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.

IMG_4167

 

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…

IMG_4110
Yep, that’s the truth.
IMG_4112
It’s what for breakfast. Really.

 

IMG_4114
Where my Hawks do business.
IMG_4121
Made it! C’mon M’s!
IMG_4146
Play ball! Thanks for the seats, Harlan.

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!

IMG_4071

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.

IMG_4107

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.

IMG_4098

Can’t help myself.

I took mom to a Dr’s appointment today. The Olympics were gorgeous.
Must. Take. Picture.

20140523-085352-32032899.jpg

Playing through.

Fran and I enjoyed playing a round of golf this evening.   Awesome!

This family of ducks wandered through one of the holes.

IMG_4041

And we caught a glimpse of Mount Rainier looking back from the tee at 18.

IMG_4046

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.

IMG_3887

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!).

IMG_3986

And then caught the ferry home.   Pretty views from the stern.

IMG_4009

 

Motoring around the Sound.

Fran and Art took me for a boat ride today after work.  It was a treat, the weather was nice and the Sound was like glass.  Its amazing how fast you can get from one place to another by boat in these parts.

This is a view of the Olympics from Dyes Inlet, The Brothers peak on the left.
IMG_3864

And a view of the Seattle waterfront, from just off Blake Island, a ferry, hazy Cascades in the background, and the space needle far left.
IMG_3857

Navy band unplugged.

It is Armed Forces Week in this traditionally U.S. Navy home of the Puget Sound area. Mom and I caught a very nice performance by the Navy’s wind quartet and brass quintet at the local library tonight. Lots of feet were a-tappin’.

20140512-202015.jpg
Go Navy! 🙂

20140512-202113.jpg
And, the program:

20140512-202201.jpg

Golden chain tree.

Aka Liburnum, this tree is dripping with chains of golden blossoms. This AM the sun rise seemed to be focused squarely on this one tree. Very pretty.

20140512-063933.jpg
And Happy Mother’s Day!

Scenes from the forest.

I took a stroll through the woods on my first day back up here in the Pacific Northwest. 

Unfurling ferns.

IMG_3771

Mouldering mushrooms.

IMG_3778

Mossy stump.

IMG_3781Baby pinecones.

IMG_3784

Tuesday night Broadway.

We went to see War Horse tonight at the Bass Concert Hall. I was more taken by the intricate, life-sized horse puppets than the overall story. But, it was opening night, and was well done.

20140506-232218.jpg

Aloe Vera in bloom.

Over the years, we’ve amassed quite a collection of aloe vera plants. Some plants Monte has had for 20 years or so.
This year we were surprised to see the grand daddy plant sending up a spike of flowers. Google sez this is common, even though it’s a first for us. Who knew?!

20140505-180233.jpg

Stalked by ducks.

We enjoyed a fun raftup last night with Lori, Dave, Kurt & Kevin.  The wind was slack and light overnight, and we ended up getting our anchor lines twisted.  We knew that was the case, though, so we were prepared for it when we went to pull up our anchors today.  We enlisted the kayak and detached the anchor rode from Nirvana entirely while Camelot pulled theirs up, untwisting them as we went along.   Back on-board Nirvana, we reattached our rode and pulled our anchor up and got underway.  Next time, we’ll put out a stern line.  🙂

As we headed back to the marina, the two ducks that hang out in the cove were behaving very strangely.   They have been in the cove everytime we have gone out there this year, and they hang out by our boat.   We’ve named them George and Gracie.  This time, though, as we were motoring along, they followed us well out of the cove, swimming hard to try to keep up.

IMG_3606 They would fall behind and then take flight and land next to us near mid-ships.   Then drift back to where we were pulling the kayak, and tried to keep up again.

IMG_3613

They repeated this over and over.   After watching them do this five or six times, we slowed down so we could see what they would do when they caught up with us.   And they proceeded to paddle right up to the transom.

IMG_3622

And Gracie jumped aboard as we were moving along.   George seemed a bit more reserved.

IMG_3623

Eventually they got tired of playing with us and moved along.

IMG_3628

…..funny birds.

 

 

Fly ’em if you got ’em.

Anchoring out tonight with Lori and Dave on Camelot, and Kurt and Kevin on Dancer.

20140503-212255.jpg