Category Archives: Washington State

Before I Retreat…

…here are a few more views from our road trip and overnight news!

I could have screamed “stop” every few minutes as we drove on these country roads in Eastern Washington. I love to see these old barns.

I thought of my friend Judy from Mennonite Girls Can Cook and her beautiful blog “My Front Porch” when we passed this sign.

We had dinner with our son at this Mexican Restaurant in Chewelah and we will return here on future trips to this area.

And now for our breaking overnight news…

Appearances can be deceiving! This is our Kenmore Elite 3 door refrigerator manufactured by LG.

Doesn’t she look like a perfect appliance? Pretty on the outside but we are totally in the dark on the inside!

We had quite a frightening discovery last night before we went to bed. I opened the refrigerator and smelled a very strong odor that smelled like electric wires burning. I called Dear downstairs and we investigated further and realized the lights in the refrigerator were not going off when the doors were closed and had produced an amazing amount of heat that started melting the plastic light compartment. With difficulty Dear disconnected the fixture and removed it totally from the refrigerator. We were so glad that we realized what was going on before we went to bed for the night. It could have easily resulted in a fire. The food items that were close to the light fixture were quite hot to the touch.

I think you can easily see the burn marks on the sockets.

If you look on the inside of this plastic light unit you can see all the melting of the plastic. We are in the process of filing reports with consumer product safety commission and talking with Sears on what our next steps should be. We hear that if Sears doesn’t agree to fix this problem as a product defect it will cost us $500 to fix it. We are not sure we want to invest the $500 for this 6 year old unit. I’ve been out looking at new units. In the meantime we are in the dark and we use a flashlight if we need to. But…my refrigerator woes hold nothing to the other news that we received today.

UPDATE: Bloggy friends are the best! Sam from Eastern Washington emailed me with information and a recall phone # for my refrigerator issue and I called and a new part has been ordered and a technician scheduled to come out and replace the part in our refrigerator. We’ll be asking him some burning questions when he gets here! Thanks Sam from Eastern Washington!!

For those of you that are still reading, life has been tough this week for my loved ones and in turn for me . I realized tonight as I made yet another “comfort meal” how hard things in the body of Christ affect all of us. There is joy in the midst of the sorrow but we suffer none the less with those who are grieving. A young man died unexpectedly and my brother’s church community is coming together to hold each other in their grief. My brother will probably perform the service for this dear friend of his sons.  We know he is with Jesus but the earthly shock still needs to be absorbed. A little baby girl in the womb is struggling to stay alive and we pray for a miracle that she will survive. Another dear one is losing all her hair after her 2nd chemo treatment and staying brave and trusting in her Lord. So many things to pray about. I said today that our prayer lists are heavy but God is good and I am so grateful that Jesus is our advocate at the right hand of God and the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words…

Wish You Were Here…

Kerry Park in Seattle makes for a wonderful photo postcard proving you were here…

This is the great view and on some days there isn’t a cloud in the sky.

Enjoying another Pike Place Market treat at Kerry Park, Ryan finally gets to eat his treat from Piroshky, Piroshky!

I’m not sure how long the needle will be sporting it’s new galaxy carrot orange top.

We were here, wish you were with us…

Trying to get artistic…

Kerry Park is located on Queen Anne Hill off of Queen Anne Ave N. on W. Highland Drive. If you want a family postcard this is the spot for you!

It’s August people! I’m still watching the Olympics and trying to avoid those after event interviews where the questions drive me nuts. I always hope that after all the long hours and years of training every athlete will be able to do well. They all can’t win but they could have some personal bests…

The Mighty Columbia River ~

Starting as a little stream in the Canadian Rockies the Columbia river flows south entering the United States in N.E. Washington close to where our son Dan now lives and works. Its the largest river in the U.S.A. that flows into the Pacific.  It travels 1200 miles curving and finally emptying into the Pacific ocean.

On our way home form eastern Washington we stopped at a scenic exit off I-90 to get a good look at a small part of the Columbia.

After our brief stop at the very hot scenic lookout we continued West across Vantage Bridge over the Columbia river headed for the Cascade Mountain range. The Cascades divide the state of Washington. The east and the west of Washington state are very different in topography and in weather extremes. They are also quite different in political views. Let’s just say it’s the western part of our state and the larger population there that makes us a Blue state instead of a Red state.

Are you watching the Olympics? Tuesday is a soccer watching day for me and I’m happy to have found a channel dedicated to soccer from the Olympics. The U.S. women play again today. Today is the last day of July…

Traveling Mosaics…

This past week was filled with travel and travelers. Dear and I traveled to Eastern Washington to spend a couple days with our son and we had travelers arrive at our house for the week. Today I’m sharing some views from our busy week. I’ll be posting more views from our week soon.

This is a restaurant in Chewelah that wasn’t open on Monday or Tuesday so we met our son here on Wednesday morning before we hit the road home. It was worth the wait for breakfast at The Chalet Grill and & Lounge.

At the Chewelah Pioneer Cemetery we saw a headstone for someone who was born in 1820 buried here. Chewelah has some very interesting history that you can read about here.

We took a slightly different route home from our trip out. We made good time and arrived home to spend the evening with our house guests from California. My sister and her daughter’s family spent the week at our home with and without us.

