T is for Turtles

When I was on my walk last week at Juanita Bay Park there were turtles enjoying the sunshine.

I’m keeping up with the alphabet but won’t join the link-up as I can’t visit other participants this week.

We are spending some time with our son in Eastern Washington getting some things wrapped up before the wedding at the end of June. In the morning we are delighted by the beautiful bird songs and all the natural wonder in this part of our state. We have really enjoyed the Calliope hummingbirds. There are horses that graze in the fields next door to our son that we spend quiet times in the morning and evening watching. We are also greeted in the morning and evening with deer that trek through the land.

I’ll devote a whole post to the hummingbirds we enjoyed soon.

I hope to catch up with all of you after we leave the country life and head back to the city.

Sunlit Spires

Dear and I were able to get away on an overnight trip to Bainbridge Island and we decided to drive up to the Kitsap Peninsula through the Nordic town of Poulsbo on our way home. We were pleasantly surprised by a very nice and sunny mid-morning to evening on this Saturday after being soaked by rain Friday night and early Saturday morning. I have lots to share from our wonderful getaway.

We had a wonderful Sunday morning at our own church, not this church I pictured. We were able to witness 15 or 43 total Baptisms. We have 3 services so the Baptisms were spaced out between the services. From elementary age children, high school, college, and older adults including a married couple we witnessed obedience to the Word of God to believe and be baptized.

I’m linking to InSPIREd Sunday with Beth and Sally and Sunlit Sunday at My Little Home and Garden.

Sunday to Sunday…

Last Sunday we enjoyed a sunny and warm day. We had a great meal and time together before the Sounders opener and the Sounders won big.

This Sunday we’ve had nonstop rain with no sun shining through and the Sounders lost their game last night. Boohoo. Today we had a great church service and we are meeting the kids in downtown Seattle to enjoy a meal and Irish Music at Fado (Irish Pub). That’s sunshine of another kind…

How was your weekend?

Reflections

I’m joining Weekend Reflections with these photos I took along Lake Washington in Washington State.

This past Tuesday I met up with my Senior group to walk the Burke Gilman Trail along Lake Washington. It was a beautiful sunny morning. We spotted two eagles that I’ll post later.

I’m headed into a busier than usual weekend with a birthday dinner for our son and big game. If you don’t know yet the whole state of Washington is rallying around the Seattle Seahawks as they play the Greenbay Packers on Sunday. You can’t go anywhere in this state without spotting someone sporting their Seahawks gear. Our 8 A.M. church service on Sunday will be fuller than usual so people can be home in time to prepare for the game. I’m more of a soccer fan than a football fan but I’ll join in the fun and “root root root for the home team”.

Snoqualmie Falls

Scroll Down to the Post Below This One for Kathleen’s St. Patrick’s Day Crawl!

Tuesday was such a beautiful day that Katie and I decided to take the drive to Snoqualmie Falls. Although it was dry with clear blue skies and a few fluffy clouds we still got rained on by the falls themselves. The river was running so full and strong that the spray off the falls fell like rain anywhere close.

On Tuesday evening Katie and I went out together to celebrate her and Andrew’s anniversary. Dear is in Florida until tonight so it was just the girls. We chose a waterfront restaurant because the weather was so great. I’ll share the photos from our dinner on another day.

Today was another glorious day and I even had to turn my air conditioning on in the car. I am looking forward to Dear coming home tonight. How’s the weather where you are? I hope it hasn’t turned nasty for you again…

Daffodils and Sunshine

Although we were short on sunshine this past weekend we had some nice sunshine last week. I bought some daffodils that always have a way of adding sunshine to a table. They also make me smile. Today is Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras. The day before the season of Lent begins. Lent is a time of abstinence, of giving things up leading up to Easter Sunday. In the U.K. this is Pancake Day. Shrove comes from the old word “shrive” which means to confess. Will you be eating pancakes today?

We had a great visit with our middle son and his girlfriend this weekend. I did not take one photo. We ate, played games, ate some more. Now that Dan has his own house we are slowly sending over his leftover belongings from our house. You know how that goes if you have adult children. This time around he was able to load 2 motorcycles in the bed of his truck to take back with him. I really do hope he didn’t take Dear’s head cold back with him. The roads were quite nasty on their trip home and on Monday the pass that they took was closed to traffic most of the day.

Everyone was talking about March challenges this weekend. Maybe I’ll challenge myself to do something in March, too. I’m thinking along the lines of exercise. How about you?

Those daffodils are now 13 inches high. It’s amazing how fast they’ve grown.

Friday Already

Friday has a way of arriving sooner when you have a Monday holiday or at least it seems that way. So many things to be thankful for and I’m joining Susanne and a few of my bloggy friends in sharing Friday’s Fave Five.

