Love, love, LOVE their house (which is currently on the market, by the way.)



We drove back to Washington on Sunday, stopping at the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Tacoma Museum of Art.
The Glass Museum & Bridge was just a hop & skip away, so we saw that too.
(My camera was in the car - not allowed in the Norman Rockwell place, so no pics of those, sorry...)

Sunday was also our 35th anniversary. We found this antique car in the parking lot of the art museum, and thought it would make a fitting back drop for an anniversary photo.



Our oldest and his family have been here working on the yard all day. It will be a nice holiday weekend (except for the rain >.< )

Have a safe weekend!
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Back From Vacation

Spent all of last week visiting my son in Seattle.

Brad & Lib both took time off from work to show us around - and show us around they did. Saw lots, did lots, ...and walked lots!!!

Thursday we took a tour of Brad's school (Cornish School of Art)
School is out for the Summer, so the place was deserted - which was kind of nice, except that all the art displays were gone too.
We went upstairs to see where he works and takes classes, and there at the end of the hall was the perfect view of the Space Needle...



From there we walked downtown to do lunch. The eatery of choice wasn't open yet, so we checked out the mall - this town has art everywhere - this little fellow was standing guard in the courtyard...


After lunch (my first experience with Sushi) we took the monorail down to the Space Needle.


(Don't laugh - you try and get 4 people and a towering building in the same shot!)

From there, we hiked to the waterfront - there is a sculpture garden there that is fairly new (?) ...so we walked through that;

On the way to the sculpture gardens...

...Just one of the many garden delights

The chilins chillin' at the plaza...


I took this one for the fisherman statue - but this store was lots of fun too...

Trekked uphill to the famous "Gum Wall." You can't appreciate how disgusting this place is until you see it (and smell it) in person.

No trip to Seattle is complete without a trip to Pikes Market.

The International Marketplace...


We rode the subturanean bus line back to the U District and had a yummy dinner of Oriental noodles - and that was just the first day!

Too much to share in one post - more later...
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You Missed it....

A neighbor asked me to write a short paragraph about what I did to keep the kids busy and occupied during the summer months for a class she'll be teaching.
The kids were all here when she called, so I put it to them - piece of cake.
Had it done in a few minutes.

But it set me to reflecting on my own childhood summers...

I grew up "out in the boonies." Yep, I was a country gal.
We were kind of isolated from friends - oh, there were plenty, but not within walking distance. ...And from parks, swimming pools and the like.

It left us on our own to find our entertainment... But we managed.

Every couple of weeks, mom would take my sisters and I to the library, and we learned to love reading. We were often driven from the house by the sweltering heat (no AC) - so we would find a shady place outside where we could catch a cool breeze - the front porch, the tree house, or sometimes even just the old car in the driveway, and we would read our books and share little snippets and passages that made us laugh.

We had a little stream that ran around the house, and on those unbearably hot afternoons, mom always knew she could find us there - wading, making mud pies, smelling the wild roses, or just floating our Barbies down it. (Ha ha)

Nothing grand or amazing, but there are so many things that my children will never experience growing up in a TV and video game society -

*Hanging the clothes on the clothesline, and the smell of fresh sheets baked in the sun and whipped into submission by the wind.

*The wonder of finding a batch of newborn kittens in the haystack.

*The sensuous smell of home made bread - mom would often allow us a sacrificial loaf to tear apart and ravage - slathered with butter and honey that would melt and run down our arms to drip off our elbows.
(Sorry kids, I tried to learn to bake, but I've never been able to master bread.)

*Climbing trees. There were dozens of them all around our property - I had my favorites, but I made sure to tackle each and every one of them at least once.

*Feeding hands full of weeds to the horses and petting their soft warm noses
(but minding not to get too close, or they would nibble our hair!)

*Playing night games on the lawn, and sleeping out on the big front porch, watching the shadows dance as the cars drove by... and sometimes dancing with them.

