Our Second Adventure…

…on Katie’s birthday was a trip to the Seattle Center where the Space Needle happens to be and other attractions as well.

Our reason for braving the holiday crowds was to see Chihuly Garden and Glass. It was worth weaving about “all the humanity” to enjoy this extraordinary exhibit.

We first saw this wall of blankets that gave Chihuly inspiration for some of his creations.

This amazing piece was in the Sea inspired room.

It was impossible for me to get the full ceiling but I enjoyed capturing some sections of the ceiling.

This was a great room. “Chihuly has said that memories of his mother’s garden serve as inspiration for these “gardens of glass.” Of course I thought of our bloggy friend Pat at Mille Fiori.

I would like to come back on a day when it’s not raining to get some clearer shots of the needle above this beautiful glass flower conservatory.

We decided to go out to the glass outdoor garden in the rain. I was happy to get several shots without getting my lens wet.

We enjoyed our time here and we hurried in the rain to the parking garage to drive to our third adventure which was a stop at Massage Envy to get our hour relaxation massage along with a sugar foot scrub. Bliss!

I’m joining in with Mary for her Mosaic Monday Meme. If you click over you will see some beautiful images in Mosaic form.

Tick, tick, tick …2013 is winding down. What are your New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day plans? I’ll admit we don’t have any. Maybe I’ll come up with some inspiration on Monday…

All Aboard!

I’m traveling back to Katie and my Amtrak Cascades train trip to Vancouver B.C. last Thursday before Christmas Eve and Christmas activities commence!

We had to dress with a few layers because the temps on this day did not stay above freezing for long.

We started our journey in Edmonds, Washington. For many miles the tracks are right next to the water and it felt if I leaned towards the window I could land in the water.

As we approached Everett, Washington I wondered if we’d see a battleship or an Aircraft Carrier.

I wasn’t disappointed.

I’m glad I don’t have to clean off that rust…

So many interesting things to see with my camera.

After Everett the tracks came inland and we got to see some rural views before the tracks bent back west to the water.

Looking back I caught a glimpse of Mt. Rainier and zoomed in to catch our famous volcano in the distance.

It was fun to see the views of Semiahmoo from the train. Dear and I spent our anniversary at the inn which is right next to that water tower.

Seeing Semiahmoo I knew we were very close to crossing the border into Canada.

White Rock, B.C.

The train station in Vancouver.

We were underwhelmed with the Christmas market that was our destination choice. Thankfully food is my love language and Finch’s Tea and Coffee House came to the rescue. We really enjoyed our baguettes and Lady Grey tea.

This was in Katie’s words a “Hipster” establishment. The menu was posted on the blackboards. They delivered most of the sandwiches on brown waxed wrap paper.

Betty from Mennonite Girls Can Cook made the scarf next to my nice big cup of tea for me and the really cool thing about it is that she included slots in the scarf that serve as hand warmers/slot pockets.

Speaking of that large cup of tea, we had to take our signature sipping tea shot!

We visited some antique shops in the Gas Town area of Vancouver and a fun shop called Old Faithful.

We walked back to the train station and boarded our train for our long trip back to Edmonds. We were very happy that there was a dining car on the train with several food and drink choices. The trip back was in the dark so it seemed slow and long to me. It really helps to be able to see things out the train windows that are interesting to make the trip seem shorter. If we do this trip again we’d like to spend the night and only travel one way each day. I do like the quiet stress free aspect of traveling on the train.

Well here we are with just a couple days before Christmas. How are you doing? I hope you are calm and collected and that you have time for joy and peaceful moments.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Corrie Ten Boom…

“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away your ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”

This One’s For the Dogs…

The last garden we visited was our other favorite of the day even though I was skeptical since it was “all about the dogs”. I was happy to see that they had areas that humans could really enjoy, too.

This first section of the garden that all of the photos above were from seem to be the area that the dogs don’t freely roam in. The next sections of the garden had some well thought out spaces that were dog and plant friendly.

I thought this was a smart way to contain these plants in a dog friendly space.

A trio of flutists were entertaining us at this garden.

Two of our children will probably end up with pets of their own in the near future. Dear and I choose not to add them to our own home. The only pets we grew up with were parakeets and pigeons. Dear’s parakeet was named Pancho. His brother’s parakeet was named Pepino. I had a pet pigeon named Green Neck. Maybe the fact that my family had a period of time where our pet pigeons had to be sacrificed for soup that I am not fond of owning my own pet but I can appreciate other people’s pets. By the way, when us kids figured out that my parents sacrificed our pigeons for the soup we would not eat that soup in protest. We grew up with the philosophy that we have dominion over creation.

How about you…do you include pets in your household?

This is the last post from our Secret Garden Tour.

Oh no, google reader quit before I transferred all my blog links. I’m going to have to do some search and rescue this weekend. Oye…

Singing in Garden #3

When we arrived to the 3rd garden we were greeted with a musician singing songs that came easy to sing along with.

This garden also had many separate areas and paths leading here and there. There were many large yard art pieces, too.

Wednesday was a very productive day for me. I was able to clear out a lot of spaces that will be re-carpeted soon. I went up and down our attic stairs many times and also downstairs to the basement where we are storing a lot of stuff since those floors will not be replaced. My back is letting me know that I’ve done enough for a while. So happy our high school hire is mowing the lawn for me as I type and sit still. This weekend Dear is planning to replace our patio french doors.

