All Aboard!

Judy and I decided to pull together a trip to the Seattle area for the Mennonite Girls Can Cook who live in British Columbia. Judy came up with a plan for the 7 B.C. girls to drive to Bellingham, Washington and hop on Amtrak south. It’s hard to corral that many girls and come up with a good date for everyone but we finally did and Wednesday June 25th would be the day. When the day was finally here one of the 7 had to stay home. Life happens…

I made a sign so they couldn’t miss their tour guide and limousine driver for the day. The car the rental agency gave me seemed as big as a limousine. This photo that Bev took catches the big white ~~limousine~~ SUV in the background. Thanks Bev for the photos I’m stealing from you for this post.

Our first stop was the Queen Mary Tea Room near the University of Washington.

We each had a different china pattern on our tea cups.

The food was delicious and presented nicely. We finished up at the tea room and after checking out the Tea Emporium we drove to our 2nd stop of the day, University Village.

“University Village is an open-air lifestyle shopping center which offers a unique formula of locally-owned boutiques and signature national retailers. U Village is a regional destination for home furnishings, popular fashions and unique gift items with a distinct collection of restaurants and eateries.”

We all enjoyed the beautiful flowers that were blooming in hanging planters and large planters throughout the center. We gave ourselves a time limit and we managed not to lose anyone while we were here.

Next stop before our dinner reservations would be my humble home. A couple of the girls had been to my house before but it was new to the rest.

It was fun to have everyone in my home for a quick refreshment and tour.

We stole Dear away from his bathroom renovation work to take a photo of all of us together on our deck steps.

We made dinner reservations at the Beach Cafe on the Edmonds waterfront which was just a hop skip and jump away from the railway station. The girls wouldn’t want to miss the train.

Several of us chose the different fish tacos for our meal while others had shrimp and scampi dishes. We shared a couple desserts just to top everything off with. By this time in our day we were rather beat and forgot to take some photos of our dishes and desserts.

On to the station and our goodbye hugs.

A lovely day from beginning to end.

I’m already making plans for an Island getaway for the next MGCC girls day out.

Here’s our day through Anneliese’s lens.

Tonight Dear and I are meeting up with Josh and Laura to celebrate a late Mother’s Day/Father’s Day meal together. We will also celebrate the U.S.A. advancing to the round of 16 with our 2nd place finish in group G.

Trains and Automobiles…

No planes were required for my Wednesday tour group.

The train I was waiting for at the Edmonds Train Station arrived at 10:27 from the North. Some of you already guessed the group I’d be taking on a little tour on Wednesday.

Six of the Canadian Mennonite Girls were able to travel by train to my neck of the woods for a girls day out. We missed Kathy who was not feeling well enough for the trip and our Manitoba girls Charlotte and Betty. I will share more about our day when I get a chance to catch my breath after the U.S.A. v. Germany game tomorrow!

X is for…

So here we are at good ole X in the alphabet. This is a letter for ABC Wednesday that takes a little creativity. Thank you to the ABC team for managing this meme and to Denise Nesbitt the founder.

Did you know that X stands for Christ and Cross and other stuff, too?

At Easter I make a Russian sweet cheese spread called Seernaya Paska that we spread on Russian Easter Bread that is called Paska by a lot of people and Kulich by my Russian relatives. In the Russian alphabet X is the first letter in Christ. We decorate the sweet cheese spread with an X and a B. X for Christ and B for arose/risen. Christ is Risen.

If you are a regular on my blog you know I like to wander around very old cemeteries. There are always a great variety of crosses to photograph. Here are a couple.

Windmills have a natural X visible from the formation of their rotor blades.

This windmill is located at the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada.

This Windmill is located at Roozengaarde Tulip Garden in Mount Vernon Washington State.

That’s it for my offerings on the letter X. I’ll be curious to come around and see what you found for this challenging letter.

Summer has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. I’m still watching all the World Cup Soccer I can fit in. Our bathroom renovation is progressing. Never a dull moment at this old house. Someone mentioned and I’m in agreement that we don’t seem to have ordinary weeks or days anymore. I’ll have to cling to the verse in the Bible that says…

“This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24

Coupeville and Langley

When traveling on Whidbey Island we like to stop in Coupeville for Penn Cove mussels, Freeland for antique shopping, and our favorite town on the Island, Langley, for shops and a nice stroll.

On our trip last week after exploring Deception Pass we headed south to the Island County seat of Coupeville. My plan was to have lunch at Front Street Grill and introduce Lenny and Debbee to Mussels. Coupeville sits on Penn Cove which is known for their mussels. I forgot to take a photo of those mussels. Both Lenny and Debbee didn’t think they liked mussels but after they tried them they became fans.

