The Blue Herons of Kenmore

Tucked away behind the Kenmore Park & Ride is an area of growth where Blue Herons make nests and inhabit every year. Dear noticed increased activity at the sight so I stopped by with my camera. It’s just so odd to see these large birds way up high in these trees in their nests.

The area around these nests is fenced off and this is the closest I was able to get to the trees. I might go back on a day that isn’t so dreary and see if I can catch some of the herons flying in and out.

We have another low key weekend and Dear has Monday off for President’s Day. Katie arrives Sunday night from North Carolina so she can be here for all the last minute wedding details. I’m going to do all the relaxing I can before Tuesday when we hit the ground running! Hope you have a nice weekend.

FFF ~ Mucho Gusto!

A week filled with much pleasure.

It’s time to link up with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and share your favorites from this past week!

Just so y’all know there were things that happened this week that did not bring pleasure at all but the good far outweighed the bad.

1. I walked twice last week. On Friday with two gals from my Bible Study group and on Saturday with my great walking buddy Jan and my sister Lana. When I got home from my Saturday walk Dear was ready with his level and hammer to put the artwork on the wall of our new guestroom (formerly Katie’s room) We accomplished a lot of little things that made a big difference.

2. While we were working I emptied out some things in the freezer and added them to chicken broth to make a “what’s in your freezer soup”. It was tasty and used up things that needed to be used before they got freezer burn. It was a great no fuss meal for the two of us while we were working on the house projects.

3. After church on Sunday (which was fabulous) we met Josh and Laura at a new BBQ restaurant. The food was really good and we really enjoyed the owners of the restaurant. We took our time eating and getting caught up with Josh and Laura. You don’t have to take our word for it…anyone that knows Josh and Laura would tell you that they are a gift from God to their friends and family.

4. After Valentine’s Day sales of candy and other goodies! How great is it that I could buy a dozen roses for $5.00 instead of $24.99. I bought those sweet little cupcakes for $1.49 and they were fresh and yummy. We served them to our small group that meets at our house on Thursday nights.

5. Small Group: A group of people who get together regularly to encourage each other and grow and learn with each other. Our small group is composed of 10 very different individuals. A group of people we would never have hand picked to be in a group with but a group that surprises us in how much we have come together in a short amount of time. It really can only be explained by the fact that God brought us together and we see how God is working in each life and how he has drawn us together with care and love for each other. God is good.

Just had to share the yucky thing that happened this past week, too. On Monday night I was running around all afternoon so I decided to bring Chinese take out home for dinner. Unfortunately I got food poisoning and had a really rough time for part of the night. What a relief when the pain stopped and I could go to sleep again. I was thankful it wasn’t the stomach flu and when the poisoned food left me so did all the symptoms.

Hope you all had a good week.

23 Days till the Wedding!!

USS Midway!

Midway Magic…

When we were in San Diego in January we got to tour this amazing ship. My brother Tim, his wife Letty, my sister Vera and I were allowed on board after laying down some cold hard cash.

It was difficult to capture the enormity of this ship with my camera.

No other aircraft carrier served the U.S.A. in the 20th century as long as the USS Midway. Its track record of humanitarian missions, establishment of new naval aviation standards, and marathon deployments made it one of the most noteworthy aircraft carriers in the history of the U.S. Navy.

The Midway was commissioned in 1945 as the largest ship in the world for a decade, the first too large for the Panama Canal

The flight deck is 4.02 acres!

Friendly Docents are located all over the ship to give informative tours and answer any questions you might have.

For our tour of the Bridge we were happy to be assigned to Captain Bruce W. Churchhill. He served for 25 years in the Navy and even had his aircraft featured on the deck of the Midway.

Views from the Bridge…

The Midway was decommissioned in San Diego, California in 1992. In 2004 it opened as the USS Midway Museum in San Diego.

As of 2010 the Midway Museum has surpassed 5 millions visitors since opening.

We were all given permission to go ashore except for my feisty Sister-in-law Letty…

They threw her in the Brig. If San Diego is in your travel plans make sure to put a tour of the Midway on your itinerary. If you do visit would you please say hi to Letty for us…

I’m linking up with Miss Jenny for Alphab-Thursday since we are on the letter M!

25 days to the wedding!!

Gabriel’s Fire, Restaurant, Grill and Barbecue!

We finally found a good spot for barbecue in the Puget Sound area. Josh and Laura met us there after church on Sunday.

