Island Signs and Fences…

My favorite on this group of signs, “Falling Can Be Deadly”, so don’t fall people! This series of signs were taken at the Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island in Washington State.

This next sign is on a building on Front Street in Coupeville on Whidbey Island.

I’ll be linking up to signs, signs with Lesley and Good Fences #104 with TexWisGirl.

Dear and I are considering a little getaway to Vancouver B.C. since the U.S. dollar is strong for a change. I hope to take lots of photos of what we see and experience. So excited that Spring is coming! How about you?

Our Jaunt…

…a short excursion or journey for pleasure.

Last Saturday the Bagdanov sisters had a jaunt in Washington state that took in Mt. Vernon, La Conner, Deception Pass, Coupeville, and Langley leaving the island by ferry back to the mainland in Mukilteo. Here are some photos of what we saw.

Daffodil Fields in Mount Vernon, Washington. Soon these fields will be full of tulips!

The Swinomish channel in La Conner.

Deception Pass Bridge between Fidalgo Island and Whidbey Island.

Deception Pass State park on Whidbey Island.

Saratoga Passage and Penn Cove in Coupeville on Whidbey Island where Penn Cove Mussels are famous.

Saratoga Passage in Langley on Whidbey Island.

Ready for our trip from Clinton on Whidbey Island to Mukilteo on the mainland.

On the mainland we stopped for dinner in Millcreek before we headed home to put our feet up!

Lots of posts about our sister weekend but they don’t happen very often and I have the need to document our time together. Treasured times at treasured locations in the state of Washington.

Linking up to Tuesday’s Treasures with Tom at The Backroads Traveler and J is for Jaunt with ABC Wednesday with Mrs. Nesbitt and Roger with the ABC Team.

La Conner

In 1869 John S. Conner purchased the trading post on the Swinomish Channel and named the area in honor of his wife Louisa Ann Conner and that’s how La Conner got its name.

After we mucked about in the fields of daffodils my sisters and I drove a few minutes away to La Conner for lunch and a little shopping.

We chose Nell Thorn on the channel with good food and nice views.

Lana, Kathy the youngest and oldest and me and Vera in the middle.

We each chose something different for our lunch and everyone enjoyed their choices.

Whew! Happy my sisters were here last weekend instead of this weekend as we had quite a wild Sunday. Our power was out for 13 hours and we were happy to wake up to electricity again. Schools in our area are cancelled today as 85,000 are still without power. Trees were down and some of the trees brought down power lines, too. Here’s our light sources from last evening…

Hope you all have power today and are enjoying the light!

Crown Him With Many Crowns ~ Hymn

Crown Him With Many Crowns

Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.

Crown Him the virgin’s Son, the God incarnate born,
Whose arm those crimson trophies won which now His brow adorn;
Fruit of the mystic rose, as of that rose the stem;
The root whence mercy ever flows, the Babe of Bethlehem.

Crown Him the Son of God, before the worlds began,
And ye who tread where He hath trod, crown Him the Son of Man;
Who every grief hath known that wrings the human breast,
And takes and bears them for His own, that all in Him may rest.

Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed over the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.
His glories now we sing, who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of peace, whose power a scepter sways
From pole to pole, that wars may cease, and all be prayer and praise.
His reign shall know no end, and round His piercèd feet
Fair flowers of paradise extend their fragrance ever sweet.

Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye at mysteries so bright.

Crown Him the Lord of Heaven, enthroned in worlds above,
Crown Him the King to Whom is given the wondrous name of Love.
Crown Him with many crowns, as thrones before Him fall;
Crown Him, ye kings, with many crowns, for He is King of all.

Crown Him the Lord of lords, who over all doth reign,
Who once on earth, the incarnate Word, for ransomed sinners slain,
Now lives in realms of light, where saints with angels sing
Their songs before Him day and night, their God, Redeemer, King.

Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity.

Words: Verses 1, 4, 5, 6 & 9: Matthew Bridges, 1852. Verses 2, 3: Godfrey Thring, 1874.

InSPIREd and Sunlit…

On our way to the daffodil fields during our sister weekend my sister Lana said I should turn around and go back to this church that I zoomed by. I have posted photos from this church on my blog but my sister Lana hadn’t seen it before and wanted to get a closer look and take some photos. She pointed out something that I had totally missed on my previous visits.

Fir-Conway Lutheran Church. You can read it’s history here.

She said, “did you notice the crown on the cross on top of the spire? I said “no I didn’t” and I hopped out of the car to zoom in.

How very cool is that. Jesus is my King.

The moral of the story is to keep looking up and take your sisters on more road trips!

I’m linking up to InSPIREd Sunday and Sunlit Sunday.

Five Sister Selfies!

For Amy’s Five on Friday and Susanne’s Friday’s Fave Five I’m sharing 5 sister selfies from our Sister’s Weekend and a bonus selfie with my daughter and daughter in love.

We tried to take one at each stop we made. This first one is in Mount Vernon at Roozengaarde.

This one was taken at Deception Pass and I’m glad none of us fell off the ledge.

This one was taken in Langley above Saratoga Pass on Whidbey Island. I finally took my sunglasses off for this one.

This one is taken in my family room while we were watching episodes of Rosemary and Thyme after our long day away from home.

On Tuesday our sisters Kathy and Lana were gone back to Southern California so Vera and I had a little outing of our own. This selfie was taken in Kirkland at the waterfront on Lake Washington.

