Celebrating July

 

On Friday Safeway had these little bouquets of roses for $5. I bought one. Of course I cut them down from their typical long stems and added some Lady's Mantle froth. They adorn my kitchen table reminding me that I am celebrating myself this week. 

I got this little Joseph July Birthstone figurine as  a gift from my sister years ago. It comes out every July, this year with an old  planter holding phlox from the garden. My sister Laurie has a birthday three days after mine. She's turning 80, and will be off on an adventure. We have a lunch date set for later in the month. 

On Friday morning at breakfast we celebrated Dede's 99th birthday. The restaurant staff decorated our table and gave her a choice of birthday pie. She chose strawberry rhubarb. We brought chocolate and cards and I gave here a little nosegay of lavender from our garden. She loves flowers.  When it was time for lighting the candles, we all sang Happy Birthday. The large family group at the table next to us joined in. Dede was amazed and overwhelmed and loved all of it. 

Bringing JOY to others makes everyone happy. 

On Friday afternoon we watched a World cup quarter final, Spain vs Belgium. Spain moves on the the semifinal against France on Tuesday.

On Saturday Tom went with me for a walk in the park and then we watched the match between Norway and England. Of course, being the Norselanders that we are by heritage, we were rooting for Norway. Everybody loves their star striker, Erling Haaland, and the Viking Row the supporters do with the team, but, alas, they lost to England. England plays Argentina on Wednesday. 

We spent some time in our garden. Tom mowed and I puttered.

On Sunday we went on an outing to the Bellevue Botanical Garden. We spent about two hours enjoying the July garden. Lots of families were out enjoying it too. I took lots of photos which I'll share in a day or two.

Now it's late Monday afternoon. It's a lovely summer day again, but we are inside recovering from all of the house work. The laundry is done and put away, all the floors are mopped or vacuumed. The bathrooms are cleaned and a bit of dusting was done. I will soon have to tend to dinner prep, but not before I work Wordle and Connections.

See you down the road. 

Moving On

 It was a "perilous fight" here in Seattle on Monday. This is a scarf I got when we attended a World Cup qualifying match in Seattle probably 12 years ago. I figured it would be appropriate for our match against Belgium. It was. 

With the 4th of July holiday over, the last of the World Cup games to be held in Seattle played, plus the USA team now out of the tournament, we feel like something is missing. I guess Summer will be returning to normal, whatever that is.

We do have more World Cup matches to watch and we will be. We have some birthdays coming up this month, including mine. Tomorrow at breakfast we will celebrate our friend Dede's 99th birthday, which she will celebrate with family on her actual birthday, Sunday. 

We have been doing some work in the garden. Tom does bigger, harder jobs while I do puttering ones. 

I enjoy going around with my bucket and my little snippy scissors and snipping and clipping and seeing what's blooming. Early July brings day lilies and hydrangeas.

Today I made a little applesauce from the few Transparent apples I picked from our Espaliered tree. We don't get much of an apple crop now with lack of sun and not enough bees in early spring. That's ok. Gardens change. 

Now it's time for lunch accompanied by a World Cup match. Then this afternoon maybe some reading on the patio under the sun umbrella. It's another beautiful summer day.

It Was Another Grand Old Fourth!

 Things don't change much for us these days. You could say that for our celebrations too, but that doesn't diminish them. We attended a morning parade party and small town parade. We came home and caught up with social media and the news and the World Cup action. We drove to SIL Jan's house on Henderson Bay for time with family, lots of eating, and fireworks. The fun is in the details. 

I didn't get a photo of the Parade Party, but Jill, Irene, and summer granddaughter Allie joined us along with a lot of other friends and family of the hosts Becky and Jim. We ate well and visited and then moved to the curbside to watch the parade. Yes, it was mostly cars, old cars and new cars and fancy cars and trucks loaded with kids. The kids along the street scrambled for the candy being tossed. It was all fun.

I like red cars, and a few yellow and green and blue cars too. 

Celebrating soccer

Boat floats

Balloons and red, white, and blue everywhere. 

I had lots of fun talking to people in the cars, entertaining Irene with my Grandma carryings on, and watching kids scramble for candy. 

The drive to Jan's later showed off America the Beautiful.

The usual suspects: front row, Jan, Allie from Nebraska, Tom, Linda; Back row, Irene Seila, Isaac, Jill. 

There was lots of food. Jill assembled fresh fruits and vegies and cheeses and crackers and chips and I don't remember what all. 

Then later there was dinner: grilled hotdogs and burgers and mac salad and corn salsa salad and more. 

Eventually we had to take time out from eating to watch and do fireworks. Jill had her stash, and Jan's neighbors around the bay went all out this year.

I made it down to the waterfront to do sparklers with the kids. I like having kid fun. 

I stayed down by the water with the kids. Jill's fireworks were fun and were backlit by the enormous displays all around the bay. 

Then we ate some more. Here is Irene's American pie. 

It was just after midnight when we got home but we had to delay going to bed for digestion time, and the booming that was still going on in the neighborhood. It was another bang-up 4th of July. 

Today we got up late, went for a walk in the park, caught up with news and social media, and have watched the Norway vs Brazil World cup match.  Yay Norway!!! 

 

There will be a light supper, with some left over mac salad while we watch the next soccer match. England vs Mexico should be another good one!

We are fully into summer mode here. 

Celebrating America

 It's America's birthday. We celebrate birthdays.

In small towns and big cities and everywhere in between there will be parades and picnics and flag waving and fireworks bursting in the night sky. There will be joy!

No matter what your politics, we all have reasons to celebrate. My opposition to our current administration won't let negativity spoil my celebrating. 

We have been watching a lot of World Cup action. Wednesday we geared up to cheer on the USA team.

The USA won and moves on to the round of 16. That match was in Los Angeles. On that same day Seattle hosted a match between Senegal and Belgium. The city was crazy with soccer fans from many nations. Next Monday the USA team will meet Belgium in Seattle.  That may even be more crazy.

Today we watched an amazing match between world champs Argentina and the little African island nation of Cape Verde. Cape Verde took the match into overtime and held on almost to the end, finally losing 3-2. While Argentina won, the world was celebrating the heroics of Cape Verde. The world comes together through the international sport of soccer/futbol. 

As a nation, so can we. No matter what divides us, and there are good reasons, we can come together over what unites us. 

This afternoon  I made my celebration food, brownies and macaron salad for our family gathering tomorrow evening.  Jill makes the pie now. I bought some cookies for the Parade Party hosted by friends tomorrow morning.

 

After dinner I picked some flowers to refresh my kitchen bouquet, trading pink for red for red, white and blue. 

I'm ready to celebrate America! 

USA!

Gig Harbor Garden Tour, Part 3

 Garden #5 is a walk in the woods. Rebekah and Zach Blue have planted their woodland garden with more that 100 Japanese maples, which must be glorious in the fall. In spring banks of rhododendrons bloom. In early summer it is just a serene place to stroll. 

The music sounded like lovely wind chimes.

Water music added to the ambiance. 

Garden #6 is a 5 acre naturally forested space surrounding a stately home, gardened by Dan Shoap and Jeff Stelmach.

Follow me up the drive and around to the back of the house.

A colorful border and seating areas along the back deer fence.

A rose bush provides an arbor for alstroemeria and clematis. 

There is a water feature near the house and deck. 

I can think of so many more photos I could have/should have taken. It was all wonderful.