Monty Slimp and his brother are the cooks and waiters. Monty helped us around the sauces. They’ve got several to choose from depending on your taste buds. The meat has a real good smoke taste. I ordered the Deelux, brisket tossed in your choice of sauce and layered with cheese, beans, and topped with coleslaw. Dear ordered the Pulled Pork. Laura ordered the pulled pork tacos. I forgot what Josh ordered. It was all real good.  They serve brews from a local brewery.

They say “we only use whole logs to smoke our meat; because the flavor is in the smoke!”  Our taste buds agree with that statement. We highly recommend Gabriel’s Fire for great tasting barbecue in a casual setting.

And for all my Canadian friends, on your next trip South, this spot is just off the I-5 .

Mosaic Monday ~ Signs of Spring…

Oh how I love my Lenten Rose (thank you Beth). Look at those buds springing up!

I’m having to re-fill the bird feeder a lot these days because of all my little and sometimes big visitors!

We’ve had a nice relaxing weekend just messing about the house. We washed some screens. Dear did some patching and some painting. We moved some wall art around. I finished a project I started a while back which involved re-purposing and organizing.

Today we met up with Josh and Laura and had lunch at a new spot which I’ll blog about later. Good times just being together. Hope you had a nice weekend.

Linking up for Mosaic Monday with Mary at Little Red House. If you haven’t visited her you are missing out on some very nice photography…

Give Me, O Lord, a Heart of Grace ~ Hymn

Give Me, O Lord, a Heart of Grace

Give me, O Lord, a heart of grace,
A voice of joy, a shining face,
That I may show, where’er I turn,
Thy love within my soul doth burn.

Though life be sweet and joy be dear,
Be in my mind a quiet fear,
A patient strength in pain and care,
An enmity to dark despair.

A tenderness for all that stray,
With strength to help them on the way,
A cheerfulness, a heav’nly mirth
Brightening my steps along the earth.

Words: Rosa Mulholland, 1886.

Before They Sail Away…

…from my memory. I’ll share some fun sailing vessels.

Today is another walking day for me. I walked on Friday with some new friends on the trail. Today I meet up with another of my former walking buddies and my sister to continue the quest of walking and keeping our joints from freezing up on us. Do you walk? It’s one of my favorite forms of exercise when I have a friend to walk with…

FFF ~ Food, Friends, Fun

Friday is here and it’s time to join Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to share our favorites from this past week.

Uno ~ Oh my what is it about clean windows that make me happy. Makes me want to stop and sing “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone…” Dear washed the windows in our new spare room (formerly Katie’s room). I want to sing every time I walk in there. Since it is the new office, too, and I was going to see the Tax man this week, I had a lot of time in there enjoying the clear views.

Dos ~ A good long walk with one of my walking buddies. We had a stretch of beautiful dry days up here in the Pacific Northwest and that made the walk even more pleasant.

Tres ~ Experimenting with foccacia bread to make a pizza sandwich. It was interesting flipping it to get both sides of the bread nicely baked. Even though the experiment isn’t something I’d be too keen on trying again it was real tasty and satisfying as a meal! The thing we didn’t like was how hard it was to eat without all the innerds squirting out.

Cuatro ~ On Sunday and the reason for all my Spanish numbering this week we were invited to a party by our favorite waitress at the Mexican restaurant we frequent. We were honored that she’d even think to invite us and more honored when we got to the party and we were the only fluent English speaking people there except for her 20 year old son. Everyone made sure we were comfortable and had enough to eat and drink. Her son kept us in the loop explaining who everyone was. Her parents are visiting from Mexico for 2 months and one of her nieces was being baptized that day so this was a party in honor of that occasion. A Mariachi band came later and that’s when all the dancing and singing started. Such suave dancing with twirls and steps and turns with smooth transitions. It was kind of like watching dancing with the stars.

Cinco ~ Decorating a little for Valentine’s Day and  Chocolate Fondue! If you’d like to see the recipe hop over to Mennontie Girls Can Cook! It’s a good treat to serve for Valentine’s Day!

Our weekend looks pretty free and laid back. Hope your weekend is relaxing and rejuvenating!

L is for Love!

It’s time for Teacher Jenny’s Alphabe-Thursday. I’ve been delinquent the last couple of weeks and was really trying hard to come up with something for the letter L and there it was staring me in the face. L-O-V-E….Love. Love is in the kitchen and I can see it from different angles…

Matthew 22:37-39 

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Ephesians 2:4-7 ~But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,  in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 4:8 ~ Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

1 John 4:8 ~ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Jude 1:2 ~ Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.

Valentine’s Day in Elementary School  is a fun memory for me. I so looked forward to exchanging Valentine’s Day cards at school and getting special treats on this day. These days I don’t put pressure on Dear to make Valentine’s day special. I want to find joy in our everyday…