*Just roaming - up and down the hills, around the creek - discovering treasures such as sego lilies, trilobites, ...and green apples!

We were poor as church mice back then - but we never knew it.

Life was rich.
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On Mothers Day

The speaker at church yesterday said that 80% of mothers actually
hate mothers day.

Add me to that list.

For me, it's always been a day to measure myself against all other mothers, seeing how much I fall short, and bringing to mind with total clarity each and every failure.

I read several *conference talks on "Motherhood" in preparing the music for church (that's the theme for our meetings this whole month.)
The messages touched my heart, and filled me with the vision of what mothering should be.

I wish so much that I had realized earlier how very important that calling is.
I never did have that long-term vision. It seems I was always just trying to
get through the day.

When my kids were growing up, I was working 3 to 4 jobs at a time, trying to help make ends meet. There were times when I literally worked around the clock to meet deadlines.

I had to shuffle the kids from one babysitter to another - and cry all the way to work because the babysitter would often seem put-upon, when I would have loved nothing more than to be able to stay home with them.

Life always seemed too rushed, and we dealt with things in a "management-by-crisis" mode.

I used to joke that I was just the "family cow" [meaning that they would drain me dry, and when I couldn't produce anymore, I would be ground into hamburger and eaten. Gruesome, I know, but there were days that
I felt that way.] LOL

Lovely attitude - right?

Thankfully, I married a man who had a better understanding of parenting.
He was/is a far better 'mother' than I'll ever be.
Our children turned out amazingly well - not because of me, but in spite of me.

The thing I'm most thankful for at this point in life, is the relationship I have with them as adults. They are good and talented and caring human beings.
I feel a bit of a role reversal these days - I look up to and admire them when, shouldn't it be the other way around?

I'm so proud of them!

Remembering My Mom

My mother was a different story. She raised ten of us!
(Many is the time I have asked myself 'WHY?'
...Why would anyone want that many children?)
But she lived for her family. I think that we filled a void in her life.

She was so much fun - we were always going on picnics, playing games, going to the drive-in movies (with a grocery bag full of homemade popcorn and a pitcher of Koolaid.)
She loved parades and fireworks, and every summer we would go to every one of them in the county.

Her fried chicken and home-made fudge are the stuff of legend.

When I was a teen, she was the de-militarized zone between dad and my boyfriends.

When I went to college, she was my savior - always writing homey letters and slipping me a few extra dollars here and there.

When I transferred closer to home, she would often come and pick me up and take me out for a day of shopping and to lunch.
We always went to the same little place (which has become a beloved spot for my daughter and I as well.)
It was just a little greasy spoon, but it was our place.

Mom was also the most devoted person I know.
She never refused a church calling, no matter how seemingly insignificant or how demanding.
She gave 100 percent, no matter what she did, and dedicated her life to serving.
(I remember as a kid that the only acceptable excuse for not going to church
was death!)
She tried so hard to instill that same devotion into all of us.

After she had her stroke, I was visiting her at the hospital when her doctor came in - and, worried about whether she had lost strength in her right side, he said "Raise your hand all those who love the Lord" (he was a bit odd.)
But mom set her jaw, and with steely determination in her eyes - raise it she did... And when he kept saying "higher, higher," she did that too.

There is no doubt in my mind where my mother stood in her love of the gospel.

At the end, when she suffered for months in the hospital - the only thing close to a complaint I ever heard from her was "Why does it have to take so long?"

I often pondered that question - if there was anyone who didn't deserve that kind of suffering, it was my mom. The only answer I could conjure was that there was some sort of sanctification process going on for her, purifying and making sure her place in heaven.

...And, it was a trial process for us, her children.

If there was any fault in my mom, it is that she did too much for us.
I owe her so much that I can never repay.