This bonus selfie was taken by my daughter in love Laura with my daughter Katie and me at the Seattle Sounders Soccer opener game on Sunday afternoon. My sister Vera was suppose to go with us (she loves sports of all kinds) but she woke up with her back out and couldn’t move. We pumped her with pain relievers and she was better by dinner time and she watched the game on T.V. We started the game out in wonderful sunshine and then a Spring downpour rolled through the stadium that had everyone ducking for cover. Thankfully our season ticket seats are mostly undercover…

My sisters and me and my girls were so thankful to God for how He smiled on us and our adventures this past weekend. Thank you Lord for your love and care over us.

I’ll be coming around to see your five. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

A Host of Golden Daffodils!

Oh what a glorious Saturday my sisters and I enjoyed on a 10 hour outing north to Mount Vernon and La Conner and then beyond to Whidbey Island over Deception Pass and south the whole length of the island. In this post I’m showing the fields of daffodils we enjoyed. But…first things first, when visiting tulip or daffodils fields it is good to don your mud boots!

I was happy to be able to come up with 3 pairs of good mucking boots/shoes and borrowed the fourth pair from our DIL.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

William Wordsworth

From Mt. Vernon we traveled a short distance to La Conner for lunch and shopping. I’ll share some photos of our time there next. It was great to have leisurely time together to share about the challenges my oldest sister faces in caring for our dear old pop and the life changes my sister Vera faces in widowhood and moving out of the home she shared with her husband Nick. It’s good to let the tears roll freely and also to be able to laugh heartily with each other. Just for the record…we sisters have four brothers, too.

Signs and Fences with My Sisters…

This past weekend was our Sisters weekend in Washington State. Two sisters from Washington State and two sisters from California got together for fun and fellowship. Our sister Vera is in the midst of lots of change in her life so we thought it would be good to be together and celebrate being sisters for a weekend.

We started the weekend off with a Raclette meal together on Friday evening. The weather forecast for the weekend was dismal but on Saturday morning we were giddy because the sun was shining and it promised to be a day without rain. We headed north on Interstate 5 to Mount Vernon, Washington to see daffodils in bloom. We were blessed with sunshine all day long. We said thank you to God many times during the day. We had a couple of spontaneous stops before we reached our 1st planned stop in Mount Vernon, Roozengaarde, to muck about in the daffodil fields.

This is the entrance to a beautiful garden at Roozengaarde. Forsythia acts as a natural fence on this side of the tailored garden at Roozengaarde. Soon this garden will be in full bloom with tulips like this photo below from last year.

The sea of yellow in the background are the rows and rows of daffodils.

Besides these signs and fences here is another teaser shot of the fields of daffodils with a fence in the background.

My sisters, Kathy, Lana and Vera.

I’m linking up to signs, signs hosted by Lesley and Good Fences hosted by TexWisGirl.

Today is my recuperating day after all the fun I had with my sisters. Part of recuperating will be getting back on my daily track. Hope your day is going well.

We Gathered First at the Table…

The sisters from youngest to oldest, Lana, Ellen, Vera, and Kathy.

There is so much to share from our sister weekend so there will be several posts to document our time together. On Friday I picked up my two older sisters from the airport. Even though they flew with two different airlines they coordinated their flights so that they landed within a half hour of each other. We came home to enjoy Marg’s overnight french toast which was delicious. I was so consumed in serving my sisters and all the schedules in my head that I forgot to take a photo. After our brunch we spent a couple hours at Goodwill and a Persian market and bakery.

For dinner we decided on sharing the Raclette eating experience with them.

Our youngest sister, Lana, arrived later in the afternoon from southern California. Her home is in Washington but she works in California (long story). Lana and her husband Steve got to our house for dinner and we all gathered around as our daughter Katie explained the Raclette method to everyone.

It didn’t take long for everyone to get involved in the grilling experience and we had a leisurely time grilling meat and veggies, melting cheese and enjoying our food and conversation. For dessert we had good ole fashioned banana splits! I introduced my sisters to Fixer Upper and enjoyed some episodes. We made plans on a starting time for our full day of fun planned for Saturday.

My next post will be all about our garden stop in Mount Vernon!

Today my sister Vera and I did a little shopping and enjoyed a meal at a Persian restaurant before I dropped her off at the airport. Tomorrow will be a recuperating day for me. Hope all is well in your world…

The Walls of York…

After we spent time in Derbyshire we traveled northeast to the city of York and dropped off our rental car for the remaining days of our literary tour. For York we had a walking guidebook that Katie was in charge of and we saw many things we would have missed otherwise.

We weren’t looking for any of our literary favorites here but just enjoying the walls and history surrounding this city.

We attended our first evensong at Yorkminster and were so blessed by that hour of singing and readings. Katie and Dear also climbed to the top of the minster and Dear took this great photo above.

We went to a history museum and donned these heavy helmets for a photo op.

And…of course we had to take a photo of the Pharmacist in front of the Apothecary.

From York we boarded a train to Edinburgh where we would enjoy the city and take a bus to Stirling for some fun with Monty Python. Two more posts to go to wrap up our 2004 Literary Tour of Great Britain.

Back to the present…I’ve been very busy with my sisters the last few days. On Monday my sister Kathy flew home and on Tuesday my sister Vera will be flying home. I’ll share our Saturday road trip when I have some time to create the post.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage