June Crazies!

Wow, here it is almost the Fourth of July, and I've not posted anything since early June! Well, it's been a bit crazy here.  I had a "significant" birthday, and the unexpected festivities lasted almost 2 weeks!  Jill and Family from Illinois surprised me at the Spaghetti Factory at what was supposed to be a celebration for our son whose birthday is 2 days before mine.

Here are all the grandkids having lunch across from the Locks after a fun morning exploring there and Golden Gardens.

This railroad bridge has to go up to let tall sail boats through.

A few salmon were using the fish ladders much to the kids' delight.

Everyone enjoyed looking for rocks and shells in the tide pools.

I don't think this heron was looking for shells or rocks though!

Later on at the end of the week these two from MN (my sister and her hubby) plus Dick's brother and wife (who managed to escape our camera) were among the guests at a surprise party which I thought was going to be a small family BBQ. ( Yep, I was shocked when I walked in the door with my large bowl of requested potato salad and was greeted by family and friends.  That is one birthday I will never forget!  There even was a photographer, but we've not seen her photos yet.) All six of us had a fun ferry ride one day and explored a bit of the Kitsap Peninsula.  Bob and Mary left for San Diego the following day to attend one of their grand daughter's high school graduation.  Jane and Ted stayed a couple of days longer, and I'll do another post about those adventures soon.  Haven't done much crafting aside from another couple of headbands though.

Apparently this little one has decided headbands are OK as she's finally wearing the one I made at Christmas.  It's a tad large though, so I made her this one in her favorite color.

And this one from leftovers from the one I did for Sophia.  I made both a bit narrower and snugger, however. (It's a quick and easy pattern!)

That's it for now.  I'll be back soon with more about our adventures.  Have a Happy Fourth of July or whatever occasion you happen to be celebrating!

What's Kept Us Busy?

Right after we returned from our sad trip east, my sister and her hubby arrived, and we had a fun time keeping them busy. Here they are, relaxing in our daughter's backyard and enjoying some nice weather.

We've tried to take them to Mount St. Helens on previous visits, and it's always been snowed in.  This time the weather was only cloudy with some intermitent rain but we decided to brave it and go.  This is about as much as we saw of the famous mountain, but there's lots to see/do in the Johnston Visitor Center, and we were surprised to also see kids from Tyee Middle School (where our kids attended) there on a field trip. Did you get to go to a volcano when you were in junior high???

The next day since the weather was still gloomy, we went for tea at the Panama Hotel of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet fame. If you've not read the book, you've missed a great read!

The weather cleared up toward the end of the week, and we enjoyed a great meal at the Space Needle.  We couldn't see the mountains, but the rest of the views from way up high were stunning. We weren't crazy about the distortion from photographer's wide angle lens, but hey!  It was free!

We didn't take any cameras to the Bellevue Botanical Garden the next day but were amazed at how much it had changed since our last visit: lots more parking, a new education center, and a very fun suspension bridge.  We wanted to stay longer but were short on time, and  now they're back home in Minnesota, or rather spending the summer at their cabin in the North Country. How come fun visits go by so quickly?

A Very Special Weekend!

If you ever find yourself in Seattle, one of the places you might want to visit is the Space Needle, which has been here since 1962, and is a Seattle landmark. A rather new attraction is the relatively new Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit. This past weekend we went to both places with Dick's brother and our sister-in-law, who were visiting from Palo Alto, and both places are wonderful. On a clear day we can see the Space Needle in the distance from a hill near our house, but there's nothing quite like looking down on the city and the surrounding area from on top of it! This past weekend the weather was clear and very crisp (COLD), and the view was spectacular.  If you double click on the photo, you can see Mount Baker way off in the distance.

After a very tasty lunch a some time at the observation platform above the restaurant, we went across the way to the Chihuly exhibit. It is wonderful!

I loved this ceiling and the way the colors reflect off the walls.

This is one of two glass-filled boats floating in water.

A beautiful arrangement of glass flowers fills the upper part of the conservatory which Chihuly designed.  As you can see, the flowers also frame the Space Needle.

This glass tree is located in the conservatory for the upcoming holidays and is filled with golden cherubs.

The gardens outside are lovely also. The pieces of glass are skillfully situated among the plants and are very interesting.

The glass just glows in the sunlight, and I loved the way the log is placed among the pieces.

Every so often there's a piece that reflects the Needle in all its glory.

Of course our weekend also included a visit with two of our favorite little people.

Stella just woke up from her nap

and  Max enjoyed looking at pictures of the Chihuly exhibit with Uncle Bob. It was a very nice weekend!

