Hello Summer Views and News

We’ve had a mix of blue skies and rain showers for the beginning of summer. It has been a banner year for our clematis varieties.

The yellow day lilies are always the first of the lilies to bloom.

Addy and JJ had fun at Golf Camp. We visited the camp on Wednesday held at the Chewelah Golf and Country Club.

On Thursday they were able to play nine holes of golf.

On the other side of the mountains, the Seattle Sounders had tournament games with international teams and Josh and Laura were able to attend.

Our kids had uninvited visitors on their mountain. The farmer/rancher was called to lead this girl back home…but she must have told her friends that the grass was greener here because later in the day this crew arrived. There are fencing repairs needed by the owner of these cows.

We finally decided to give this Mexican restaurant a try since the ownership and management changed. We gave it a thumbs up. For our small town with limited restaurants it’s interesting that we have three Mexican Restaurants.

We are still enjoying the many shades of green with pops of color on our property.

We had some rain on Saturday and on Sunday in the late afternoon we had thunderstorms and a real good soak.

This Monday morning would be a great time to do some weeding since the soil is very wet and softer than usual.

Quote of the week:

“Never start with your problems. Never! Never start with earth; never start with men. Always start in heaven; always start with God.”
(Martin Lloyd-Jones, Seeking the Face of God: Nine Reflections on the Psalms)
Psalm 71:1 In you, O LORD, do I take refuge…

Pend Oreille County Part 2

We were so surprised at the lack of vehicles and people on our little road trip to our neighboring county. We took this drive on Thursday June 12th, 2025. After our breakfast and shopping in Metaline Falls we continued North on Highway 31.

It didn’t take us long to get to our next stop. We took a left turn off of Highway 31 onto National Development Road 3165, also called East Side Road. Crescent Lake was a good marker for the road and guaranteed you couldn’t miss it.

It was a short drive to the parking area for Boundary Dam Vista House. Again we were pleasantly surprised with the nice restroom facilities and parking and well maintained trail to an overlook.

There was an indoor viewing house with windows all around and some great information posted. We were surprised to learn that Seattle City Light owns and operates the dam that is 390 miles from the city of Seattle. What surprised us even more is the fact that the electrical current leaves Boundary Powerhouse crosses Washington State and reaches Seattle IN LESS THAN A SECOND!

We took some photos of the dam from the Vista House before we walked the 750 steps to an outdoor overlook.

Looking north towards Canada.

This was another sign inside the Vista House. I’m glad we planned and left the house instead of just wishing on this day. One more display caught our eye. It was hard to photo with the glare but I took it anyway.

Great information and nice historical tribute.

Looking south…

We exited the Vista House that we had all to ourselves and started our 750 foot walk to the outdoor overlook.

Looking South on the Pend Oreille River.

Looking North to Canada.

Back up the 750 Feet to the parking lot. We enjoyed a few wildflowers.

We were inspired to take this trip because of the next photos our son sent when he had to work out in this area for several hours. His photos were taken in May with different cloud cover.

I’m saving our next stop for another post.

Thanks for coming along.

Tea ~ Country Village

Welcome to Tea Time 2025. These posts will be about Tea Rooms we’ve been to, Teas we’ve given for friends and family, Church Tea events, and High Tea in restaurants from 2008 to the present. Tea in the U.S.A., Tea in England and Tea in Canada. Many of the Tea Rooms are no longer in business, which is sad.

Back to the year 2008 and to Madam Fifi’s with more of our family.

After our very successful trip to Goodwill the ladies arrived at Madam Fifi’s Tea Room at Country Village in Bothell for an Afternoon Tea. This was the day after Thanksgiving in 2008.

Madam Fifi (Christine) had our lovely room all ready for us. The usual after Thanksgiving Goodwill shoppers were in attendance and this year we inducted Pat (my DIL Laura’s mother) into the group. Katie, Laura, my sister Lana, sister-in-law Letty, Pat and me for tea.

We each chose our tea and enoyed a relaxing time.

Our sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, lemon curd, and sweets were divine!

 

L is for…

For April I’m challenging myself to an A-Z photo a day excluding Sundays and in addition to any regular posts that come to be.

Today is Monday April 14th and the beginning of Holy Week on the Christian Calendar. We are on the letter L for the A-Z challenge. I will be sharing all the fun we had for JJ and Andrew’s birthday celebrations on Wednesday.

L is for libraries…

The University of Washington has a beautiful library/reading room on their campus. Suzzallo Library is a Seattle treasure.

It is no surprise that the library’s namesake, Henry Suzzallo, believed that universities should be “cathedrals of learning.” The library was built in 1926 in the collegiate gothic style, and it conjures up images of European palaces, old churches, and the halls of Oxford and Cambridge. 

 

If you are ever in Seattle a trip to the University of Washington Campus is worthwhile, especially to visit this library reading room.

Snow and Winter Cleaning

We are finally getting a few inches of snow here in Colville. It was a great day to stay inside.  The inspiration came to do a deep cleaning of the kitchen cabinets, trim and the ledge that runs around the upper part of our kitchen filled with tchotchkes.

It is a very good feeling to have all the dust bunnies and the grime cleaned. I’m ready for a white glove inspection.

Spring will take us outdoors to take care of things we didn’t do in the fall so winter indoor cleaning will work nicely for us this year.

