Tag Archives: Tulips

Timeless Favorites…

On Friday it’s time to look back and think about the good things in our lives. I’m joining in for Friday’s Fave Five with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

My Timeless favorites are all wrapped around Family, Food, Friends, Flowers and Fellowship!

Last Saturday Dear and I had to change our yard/house work plans because the roofers were still here. We headed to Snohomish to do some antique shopping eating a good breakfast on the way. On Sunday Josh and Laura came over and we barbecued a meal to have together and got caught up on our lives. The weather was beautiful in the Seattle area on Saturday and Sunday. It brought out the best in people!

On Wednesday a few of the girls from MGCC were on a tour of Seattle so I popped downtown and met them for the morning. Don’t be surprised with all the photos of the food I’ll be showing you that we indulged in. Warning: If you haven’t eaten you might want to step away and come back later. Food, fun and fellowship galore around the table!

Breakfast at the Edgewater Inn where the girls were staying. After breakfast they grabbed their umbrellas and I grabbed my rain coat and we headed to Pike Place Market.

First stop was the original Starbucks. We were already on coffee overload from our breakfast so we just stopped long enough for a photo.

Marg seemed to know someone at every stop we made. Before we headed into the Market proper we went downstairs so I could show them the famous gum wall below the market.

It was refreshing to see all the beautiful flowers in the main thoroughfare of the market after the disgusting interesting gum wall. Flowers at the market are one of the best things in my opinion. Because it’s April and tulip season in Washington the majority of the flowers were tulips.

The Market was easy to navigate because we did not have the summer or weekend crowds to contend with. This walkway in the market can be wall to wall people.

Marg and Judy

After the Market and before the girls had to be back at the bus to continue their tour we stopped a Macrina Bakery. We were just going to have some coffee and a pastry but in order to sit at a table we had to order lunch so…what’s a girl gonna do? We ordered a cup of soup which was delicious along with wonderful baked fresh bread.

Remember that pastry we were just going to have? Instead we ordered their pie of the day with lemon infused cream. We split it three ways cuz that’s what friends do to help each other…

We walked back to the hotel and the girls got their spots on the bus and I jumped into my car and headed home. On the way I got a little peek of the Space Needle that has returned to it’s original Galaxy Gold color in honor of the anniversary of the 1962 World’s Fair.

I hope to get a photo from a better angle before the World Fair Anniversary events are over. Hope you are focusing on good things to be thankful for this week, too. Blessings…

Tulips!

The Skagit Tulip Festival

“The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is one of the destination events for the Pacific Northwest, held each year from April 1-30. Every spring hundreds of thousands of people come to enjoy the celebration of spring as millions of tulips burst into bloom. As with all things governed by Mother Nature, the tulips bloom according to their own schedule sometime during the festival. The tulips allow us to share our corner of the world and help us to showcase Skagit Valley agriculture.

Mary Brown Stewart started growing tulips in 1906 with bulbs from Holland, but tulips were “only a small part of the crop and the whole operation was of modest size” (Barrett). In 1926 her son Sam Stewart started the Tulip Grange Bulb Farm near LaConner. Marinus Lefeber, a friend of Sam Stewart, moved their Whatcom County operation down to a farm along Memorial Highway near Mount Vernon. The farm was in business until 2002. Other bulb growers joined them after 1945. By 1997, 700 acres were used for bulb farming, with a value of $42 million.”

I never get tired of visiting the tulip fields. Besides the fields there are gardens to visit, too.

Saturday Smiles…

This sign is on the stairwell at my hairdressers salon/home. It made me smile and I hope you smile, too.

Before the tulips bloom fully here in Washington the daffodils make us smile.

Sometimes a different color tulip gets in the mix and the daffodils try to share the glory with the tulips…

Hope your weekend is off to a good start. If the weather cooperates I’ll be mowing the lawn and Dear will be doing some painting. What are your plans?

FFF ~ Fresno, Food, Fields

I was in Fresno last Friday with 3 of the Mennonite Girls so I didn’t participate in Friday’s Fave Five but I’m joining with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story this week with my favorites.

1. Traveling to my first MCC Relief Sale and spending time with generous people who donate their time, services, and goods for others.

2. When Dear picked me up at the airport on Sunday morning we decided to head up north for lunch in La Conner at a favorite restaurant of ours called Nell Thorn. The food was delicious and the drive gave us the opportunity to get caught up with news about each of our days apart.

3. After lunch we headed to the tulip fields and enjoyed a tiptoe through the tulips walk about the tulip fields. We don’t take for granted this amazing opportunity to visit these fields of wonder just an hour up the road. I’ll be sharing lots of tulip photos this next week.

4. We are getting a new roof  and rain gutters installed this week. It’s good to know we’ll be set for many years when the job is done.

5. To get away from the pounding noise I went out on a shopping adventure to find green and lavender dishes and accessories. It was a successful trip. I found plates and napkins at Goodwill and more plates and small cups at Crate and Barrel. It’s been a long time since I’ve spent time on a shopping trip like this. Having a chicken in the crock pot made the adventure quite relaxing since I didn’t have to be home early to make dinner.

