I took a walk through a nearby park today. Different scenery than the shaded, lush, tall forest paths up north. But nice to be here.
Lots of gaillardia (aka Indian blanket) around. Another one of my favorites.
Category: Life
Shrinky dinkies.
The afternoon was filled with family stopping by to see mom and aunt Ellen. Rebecca and Aaron brought some shrinky dink paper… an arts and crafty kind that you decorate and then put in the oven to shrink and harden. We made lots of doodads. These that I made are destined to become keychains…
How?
You can buy the sheets of paper. Google sez #6 recyclable plastic can also work, but I haven’t tried that. Make sure to use permanent markers, and allow for 3x or 4x shrinkage. Punch a hole before shrinking, if you want to make into a keychain. Bake at 325-350 degrees for less than a minute. They will ball up and then flatten out again as they shrink. I put them in the oven on foil with a little flour or cornstarch to keep from sticking to the foil.
Paddling around.
My mom’s sister is here visting, another is arriving this week. Today they’re spending the morning together catching up. So, I headed out to go kayaking near Hood Canal with Noreen, her friend Tammy and her son, Matt. I think I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but it was a BEAUTIFUL day. The water was flat and calm, and the tide wasn’t fighting us too badly.
My front row seat:
This area is full of bald eagles. Here’s a pair that were watching us as we went by:
And yes, the obligatory panorama 🙂
Again!
TGIF, folks!! Time for another gorgeous mountainscape:
And a few of mom’s favorite flowers:
Is it August yet?
Seen in the North satellite terminal at SeaTac airport. Go Hawks!
Checking out the Falls.
Today I had the chance to go for a small road trip. Just a 90 minute drive, each way, up to Snoqualmie Falls. I went for it. I packed mom along with me, with her wheel chair for maximum ease of checking out each nook and cranny of this naturally beautiful place. And we were off…headed east to visit one of the most popular scenic places in Washington State. It turned out that Noreen and David were coming west over the pass from Eastern Washington from a wedding, and we were able to time it so that we met for lunch at the beautiful Salish Lodge at the falls. The flow was high, due to snow melt… swelling the falls to a thunderous level. You could feel the water falling, you could hear it beating the rocks below, and you could feel the spray 300′ up from the bottom.
I can’t tell you how pretty it was, so i’ll just share 2 shots:
and a panorama:
An awesomely beautiful day.
Friday evening on the Sound.
This afternoon we hit the Sound, again, with Fran, Art, Rebecca and Aaron. We hopped onto their boat at this beach.
Then motored over to watch a local marina’s Friday night regatta up close.
Then toodled around to see what we could see. On the left, a sea lion sunning himself on a buoy. In the background, Mt. Rainier, Blake Island and a Seattle-bound ferry.
It was beautiful out, but not necessarily warm.
And, a lovely sunset.
Extendo holiday weekend.
I took the day after Memorial Day off, turning a 3-day weekend into 4-day. Yahooty!
I took mom to a doctor appointment this afternoon. And then Fran joined us at the golf course for a round. It was another gift sunny day!
Afterwards we teamed up at trivia night at a local pub – Team Muggs (Mom, Noreen, David, Neil, Lucille, Fran, Monte & me). And we won > $200 !!
Memorial Day.
Wow! The weekend has zoomed by!
Today we headed over to Noreen’s to celebrate Memorial Day. On the way we stopped by the cemetery to put a flag and flowers on Dad’s grave. Cheers, Dad!
We spent the day together: Noreen, Jared & Kelsey; Fran, Art, Rebecca, & Aaron (& Jojo); Colleen & Jake; Monte, Mom & me. Brian was down with the flu, so he and Gail will have to join us another time. It was another amazingly beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest when it was really supposed to be raining.
Jared and Kelsey cooked up the burgers & dogs, and we put out all the fixings; we also had halibut that Art caught just a day ago off the Washington coast. Delicious. Afterwards most of us headed down the road for a hike to the beach. Wow, that sure was steep! We found one of the 2 geocaches we searched for along the way.
This is a panarama, looking west to the Olympics, of the beautiful beach along Hood Canal at the bottom of our 1 mile, downhill, switchback-y hike. Becca and Aaron are skipping stones and Jojo is splashing around.
Then we turned around and slogged up the way we came down and were all extremely happy when we made it back to the upper trail head. Whew-ie!!
A few scenes from Sunday.
Today Monte and I headed to Seattle with Fran, and met Colleen. We took our time making it from the waterfront to Safeco field to watch a Sunday afternoon Mariner’s game. Another fun day with a few of my sistahs. Here are just a few moments from the day…
Saturday!
I spent the night at Noreen’s last night. This morning, she finished another glass window / work of art. This one is for her own house. She does beautiful work!
Then I toodled back over to mom’s. This afternoon, I introduced her to geo-caching, and she enjoyed it. We found 3 out of 4 “park and grab” caches that we searched for on the way to the Harbor Fest downtown. She stayed in the car and pointed me to where the GPS said to look, and then we opened up the cache’s together in the car.
Then we headed downtown to take in the Harbor Fest. This is a shot of the boardwalk downtown along the waterfront.
Then, later, I headed for the airport to pick up my sweetie, who is joining me here for the last week of the month. It was fitting that my favorite mountain was poking above every horizon on my drive to the airport tonight.
Can’t help myself.
I took mom to a Dr’s appointment today. The Olympics were gorgeous.
Must. Take. Picture.
Playing through.
Fran and I enjoyed playing a round of golf this evening. Awesome!
This family of ducks wandered through one of the holes.
And we caught a glimpse of Mount Rainier looking back from the tee at 18.
It was a beautiful day for golf among the Christmas trees.
Good day.
Today was a pretty full day. The weather was supposed to be colder and drizzly, but it turned out to be another lovely day with blue skies. Keep ’em coming.
Mom and I went to the Armed Forces Day parade, one of the oldest and longest in the country.
I squeezed in a little geo-caching during the afternoon, and then headed over to Seattle to meet my sisters and spent a few hours on the waterfront. We ducked into this little corner o’heaven to watch the Sounders game (win!).
And then caught the ferry home. Pretty views from the stern.
Sheila365 