FFF ~ Long Weekends…

The U.S. A. is headed into their long Independence Day Weekend and Canada is in full swing of their Canada Day celebrations. Happy Canada Day to all my friends across the line. Enjoy your camping and grilling! I’ll post more about the 4th of July on Monday.

Now the time is right to look back on the past week and list my favorites to join in with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for Friday’s Fave Five.

1. Spending a day away with Dear this past Saturday.

2. Spending Sunday with Josh and Laura enjoying brunch, the Sounder’s game, and dinner out.

3. Changing some things around in the Living room for a fresh look.

4. With all my shows in re-runs or off the air, I’ve been enjoying reading in the evening. I’ve finished a couple of books this week and am in the middle of two others.

5. My collage up top shows some of my plants in containers on the deck that are finally starting to show their colors. I’m looking forward to getting the patio furniture down and out on the patio this weekend. Can’t believe the weather has not been good enough to do it sooner.

We are having a 4th of July get together with friends on Monday. Dear will be smoking a Boston Butt for pulled pork sandwiches. My company will be contributing dishes. We haven’t decided on everything we’ll serve yet but coleslaw and baked beans will be part of the menu for sure. My red, white and blue decor is out and our flags will be flying.

What are your plans for the long weekend?

 

K is for Katie!

K is for Katie

K is for our Katie. Katherine on her birth certificate. This photo was taken by Jamie Spiro. This is a repost from a few years back but I was stumped for the letter K and am always ready to share about our wonderful daughter Katie.

Our Katie has an amazing amount of knowledge stored in her brain and I will show you some photos that might explain where some of that knowledge comes from.

At a very young age if Katie went missing this is where you would find her.

She was most drawn to books with words, not picture books. We had a few old school reading books and these are the ones she’d pull off the shelf and carefully go through.

As you can see she did not have a shortage of toys but she always seemed to go for the books.

We didn’t realize how well she could read until a trip to Meadowdale Beach Park with our friends the Spiro’s. Jody was walking hand in hand with Katie when they came to the tunnel under the railroad tracks that took you to the beach side of the park. As they approached this tunnel with this sign Katie said quite clearly to my friend Jody, “Caution Low Head Clearance”

We realized then that we had an almost 4 year old who definitely knew how to read. Who knows how much she was reading without us knowing before this experience.

Here’s Katie in a Kilt that I bought in Scotland in 1973! Hard to believe it fit me once.

Here’s our Katie in 2010 on the night she got engaged to Andrew.

Katie and Andrew were married at the Magistrate’s office in North Carolina when she visited Andrew March 11, 2011. He is deployed at present and when he returns we will be having an official wedding. Right now it looks like that wedding could be on March 11, 2012. We have to wait on the Marines to know for sure. For those of you who pray, please pray for our Andrew in Afghanistan and for our Katie as she waits for his safe return. Semper Fi!

I’m linking to Alphabe-Thursday with our great teacher Jenny! Thank you Jenny for keeping us on track.

 

Port Townsend Yard Art!

It’s been a long time since I’ve been out and about with the opportunity to see some good yard art. This last Saturday while Dear and I were driving up and down the streets of Port Townsend, Washington, we spotted a few gems…

This house was serious with two of everything plus a surveillance camera to make sure no one took off with them.

These last two photos are of different views of the same house with bird houses stuck on the fence posts and other art in their front yard.

 

The Washington Monument

I’m trying to finish posting my Washington D.C. photos. These are the shots I got of the Washington Monument.

The Washington Monument is the most prominent structure in Washington, D.C. and one of the city’s early attractions. It was built in honor of George Washington, who led the country to independence and then became its first President. The Monument is shaped like an Egyptian obelisk, stands 555’ 5 1/8” tall, and offers views in excess of thirty miles. It was finished on December 6, 1884.

In an elaborate Fourth of July ceremony in 1848, the cornerstone was laid. The outbreak of Civil War of 1861 delayed the completion of the monument. When Lt.Col.Thomas L.Casey, Mills’ successor, resumed work on the project in 1876, he heavily altered the original design for the monument so that it resembled an unadorned Egyptian obelisk with a pointed pyramidion. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of the War Department was charged with completing the construction, and the monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885, and officially opened to the public on October 9, 1888.

They were cleaning the reflecting pond while we were in D.C. so we didn’t get the best shots from the Lincoln Memorial.

Weighing 81,120 tons, the Washington Monument stands 555′ 5-1/8″ tall. The walls of the monument range in thickness from 15′ at the base to 18” at the upper shaft. They are composed primarily of white marble blocks from Maryland with a few from Massachusetts, underlain by Maryland blue gneiss and Maine granite. A slight color change is perceptible at the 150′ level near where construction slowed in 1854.

Hope your Wednesday is going well. Only one more day of June left. Are you going to stick around for the long July 4th weekend or Canada Day Weekend or are you headed out? We are staying close to home.

Today I have a recipe posted on Mennonite Girls Can Cook for Chicken Perlo, a Southern dish.

 

Port Townsend Architecture and Gardens…

Lots of photos for you and few words to go with them. I’ll just let you enjoy.

I think this was my favorite home we happened by on Saturday morning. I love the porch and the great yard.

It was interesting to see how many inns and old homes were up for sale. We wondered how people survive in out of the way locations like these, especially in this economy.

Happy Tuesday to all of you!