Secret Garden Tour

In mid June my sister and I went on a Secret Garden Tour in the town of Lake Forest Park in Washington State. The gardens were numbered on a map for a self guided tour. We chose to start with garden #5 and work our way down to #1 hoping to have the least crowds at each garden.

We were curious and making guesses as to what this little cottage at the end of the path might be. What a lovely surprise to look inside.

There was a little loft with a bed in it, too, that I didn’t get a photo of. It would be nice to retreat here for a quiet get-away. This next photo is the view of the main house from the little cottage.

I caught Lana photographing the same thing I was through the looking glass. There were fun quirky things in a lot of the gardens we visited.

This was one of our favorite gardens out of the five. It was so surprising to find this lush setting coming around to the back of the home.

I’ll share more of the different types of gardens we strolled through over the course of the week.

Dear has done a lot more clearing out in this old house to get ready for the floors. All the carpeting is torn out of the family room now. This coming weekend he’ll install our new patio door. We’re loading up the living room with furniture from the family room and kitchen area so he can remove the vinyl flooring soon. My living room looks like a furniture store. I’m going to look on the bright side. I will not need to vacuum or dust till all of this is over. We’ve moved from bright sunshine to dreary skies and rain. Hoping for some good weather on the weekend since the door will be removed. What’s new with you?

Cottage Lake Gardens

A lovely Woodland Garden in Woodinville, Washington was at the end of my camera lens on Saturday morning. The garden was open for 2 hours for a plant sale.

Susie Egan has a very impressive collection of Trillium. Trilliums are endangered wildflowers that appear in the woods in the Springtime. Their native habitats are shrinking and they are becoming more rare and hard to find. Cottage Lake Gardens currently has all 48 of the world’s species of trilliums! How amazing is that!? They are working toward establishing a National Trillium Collection. Trilliums are known for having 3 flower petals and three leaves and come in many colors including white, yellow, pink, red, brown and green.

Come along with me as I walk the garden paths and snap away at things that catch my eye.

Hope you enjoyed strolling through this lovely garden with me. I’m hoping to be able to attend one of the gardens Trillium tours next Spring!

We are enjoying a stretch of sunshine and dry skies. I’ve even had to get out early in the morning to water. I planted my two Trillium starts yesterday and they are so delicate. I do hope they survive and enjoy the spot I chose for them.

Yippee! Dear will be home at noon today. While he is unpacking I’ll be packing for my trip. Hope your week is going well.

Time to Pack it Up…

…this will be my last tulip field post for now. It’s time to pack and head south.

I’m always on the lookout for the odd one in the bunch…

I was so happy that I was prompted to stash my yard boots in the car before I headed to the fields because…

…here’s what I got to walk through to get to all the different colored rows of tulips!

Yes, I felt quite smug! I’ll admit it…

If you didn’t have boots on the Roozengaarde Garden was a good choice to see many beautiful varieties of tulips and to be able to buy bunches of tulips, too.

Packed fresh and ready to send to the stands to sell.

I managed to take the garden shots avoiding hundreds of people that were milling about. The later in the morning the worse it gets.

Tuesday will be my day to get everything organized at this old house for my absence. I will be packing the suitcases for a very early departure on Wednesday morning. Dear will be coming later in the week.

Mixing It Up!

Hope you aren’t tired of tulips! Today I’m sharing the variegated and mixed up tulips. We have had rain, rain and more rain this weekend. Finally on Sunday afternoon we got some blue skies and sunshine!

We had some fun news this weekend. Our nephew Caleb asked his sweetheart Marie to marry him. Looks like our family will be having another wedding celebration come August! Reasons to celebrate are the theme of this year!

A friend of Caleb and Marie was hiding out to take this photo and others of this fun moment.

Congratulations on your engagement Caleb and Marie!

Anything new in your neck of the woods?

Amarillo…

Today I’m posting the photos I took of all the yellow tulips at the Roozengaarde fields at the Skagit Tulip Festival.

A quiet weekend is on schedule for us and time will tell what we get inspired to do around this old house. The weather has been quite drippy so I don’t think we’ll be outside much. It’s Saturday in Ellen’s kitchen over at MGCC today so you can click over and check that out. Blessings…

Tickled Pink…

On Tuesday I made a morning trip to the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley right here in Washington State. The weather was right and my day was free so I hopped in the car and headed an hour north. I’m starting my photo sharing with the pink tulips…

You don’t have to go to Holland to have a wonderful tulip field experience. There were rows and rows of pink, red, purple, yellow and some variegated varieties.

“The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is one of the destination events for the Pacific Northwest, held 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 showcase Skagit Valley agriculture.”

Wednesday was a semi productive day around this old house. I cleaned out some mystery broth from the freezer and used up our frozen ham leftovers from Easter to make a big pot of Split Pea Soup. I bought rubarb for the first time from a farm stand in Skagit Valley after visiting the tulip fields and made a coffee cake. I’ll share the recipe on MGCC soon. Sounds like our 2 days of sunshine are coming to an end. How is your week going?

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Tag Archives: Washington