Front Street Grill offers a whole page of mussels in different sauces that are delicious. This photo is from our trip to Coupeville with my cousin and we had the Coconut Green Curry Mussels. This time around we chose the Rockefeller sauce because someone in the group detests coconut! How can you go wrong with a sauce described like this “Spinach, bacon, Pernod, shallots, garlic and cream. The great thing is that all the sauces for the mussels were Gluten Free.

Debbee and Lenny with Penn Cove in the background.

I thought this was a creative name for this stand located at the end of Front Street.

We headed south again to our final destination on the island, the little town of Langley. We stopped at this garden store hoping some flowers would be blooming on these great trellises. The greenery was nice but we had missed the blooms.

Langley

Langley sits above Saratoga Pass.

My brother in law, Steve, sits on bench.

We got a refreshment here and then headed to the Cinton Ferry Dock.

I think this was Lenny’s first ferry ride.

It was a still glassy day on the Sound. Another great tour behind us we headed off the ferry to meet Josh, Laura, and Dear for dinner on the mainland. After dinner we said our goodbyes to Debbee and Lenny since they’d be headed back to Southern California the following morning.

We had a busy weekend around here and Dear didn’t get as much done as he had hoped to on the bathroom. You know how it goes with projects in old houses you end up finding things that need to be re-done when you open up walls and take a good look at old pipes. I have a couple days off before I put my tour guide hat back on and I’ll be sharing later in the week about the largest tour group I’ve been responsible for to date.

What’s on the list for your first full week of summer?

Deception Pass

On Tuesday of last week I put my tour guide hat on yet again and picked up my group to head to the north end of Whidbey Island. You can access Whidbey Island at the north by crossing a couple bridges and when you travel all the way south on the island you cross the Salish Sea/Puget Sound via a car/passenger ferry from Clinton to Mukilteo.

We stopped on the north side of Deception Pass on Fidalgo Island before crossing over the Deception Pass bridge.

“A group of sailors led by Joseph Whidbey, part of the Vancouver Expedition, found and mapped Deception Pass on June 7, 1792.George Vancouver gave it the name “Deception” because it had misled him into thinking Whidbey Island was a peninsula.The “deception” was heightened due to Whidbey’s failure to find the strait at first.” I thought it was called Deception because of the whirlpools and strong currents that can give boats quite a run for their money.

You can read the history of this Bridge and area if you click here.

We crossed over the bridge and found a parking spot at the State Park property on the Whidbey Island side of the bridge. I was happy I zipped over to Fred Meyer to pick up a Discovery Pass before I picked up my passengers. You need a Discovery Pass to park at the State Park lot.

On this side of the bridge there were several trails you could hike to get down to areas below the bridge with nice beach areas.

We had some fabulous weather and views for our “Island Day”.

We headed up on the bridge deck to get to the center to get more views of the Skagit Bay and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The North end of the island is also home to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Oak Harbor. Oak Harbor is the largest city on Whidbey Island. We stopped in two cities on Whidbey Island, Coupeville, where we had lunch and Langley, my favorite city to visit on the Island. That will be another post.

It’s Sunday afternoon and just about 20 minutes until the U.S.A. v Portugal game kicks off. I’ll be glued to the t.v. hoping for a good result. The bathroom renovation continues, too, around here. I have told you in the past that I’m the sports fan at my house not my Dear. He’s putting in can lights and a bathroom fan and heater today before he seals up the ceiling with drywall. Fun times. Hope your Sunday is going well.

God Holds the Future in His Hands ~ Hymn

God Holds the Future in His Hands

Dread not the things that are ahead,
The burdens great, the sinking sands,
The thorns that o’er the path are spread,
God holds the future in His hands.

Refrain

God holds the future in His hands
And every heart He understands.
On Him depend, He is your friend,
He holds the future in His hands.

We know not what tomorrow hides,
Of sun or storm or good or ill;
We only know His dear hand guides,
And He will be our father still.

Refrain

His hand created earth and sky,
The zephyrs and the storms that rage,
And years to come and years gone by
To Him are but an open page.

Refrain

Live close to Him and trust His love,
Assured that while on earth we roam,
Whate’er may come, He bends above
To guide His children safely home.

Refrain

Words: James Rowe, 1922.

June Photo-A-Day Challenge

Continuing with Kati’s challenge Day 15 thru Day 21.

15. Backyard

16. Bright

17. Stripe

18. Something Old (Wells Cathedral)

19. Refreshing (Cornwall, England)

20. Book (Crime and Punishment – Fyoder Dostoyevsky)

21. Summer (Chilliwack Corn)

This Saturday marks the beginning of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of Winter in the Southern Hemisphere so World Cup will finish up during the Winter in Brazil.