Junuary? BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

So far this month we've had a bit of company and a bit of rain. In fact today's paper said we've had our usual amount of June rain already along with cooler than usual temperatures. The rain held off when our friends, Brian and Marci, were here from DC. Because she'd read The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, we went to the Panama Hotel for tea. Don't they look cold?



After lunch, we went to the Japanese Gardens in the Arboretum where the wisteria was in full bloom and the turtles were out.



How many hours do you think it takes to make a garden look like this?

 

On Memorial Day we had another fun visit with friends from Germany: Udo, Sabine and their twins, who just turned four. We'd hoped to have a backyard picnic but it was too chilly to sit outside. Udo stayed with us for several weeks in 1997 when he was studying at the Fre Hutchinson Cancer Center.



Despite all the gadding around, I've still had time to knit and sew since the gardening has been at a standstill. (The weeds haven't!) Judy L is encouraging people to post their knitting projects each Friday, so since there are lots of UFOs floating around here, I took a pair of socks out of "time out". This was one of my first attempts at working on 2 socks at the same time and was down to the foot on both when I realized the stitch pattern was wrong and put them away. Sock #1 is now back to where it was, and I frogged #2 down to the cuff this afternoon. It hurt, but now they're back on track.



And yes, we've been visiting Max regularly. He's growing way too fast and is such a happy guy!

Who needs the sun?

A Productive Week!

This was a good week for finishes for some unknown reason. The details for the knitting projects are on Ravely with the link on the sidebar.

We'll be seeing our niece soon. Guess what she's expecting in September?

Our neighbor girl is graduating from high school on June 19th. She won't be wearing this hat over the summer, but it may be handy when she becomes an Idaho Vandal.

My "recovery" from SSS (second sock syndrome) is coming along slowly but surely. I won't confess when these socks were started though.

This is May's Sunbonnet Sue block for the TAST challenge. There's lots of eye candy at the Tuesday Stitchers blog if you like crazy quilting.

We finally made it over to Anderson Park in Redmond last weekend to see the latest yarnbombing. (It was supposed to be removed yesterday.) Altogether I counted 49 trees in "sweaters"!!!

It was a bit of a relief to read that the artist uses a knitting machine!

That's it on the creativity front. We also had a fun week with company, but I'll post about that later. Enjoy the weekend!

Out and About~

While my sister and Ted were still here, the sun came out, so we hopped in the car and went to Discovery Park. Lots of trails wind through the park, and we took the one that goes down to the beach and light house. Since we were there last, the light house has been painted and looks great! I think there are also plans to refurbish the inside as well. As you can see, the mountain (that's what the natives call Mount Rainier) is out. It's not really that close though; Dick was using the zoom lense on his camera.

After all of our company left, we took a long postponed walk with our friends Denny and Dianne in the Nisqually National Wildlife Preserve . We'd been there a number of years ago with them, but in the past couple of years the area has been upgraded with wooden boardwalks and a visitor center has been added. Can you see what's in this tree? The sign says that eighteen eagles live in the preserve.

One whole field was full of Canadian geese. And what a racket they were making! Every so often a group would take off and move to another spot, squawking as they flew.

I don't know what this snowy egret was looking for....lunch perhaps?

We could see the Tacoma Narrows bridge!

This Great Blue heron entertained us as it waded around in the shallows. As we left the boardwalk the tide was going out, and it was very interesting to watch. It was also very cold and damp which reminded me that December is coming and that I had some Christmasy yarn to use.


Two more dishcloths for the holidays....and lots more projects underway. Stay tuned.

Playing and Projects

November seems to be marching right along these days. We got a good reminder of the impending holiday last weekend at our choir workshop, spending most of the day practicing Christmas music. (We also learned that a CD of our spring concert featuring Haydn's Creation is being released next month!) As usual I have lots projects and ideas in the works. We'll see how many actually get completed!

The stitch in this dishcloth is really fun. The pattern can be found at Lily Sugar 'n Creme and is called The Twist Knit Dishcloth. I think the stitch would be pretty in a scarf although it is a bit stretchy. I really needed these needles for another project which hastened the finish!

A couple weekends ago we went exploring in the Magnolia neighborhood because that's where Catherine and Brent are house-hunting. I am sitting at the base of an old madrona tree; the early settlers thought they were magnolia trees, and thus the name of the area.

We had fun in Discovery Park, hiking down to the water and this old abandoned lighthouse.

You can also see Mount Rainier from this trail. That mountain sure gets around!

I didn't work much on the Christmas SAL last month and will be putting it aside until after the holidays. The sleepy Santa was my focus this time. Maybe it'll get done by next Christmas?

This little project caught my eye. It was a free pattern on Webs. Besides the penquin, there's a very cute polar bear.

Gotta run. It's a sunny day, and we're going to walk around Green Lake. Catch you later!