Category Archives: Colville

An August Week

The Great Jungle Journey is our Vacation Bible School theme for 2024!

The theme verse for the week: To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. 1 Timothy 1;17

The Jungle Theme has been a hit! It’s such a treat to get a sweet hug at my station each evening from these two!

Craft and Science time outdoors under a shade cloth with misters!

I had to zoom in across the parking lot for these photos that are not sharp. A fun science experiment and a craft to take home.

There is a memory verse for each night of VBS.

Day 1: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.- Genesis 1:1

Day 2: They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt, there is none who does good, not even one. -Psalm 14:3

Day 3: Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth. -Genesis 11:9

Day 4: But to all who did receiver him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. ———John 1:12

Day 5: He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. – Revelation 21:4

We have had up to 185 children each night and 140 volunteers working with the kids and behind the scenes. Our amazing kitchen crew feeds the volunteers and their children dinner each night.

Besides VBS this week, Greg and I have been continuing our early morning walks on the Rotary Trail.

What’s new for you this August?

Lavender is Buzzing

The bees enjoy lavender and our bushes are waning but they were full and fragrant through the end of July and into August.

Hummingbirds have a buzz of their own and they really love this new feeder we picked up at an estate sale. I have not been able to keep up with them with this feeder. We have had 5 at a time trying to push off others to get their turn.

The old feeder is okay when the new one is full of visitors.

A rare moment to enjoy this one all by itself.

This week we are having Vacations Bible School at our church and my job is to sell the t-shirts and hats each evening. At only $7 dollars they go fast. We don’t make a profit and probably even take a hit because of what we sell them for but it makes it more affordable to all.

Hope you are all having a good week.

July Wrap-Up #1

Looking back…

This will be the first of three July Wrap-ups. The first one will be close to home and the second and third will be at a distance. We started the month in Walla Walla celebrating with our family and those posts have been shared.

Travels interrupted the documentation of the end of the school year but finally it happened in July!

Looks like they both decided Top Ramen was their favorite food. Hilarious, as their mom feeds them 3 well balanced meals a day!!

While watching them in early July they decided to give me a makeover.

It was hot but they managed to go cherry picking at a nearby orchard.

Dinner on the Columbia with fishing was refreshing on a hot night.

JJ caught his first stick!

Addy caught her very first fish!

Addy wasn’t interested in holding the fish so JJ took over the job for the fish photo!

Our hot water tank needed to be replaced and while the guys worked on hooking up the new tank we set up this water splash pool for the grands to keep cool while waiting.

Hooray the new hot tank is working and the guys are pleased with themselves! I’m pleased, too.

When the job was completed, we enjoyed a Creamy chicken noodle dish for dinner with a fresh produce salad from the kids garden to go along with it.

The kids brought over raspberries from their garden which inspired the baking of this Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake.

I’ve already shared the other July happenings close to home like soccer camp, walks on the trail, summer blooms, summer critter visitors, Canadian visitors. I’ll save more blooming plants from our back acres for another day.

Happy August everyone!

Soccer Camp and More

It’s that time of the summer when soccer camps happen and right on the heels our city youth soccer teams are formed.

Tonight they will meet their teams and coaches for the next few weeks.

Meanwhile here are some current visitors on our property.

Turkey families have been showing up.

They are very hard to see but these are itty bitty little quail. They are so little and so cute.

Fun to see the flitting butterflies landing on the lavender.

I’ll share what has been blooming here in my next post.

Early Morning Walks

On Monday of this week we started early morning walks along the Rotary Trail in Colville. The trail circles the Golf Course. These are some photos I took with my phone on two different mornings.

Smoke from fires have made sunrise and sunset interesting.

A hawk

There is usually only one eagle perched on these polls but on this day I had a twofer.

Now for a smoky sunset…

This was on Tuesday on our way home from a class we are taking at our church on Biblical Counseling. Our windshield needed a good cleaning!

Some Olympic competitions have been televised already. I’ve watched a couple Olympic soccer games and we’ll see if we sit down to watch the opening ceremonies on Saturday.

We have cooled down as of yesterday and it was a nice relief.

Happy Friday everyone. Hope you have a nice last weekend in July! Here we are this Friday morning on the trail. My, what long legs we have.

