Crumpets and Tea

A Victorian Birthday Celebration Surprise for a special friend:

We enjoyed tea in fine china, scones with butter, and crumpets with devonshire cream and orange marmalade...delightful!

What a wonderful way to spend the afternoon!

Water Baby

This little one just loves the water!  Here we go, headin' in for a good time:

This is already so much fun!

Splashy, Splashy!  Perma-grin!  Splashy, Splashy!

This is a great day!  I love the water!

I'm having such a good time.  I don't even care that I have a swollen diaper!

Bubble-butt?! Who cares...

I'm having a blast!

Memories of the Sea

After our lovely few days at the ocean last month, I felt the need to re-create the special feeling of excitement that we had while exploring the beaches.  I dug out the bag of treasures that we had stashed away and set them out to look at them.

The hot dry weather up here has brought out a longing for seashells, driftwood, rocks and blue blue water.  Here's my re-created "beach" view:

I love this odd shaped piece of glass - might have been a wine glass at some point in it's travels - and has wound up on my sidewalk.  I adore the irridescence of that shell in the middle and the cute little caps that make me think of rice fields in the Orient:

The rocks are beautiful too - all speckled and rounded to look like bird's eggs:

But something is missing from my ocean landscape here...what could it be?

Water!!! Let's add some:

That's better - my sidewalk beach is complete!  If I squint real hard, I can almost feel like I'm at the seaside again.  Listen for the sea gulls now and look how it all wetly glistens:

Now for some decorating fun inside the house!

There's just something admirable about the smoothened, warbly pieces of colored sea glass that have been pounded against the shoreline rocks. Sea glass speaks to me of hardship. Of perserverance. Of change. Of becoming more beautiful in the wearing away of sharp edges. Of life as we grow older. Of being a special treasures to admire and hold dear:

From birth to old age - beautiful in the eye of the beholder at every stage:

Treasured Memories of the Sea:

Now we'll just have to see about bringing some water into view --- anyone have a kiddie pool they can lend me!!!  :)   With much love to you all - have a great day!

Worth the Wait!

He has arrived!  The newest addition to our family was born on August 9th and weighed 8 pounds 5 ounces.  His name is John Kenneth and he is just perfectly perfect!  Welcome to the world Johnny - you were worth waiting for!

This is the sign for "I love you" in sign language.  So sweet.

Awwwwww - so perfect.

Don't you just adore his little chin?!!! 

Why is it..

Why is it that butterflies are so beautiful, but their relative, the moth, is just plain scary?

Whoops - this blue beauty is a bit fuzzy, but such an astonishing color and size:

I could look at this for hours and hours (not these pictures, but a butterfly in real life!)  - so delicate and fragile, painted with fine felt-tipped designs and floating gently by as lightly as air with legs so slender they're almost invisible.  Can you imagine the footprint that a butterfly would make?  Look at how tiny the feet are.  Would they even leave a mark?

But catch a glimpse of one of these brown hairy babies and I freak out!

Oooo -  so ug - ug - ugly!  Just looking at it gives me the shivers!  Git outta my kitchen...you brown hairy ugly thing!

Holidays

We spent the past week down south on a family holiday and had a really great time together.  I've been going through my pictures and this one of the girls on the ferry seems to sum up the entire trip - good fun and smiling faces!

However, as anyone who travels together knows, after spending many, many, many hours in the car together, this is how we felt at certain times:

For the most part, we managed not to get as grumpy as these turtles did though!  These guys were feeling very protective of their fresh food and I thought it made a cool picture. 

Overall, it was probably the best family holiday we've ever had - what special memories!  Check out this giant red cedar tree.  We figure it must be about 2500 years old.  It's 52 feet around (we measured!) and it takes 40 of my regular walking steps to go around the base...it's majestic!  What a sight to see.