Welcome February!

A Hodgepodge Full of Cliches!

We made it to our little Country Fair Parade on Saturday morning. We were only sprinkled on and didn’t get wet…just sprinkled. ‘Every cloud has a silver lining.’ Our Grands were able to gather a bunch of candy as the different participants in the parade threw the treats to the sides of Main street. Our Fire department starts the parade off with their sirens and such and that is why Addy and JJ have their ear protection on! ‘Better Safe than Sorry’

Onward to our questions of the week…

Yikes! It’s the last Wednesday Hodgepodge for August! Thank you to Jo, From This Side of the Pond, for the questions that ‘give us a run for our money‘.

1. What is one cliche you think is nonsense?

‘Easy as pie’, for me, is nonsense. Getting the pie crust just right and making a great pie without a ‘soggy bottom’ is not easy for me. I wasn’t raised with a pie baking mom so making a pie has always been intimidating. That said, I do appreciate my pie making friends and their great pies with the crust being just right!

What’s one you think holds truth?  

‘Ugly as sin’ Sin is ugly and has caused all the trouble we’ve ever seen in our world or will ever see. So thankful that God made a way for us to be out from under it’s condemnation! That way came through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross for our sin. Colossians 1:13-14: For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

2. What’s the last thing you broke and how did it happen? 

Recently, I knocked a stemless wine glass off my little side table and it shattered and traveled to many places unknown. The glass did not have wine in it, it was empty which was a good thing! It was a cheap variety of glass, too, not a Riedel, (if you know, you know). ‘Don’t cry over spilled milk’

3. Are you a fan of s’mores? Have you had a s’more this summer?

Not a fan and no I haven’t had a s’more this summer.

Last thing you ate that you wanted to ask for ‘s’more of’

A Scone with lemon curd. ‘One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s poison’

4. A mode of transportation you’ve never tried? Will you someday? 

I’ve never tried a Hover board and I will never try them. I’m at the ‘it’s too easy to break a hip’ stage of life! ‘Don’t Play With Fire’

5. Believe it or not, next week’s Hodgepodge lands in a brand new month. What’s your happiest memory from the month we’re bidding adieu? 

My favorite part of August was when Josh and Laura came for a 4 day visit in the middle of the month. All the gathering moments together were sweet and it’s always good to spend time together ‘face to face’.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of Josh and Laura, they celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary this past Sunday.

This is what I posted on Facebook about them…
Thanking God today for your twenty third wedding anniversary Josh and Laura!
We are so thankful to God for creating each of you and bringing you together, the very best of teams. Your generosity and caring hearts have helped so many. Your niece and nephews’ lives have been enriched with your love and care and generosity! May God continue to strengthen you in Him and with each other and in the ‘Body of Christ’! We love you, we love you, we love you!
Pops and I will take you out for dinner in Scotland to celebrate…soon!!
Happy Cliche Hodgepodge y’all. I hope to get around to most of you this week. Wow! Labor Day weekend is just ahead of us. Put on those white shoes and celebrate those remaining days of summer!

Last Saturday

Saturday morning the 17th of August we hit the Rotary Trail at 9am.

JJ was determined that Uncle Joshie would get him a Cat Tail from the trail.

The Battle of the Cat Tails!

Father and son #1. Our 2nd son was working this Saturday.

After our walk Greg and I headed home while the rest of our crew headed up to Bayles Mountain. An outing on the water was planned for after Dan’s work hours. That post is coming soon.

The Rotary Trail runs along and through the golf course and it is beside the high school and our little Colville airport. We noticed this huge craft at the air field. We’ve had several air resources around to help with the fires in our region.

Back to the current Saturday we had a nice amount of rain overnight and a lot of wind. There were many power outages around our county. Thankfully we weren’t part of any outages. Hopefully the storm aided instead of created more fire danger. The Fair is in town since Thursday and runs through Sunday. Greg and I went to the Fair on Thursday morning. Boise Cascade, a local company, pays for the first 1200 fair goers on Thursday and we were 2 of those 1200! There is a Fair parade this morning and I’ll meet up with our Grands for that. Other than that it will be a quiet Saturday.

Mornings around here are feeling more and more like Fall. Enjoy your last full weekend in August.

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?

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.

 

Along the Way…

Our little family of 10 planned a special getaway to Walla Walla for Saturday the 29th of June until Tuesday the 2nd of July. Greg and I left a day early to make a stop at Palouse Falls and spend the night in Richland, Washington.

We found our way to the parking lot at the viewpoint to see the falls.

 

From Palouse Falls we headed a little west to the town of Richland which is part of the Tri-Cities for a night at a Marriott property. We had enough points to have our night for free. When we checked in the friendly employee upgraded us to a suite with a view of the water (The Columbia River) for which we were grateful. We dropped off our luggage and ventured to the restaurant we chose for our dinner. We were back to our room for an early night and woke up on Saturday to a lovely sunrise.

We would have several hours to wile away on this day until we met up with Katie and Andrew for a wine tasting at Seven Hills Winery at 1:30. The Walla Walla area and the Columbia Valley area in this part of our state is renowned for wine production. Our check in time for our Airbnb wasn’t until 4pm.

Cheers!

There is much more to share. Thank you for stopping by.