Happy First Day of Spring!

Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"

Wouldn't a pair of these be SO fun to wear on a rainy day? Don't you think so?

What did you do to celebrate spring?

I got another cold... so I'm home with my art book, laptop, and caramel latte.

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain

Having way too much fun.....

this summer, and blogging isn't on my list of must-do's. Sorry my faithful readers, but hang in there, and stay tuned this fall, when I'll feel more like blogging, and less like doing something summery! (i.e. tennis, volleyball, badminton, gardening, church picnics, canning oodles of green beans and pickles, violin shopping, and scheduling lessons for my 13 violin students!)

I'm heading for vacation with my family next week to the Oregon Coast for 5 days on the sandy beach! For those of you blessed to leave near sandy beach, understand that for us this is a treat! We only have rocky beaches around here, no soft, poofy sand... Here's a picture of the Lincoln City shoreline. Isn't it dramatic??

We'll be staying in Lincoln City in a condo that is literally right on the beach. I'm ready for a vacation, and then I hope I'll be ready to start teaching and start school stuff again!

So my dear readers, what have been/will be some highlight(s) of your summer? Memorable, sad, sweet or hilarious, I'd love to know!

Au revoir!

So, why haven't I been posting? (less then usual that is.)

Simple question deserve simple answers... I've been busy!

The things that stand out are one, VOLLEYBALL! Lots n' lots of it! My siblings and I have eagerly awaited the phone call from Will each evening, to say when/where we're playing.

We play anywhere from 3-5 hours, (we've only played for 5 hours once, we were having waaay too much fun to stop) usually at Bender Fields.

We love playing, laughing, teasing, scoring, missing, falling, jumping, and everything else that goes with the game, and heck, it's easier than tennis...
The second thing: Practicing, rehearsing, practicing, rehearsing. Last night, (the 28th) Ali and I had our graduating recital, (or whatever you want to call it) We're moving from our current instructor, Mrs D. Who has taught me for 8 years, and Ali for 6, to move on to a new teacher, Mrs. P., who teaches in Bellingham. So Ali and I gave a concert to honor Mrs. Davis, and thank her for all the years she's taught us. It's hard, really hard, to give a recital with only two performers. It take tons of practicing, rehearsing, and planning. But, last night was the big night.

And you know what? The work paid off. The music went really well, the audience seemed to enjoy it, Mrs. Davis was happy, and hopefully, and most importantly, the Lord was glorified.

These gorgeous flowers are from our neighbor who attended with her two grandsons, are they just so sunshiny and summer-y? :)

I'm glad it's over, but it was really fun, and I'm glad we did it. It was great experience too.

Thanks to everyone who came, it was great to see our friend out there, and it kept me from being nervous.

I'm going to try and post more next week, I don't want ya'll to get tired of checking! ;)

Blessings,

Emily

Summer Vacation

Some close friends of ours invited us to join them for a week of vacation in Canada at Paradise Lake this summer. And so this entire last week we were up there with them, and we had such a wonderful time!

We stayed in beautiful log cabins right on the water front, and had so much fun swimming, fishing, and boating on the lake, that my parents decided that we are going to go back on our own next year for a week or two. So anyway here are some pictures for you to see.

WARNING: If any of you tend to go into cardiac arrest at the mere sight of "a big bug," then you might want to skip this post......

I could've taken pictures of the lake all day, it was so beautiful.

The floating dock was lots of fun, dad had us swim out the with life jackets the first time to see how we did, since we haven't been able to swim for so long, and then we were allowed to swim without them when we passed his test.Lots of cute little tadpoles

You had fair warning! These things are pretty common up there, and this particular one measured about 4 1/2 inches! I thought they were pretty cool, but needless to say, my poor mother did not! (she didn't know untill we got home that we had found one IN the cabin! :)

These sweet little chipmunks were all over the place, one even found its way into our cabin!

Lots of fishing was done by this handsome fisherman...

Summer!

My computer is being a pain, and won't let me move most of the pictures! So they're stuck at the top. But I'll label them, and then you can read about them. :P



Red Barn Lavender Farm

The smell of all this lavender was heavenly!

The farm had their own bee hives, and they sold their own lavender honey.

My gardens.

Blueberries for the freezer.

I hope you have all been having a GREAT summer, I know I have! I was reading a friends blog where they had a link to my blog, and it said the last time I had posted was 4 weeks ago!! So I thought I had better do good long post. :)

These last few weeks have been filled with gardening, canning, and flowers! All things that I love.

Thanks to Craigslist, I have found some very inexpensive ways to put up preserves for this winter.
we found a U-pick, organic blueberry "farm" out on the Hannegan road, where you pick what you want, and then pay what you think it's worth!

It's by donation, and they provide buckets for you to pick into, and plastic bags to take them home in! So we picked for 45 minutes, and brought home 3 gallons of berries! The bushes are just loaded.

Then I put an ad on Craigslist for sour canning cherries, and a lady off the BirchBay Lynden rd. said she had a tree that had tons on it, and that I was welcome to have as many as I wanted!

So dad and I went out and picked nine quarts of pie cherries!

(dad said he thought it was worth picking when he thought of the pies he would get out of it later!:)

It took me 2 1/2 hours just to PIT all those cherries! But like dad says, it will be worth it!

Some friends brought us a huge flat of great, big raspberries, so I made jam with those. (Ali's favorite:) And the Green Barn had apricots on sale, so I was able to make apricot jam too! Yummy!

But I think the highlight of all this, was the Red Barn Lavender Farm.

http://www.redbarnlavender.com/

It is located in Ferndale, on the Thorton rd, and I would recommend visiting this place to anyone! It is so beautiful out there, and the rows, and rows, and ROWS of lavender are absolutely spectacular! Mom and Ali and I went, and we were so impressed by the lovely gardens, and the sweet, friendly people there. They even have a place with picnic tables set up so you can bring a picnic lunch!

And for $5 bucks, you can bring home a giant bunch of lavender to dry, and then decorate with, or make sashets with!

Sweet peas are climbing all over my fence, I think they might be my favorite flower, but it's so had to pick!

So these are just a few of the things that have been keeping me busy, and keeping me from blogging! But I promise I'll blog more this fall, in between batches of cherry pies and blueberry scones! :)

Summer Blessings,

~Emily