Mosaic Monday ~ Saturday Road Trip

Dear wanted to head down to Lacey, Washington because that’s where Cabela’s is and I went along for the ride with an understanding that a little side trip would be acceptable, too. We got to the Cabela’s parking lot right before 8 A.M. and people were already coming out the doors with their brand new digital food dehydrators. I took an unscientific look see poll and saw that the dehydrators were definitely the hot ticket item of the morning!

While I was counting dehydrators for my unscientific poll I also got to see animals from Africa, North America including Alaska! That Steller Sea Lion was from the Smithsonian of all places. They even had an huge aquarium filled with some great looking fish. Dear was off looking at guns and ammo and other fun stuff like that.

We finished up our time at Cabela’s with our appetites ready for a nice breakfast. Doing some research on the computer before we left home I came across a restaurant in Olympia called Sage Brunch House. We trusted the computers directions and headed south of Lacey to Olympia to try and find the restaurant. After a few wrong ways we managed to put two and two together and found this little out of the way spot in West Olympia.

I think the chef was related to Julia Child because she was not shy with butter! The food was really tasty and that Blueberry Walnut pancake with real maple syrup was amazing!

The real reason we ended up in Olympia was to see this…

Our Washington State Capitol. This was the first time Dear and I had ever been to our state capitol. I’ll show more pictures of our stop here later in the week. I hope you noticed that we had some fine weather for our little road trip.

I’m looking forward to a wonderful week with family and friends. Hope life is treating you all well.

I’m linking up to Mosaic Monday with Mary at Little Red House.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

If Only I Was a Poet…

…I’d write a little something about Icicles.

These icicles formed off the edge of our gazebo cover. Some of you might be wondering why we didn’t store our cover in the garage for the winter. I have no idea why we didn’t do that but at this point it might as well stay put.

I know people that live in areas where their winters are harsher then ours have way more impressive icicles. Dear was at the Home Depot this morning because he’s working on yet another project in this old house. It is 20 degrees out there. So when the snow off the hood of his car melted in the Home Depot parking lot it formed icicles on the front end of his car. Sure wish he carried a camera everywhere like I do.

I spotted this cutie in our neighborhood. I’m taking a wild guess and saying a little girl created her!

About that project Dear is working on…it involves moving a gas line so he has the gas shut off right now so our little gas stove and gas fireplace insert are off right now, too. Did I mention it’s 20 degrees out?

What kind of temps and weather are you having today?

It’s a Bird, it’s a Plane, no…

…it’s the sun!

We finally had a full day of sun on Wednesday so I packed my camera and headed out to document the golden orb and it’s effect on some of our landscape.

These photos were taken at Log Boom Park on Lake Washington.

I found out this is a male Bufflehead Duck thanks to Bev. Thank you Bev!

Ahhh…that was nice and it’s enough to get me through our next couple days of rain that are in the forecast.

60 in 2011!

This won’t be the last time you hear about this but I’m turning 60 this year. 60! I saw this great idea when I was visiting Pink Purl, Tracy’s Blog in Norway. She had a list of 40 things she was going to do before her 40th birthday in 2 years. I really liked the idea but I don’t have 2 years until I’m 60 so I’m trying to come up with 60 things to do this year. If you have any suggestions leave me a comment. Some good ideas I’ve gotten so far are:

~ Take $60 in dollar bills and hand them out randomly.

~ Send your parents 60 cards thanking them for having you and the way they raised you.

~Take a cross country road trip with your daughter.

~Do a book signing in a local book store and invite some friends to join you!

~Each month drive 60 miles on a different route……

~ Do 60 posts about one memory for each of your years – granted you may need some help for the earlier years!!

I’ll be coming up with some of my own and then honing the list down to 60 things soon. Or maybe I should start on some and keep adding others till I get to 60. Time will tell.

This weather we’ve been having has given us some real nice sunrises. I took this one at the top of the post on New Year’s Eve morning.

Hope your week is going well. I’m getting back in the regular groove around here.

FFF ~ He’s Home!

My Friday Fave Five is a little slow in the making as I was busy just sitting around and looking at our 2nd born son yesterday. I’ve missed seeing his face for over 9 months. More about that later. In the meantime you can join Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and share your favorite things from the past week.

Here are my favorites~

1. Zumba! It’s physical torture for a solid hour that makes you sweat till you’re drenched but it’s fun! I signed up at the YMCA this month and I try to go to the Zumba classes 3 days a week. The other 2 days I do less torturous activity like the treadmill.

