Tag Archives: Weather

Timber!

Trees etc 005Because of plans for a driveway this great old tree had to go. This is also a very messy tree with the pine needles that cover everything on this side of the shop.

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We got a very good bid to chop the tree down and get rid of the branches leaving us with the larger tree cuts for fire wood. Even though the driveway will be a 2015 project we decided to take advantage of the good price we got for the job.

2014-06-02 pine treeMonday at ten the work began. I watched from a safe distance capturing the moment the tree was felled.

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2014-06-02 pine tree1Timber!

2014-06-02 pine tree3Now the wood chipper was put to work. They tried to talk me into keeping the chips. It’s just not easy to unload them. I just smiled and said they could keep the chips.

2014-06-02 pine tree4It was hard enough to move all the little logs to a central location. Dear is away until tomorrow so I got the wheel barrow out and got to work.

2014-06-02 pine tree5I got my heart rate up in no time flat.

We will miss the lovely tree view we had but we will enjoy finally having a paved driveway to our garage and no pine needles to clean up.

Another view of the before and after looking down what will eventually be a driveway. This tree team probably underbid this job so I rounded up the cash payment I gave them and will have them back again to grind the stump down before work commences on the driveway.

Dear has been in Chicago at another conference since last Friday and I’m looking forward to his return early on Tuesday. This is the last trip that we will take separately for the rest of the year, Lord willing. Dear and I have had enough time apart this year.

We are having a great stretch of dry days with highs into the 70’s. Perfect weather for me. How are things in your world?

A Week Later…

…we are still celebrating.

This time it was just Dear and I who went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday which was a week ago. Greg searched on line to find a restaurant that served some good sounding lamb dishes.

Collages5We ended up at Pogacha Restaurant in Bellevue. Dear had the Lamb T-Bone Chop and I had the Lamb Shank. The meat was falling off  the bone on my Lamb Shank and that’s the way I like it. Dear enjoyed his chops…a lot. We had a pear cobbler like dish for dessert. We shared. It was nice to share a meal together at the end of a week filled with ups and downs.

P1040953What a beautiful day we had on Friday. This was one of our views driving home from the restaurant. The mountains you see are in the Cascade Mountain Range. We are hoping for a few more dry sunny days so we can do a major clean up of our yard.

What are your plans for the weekend?

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.

 

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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…

Rain Won’t Stop…

…our parade!

We had a full day of celebrating this past Saturday and we didn’t let the pouring rain dampen our spirits or our celebrating.

sounders-Wilma4The opening game for our Sounders Soccer season was at noon on Saturday. The first thing I noticed as we entered the Club level of the stadium was this great new vendor addition. They really know their team colors. This is good marketing.

sounders-Wilma1Opening the game with the National Anthem and all the branches of the military represented is one of my favorite parts of being at the game instead of watching it from home. Our soccer crowd sings along and it’s great to hear close to 40,000 people singing.

sounders-Wilma3There are lots of creative ideas to get the fans behind the team and to keep us cheering. The blue and green plastic squares were in our cup holders and they had blue sections and green sections and had us all hold up our squares at once. Fun times. At every kickoff the green streamers fly. Our most expensive player, Clint Dempsey, has lots of fans and someone created a Dempseyland banner using Disneyland printing. Fun times.

P1040873We are fortunate to have our season tickets under some cover so the rain does not fall freely on our heads. If the wind picks up we can get some rain blown our way but for the most part we stay dry when others in the stadium get soaked.

Of course it would have been a bummer if after all this we would have lost the game but I’m happy to say we won. It took till the very last minute of the game but we won and we left elated and ready to face the horrible downpour and slick roads home. Once home we got ready for our next fun event.

P1040898Our Laura’s grandmother, Wilma, turned 90 this week and we all got together to celebrate her 90 years at her favorite restaurant.

sounders-WilmaWilma is such a sweet lady and we are so happy to have gotten to know her since Josh and Laura got married.

P1040896Isn’t the cake great?

These two events on the same day really brought a lot of sunshine into my world.

I’m linking up with Sunlit Sunday  at My Little Home and Garden and Mosaic Monday at Little Red House.

What is brightening up your world these days?

Farewell February!

To send you off I’ll share some favorites from your last week. It was a nice mix of busy and quiet. Thank you Susanne for keeping us thinking about things we should be grateful for.

Bok Home Show

1. Last Friday Katie and I met Dear downtown and enjoyed a Happy Hour meal together and then a short drive to the Seattle Home Show. We had a good time talking to different vendors and seeing some new home products at the show.

P10408652. On Saturday morning we met Judy and Elmer for breakfast at a restaurant close to their travel route. We had a good time enjoying some good food and carefree conversation. We sent them on their way in some sloppy snow.

crows 0063. We’ve had some nice dry sunny days in a row this week and I was able to get out and do a little trimming and cleaning up of some beds. I’m always grateful for some extra light in the day!

