Mount Vernon, Washington (Western Washington)
Somewhere between Addy and Colville, Washington. (Eastern Washington)
Barns from the West and East side of the Cascades in the state of Washington.
Linking to The Barn Collective hosted by Amy from Rose Street Reflections. Thank you Amy!
Sometimes you just need a good meme to set your mind at ease.
This week I’m joining
The Run Around Ranch Report for Good Fences #5.
Some of these photos will look familiar to some of you but these views only come once a year and they are worth repeating. These were taken on April 7th at the Roozengaarde Display Garden in Mount Vernon, Washington state. (not to be confused with the Mt. Vernon estate of President Washington!)
If you’d like to see more tulips and tulip fields scroll down for my other posts about our trip to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in April.
I’ve got one more post from our trip to the tulip festival this year.
Meanwhile at this old house we are busy busy getting ready for Easter.
Today is Maundy Thursday—the Thursday before Easter. Christians around the world and across many denominations take time on this day to remember the Last Supper, when Jesus and his disciples dined together for the last time before his death.
The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word for commandment (mandatum), which Jesus talked about when he told his disciples that he was leaving them “a new commandment,” that they “love one another.”
As a reminder of this commandment, some churches hold foot washing ceremonies on the Thursday of Holy Week. If you’ve never been a part of a foot washing ceremony, it’s an incredibly humbling activity—one can imagine how difficult it would have been for the disciples to allow Jesus to humble himself in this way.
ht: Bible Gateway
It’s time for Vee’s Note Card party.
Sunset over Lake Washington in Kirkland, Washington.
Rows of spent daffodils in Mount Vernon, Washington during the Tulip Festival.
Apple blossoms on our apple tree taken this past Saturday.
Russian sweet cheese spread served with Russian Easter Bread (Kulich/Paska).
Христос Воскрес!
Воистину воскрес!
Here we are in the middle of April and we’ll finally be celebrating Easter this coming weekend. I’m looking forward to our Good Friday service and Easter service. After services on Sunday some of our family will be coming over to celebrate an Easter meal here. We are having rack of lamb, rice, asparagus, salad and Italian Easter bread (Colomba) with strawberries for dessert. Our annual Kulich/Paska baking day is not happening this year so I was happy to find a source for the Colomba. It tastes and smells very similar to Kulich/Paska.
How are you celebrating Easter this year?
“Mount Vernon sits at the center of Skagit County, a true slice of Pacific Northwest heaven located halfway between Seattle and Vancouver, BC. About 25 miles wide and 95 miles long, some of Washington’s most scenic and pristine landscape is found in the Upper Skagit’s North Cascades National Park. From there the land flows like the Skagit River through nutrient-rich farmland to the shores of the Salish Sea.”
In April people from around the world descend on Mount Vernon and the Skagit Valley for it’s annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. Here are some photos to show you why. My daughter Katie and I headed north form our house to see the blooms on Monday. We enjoyed a wonderful 70 degree day and got a little sunburned as we tiptoed through the tulips!
It’s best to wear mud boots when you go to the tulip fields!
Beautiful daffodils bloom here, too.
Later this week I’ll be posting more of my photos from our Monday in Mount Vernon!
ABC Wednesday is a weekly meme that originated with Denise Nesbitt and now others keep it rolling along.
I’m also linking up to Outdoor Wednesday hosted by Susan at A Southern Daydreamer.
In 1970 my best friend and I were able to plan a trip east to see her family and meet up with friends for a wonderful tour including Mackinac Island, New Jersey, New York City, Buffalo, Boston, Connecticut and Washington D.C. This would be the first time I took a trip that included flying in a plane. Here are my old photos from that trip.
I’m really not sure exactly where we started from and where we ended this trip. My friend Heidi and I traveled from Los Angeles. One of the spots we stayed was in Michigan at our friend Faye’s home. Faye’s dad was our pastor at Bethany Baptist in L.A. for several years. When they left L.A. they settled in Troy, Michigan. Faye and Heidi were best friends through high school. We also spent time on the lake at Peter and Ruth Leonovich’s home. Peter and Ruth took the three of us to Mackinac Island for a day.
We had loads of fun riding bikes around the island. On the way to the island there were threats of rain and I remember Pete stopping the car so the 3 of us could do sun dances instead of rain dances. Looks like it worked.
In New Jersey after we visited Heidi’s grandmother and uncles and aunts we were guests at Peter Leonovich’s brother’s home. Al and Babs treated us to wonderful meals and a trip into New York City to see the sights including the Statue of Liberty.
Somehow we also ended up in Buffalo New York with more “friends of friends” who took us to see Niagara Falls and we had the most delicious barbecued corn during a backyard barbecue that I had ever tasted.
Andy Semenchuk was our amazing tour guide to Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Washington D.C.
Boston was beautiful. I remember how shocked I was at seeing how small Plymouth Rock was.
Because we were from California we had to pose next to Junipero Serra in the National Statuary Room. Turns out the first school Dear and my two sons attended was Junipero Serra Elementary School in Ventura, California.
George Washington’s Mount Vernon
Looking back I’m so humbled at how hospitable everyone was to us. A place to lay our heads, food, sightseeing trips, and transportation everywhere we needed to go and didn’t need to go but these amazing people wanted to treat us to these sights. Thank you, thank you, to Andy Semenchuk, the Al Leonovich Family, Peter and Ruth Leonovich, and the Chechowich family. You broadened our horizons and our world view and modeled hospitality to us! I am forever grateful…
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! It’s time for Friday’s Fave Five with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story. Here are my favorites from this past week.
1. A surprise snowfall last Sunday. Glad it all washed away on Monday. Sorry for those of you that really wish snow was in your past right now.
2. A safe trip back and forth to Canada on Tuesday to enjoy a nice lunch with some of the Mennonite Girls and a tour of Matthew’s House in Abbotsford.
3. Meeting some dear friends for dinner on Thursday at our local haunt. So good to see them and talk to them. I didn’t take a photo boohoo.
4. A beautiful bunch of tulips from Costco that we’ve enjoyed all week. They are similar to these that were growing in Mount Vernon last April.
5. A no pressure Valentine’s Day plan. I bought steaks for Dear to barbecue and we’ll bake some potatoes and have salad. No fighting the crowds.
This is the start of a long weekend here in the states and for some of you in Canada. We celebrate President’s Day on Monday. Hope you all have a great one!
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.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Mount Vernon, Washington is known for tulip fields but before the tulips bloom they have beautiful daffodils!
Dear and I took a quick trip north to see anything blooming Saturday morning. We saw some beautiful daffodils but a great surprise was seeing Trumpeter Swans! Trumpeter Swans come to Mt. Vernon each year for a time! The swans are dwindling now but they still were great to see…
The largest of the North American native waterfowl and one of our heaviest flying birds, the Trumpeter Swan is large and white. It holds its long neck straight up, often with a kink at the base.
Please visit Mary at The Little Red House to see more mosaics!
Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.
The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b. 