I’ll leave you with another tulip photo. I hope to get around soon and see what y’all have been up to.

Tulip Festival in the Skagit Valley

Tulips

By A.E. Stallings

The tulips make me want to paint,
Something about the way they drop
Their petals on the tabletop
And do not wilt so much as faint,
~
Something about their burnt-out hearts,
Something about their pallid stems
Wearing decay like diadems,
Parading finishes like starts,
~
Something about the way they twist
As if to catch the last applause,
And drink the moment through long straws,
And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.
~
The way they’re somehow getting clearer,
The tulips make me want to see—
The tulips make the other me
(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,
~
The one who can’t tell left from right),
Glance now over the wrong shoulder
To watch them get a little older
And give themselves up to the light.
~
On this past Sunday after Dear picked me up from the airport we headed straight to the Skagit Valley for lunch and a quick trip to some tulip fields. We are really blessed here in Washington to enjoy amazing flower festivals including tulips, lilacs, lavender, daffodils, and of course our state flower the rhododendron. I will be sharing lots of tulip photos but decided to start with a poem and a few shots since this is poetry month, too. Blessings…
~
Here are the photos of our lunch before we headed to the fields. We ate at Nell Thorn in La Conner. A restaurant we highly recommend. Dear had a lamb burger that was amazing and I had a quiche that was more like a souffle. I also had to taste their soup of the day which was a spicy bean garnished with cilantro. Yummy!
~

I Sing the Mighty Power of God ~ Hymn

I Sing the Mighty Power of God

I sing the mighty power of God, that made the mountains rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad, and built the lofty skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day;
The moon shines full at God’s command, and all the stars obey.

I sing the goodness of the Lord, who filled the earth with food,
Who formed the creatures through the Word, and then pronounced them good.
Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed, where’er I turn my eye,
If I survey the ground I tread, or gaze upon the sky.

There’s not a plant or flower below, but makes Thy glories known,
And clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care;
And everywhere that we can be, Thou, God art present there.

words: Isaac Watts

Friday’s Fave Five ~ Outside & In…

It’s that time of the week again to travel to snowy Springy Alberta to visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and join in with your favorites from this past week.

Here’s Dear surveying his new wall… It should be finished today with a few more levels of block…

Here’s what added to my joy this week…

1. Getting the dreaded boxes from the attic project done. Whoohoo it feels great!

2. Having work done on our yard. Grading and a retaining wall. Work should be done today.

3. Enjoying pretty fancy tulips that only cost me $2.50.

4. Bringing some of the Apple Blossoms inside to enjoy.

5. Having a good meal fresh off the stove.

Psalm 63: 3-5

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.
So I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.

Have a great day and weekend everyone!

Friday’s Fave Five! ~ Easter Edition…

Time to sit down, take a deep breath, and consider the blessings of this past week. Now visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in or to see some favorites. Thank you Susanne for hosting this great exercise…

 

Easter, Easter, Easter! I love Easter. I love that our Faith is defined by what Jesus did on the cross on our behalf. The whole Lenten Season culminating on Resurrection Sunday and now the days leading up to Pentecost are great days to focus and be refreshed. So here are my 5 favorites from this past week…

1. Getting together with my sister Lana G! and keeping our Russian Heritage traditions going by baking the Russian Easter bread and making and molding the traditional sweet cheese spread. I have to get more cans to bake the bread in by next year. Someone at our Easter table let it slip that she might have some in her garage. Along with these traditions watching my daughter color the Easter eggs is always a fun time.

2. The night before Easter I went to the opening Sounders Soccer game. I went to a nearby park and ride that was offering special buses to take fans to Qwest field. My bus ended up being real special as I was the only one on it!! The bus driver and me. I thought of you Thom! This was one of those really big metro buses, too. I had to chuckle. Too bad our team lost…ugh. On the bus trip home there were more people but the bus driver recognized me right away…

3. Easter was such a nice day of celebration for us. We went to a baptism of 2 little sisters we know. So sweet. We came home to get ready to host our Easter meal with my DIL’s family. There were 12 of us and we had a good time eating, sharing and laughing.

4. Whoohoo! I finally got to meet some of the Mennonite Girls from MGCC face to face on Tuesday. Five of the Canadian Mennonites had a field-trip down to the Skagit Valley to see the tulips and we all met up for lunch in La Conner. It was like we were old friends. Each gal is so unique yet so cohesive in the group. I don’t know if that’s the right word but I hope you understand what I mean…

5. Tulips, tulips, tulips! I love tulips. To see these lovelies like the sea before your eyes is absolutely amazing. I praise God for creating tulips and I’m so glad those immigrants from Holland settled in the Skagit Valley and grow them for our pleasure and for their livelihood!

Keep scrolling down to the next post if you’d like to see some tulips in the fields…

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

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.

I’m Not Tired…

…of tulips, are you?

I do believe the pink ones are my favorite. Which are your favorite?

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.