We continue with our Weekend Warrior bathroom work this weekend. We have to use this weekend well since we’ll be traveling to Portland for a wedding next weekend. What are your plans for the first weekend of summer?

A Taste of Ste Michelle

Moving along with my tour guide hat on Monday June 17th we visited Ste Michelle Winery in Woodinville, Wa. This is on the quiet side of Lake Washington about 17 miles from Seattle.

The winery is open for tours every day and during the week you can see the bottling operation in progress. They do not bottle on the weekends.

After the short informative tour filled with the history of this land and winery we were guided into the tasting room.

We were told to hold up our glasses and look at the color of the wine. I’m so obedient…sometimes.

After the tastings my niece and her hubby got a lot more animated.

Is that the wine talking?

From Ste Michelle we went up the road a bit to the Redhook Brewery. The next available tour there was at 2:00 so we had lunch at the Forecaster’s Pub attached to the brewery and then I left Debbee and Lenny with my Brother-in-law for the tour and I headed home to get ready for the U.S.A. vs. Ghana World Cup Game. Thanks for coming to the rescue Steve because I didn’t want them to miss the tour but I was not willing to miss a second of the once in a lifetime game. Josh and Laura arrived before the game started and the rest of the crew arrived in enough time for the 2nd half and the win by the U.S.A. We all had dinner together and a few rounds of Mexican Train. Soon I’ll show our tour of Whidbey Island and the grand finale of Debbee and Lenny’s trip to Western Washington.

It’s Friday today and soon we’ll be in full swing with our Weekend Warrior hats on. While Dear works on ceiling lights, ceiling fan and ceiling drywall I will be available to offer a hand here and there and feed my warrior. What does your weekend look like?

Share Your Cup Thursday ~ Seattle

Washington State has so much to offer it’s residents and visitors and I had some fun sharing my home state with my niece and her husband over the last few days. I’m linking up to Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen’s Share Your Cup Thursday#107

Today I’m sharing our visit to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and the Charles S. English, Jr. botanical gardens known locally as the Ballard Locks.

We visited on Flag Day and it was nice to see the U.S. flag flying everywhere we went including on top to the Space Needle.

Construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal and Hiram M. Chittenden Locks was completed in 1917 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Connecting the waters of Lake Washington, Lake Union, and Salmon Bay to the tidal waters of Puget Sound, the canal and locks allow recreational and commercial vessels to travel to the docks and warehouses of Seattle’s busy fresh water harbor.

I caught some photos in amidst the Salmon Waves art display just outside the Fish Ladder at the Locks. We were able to see a lot of salmon using the ladder on this day.

The complex of locks sit in the middle of Salmon Bay and are part of Seattle’s Lake Washington Ship Canal. They are known locally as the Ballard Locks after the neighborhood to their north. (Magnolia lies to the south.)

The locks and associated facilities serve three purposes:

To maintain the water level of the fresh water Lake Washington and Lake Union at 20 to 22 feet above sea level.
To prevent the mixing of sea water from Puget Sound with the fresh water of the lakes (saltwater intrusion).
To move boats from the water level of the lakes to the water level of Puget Sound, and vice versa.

The complex includes two locks, a small (30 x 150 ft, 8.5 x 45.7 meter) and a large (80 x 825, 24.4 x 251.5 meter). The complex also includes a (235-foot, 71.6 meter) spillway with six (32 x 12-foot (3.7 m), 9.8 x 3.7 meter) gates to assist in water-level control. A fish ladder is integrated into the locks for migration of anadromous fish, notably salmon.

Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the locks were formally opened on July 4, 1917, although the first ship passed on August 3, 1916. They were named after U.S. Army Major Hiram Martin Chittenden, the Seattle District Engineer for the Corps of Engineers from April 1906 to September 1908. They were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

It’s Thursday already and June is more than half over. We have a do nothing outside the home weekend except going to church and the Home Depot planned. Dear was waiting for a good dry day to pick up drywall from the big box store. I’ll be feeding my worker over the weekend while he chips away at his portion of responsibilities for the new bathroom. Yikes I might have to help hold up some drywall for the ceiling. I might need longer arms. What is going on in your corner of the world?

Good Fences #13

Some beautiful gates inside the Biltmore Winery in Ashland, North Carolina.

Linking up with Run*A*Round Ranch for Good Fences #13.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

All Aboard!

Trains and Automobiles…

X is for…

Coupeville and Langley

Deception Pass

God Holds the Future in His Hands ~ Hymn

God Holds the Future in His Hands

June Photo-A-Day Challenge

A Taste of Ste Michelle

Good Fences #13