Wet Weather.

Green, wet, and thankful for a rainy week.

Personally the only thing wrong

with wet weather here,

is Liberty's lack of ball chasing

on the hillside.

Oh is she ever disappointed.

We have to hide the ball from her

to get her to stop begging to play.

That and muddy paws.

Ha, Spring Sprung...

Spring time officially began yesterday,

but for us it has been spring time since January.  

We were lucky to get some rain in February.

We will take what we can get,

but meanwhile it's already spring time.

I guess it's too late to continue 

wishing we'd have some sort of winter.

Hello Spring.

Welcome!

Answers, Spring Photos and an Oops

Spring continues with dry weather 

returning for a couple of weeks.

We're expecting 

low 80 degree days later this week.

These delicate pink blossoms

 are on the nectarine tree.

 Now to answer some blog questions from

the last two posts.

Cathy:  Our kids were blonde and blue eyed.

You remembered correctly.  

They both have brown hair now...

go figure.

Cathy's other question was about our passports.

No we didn't  need a full passport for our trip. 

 We had the option of getting passport cards

 which are considerably cheaper.

For a more detailed explanation

 I found this site for you.

http://www.budgettravel.com/blog/the-lowdown-on-us-passport-cards,9990/

We chose to go ahead and get the full passport 

because of possible future travel plans that don't involve Canada or Mexico. 

 You never know.

Plus the "what if's" are covered.

If perhaps either of us get sick or hurt,

 and  have to be evacuated to nearby Canada during this trip ~ 

then we could fly back into the states if needed. 

 The passport card is limited to land or sea transportation back into the States. 

We didn't want to limit our options if the need were to arrive.  

Cathy and Missy asked where we are going.

We're cruising to Alaska later this summer.

Yeah!  We're so excited. 

We'll be on the Golden Princess, with stops 

in Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, Ketchican,

and Victoria BC. 

Cathy also asked about a stop in Canada.

Yes we have a stop in Victoria, British Columbia.

All cruise ships that are registered

 to foreign countries

 have to make a foreign port call

 when making a closed loop trip,

such as from Seattle to Seattle.

Our ship does leave Seattle and 

returns there.

It has to do with the Passenger Service Act of 1886

and yeah, I have another site for you to click on

if you have more questions about that.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920

Cruising to Alaska has been on our 

wish list for quite awhile. 

But, it never really seemed like a possibility.

Here's how it started for us.

New Years Eve,

I was working at Brown Bag 

when friends,

who are going on this cruise,

were talking about it.

One thing lead to another and they said

"You should go."

So I text'd Rick at work

asking if he'd like to go on a cruise

with them.

His text back said

"Go for it."

And that was that.

  We were booked on January 6th.

The next step was to get our passports 

and we received those in just the two weeks.

Like I previously said (I think),  

receiving the passports made the trip real to us.

If you are thinking about cruising,

(like Cathy said she was), 

then I think you should know

 that you can book the cruise far in advance, 

and make payments on it. 

 The due date for the final payment

is actually a couple months before the cruise date. 

 The 2015 cruise dates are just

now being released leaving 

a whole year to save for the cruise. 

I didn't know this beforehand, so it may 

be news to you as well. 

What's nice is that by the time you go

the major expenses have already been paid.

Speaking of expenses:

Why is it, when you have something big

to save for ... other stuff happens?

Like a root canal and crown for Rick.

Ouch, and yikes.

But what really is messed up 

is what I just did two days ago.

Recognize my range cook top?

That's the salt shaker pattern melted into the glass.

Oh crud.

What you can't see are the cracks radiating outward

from the damaged area.

I turned on the burner, expecting it to be 

the correct burner under a pot of water for ice tea.

I set the timer for 15 minutes because that's how

long it takes to boil water.

15 minutes later... Oh man.

The larger burner with the salt and pepper 

shaker on top was red hot.

I don't normally use that burner at all....

 Rick ordered the new cooktop replacement part

last night.  It should be here sometime tomorrow.

Meanwhile half the cooktop still works

and I removed the On/Off knobs from the broken

side. No more accidents there.

Lesson learned I hope.

But doesn't stuff like this happen in threes?

P.S.  Burned pepper really stinks.

Katelyn is Three

Granddaughter Katelyn just had a birthday.

Her birthday wish?

She just wanted birthday candles.

Her wish was granted,

with cute My Little Pony candles.

               Katelyn's birthday song was

sung to  the tune of the traditional

Happy Birthday song,

but with these lyrics.

What day is today?

It's Katelyn's birthday.

What a day for a birthday.

Now let's eat some cake.

~~~

Our daughter used a recipe from

America's Test Kitchen 

for this delicious cake.

You can view  America's

Test Kitchen recipes free for a

two week trial, but afterwards

you will need to subscribe.

I didn't want to do that

for this post, so...

After just a little  bit more searching,

I found that you can get the recipe

on a blog called A Feast for the Eyes.

Here's a link:

http://foodiewife-kitchen.blogspot.com/2010/04/beautiful-creamy-strawberry-cream-cake.html

This recipe is oh so perfect for spring.

Enjoy!

~

Catching Up

 I certainly didn't mean to let so 

much time go since my last blog post.

It's just one of those things...

OK.

So let's play a little bit of catch up.

We were told that our passports

would take between six and eight weeks

to be mailed to us.

Nope,

they were here just two weeks later.

  Opening the priority envelopes

made our summer plans seem more of 

a reality rather than just a dream, 

or wishful thinking.

 Spring arrived bypassing much of 

the winter we should have had.

We've had some rain,

as evidenced by this mud spattered daffodil.

These actually started blooming in late January.

Most of my daffodils are finished already. 

The ones that are planted in a cooler/shadier location have yet to bloom.

We've just had a week of wet weather,

with quite a bit of rain.

Not near enough to bust the drought conditions,

but every drop counts.

The lake rose 11 feet this past week.

It's still 120 feet below the crest.

We took our boat off the lake

a month ago.  We hadn't been using it

enough to justify the expense of keeping it

at the marina. We may wait a long while,

 before using the marina again.

It depends on  the lake level.  The 

walk down to the marina is getting tough

with the steep grade and knee problems. 

Of course we can still launch the boat

each time we want to go out.

Launching  the boat is not one of

my favorite things to do, but not using

the boat while it sits at the marina isn't

good either.

Right now though,

 this chore is taking up Rick's weekend time.

It's that time of the year  

for clearing brush and burning

 fallen tree debris.  

Our plum trees bloomed, 

drawing bees and butterflies,  

and even ants.

  

These delicate flowers 

of a double bridal wreath spirea are just a little more than a quarter inch wide.

The rest of the photos are from this morning.

The nectarine buds are showing pink color 

and ready to bloom. 

It's still six weeks before our last

average frost date.  If we do get

a frost we'll probably loose the plum

and nectarine harvest this year.

It's happened before.

Right now we are under a 25% volunteer 

water restriction. 

 We'll see what happens this summer.   

I'll have to decide if and what to plant

  this summer in my little garden.

Meanwhile the little Alpine strawberries 

are already blooming and setting fruit.

The moss is bright green on the rocks

on the hillside above our house.

After a few days of dry weather,

these will  be a dull gray/green again.

  

That's it for now.

Take care.

If a tree falls in the woods....

it's more work for Rick to do.