Just dropping by for a visit

Just thought I'd stop by to show you all what I have been up to. We had a wonderful July 4Th/Birthday barbecue last weekend. It was our daughters birthday so we combined the two and had a wonderful day. Family and good friends came by to help us celebrate and eat lots of yummy food. The weather was just about perfect, not to hot and not to windy, but just right. We had a wonderful birthday cake, it was lemon berry and tasted as good as it sounds and looks. We sat around for the longest time drinking wine and having lots of great conversation. We all agreed that we would have to do it again real soon.

It wasn't all partying and relaxing though. Our daughter spent the night and early next morning we started right in on making products for her store. We made bath bombs and bubble bars...... some Lily of the valley soap, and...... some Jasmine soap. Hubby kept us well fueled with a wonderful lunch, then it was right back to work again. At about 4 o'clock she made for home with all the days wares carefully loaded in the back of her car. It was a lovely, if a little hectic, weekend.

Hope you are all having a great summer, I know I am!

Summer bloggy break

After steadily blogging for about a year and a half I have decided this summer that I am going to take a bloggy break. I'll still be around though visiting your wonderful blogs and occasionally popping back in here when I have something exciting to show.

Hope you all have a wonderful Summer!

Lettuce anyone?

I honestly don't think I can eat anymore lettuce, if I do I think I will turn green! The only meal that I don't eat lettuce is breakfast. I have been patiently waiting since last year for some homegrown lettuce. After eating it for a few weeks now I can hardly swallow any more of it. Maybe I will give it away at the garage sale... buy a book, get some lettuce. I can't even offer any to my neighbor as she has the same problem as we do. My daughter and my mother-in-law will be here for this weekends garage sale... guess what they will be going home with! I know once the season is over I will be longing for more, but right now I have had my fill. My little veggie beds are really doing well this year, I think it's because of the wonderful weather we have been having. Although we haven't had rain for almost a month now, with our wonderful sprinkler system our little veggie plot keeps well watered. The lilies are once again blooming although I think something seems to be nibbling on them, I will have to check on that.
I came upon this little bird nest this morning. The babies have been gone for a while, all successfully raised and well on their way.

I do love my garden in the Spring, there is always something new happening every day. Now I am patiently waiting for my tomatoes to appear and ripen. I have been longing for a homegrown tomato since last year... I just hope they don't all ripen at once!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Down by the pond

Not far from our house is a group of wonderful ponds. They are the perfect spot for spying all kinds of wildlife. There are lots of dragonflies in many different colors...... We were told by a lady taking photos that this blue one is a male and this... ... lovely hard to spot green one is the female. We learn all kinds of information from the people we meet there. Of course there were lots of frogs in the ponds. Some were a little hard to spot as they were well camouflaged. I think it would be a really lovely place to live if you were a frog! A little further along the path were these wonderful wild raspberries. A tasty treat for all the birds, me too if I could only reach them! On the way back to the car we saw numerous swallow nests stuck up in the rafters of the wildlife store. This one looks like a condo! We even have a little barn swallow that zooms in and out of our garage as soon as I open it. He quite happily sits there watching me as I am making soap. I have really grown quite fond of him and will be sorry to see him go when he leaves for the winter.

Well once again this Saturday is our town wide annual garage sale. I can hardly believe that it has been a whole year already since the last one. Our daughter and my mother-in-law will be joining us again, so fingers crossed for good weather and lots of buyers. If you happen to be in the Dupont Wa. area come on by and join us, it starts at 8am and finishes at 3pm. I know you will have a great time!

In full bloom

Everything in my garden is just about in full bloom right now. This is my Japanese Snowbell tree. Around our small pond we have three of them and they smell just incredibly wonderful. The bee"s just adore them and they were buzzing all around me as I took this picture. All the rose bushes are blooming too...... it is just wonderful sitting in the garden when a gentle breeze is blowing.... there are lovely fragrant perfume scents coming from every direction. It hasn't all been leisure time around here though. My daughter needed some coconut lime soap for her Etsy shop. Poor hubby thought I had been baking. Glad I stopped him before he tried a bar! I have been waiting for this knitting pattern book to arrive for a while and it came today. The patterns in it are just so beautiful, my daughter already has her eye on ...... this one. I am afraid she will just have to wait a while though. As you all know I already still have two that I'm working on. Of course it wouldn't hurt just to go and look at the yarn store just to see if they have the yarn for these patterns, would it? Well maybe not!

Oh Dear!

These two little Ellies have been waiting so long for their clothes that they decided to take matters into their own hands.... I'm thinking of calling them Adam and Eve!
All I could think about last week when it was so hot here was getting away to someplace cooler. So this weekend we made one of our trips back again to Mt. Rainier. First stop was this little place, it doesn't look like much but they have the best burgers and fries for miles around. When we were all sufficiently "fueled" we were on our way again up the very windy road to the mountain. The winters do take a toll on the mountain roads and a few of them had sustained quite a bit of damage. At one point the two way road become a one way road as part of it had gotten washed away in the winter storms. Along the way we were greeted with these wonderful mountain wildflowers. Only a few are blooming right now but as time goes on more and more will wake up. They are so delicate looking that I often wonder how they survive the harsh winter storms, but they do and return every year. There were waterfalls everywhere, already gushing with the winter snow run off... and yes the water was freezing! It was misty and cool and I just loved every minute of it. We even stopped to take this shot of the road that we had come up. If you look real hard you can just spot a car taking the same road. This van caught my eye, they do expeditions and even have a mountaineering school. What fun, maybe one day I might be tempted. On the other hand I could just find a wonderful spot to sit and do my knitting. Yep that sounds like better fun to me!

Have a great Monday everybody!

Hot!

My goodness have we had hot weather the last few days. It was over 90 degrees here today. My roses have been opening so quickly that you can almost here them pop! I know I shouldn't complain about the weather being so hot when that is normal for some parts of the country, but we here, up in the Northwest are just not used to it at all. That will all change tomorrow as we cool down quite a bit, thank goodness. My roses aren't the only things that are blooming in the garden. The dogwood tree is in full bloom right now and looks wonderful. It has been a bit of a challenge to make sure that everything is well watered. Unfortunately my poor lettuce is not looking so good, the heat really took a toll on it. I think I will have to plant a new batch which hopefully will be ready in a couple of weeks or so.

The heat took a toll on me as well, as sewing and knitting were out of the question. The last thing I wanted to do was handle wool felt or yarn. So the only thing I have to show for today's post are these flower pic's. I hope you enjoy them and I hope you enjoy your weekend too!