2. Molbak’s ~ We have a wonderful garden store in a neighboring city here that really decks the halls for Christmas. I’ve been looking for place card holders and had a Groupon coupon for $30.00 worth of merchandise for $15.00 so I went shopping there last week. I found some holders I really love and got to enjoy their displays of an amazing variety of poinsettias. I’ll share the holders next week after I set our Thanksgiving table. While there I saw this sign that made me chuckle. Just goes to show you how fickle happiness is :0). I much rather choose JOY!

3. I was praying all day long on Wednesday for safe travels for our son Dan and Dear. Dan drove 12 hours from Yuma, Az. to Sacramento, California. Dear flew to Sacramento to meet up with Dan and to drive the next 12 hours to Seattle together. Dan left Yuma at 3:00 A.M. and they pulled into our driveway at 2:30 A.M. I heard their voices and fell back to sleep thanking the Lord for their safety. When I woke up on Thursday and pulled out Daily Light (a Bible devotional) the heading for this day was “He led them on safely”. I smiled and thanked God again for leading them safely home.

4. When Dan finally woke up on Thursday it was so good to give him a big hug and then just sit and smile and talk to each other! He was so happy to be back in the state of Washington. Some of the things he enjoyed…

~cold water right out of the faucet. The water is warm coming out of the faucet in Yuma. Not surprising since it’s desert.

~A real nice mattress to sleep on. He’s been living in a hotel for 9 months.

~A house to move around in with more then 2 rooms.

5. TACO NIGHT! We had the whole family sitting around the table last night for Tacos. It was real good. We got to hear lots of stories from Dan and get caught up a bit.

Dan will be heading to Eastern Washington for his full-time job next week so we’ll enjoy a few more days with him before he heads out. It’s good to have him in the same state now with the opportunity to see him on some weekends in the future. We’re having our Thanksgiving meal early this year (on Sunday) so we can enjoy it all together.

I’ll hop around for some visits now before Dan wakes up and before ZUMBA!

6. I’m cheating with one more. Here’s a quote Dear sent me this week that I wanted to share.

“We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life.” – Speech to the Graduating Class of 1978 at Harvard by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

What a Wonderful Sight!

Genesis 9: 12-16 (The Message) ~ God continued, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.” Genesis 9: 12-16 (The Message)

Ezekiel 1:28 (NIV)

Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, …

I’m always excited when I see a rainbow. And when I see double, that’s really special. How about you? We spotted this one late in the afternoon on Monday.

I’m linking up to Susan’s Outdoor Wednesday.

Like A River Glorious ~ Hymn

Like a River Glorious ~

Francis Ridley Havergal (1836 – 1879)

Like a river glorious, is God’s perfect peace,
Over all victorious, in its bright increase
Perfect, yet it floweth, fuller every day,
Perfect, yet it groweth, deeper all the way.

Refrain:
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest

Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,
Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;
Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,
Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there.

Refrain:
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest

Every joy or trial falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial by the sun of love;
We may trust Him fully all for us to do.
They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.

Refrain:
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.

Yard Art ~

I wanted to post the rest of my yard art from our trip to Eastern Washington before they got buried. This first one was along Highway 2 on the west side of the Cascades.

These last two shots are from Tonasket, Washington on the East side of the Cascades.

To see more Yard Art on Thursdays visit Mary at Work of the Poet!

Ruby Tuesday ~ Tonasket

Tonasket is a small community located along the eastern bank of the Okanogan River in north central Okanogan County, Washington. State Highway 97, the main north-south highway through central Washington, bisects the city on its way north to the Canadian border approximately twenty miles north.

Dear and I were on a little road trip to Northeastern Washington back in August when I took a shot of this store. We were here bright and early in the morning so it wasn’t open. I like the look of it.

To see more Ruby Tuesday visit Mary at Work of the Poet.

More Yard Art from Tonasket!

This made me yell “Stop!” and my husband did so I could get a photo of this. A little nostalgia from days gone by. We really saw some of our best Yard Art in this little city east of the Cascades and just a hop skip and a jump from Canada.

Visit Mary at Work of the Poet for more Yard Art.

Have there been weeks for you when you live a day ahead of yourself anticipating events coming up soon. That has been this week for me. So here it is Wednesday and I’m posting for Thursday already. Better remind myself to live for today.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

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