1. I’m always grateful for a little sunshine in between the rain showers.

2. A heart shaped box of hand picked candy from See’s. Katie and I went to See’s on Valentines day morning and we hand picked 2 boxes. One of the boxes came home with us for Dear, Katie and me to enjoy and the other box was dropped off at my son’s office for him and my daughter in law to enjoy.

3. Our tax prep appointment is behind us and I always give a sigh of relief when that is done. Hopefully we’ll hear good news when the accountant completes all the forms. Some people don’t mind preparing their returns themselves but I am grateful for someone to do that for me.

4. I’ve been continuing my quest of scanning some of our old photos and as I look at them I’m grateful for my little Russian grandmother who prayed for all of us and prayed for the people we would marry. This grandmother was widowed just before she immigrated to the U.S.A. When she was young she lost one of her arms up to her elbow. She still was able to raise her children and do any housekeeping without modern conveniences. She did more with one hand than many people do with two. She was a great cook and she was a talented embroiderer. We called her our little babushka. I’m the one in the yellow dress with the Buster Brown hair. This was taken at Easter in the 50’s.

5. Today Katie and I are meeting Dear downtown for Happy Hour and then we are going to the Seattle Home Show. Looking forward to the good food and seeing what’s new out there for the home. We are specifically looking for products for a bathroom remodel.

Do you have any favorites from this week? Hope you have a good weekend.

Wrapped in Love…

It’s that time of year when the signs are all around us. This week for Susanne’s Friday’s Fave Five I’m concentrating on love. Some deep thoughts and some not so deep.

1. I love Jesus who gives me hope for today and my future.

2. I love fresh flowers and how they brighten up a room.

3. I love my family and friends.

4. My palate loves chocolate, especially mixed with nuts!

5. I love to watch for birds flying to the feeder. This is especially enjoyable in the sunshine!

And for the record I don’t think that “love is all you need”.

Hope you have opportunities to show love to those around you this week.

Sunlit Sunday?

The fog has blocked out the sun in our part of the world for several days now so I decided to go to my photos from a year ago to show some sunlit offerings! We have also had a good stretch of days that start in the 20’s and just inch their way up, trying to reach the 40’s.

It’s hard to believe that just a year ago our daughter Katie and I were at a wedding show at the Seattle Center. Her and Andrew’s wedding ceremony was in March of last year. I decided to pick this photo for Sunlit Sunday because she just called yesterday letting us know she will be arriving in Seattle for a month long stay while our son-in-law Andrew has some cold weather training in Northern California. They currently live at Camp Lejeune Marine Base in North Carolina. There is always a bedroom ready for visits from our kids!

To cheer myself up and to remind myself that the sun is shining but I just can’t see it’s glory right now I searched for more January shots of sunshine from last year…

Not real bright but the sun is breaking through. These are floating houses on North Lake Union in Seattle. If you look closely you can see the Space Needle in the background.

A lovely shaft of sunshine lighting up my bouquet of tulips from January of last year, too.

Hope the sun is lighting up your part of the world today!

I’m joining My Little Home and Garden for her Sunlit Sunday Meme.

Yesterday was our firstborn’s birthday so we’ll be enjoying a meal together for him and our dear daughter in love this evening. We love to celebrate our family. Speaking of celebrating, it looks like my blog will be having a big celebration real soon as my total blog visits are inching to 1,000,000 viewers!! I never imagined when I started blogging in March of 2007 that my blog would be visited by so many. I’m working on a giveaway for this landmark event to be announced this week!

A Lovely Weekend…

This was our first true summer weekend here in the Pacific Northwest. The sun has been shining brightly since the 4th of July. We finally just puttered about the yard and stayed home.

After I finished my puttering inside I sat out in the shade to keep an eye on Dear while he was up on those high ladders.

He worked on the trim on the garage. Thankfully he was shaded most of the time.

I think pansies and violas are the sweetest little flowers. They make me smile.

I still have a few more pots that need some fresh flowers in them. On Sunday there was one more project I needed to get done.

Rosella reminded me that it was time to add our next layer of fruit to our topfs! Rosella’s is Rumtopf and mine is Smirntopf! We both added cherries. I know I have a cherry pitter somewhere that Dear’s mother owned but it’s probably tucked away in the attic so I improvised and used a fondue fork to pit my cherries. You were right Rosella…it’s not easy to pit cherries and it’s good to wash a load of dishes when you are done so you can get the cherry juice stain off your hands and fingernails! My blueberries aren’t quite ready to pick yet so they will wait till the next layer…

This is the beginning of a very busy week for me with travel to Canada for 3 days included. I don’t know how often I’ll be checking in. Still praying for those of you suffering in the hotter than normal temps and for the areas that are desperate for some rain. May God shade you and refresh you with his rain…

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Tag Archives: Sunshine