purple mountain majesties





Perhaps I am a cheap date.  Perhaps I need only be tempted by a package of Sour Patch Kids candy and some pretzels to agree to an adventure.  Perhaps I would have gone anyway.

 

Whatever which way, Sunday evening found us at the coldest, windiest beach on our island.  He was fishing, I was taking pictures and eating candy.  Thankfully, someone had built a really great driftwood shelter that I sought solace in when the wind proved to be just too cold.

 

But the sunset was gorgeous.  And the Olympic mountains sang with purple mountains majesties.



 

 

 

After catching the first fish and gutting it, this friend showed up, hoping for his share....

We live in such a beautiful place.  I really can't get enough of it.  And I don't mean it as bragging, it is just fact. 

 

We have a big beautiful sky and too many beaches to count.  And on any Sunday evening we can just get outside and enjoy a sunset like this, and catch delicious salmon, and take glorious pictures, and eat Sour Patch Kids.  Well, you can probably do that last one almost anywhere.

See what I mean about the sky?!?

The catch: two pink salmon.

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.  Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. 

 

Lamentations 3:40-41

but it is beautiful

I wander my garden on a daily basis.  Sometimes multiple times a day.  Sometimes at night under the light of the moon.  I'm infatuated.

 

It is such a pleasure to have this little patch of earth that I truly feel I can call "mine".  It's not huge.  It's not tidy.  It's full of unexpected things.  Not everything has worked.  But it is beautiful.  And I guess that is how my life is too.  Isn't that a profound thought!?  I'm learning life lessons from my little garden.

 

Tomatoes!

The leaf of the sunflower captures the sun just right.

 

Delicate tomato blossoms

 

 

 

Football practice started this week.  Blake has been doing some weight training and conditioning with the team all summer but the real deal was this week.  High school football.  Oh boy.  Just two and a half more weeks till the first day of school!

Austin has started practicing precision rifle which brings with it a higher level of competition.  He gets to shoot a more expensive rifle and is required to wear heavy leather pants and jacket, and boots for stability.  He's only been practicing precision for a month and has already beat his personal best.  His goal for the year is to make it to Nationals again.

The following are not my flowers.  I took these pictures on an excursion we went on last week and I just thought they were so pretty....

As the air takes on a certain crispness and the light fades more quickly each evening, I prepare for the shift, the certain changes that Autumn will bring.  Our schedules will change, our focuses will change, the demands will change, and whatever decides it's going to go and change without letting me know will most certainly change.  And because of that fact I am all the more thankful that the Lord hears my prayers.

My sister will have surgery tomorrow.  And a biopsy.  And I pray.  I will be flying down to help her in her recovery.  To cook food.  To hang out with my nephew.  To tell jokes or to not.  And still I pray.  I pray that the surgery will be fully successful and as routine as possible.  I pray that cancer will not be a thing we even have to worry about.  I pray for a speedy recovery.  I pray that I would be some sort of comfort.  Even, I pray for my own little family as I'm away.

Life:   It's not tidy.  It's full of unexpected things.  Not everything has worked.  But it is beautiful.

It is beautiful.


 

rustica

We have one vehicle.  I'm thankful for it.  It's paid off.

We share that one vehicle between the four of us.  And the four of us, we all have different schedules.  And there is weight lifting with the football team, and rifle practice with the club, and yoga class, and fishing, and out with friends, and picking up someone else's work shift, and errands to run, and everybody works and someone even has two jobs.

It's a wee bit of a challenge sometimes.

This week our one vehicle broke down.

I'm thankful for our one vehicle.  I'm also thankful that we live in town and we all have bicycles.

While our vehicle was broke down we celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary.  It was like no other!  We rode our bikes downtown and ate at a little Italian joint called Rustica.  We ordered three different appetizers to share between the two of us and called that our meal.

Scallops with pesto and a smear of some fancy creamy sauce that was delicious.

 

 

Bruschetta with goat cheese, pork tenderloin, and fabulous onions with a balsamic drizzle.  This was our favorite!

Local Penn Cove mussels in a tomato-yellow pepper-garlic broth.  Very tasty.

After dinner at Rustica we rode our bikes down to the waterfront, spied jellyfish in the water, rode on the boardwalk, and back through town to Baskin Robbins where we each got a double scoop ice cream in a waffle cone.

