Something Special in Spokane

FRIDAY:

Over the mountains and through the woods....


...to Gracie's house we go!


We got stuck in Mariners game traffic on the way out of town, so Jonathan drove fast...and even faster!


I enjoyed watching all the bright green Spring has brought out.


It helped that I was knitting on my bright green sweater!
We still got there pretty late and talked with Jen and Jon till even later. Jen gave us coffee cake to sustain us. Mmmm!

SATURDAY:

That's us at 6:30! Playing with Grace is the only happy incentive that I can think of for getting up that early after going to bed so late!


Jen was a blur of yummy good cooking....


Mmmm..bread puddin'!


Gracie and Mommie

Peek

A

Boo!

A back porch full of early morning peace and Grace (notice the pointer)


Jonathan experiences the many uses of the pointer finger.

Lucy is waiting to see if she will get any bread pudding.


Yup, this look says it all...Breakfast was DEee-licious!

The Project of the Day:

After breakfast, Grace went down for a short-lived nap--her only sleep of the day, but we didn't know it at the time!
Jen and I put our heads together for a little dresser refurbishment. The plan was to paint roses on the front of Gracie's red dresser.

We measured...


We painted...


And we...?
a) procrastinated by taking funny pictures
b) heard Grace wake up
c) were ready to stop before the project was done
d) were slain prematurely by paint fumes


Here is Grace giving us some color direction from her play pen. She, by the way, was amazing at entertaining herself. I was very impressed!


Here's Grace, still not sleeping. (I love this picture.)

The finished project.

After painting, Jen thought Grace might fall asleep if we went for a car ride, so we drove through Taco Time and picked up some lunch for the guys. They were working on a vanity at Jon's shop. Grace did not fall asleep.
Jon's shop is very cool, with neato equipment that has the capability of severing all sorts of anatomy parts. I'm sorry we didn't take any pictures of it.
While we were there, Jon and Jonathan and I practiced singing "I am Trusting Thee", since we were going to do it for special music at their church the next morning. It was very pleasing to make great music together. We discovered that the shop has fantastic acoustics too!

After lunch we visited some really cool gardens. We thought surely Grace would fall asleep in the stroller, but she didn't.

Grace and Da-Da do some free-style strollering!


Jon and Jonathan in the formal garden.


Jonathan set up the timer and then had to run about 40ft to get in the picture. You can tell Grace was astounded...as were we all!

"Sheesh, are you still following me around?"


Jonathan and Keren in the Japanese garden

Cool pic of Jon.

It's my very own tree-seat!


Jen took this beautiful picture of the dogwood tree.


My toes.


Jonathan was skulking in the bushes trying to take our picture without us knowing...but we caught him in the act!

On to the Lilac Garden!


'Grace' seems like a good title for this one. (notice the pointer)


Get it, Get it, Get it!
On the way home, Grace finally fell asleep! We made chicken kabobs for dinner and dragged Jen out to the movies, against her will.

SUNDAY:
After church we all took naps. Then had ciabatta sandwiches by Jen. I'm telling you, there was no shortage of good, good Food!

The family.

"I do declare!"

"I love my mommie's hair!"

"It's true, we are a pair!"

So much fun!

Grace showed us her walking moves.

Petting Rosie.


"hanging"out


We had such a wonderful time! Thank you Jen and Jon!

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

I wanted to take the time to post some of my favorite pictures of my mom. I believe that they demonstrate some pretty darn cool mom things!

I love this picture because it is of my mother with her mom and dad. I never got to meet Grandma Frieda, as she passed away from breast cancer before I was born. But I have inherited a few valuable things from her through my mom: Cooking, bread making, sewing and loving. I just don't even want to imagine how dreary my life would be without these things!
My grandpa re-married and so I'm very lucky to have three grandmas, and an amazing heritage of God lovers in my family. My second grandma, Grandma Ruth, never fails to tell me that she and grandpa are praying daily for me. I hope to be as faithful to the Lord as she is and that my home will be filled with the same kind of loving prayer theirs is filled with.

This is my mother at age two or three. It is hands down my favorite picture, because of the look of joy and love in her eyes. My mom is good at loving!

I can't help but notice the same look of love and joy in her eyes as she holds me in this picture. No matter what we did growing up, my mom always believed in us. I think I owe a lot of my confidence to her confidence in me. Thank you for treasuring me, Mom!

OK, so this is a funny picture to include, but it really made me laugh out of pure enjoyment! Sometimes we do just let our underwear show, even if by accident. Mom and Dad demonstrated to me the treasure of vulnerability and honesty.

My mom still laughs this way--deep belly laughs that consume her ability to stay vertical. We, the children, used to take great pride in bringing out this quality in her laughter!

Isn't she beautiful? I inherited this pin on my wedding day, and love it all the more for this picture.

"Yep, that's me and my mom, she taught me most things I know!"

I sure do love you Mom!

Tulip Fields in April

We went up to visit the tulip fields north of Seattle this last April. It was a truly beautiful day.
Here's Jonathan and I with our friends Ryan and Amy.

Jonathan and Keren in 'Orange Tulips'

Amy, Ryan and Jonathan

Amy tries to decide if tulips have a smell or not.

My favorite variety.

It is hard to believe there are so many kinds of tulips in the world.

We kept chasing the orange tulips way down at the end....

Only to discover they looked like this...

Or like this. Apparently there is no such thing as an orange tulip!

If each row has 15 to 20 bulbs per foot....how many tulip bulbs did they plant in this field?

Here are the rest of my favorite shots.

Seeing Florida without Urgent Care!

In the past, every time we have visited Jonathan's parents in Florida, I have ended up going to the Urgent Care Center. So it was with a little trepidation that we headed south to surprise his parents with a visit. Jonathan's brother Andrew's family was there too. We had a wonderful time. I would like to proudly report that our visit last weekend was entirely without any trip to Urgent Care!

We enjoyed ourselves in the pool with our niblings (both nieces and nephew)...and no one even attempted to drown!


My sister-in-law Marla and I had a chicken fight atop our husbands...and no bumps, lacerations or muscle strains! (How she managed to dump me in the water shortly after this picture was taken, I will never know!)

We even spent a day at the beach with only one umbrella for shelter...and no sunburns!



Anna had all her naps.

Large construction projects were completed.




Although there may have been some child labor involved, thankfully there were no injuries or workers comp. needed!



We spent lovely times just lounging and relaxing.



The only thing that went wrong was having to leave so soon!