I got to catch an indoor soccer match that my niece and nephew were playing in today. Soccer is quite popular in these parts and they start them young – this is a league for 6-8 year old girls and boys. My niece is playing goalie here, and my nephew is getting ready to kick the ball.
I was not able to get a non-blurry shot with my little point and shoot camera. So, this is a frame from a video I shot instead.
I’m enroute to Seattle. I’m going to work from there for a couple weeks, while getting a chance to visit with my mom. My window on the plane was dirty, and the sun was setting, so this isn’t a very remarkable shot but it was pretty to see from the plane.
As I was looking out at the clouds, Joni Mitchell’s song “Both Sides Now” popped into my head:
Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I’ve looked at clouds * that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all….
If you, too, would like to have this stuck song in your head, just take a listen here.
Alaska Airlines has in-flight entertainment in the form of a small, portable DVR pre-recorded with a bunch of movies that you can watch at your seat. I watched Black Swan (very weird) and then watched part of a movie called Hereafter. I didn’t get to finish it, but I’m mentioning it because the opening scene is of a tsunami hitting a small resort town from the perspective of one of the main characters. She gets swept up into the raging waters. WOW. Very powerful scene to watch given the very recent Japan tsunami. Anyway, i’ll have to make sure to catch the rest of that one on my way home. It looked good.
I confess that I had to look up the plural of stamen… either stamina or stamens will do 🙂
Just four days after popping their bud, the first of the amaryllis flowers are open.
This is a macro shot of the stamina in one of them.
These guys are going gangbusters! I wonder if that little 3rd flower will open up as well? You can see another bud has started to open on the top right of this frame, and another one is on its way, too, at the bottom center of the frame.
There are 3 flowers in this bud. One looks much smaller than the other 2. They’re growing fast!
The amaryllis I planted 4 weeks ago now has about 5 buds on it. one of them has burst and now the flower is starting to grow out of the bud. You can see the slightest hint of red start to show as it opens. I know these will be bright red since this is the 2nd year they will be blooming. Can’t wait to see them fully open.
For the first time I can recall, at 9 AM in the morning, Monte and I were the only ones up. That was SOME party last night.
Eventually heads started popping up on deck.
We had a great day, just chilling out. The water is still too cold for swimming, but everyone was more than happy to sit around visiting with eachother.
As late afternoon rolled around, everyone reluctantly started peeling off to head home.
We had another great sail on the way home. We didn’t have to tack once on the trip from Bee Creek back to the marina. Very nice.
Oh, and today is the first day of Spring!!!!! yeah!
Big weekend. Lori & Dave invited us to stay on Camelot for the first Full-Moon raftup of the year. The winds were nice today. We had a great sail down to Bee Creek, and then joined 7 other boats — Pat & Dave on Va Bene, Sara & Mark on Seranade, Robert & Tasha on Voodoo, Bay & Donna on Red Sky, Rory & Greg and 2 of their friends on Sapphire, Joe on Prelude, and Teri, Jim & Kathy on Island Time.
We brought B-duck, of course. This mallard got a little territorial and started attacking. Crazy duck.
Tonight was, of course, a full moon – the full worm moon. But it is also the closest full moon to the earth in about 20 years, so it has been dubbed a Supermoon. I tried to get a photo of it, but all I captured was a bright circle of light… I couldn’t get any detail on the surface, it was too bright. It was pretty to see in person, though.
As usual, a good time was had by all as the night slipped away.
There are some colorful signs of Spring in Central Texas that I really look forward to. One is the indescribable pink blooms that cover the branches of the Red Bud trees. And another are the fragrant purple clusters of the Texas Mountain Laurels.
This is a shot of one of the mountain laurels in our back yard. I took it this morning as the sun was coming up over the house. The light was not great but I couldn’t resist.
Pretty soon the bees will be buzzing about.
Oh yes, and today is FRIDAY! We’ll be rafting up with friends this weekend on our first raftup of the year. Yay!
Happy St Patrick’s Day!
We dashed down to our local pub after work tonight to drink Irish beer and eat corned beef and cabbage for dinner.
I didn’t have my camera with me, but monte has mastered his new phone for taking and uploading photos. So here ’tis!
Happy Birthday to my sweetie. The cake turned out nicely… moist, not too sweet, and a hint of guinness 🙂
It’s always nice to take your birthday off as a vacation day. But we both worked today. After work, we went for dinner at Captain’s and Monte got a dozen on the half shell and then we went to the Dart Bowl to bowl a couple games. Seems like we’re a bit out of practice for real-world bowling since we’ve started wii-bowling. But we eventually got back in the groove.
Monte’s birthday is tomorrow so I’m going after two of his favorites at the same time… chocolate cake and guinness 🙂
I found this recipe from Nigella Lawson and am giving it a try tonight. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Update: It was DELICIOUS! try it!
This is a close up of one of the lilies that monte brought home the other day.
I’m thinking I’m ready to have a new camera to play with 🙂
Irene and Joseph left in the wee hours this morning for their flight. It was definitely a shorter drive from our house to the airport than from College Station.
Today is another beautiful day. The flowers I planted seem to be taking hold.
This is an african daisy – at least I think that’s the common name for this flower. I’ve planted them before and though they are an annual, they will come back after a mild winter. Last winter was definitely not mild for us, so these guys are newly planted.
Sheila365 