Tulips & Grandparents

My parents came to visit this past weekend and we headed to the Skagit Valley Tulip festival. The town has fields of tulips decked out in stunning stripes of colored tulips backdropped by mountains. It was beautiful! We've gone once before but this time we went to Roozengaarde which has the tulip fields but also gardens full of interesting tulip mixtures, varieties, textures, and arrangements. Those were so fun to wander around in and happen upon. The mixtures and heights and textures of each section were lovely and they had it arranged so you  just wove in and out of them.

 

 Roslyn was mostly gentle with the tulips but she did manage to pick a few when we weren't paying attention. She seemed intrigued by them and liked holding onto them but in the end the walkway of rocks did hold her interest more.

We had a picnic in the grass among the tulips, ate some kettle corn, played ball with another little boy, and had such a darn good time!

We are now Backpackers

 

 

Last weekend after we dropped our friends off at the airport we kept on driving and headed out the mountains to embark upon ... our 1st backpacking trip. No more will we be called "only day hikers" or hear "o you just went car camping" We are now the real deal. Joshua found a great 3.5 mile in hike called Teanaway Ridge.

 

We hiked through tons of beautiful blooming yellow flowers, the sun setting over the mountain pass and set up our little tent right on the edge of the mountain. We were able to make a campfire, eat some dinner and the sky even let all the stars shine that night. It was really beautiful! The next morning we unzipped our tent and laid looking out at the sunrise and headed over to check out Mt. Stuart and the edge of the Enchantments that were covered in the morning light. We boiled up some oatmeal with our home dehydrated apples, packed up, and hiked back out.

Now the sad part is the reason I'm describing in instead showing is because my camera stopped saving photos to its disk and Joshua's phone died, so the beauty of it will die with us (I'm being dramatic) But I do have a few of Joshua's phone photos of us with our sweet gear from the first mile :)

 

 

Flowering Plants

The other day when I went to water my air plants for the first time in awhile I saw that one had turned red and flowered. I was so excited!

They don't apparently do it that often because a lot has to go right but it was so neat! Little purple flowers were shooting up from the center of the red leaves! It was a sweet little discovery. I made sure Joshua saw that I've not only kept them alive for a year and a half but actually had it flower, he was obviously super interested and very proud!

This one's name is Sienna- she's all cute in dressy reds and purples

It's the little things :)

(also although my huckleberry plant didn't produce this year I just looked and a few tiny berries did form, gives me hope for next year!)

A Garden

It was really great to feel like we had a normal person weekend. I love our adventures but in order for Seattle to feel like home the normal has to be there too.
We went to the farmer's market and bought tons of things to plant in our small soil patch, went Mother's Day shopping, had our friend Rachel over and she painted her nails while I gardened and Josh fixed his bike. We spent the afternoon on the porch drinking peach lemonade and listening to music. Then her man came over and we all made pizza and played cards, headed out later for margaritas. Went to chuch on Sunday and then to a cookout with our friends. And had dinner and great conversation with the Aarons's sunday night at a bbq place. Ah it was bliss.

I'm sure my mom will laugh when she sees I'm trying to plant a garden. I don't have a very green thumb but apparently it's not very hard to grow things out here- we'll see.
I planted arugula, chives, walla walla sweet onions (state vegetable),
strawberry plant, cilantro, parsley, basil, thyme,
bok choi (most sceptical about this but I thought why not!?)

I really struggle with thinking that I could never live in Cincinnati again. My family is there and my sisters are my best friends. When I get off the phone with my mom I sometimes cry because I don't want to have to hang up- I want to be there. But our friends showed us so much love this weekend that I have hope for our time out here, no matter how long or short that ends up being. We don't feel alone or without support which has allowed us to feel normal. And it was excellent! Plus our friends told us last night that we fit in well with Seattle- It made us happy :)

Dancing among the Tulips



We went to see the tulip fields with our friends Lich and Suzie this weekend. When they first suggested this versus hiking Joshua and I were skeptical. BUT WOWZAA they were truly amazing! I wouldn't ever take back this trip we took with them for anything. We had such a relaxing afternoon running around in the tulip fields. It was sunny and warm, the mountians were in view all around us! Plus for most of the day the sun was so strong that the tulip fields looked like they were glowing and the petals were on fire. I can't stop saying how amazing it was!

they reflected into the water :)



The red was so brilliant that when you tried to take a picture of us in it the glow of the red affected the way we looked. It was fields of colorblocked magic!
The first fields we went to were yellow, red and pink - but the second fields had purple, striped ones, gradients of pink and a few orange ones creeping into bloom. We walked far away from everyone else and had a picnic in the cracked mud. Ran around spotting the cross-pollinated tulips where a yellow ended up growing among the red and so forth. Broke the rules of running down the rows. Sang way to loud in the car (a woman biking actually asked if we were okay at one point) And shared a truly amazing quality time with great friends.



this is really what they looked like- GLOW




she picked one :)



oddball



I feel like this one looks kinda retro



of course we tried to eat the odd one!

tow-toned

the persistant little orange on. Hubs said it deserved a motivational poster

hehe funny camera angles



Hubs kept stealing the camera and taking photos of me, I didn't want him to feel I don't like them so I put them all on haha



Suzie made a giant veggie sandwich!

We kept looking up at the mountains then distracted by the flowers then the mountains again- fantastic cycle, until you stepped into the mud.
Ah I can't stop looking at these pictures and wanting to be back!

I hope you like starring at them as much as I do :)