And our vehicle?  My clever and determined husband called around to some mechanics, did some online research, and called parts stores.  What would have been close to $1200 to have done at a repair shop cost us just a couple hundred dollars for Aaron to do in our driveway.  He'd never fixed a transmission problem before but he did it.  I'm pretty proud.

a study of sunflowers

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Helianthus, the sunflower

 

helios = sun

anthos = flower

 

 

 

This rust colored beauty has captured my attention.  I've never seen a flower this color.  I love the way it shimmers in the sunlight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my garden (the neighbor's house in the background).  The entire fence is lined with sunflowers.  When standing in the garden, one must duck and veer to avoid the bees that adore the plentiful pollen of the flowers.  The bees are so preoccupied that they've not bothered with me.  The mosquitoes, on the other hand...

 

 

 

 

just some happenings

Our island has a drive-in movie theatre.  How cool is that?!  We went for the first time and it really was pretty cool.  The guys went on the go-karts before show-time.  We got lots of junk food at the snack bar.  And we stayed out too late.  Truth be told, all but one of us didn't make it through the second feature (Jurassic World).

 

 

 

The first feature was the Minions movie so all the employees were dressed like this: 

                                                                                   

We've been hiking as much as we can lately.  Charlie gets in on the hikes, although sometimes, we end up carrying him because he has short legs and the hikes can get a bit intense.

 

 

Poor Charlie got stung by a bee (in his mouth!) yesterday at home.  He ended up developing quite an allergic reaction so had to be taken to the vet.  They gave him a Benadryl shot and a steroid shot and kept him for a couple hours of close monitoring.  He's doing much better today.  I sure love that little dog!  And I'm proud of my Blake who was home alone at the time and had the presence of mind to call the vet himself to ask for advice and then to ice the sting area as best as he could to try to keep the swelling down.  Good job Blake!

 

garden in rain

 

Before my eyes opened, before my legs stirred, before I took in a deep breath to steel myself for the day, I heard rain and I listened to the gentleness of it and I imagined the dry ground soaking in each precious drop.  Then came the waking and the dressing and the drinking of coffee.  But later, I visited the garden to discover the beautiful effects the rain had made.

 

I said "good morning" to this sunflower that was enjoying it's first glimpse of day, unfurling petals slowly.

A delicate poppy, petals loaded down with droplets...

 

 

An enormous, fuzzy squash blossom...

Detail...

 

 

If you've never experienced the joy of accomplishing more than you can imagine, plant a garden.

 

Robert Brault

 

 

currently

Reading...  The Midwife of Hope River by, Patricia Harman

Playing...  It is not often that I play games on my phone but when I do, I do it obsessively for about a week before coming to my senses.  This week's obsession is Hidden Object: Home Makeover 3.

Watching...  Aaron and I took in the 4th of July parade all by ourselves as Austin was at work and Blake was out of town for the weekend.  We sat on the curb, in the shade of a big blue mailbox.  My favorite part of the whole parade was the flyover by two Navy jets, the rumble of those powerful jet engines is enough to make anyone patriotic!

Here's the street a few minutes before the parade started.

Cooking...  Mexican Quinoa Casserole in the crockpot.  Anything to avoid turning on the oven lately.

Drinking...  Frozen Mocha from Whidbey Coffee Company.  Thanks Aaron!!

Doing...  We had our first ever church picnic yesterday.  Aaron reserved us a nice big picnic shelter at Bowman Bay and  brought a message about liberty and the depth of meaning it carries in the Bible.  We played Frisbee, ladder ball, and catch with the football.  It was nice to do something out of the ordinary and any excuse to be outside is a good one.

Enjoying...  Watching the garden grow.  One extra clever chicken has figured a way into the garden despite the awesome driftwood fence.  She finished off the spinach and has been sampling the collard greens.  It's funny that out of five chickens, she is the only one who knows how to get in and out of the garden.

More poppies!!

 

Pumpkin blossom

Celebrating...  Austin earned 7th in the nation at the CMP competition in Alabama.  He helped his team win 1st place and set a new record for highest team score.  The team received a trophy, medals, and monetary prizes, even free ice cream from a restaurant in Alabama.  Good job shooters, we are so proud of you.  The team is even featured on the front page of our local paper this week!

Smelling...  Wildfire smoke, supposedly from some wildfires up in British Columbia

Thankful...  that Blake got to spend the weekend with friends on an adventure in the San Juan islands.  To listen to him recount the days, the adventures, the sights, I'm just so thankful that he had the opportunity to go make memories with his best friend.  He kayaked, he swam, he ran a 5K (finishing 4th for his age group!), he ate good food, he rode bikes, he watched a small town parade, and took in one of the best fireworks shows in our state.

A favorite...  This beach, just minutes from our house.