P10407344. Although this photo isn’t from this past Sunday, this group was together with us for brunch here at our home and we had such a wonderful time getting caught up with each other and sharing the latest greatest. The food was good, too. Dear made his Swedish Pancakes and we had fresh strawberries and bacon to go with the fresh off the griddle pancakes.

panels 0015. A new look for our living room windows. Little changes are good every once in a while.

My bonus favorite this week is that our son Dan is arriving on Friday with his girlfriend to spend a couple nights and several meals with us. It’s been fun stocking the refrigerator and making one of Dan’s favorites for his time here this weekend.

What are your plans for the weekend?

An Electric Week!

What a week we’ve had in Seattle. Here are my favorites in no particular order.

February 0041. Enjoying our home team winning the Super Bowl! There’s something so rich about unbridled joy.

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2. Being able to replace our older dishwasher with a new one installed without a hitch.

 

3. Some clear skies albeit quite chilly for us here in Western Washington. We were in the teens today and we never made it over freezing on our hill. It’s so dry and cold that my first touch on light switches and my computer buttons sends a little shock through my fingers…”electric”.

 

4. Hearing some good news from Andrew in Afghanistan is always a favorite.

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5. Talking to my pop and hearing hope in his voice. We bought him a recliner that he is really enjoying and I found this photo from the late 1960’s of him in a recliner that makes me smile. This photo was taken on Christmas day in the afternoon after our lunch and before we headed back to Sunday night services…

What are your favorites this week?

You can join us at Living to Tell the Story for this weekly event that Susanne hosts.

Almost Hare…

…I mean we’re almost there! Wednesday the carpeting is being installed! Woohoo. All the floors will be new in this old house at the end of the day except for our two bathrooms. I again will be a prisoner in my own home while the installers go in and out with the padding and carpeting.

In the meantime here’s a little visitor to my yard…

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At least on this visit he/she decided to eat the clover instead of my pansy. Pretty sure this is a rabbit and not a hare. It was interesting to read up on the differences between the two.

I’m looking forward to my kitchen area being back to normal instead of being a storage area for our spare room mattress sets.

Chicken 010What do you think?

I was out and about on Tuesday and was amazed at the number of traffic accidents and melt downs there were on my routes. One of the accidents I was behind led to a 3 mile back up on the freeway. My main destination was Ikea. I always enjoy shopping there once I get there. We needed a new shelving unit to put in one of our spare rooms and a new TV stand. We didn’t want anything fancy or expensive so Ikea was a good choice. I’ll point out the items I bought when I post my before and after post.

We again are in a dry warm spell here in the Great Northwest. Perfect weather for our carpet installation since they’ll be doing the cutting out on our deck. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods…

She’s Not a Gardener…

…but she can dig a hole and put a pretty plant in it!

Last year I planted these after they were wilted in their little pots. This year they surprised me popping up and showing me their pretty smiling blooms! God is the best gardener and I really do depend on Him.

Luke 12:27 (CEV)

Look how the wild flowers grow! They don’t work hard to make their clothes. But I tell you that Solomon with all his wealth wasn’t as well clothed as one of these flowers.

On Saturday I added these Primroses that I’ll be able to see from my kitchen window. It makes me smile.

We had a few hours of dry weather on Saturday and Dear worked in the garage organizing more “stuff” and I did a little work in the yard. It felt so good working outside. It didn’t take long for the weather to turn on us and we experienced some lion like March weather. Sunday started cold but bright. Such a nice change. Blessings to you on this first Sunday in March!

Snow & Ice ~ Tablescape

Kathleen at Cuisine Kathleen hosts a weekly meme called Let’s Dish. This week she challenged us to come up with a scape using the theme of Snow and Ice. Here’s what I came up with…

We sat at a version of this table on Sunday night with our son and his wife to celebrate our son’s birthday. I’m sorry to say I forgot to take photos of our actual dinner…oops! Our dining chairs are off to the upholsterer and we aren’t sure when we’ll be getting them back so we are using some of our folding chairs for the time being.

Here in the Pacific Northwest we’ve had several foggy days. The sun finally made a breakthrough on Tuesday afternoon. We are going to have our rain pattern return for a few days with a dry weekend promised so far. With our freezing fog we’ve had some ice issues. Do you have snow and ice in your neck of the woods?

Are You Dreary?

We are still gloomy and cold in the Seattle area, weather wise.

We are suppose to get some rain and hopefully it will wash all this fog away.

In the meantime I’m setting a sparkly table for Cuisine Kathleen’s Snow and Ice challenge.

I used the same setting modified for the birthday meal we served our son Josh and our daughter in law, Laura, on Sunday. I’m off my game because I didn’t take one photo of the food I served. We had lamb shanks in a merlot tomato sauce and roasted potatoes with a cucumber/tomato salad. Yum!

I’m getting organized for my 1,000,000 hits giveaway. Stay tuned…