On Friday we had the classic whirlwind tour of Seattle taking in Pike Place Market, Kerry Park, and the Troll. At Pike Place we made stops at the original Starbucks, Piroshky Piroshky for our traditional Russian treats, the flower stands inside the market, the fish throwing, and the yucky gum wall below the market.

My niece and grandniece at the wonderful flower stalls in the Pike Place Market.

One of these dudes is not like the others…

My oldest sister and her granddaughter.

We didn’t escape the gum wall!

Last stop on the way home was a visit to the troll who lives under a bridge in Fremont. We were sad to see that the troll had been defaced.  Look closely at the Troll’s hand that the kids are standing on, that is an actual VW bug that his hand is covering!

Our company hit the road home to Southern California on Saturday. Dear goes back to work on Monday. I’m spending time relaxing while watching the Olympics. So far summer here has been busy and eventful. Hope all is going well in your neck of the woods!

I’ll be linking up with Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.

Mountain View Lodge

It was an interesting process trying to find somewhere to stay in Stevens County, Washington. We found a couple spots online that we thought might be OK but our son let us know that they wouldn’t be a good choice. He told us the area to look and we found Mountain View Lodge in Chewelah.

The Lodge has 3 rooms in the lower level with a “great room” on the upper level for guests to use.

This was the outside entry to our room.

Our room, the Selkirk.

This is the great room where continental breakfast was available along with comfortable seating to watch T.V.

Beautiful views from all the windows.

We were the only ones staying at the lodge the 2 nights we were in Eastern Washington. We enjoyed just sitting and catching up with our son Dan.

When we visit again we’ll enjoy coming back to the Mountain View Lodge.

View from our room on the lower level.

Every since we came home we’ve been busy with our company. We’ve enjoyed meals together and an outing to Pike Place Market. Dear has been working on replacing some siding on the house. Our company heads home today. Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Dan’s Digs…

Dan is living with friends on 30 acres. His space in the home is large and comfortable for him.

The property is not in a typical neighborhood for sure. This is the greeting you get as you head up the road to the house.

Mind the dust!

They have all the correct signage to hopefully protect their property.

We took a short tour of the property. It would take quite a long time to investigate all 30 acres.

The rock cropping was so interesting. I don’t know if I’m calling it the right thing but it was interesting to walk along and come upon these areas of rock.

The views were great!

They’ve got their chickens all cooped up and safe so they have fresh eggs.

They have a garden area fenced off to keep the deer and other animals out. These are some of the raspberries growing. They have lettuces, potatoes, and strawberries, too.

Beautiful views every where you look.

Besides the garden they built a greenhouse for the lady of the house.

Until Dan finds his own place this is a great place for him to call home.

O Beautiful…

for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain;

For purple mountains majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood,

From sea to shining sea.

We did not see any seas but the mighty Columbia River that begins in the Canadian Rockies and flows through the state of Washington empties into the Pacific Ocean between Oregon and Washington…

These are some of the views we saw on our road trip to Eastern Washington to visit our son, Dan. We are home now and I wanted to post something from our trip. Our company survived nicely without us. Don’t know what the plans are for today except for what we are having for dinner. Summer has arrived on this side of the mountains, too, so our guests are finally warming up. Hope all is well with you and yours today…

ht: Words to O Beautiful for Spacious Skies: Katharine L. Bates, 1904.

Random Captures…

I’m getting a few posts ready filled with random shots I haven’t shared. Dear’s on vacation and we are doing random things. I’m going to schedule posts through Wednesday. When we get back from a little road trip East to visit our second born I hope to share some new shots…

While we are gone and when we get back we have a house full of guests from Southern California. My niece’s family along with my sister Kathy are road tripping up for the week.

I’m happy to have a house full of people to use as guinea goats guinea pigs for some recipes I wanted to try. That way Dear and I don’t have to eat the whole enchilada ourselves.

Hope your week is starting off well…

High Tea at the George Washington Inn

The tables were set on the ocean front piazza, also known as a veranda.

First course included Black Forest and Lavender Cheddar Scones, Dried Cherry and Orange Biscuits, Fresh Lavender Biscuits and assorted flavored Butters and Jams. Beth reads my blog and she’s a real fast learner. After the first course she knew to pass me the service plate for photos before any of us took a bite. The drawback to eating with a blogger!!

Second Course included Petite Spinach and Swiss Quiche, Smoked Salmon Mousse-Filled Cucumber Cups, and Lavender Cream Cheese Turkey Finger Sandwiches.

Third Course included Chocolate Dipped Strawberries, Assorted Petits Fours, and Rasberry/Lemon Lavender Cheesecake.

Tea served with each course was raspberry lavender black tea.

George Washington spoke to us during tea, sharing many interesting stories of his life leading up to his presidency.

President George Washington in portrayal is available for events and can be reached at vfrykholm@olypen.com

Katie won a bar of soap from Mt. Vernon for asking the president the best question of the day.

We were blessed during our tea time with views of more than one rainbow.

A stop at the gift shop on our way out for some lavender goodies to take home.

We also couldn’t resist sitting in the great rockers and squinting in the sunshine before we headed to our ferry crossing home.

It was a lovely day for High Tea at the George Washington Inn with Katie and Beth and of course with our first President.