 

Pausing…

I’m pausing until next week in sharing our amazing family time in Walla Walla the last two days of June and first two days of July.

We had a fun time at our 4th of July late afternoon and early evening festivities after tackling our acreage that seemed to get way out of control while we were gone. Mowing and weeding and watering were at the top of the list. We are enjoying sunshine and warmth here in Colville. Yesterday the temps were in the upper 80’s and today we have a forecast of 93. We are on a trend that will take us above 100 in a few days! Yikes. I see lots of watering in the evening and early hours the next several days.

Stay cool y’all!

Current Visitors

This mama deer comes to forage in our yard but leaves her fawn in a neighboring area to our property.

Our state bird has paid us some visits, too.

Mama Deer comes back a few times a day to nibble on all the pretty stuff and some weeds, too.

We had a surprise visitor today who was running back and forth next to our slider and seemed to want to come in an pay us a visit. This was the first time we have seen this critter in our parts, a long tailed weasel!!

Since this critter eats mice and chipmunks we wish it well!

I’ll be missing in action for a few days. I’ll catch up when I can. Have a great last weekend in June!

Early Summer Delights!

A day at the lake. (Thank you, Jamie, for this great photo!)

Look carefully to spot the young quail.

Shade cloth up and doing it’s magic making it pleasant to sit out on the deck.

I love the cool of the mornings and listening to all the birds singing.

We rested from our labors on Sunday but the days prior we did a lot of work outside tackling some weeds, weed cloth and mowing the lawn. We are back to a watering regiment since we haven’t had rain the last few days. Do you have to water?

Have a good week!

 

Hello Summer

Hello from Summers past. This shot above was from Butchart Gardens in 2009.

Time for summer sport camps and lots of time outside in the sun!

For us older folk it means mowing and weeding and watering!

After we did a lot of weeding we took a drive into Kettle Falls in search of a good hamburger.

We were very pleased with the quality of our burgers and with my onion rings at a little joint in Kettle.

Heading back to Colville from Kettle on Highway 395, I took a photo of this beautiful first day of summer view.

We will be enjoying our first Summer adventure the last weekend of June into July. More about that soon.

Happy Summer to all of you.

The Last Three Days…

After pulling some weeds early on Friday morning we were inspired to hit the road and go a little north and then west about an hour to the little town of Republic, Washington.

We had lunch at the Mexican Restaurant in town and then poked around the few shops on the main drag. We found the thrift store in town and then found the park where there was a Farmer’s Market and a Library book sale.

Republic, Washington is a city with an early 1900s look and a heritage based in the mining and logging industries. Originally named Eureka Gulch, Republic had a population of 954 in 2000. Noted for its fossils, natural beauty and recreational possibilities, it is nestled in a valley between Wauconda and Sherman Passes at the intersection of Washington State Routes 20 and 21 in the north central part of the state.

On the way back to Colville.

When we spot the Columbia River we know we are close to home. The weather was great for our quick trip to Republic and back home but things began to turn after we got home.

On Saturday we got some mighty winds and thunderstorms with some hail and rain. At one point the temperatures inside our home dropped five degrees. We also saw that the same roads we had taken to Republic that were clear and dry had snow and slush on Saturday and into Sunday at the highest point on Sherman Pass! Sherman Pass has an elevation of 5574 feet.

On Father’s day we had clear weather again as we headed to church and after we got home from church this was the view we had out our windows.

It didn’t dampen our little Father’s Day meal on Sunday evening with our Colville kids.

Happy Father’s day to our son who is faithful and loyal and cares for his family well.

The two dads got nice gifts and we enjoyed our time together.

Dear got phone calls from our out of town kids wishing him a happy Father’s day.

Happy Father’s Day to Dear. A good Father with integrity and faithfulness.

Today we are scheduled to have our windows washed. We didn’t anticipate all this crazy weather. Hopefully the day will be dry and we’ll be able to enjoy the clean dry windows for a few hours.

Tomorrow I’ll be helping in the kitchen for our Church High School camp and I’ll be gone from home from 6am till after 6pm. I won’t be visiting blogs. Time will tell if I’ll be able to muster for Wednesday Hodgepodge.

Hope you all had a good weekend and have a good week ahead.