Thanks mom.
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*Conference talks on Motherhood:
Mother Told Me Elder Bradley D. Foster
Mothers and Daughters Elder M. Russell Ballard
That Our Children Might See the Face of the Savior
Sister Cheryl C. Lant

Projects

It's finally getting warm here, and the busiest places in town are the
garden shops.
I ran from one to the other all day long - looking for the plants that I had chosen in my mind. But it seems I'm always at odds with the greenhouses.
...Just never on the same page.
I did find a few things - but I got plumb tired of chasing around and burning up my gas before I could finish.

Got a good start anyway...

The front flower bed; I'm thinking pink, green & white this year...



The flower pots; (Not done yet - be patient! Going to add some bright green and maybe pink or violet...)


And, I pulled this old chair from the trash heap and decided to make it
into a planter.
I painted it this funky 50's green - now to find someone to fashion the seat/planter part for me...



...Speaking of projects, I've been a bit obsessed with this new artist -
(New to me anyway,) Misty Mawn.
I can't stop looking at her work - which is strange because I've never been a fan of contemporary art.
Anyway, I SO want to try something like this!
I've ordered a couple of books she published, and I'm waiting patiently...

( via www.mistymawn.typepad.com )

This looks fun too. Crazy, but fun.

( via www.robenmarie.com )

...Maybe in my next lifetime. :-)


Tomorrow is Mother's Day, and still much to do around the house before morning...
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Mayday!

Crazy / fun weekend!

Had a fun girl's weekend at the home of my sister, just a few miles north of here.
My older sister picked me up, and we got there a bit too early (the others weren't back from the airport yet,) so we drove around a bit.

We went up the canyon to see what memories we could find...
I sure don't remember the road being that narrow. I want to see it in the summer when it's green - I remember it being so pretty then.

That didn't take enough time, so we drove up through Alpine (WoW has that place changed!) and we stopped at the Peppermint Palace - a little candy factory.


(via: Waymaking.com)

That was a fun place, but I'm sure glad I don't live close to it - too much temptation!

When we finally got to sis's house it was time for dinner. She took us to one of her favorite little places The Blue Lemon. It was kind of like gourmet-meets-fast-food-service. The food was yummy, just like she said it would be! (Even though I wanted to complain because they didn't have blue lemonade!) ^.^

After dinner we went back to the house, got in our jammies and watched The Tourist and Finding Neverland, ate popcorn and chatted until 3:30 am.

The next morning, we woke to four inches of snow.
Ruth threw open the doors and said "Welcome to Springtime!"


(...This has sure been a cold one!)

We were going to go to the tulip festival at Thanksgiving Point, but obviously that wasn't going to work (no snow mobile,) so we went to a matinee instead.
We saw Jane Eyre. (Two thumbs up for me.) Good flick.

Ruth made us the yummiest dinner of quiche, asparagus and the family-famous pink salad. We chatted again (only until until 1:30 this time.)

Saturday we had tickets for the Carl Bloch exhibit at the BYU art museum. (It was amazing!)
We got there a little early, so we checked out some of the other exhibits. When we went in there was 4 inches of snow on the ground - by the time we came out, it was all gone.

Such it is here in Utah.

By the time we were finished at the museum, we were all starving, so we went to the Brick Oven for dinner. The place been here long enough that there are memories there for all of us (although in my day it was called Heaps of Pizza.)

When we got back to the house, Ruth pulled out boxes and boxes of family memorabilia that was salvaged from mom's house after she died.


We sorted through photos and documents well into the night (until I was so stuffed up from the dust that I couldn't recognize myself in the pictures anymore.)

Sunday morning we had to disburse and go back to the real world.

...Just as well, I have about 5 years worth of scrapbooking to do now!
I wish we could get together every weekend and work on that... but it's a challenge to manage that just once a year.

While I was gone, baby moved back home from college. She's off for the Summer, and it's going to be a challenge to keep her busy (...and there goes my car!)
But it's good to have her here again - it will give the dog someone else to follow around besides me for a while.

Lots of catching up to do - I've mowed the lawns, now the house needs attention...

Praying for sun!

Sisters in the snow



Snow capped... tulips.



Neighbors in the back yard


Same spot - next morning...

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