 

Port Townsend, Washington ~

On Saturday Dear and I left very early from our house to catch a 5:35 a.m. ferry from Edmonds, Washington across the Sound to Kingston.

After disembarking the ferry we had an hour drive to our destination. We arrived in Port Townsend a little before 7 a.m. with time to kill before breakfast.  Besides Dear and I, the only things out and about were these other kinds of deer.

We found the Blue Moose Cafe and then headed out to the downtown area of Port Townsend to get the lay of the land. Dear was a little concerned about the off the beaten path location and looks of the cafe but I had read good reviews about the place and wasn’t deterred by other cafes that opened a little earlier. When we finally got back to the cafe and had our seats and food in front of us we both knew we had made the right choice.

 

 

After breakfast which was still very early we toured the town and enjoyed many beautiful gardens, Victorian Homes, and other great old houses and churches. This Bell Tower is the only known Tower of its kind in the United States.

Our next stop was the Farmer’s market which didn’t open until 9:00. I so enjoyed watching this little foursome of girls at the Pane d’Amore booth. Who could resist giving them a free bun. The pear flaky pastry treat I bought for myself was amazing. Dear had an almond croissant. We stopped at this fun coffee stand and got a rich cup of coffee to go with our sweets.

I’ll share the homes, gardens, and churches we saw on another day. On our way back to the ferry landing we stopped at some garage sales and happened upon this Civil War Enactment in Port Gamble. I had to zoom way in from the road to get any photos as parking and the entry fee were too much to spend for a couple photos…

Our good times continued into Sunday. We started Sunday off at church this morning with a study on Wisdom vs. Folly.  After church, Josh and Laura came over for Dear’s Swedish Pancakes before Josh, Laura and I headed out to the Sounder’s Soccer game at 1:00. Our team won which is always a treat. When we got back home we all decided to end the day with Dear at our local Mexican Restaurant for dinner. A good day all the way around. Oh, did I mention the sun was shining all day long!? Another great reason to celebrate!

Thanks for stopping by here…

I’m linking to Mosaic Monday hosted by Mary at Little Red House!

 

Savior, Teach Me Day by Day ~ Hymn

GOTW-practice035

Savior, Teach Me Day by Day

Savior, teach me day by day
Love’s sweet lesson to obey,
Sweeter lesson cannot be,
Loving Him who first loved me.

With a child’s glad heart of love
At Thy bidding may I move,
Prompt to serve and follow Thee,
Loving Him who first loved me.

Teach me thus Thy steps to trace,
Strong to follow in Thy grace,
Learning how to love from Thee,
Loving Him who first loved me.

Love in loving finds employ,
In obedience all her joy;
Ever new that joy will be,
Loving Him who first loved me.

Thus may I rejoice to show
That I feel the love I owe;
Singing, till Thy face I see,
Of His love who first loved me.

Words: Jane E. Leeson, London 1842.

FFF ~ Summer?

Friday already and time to look back for a week and think about blessings in your life. Thank you Susanne for the reminder to think on good things.

1. I’ve had the chance to enjoy summer vicariously in seeing photos like these my niece in California shared. Our daughter Katie is visiting my family and enjoying summer where the sun is shining more consistently than our area. The pictures would be bigger if I was there but remember this is a vicarious little experience with the sun and beach and summer…

 

2. On the same vein…I’m thankful our daughter has been able to spend time with my mother and father while she’s been in California. The girls went to my mom’s for brunch yesterday and my parents were so happy to feed them and enjoy their company. They all spent Father’s Day together around a meal, too.

3. I am enjoying all the birds and their songs early in the morning. I was happy to see my little hummingbird friends return just outside the window where I sit at my computer…

4. SOUNDERS! Last night I was at the Seattle Sounders game against the New York Red Bulls. What a great game it was. We went up by 2 goals and N.Y. tied up the game with 2 goals and we finally won with two more goals by Roger Levesque. Did I lose you? The final score was Seattle 4 ~ N.Y. 2! A happy night at the stadium.

5. Last Friday night Dear and I picked up a couple of long time family friends of ours who happened to be in Seattle to embark on a cruise to Alaska. We went to one of our favorite restaurants and enjoyed a rare for this year sunny evening. These gals are my brother in laws sisters and we grew up in the same Russian community in the Los Angeles area. After they married, Laura and her husband settled in Canada and Ruth and her husband settled in Michigan. It was good to see them and enjoy a good meal together.

I think I can speak for the majority of us here in the Great Northwest and say that we are really looking forward to more nights like these around here….

What were the highlights of your week? Are you experiencing summer yet in your neck of the woods?

Tomorrow Dear and I are headed out on a little adventure. I enjoy planning these little day trips. Hope you have a good weekend…

 

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Have you noticed when playing the Alphabe-Thursday Meme how fast the weeks fly? We are already on the letter J. Thank you to our hostess Jenny for a good reason to remember our ABC’s. J is for Jenny and for the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

Thomas Jefferson

In the thick of party conflict in 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a private letter, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

This powerful advocate of liberty was born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello.

Freckled and sandy-haired, rather tall and awkward, Jefferson was eloquent as a correspondent, but he was no public speaker. In the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the patriot cause. As the “silent member” of the Congress, Jefferson, at 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence. In years following he labored to make its words a reality in Virginia. Most notably, he wrote a bill establishing religious freedom, enacted in 1786.

My Dear, who takes the time to read things when we visit monuments or museums.

Hope your first week of summer is starting off well. June will be over before we know it! Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment.