Peony Parade...

It is so dark outside this morning that I've had to turn on the lights again! A good thing I have so many Peonies from the yard to add some color and cheer around the house...

I other news, some sad tidings from within the Howard & Penny household. This morning I found a baby bird at the bottom of the cage, no longer with us I'm afraid. Miss M. and I think that this birdie probably came from the last egg to hatch and that the bigger siblings didn't want it in there. Who knows... It was interesting to see what a newborn bird actually looks like, but a bit sad at the same time as well of course. So far we think we have three confirmed baby birds in the nest, but it is incredibly difficult to tell.

We've had our share of dead young birds over the last couple of days. Both Mr. G. and myself each found a dead baby bird (so no feathers yet) in the yard and then yesterday there was a little bit older Evening Grosbeak hopping around (not in a very lively way) in our neighborhood. The neighbors' kids across the road looked after him but he died 24 hours later. He was probably attacked by a cat and had injuries that were just too much to heal up. I guess that is Mother Nature for you...

Well, with all this rain going on outside it will be nice and cozy in my sewing area today. See ya later!

Value Village 'V'inds...

(I meant 'finds' of course but I liked the triple V's in there...)  <wink>

So last Monday was Memorial Day here which meant 50% off of all clothes, shoes and accessories (I don't think that is the right spelling but don't want to look it up right now) at Value Village, one of our second hand stores.

The morning started  great already with the link to a concert of "The Specials", live at Pinkpop (Dutch rock festival) that was sent to me early that morning by a friend of mine. I immediately was in the mood for my two-toned Dr. Martins and a rockin' hairdo:

Mr. G. and visited two stores, one in Ballard (in Seattle) and my other regular one closer by. Look at all the bounty:

Some of the Amsterdam Canals are depicted on these egg cups. How cool is that?

A vintage sheet for some sewing and a vintage bedspread that fit exactly on our guest bed!

It is fabric, not a painting...

I bought some clothes as well but not too many and no pictures. (yet)

After all that hunting we were rather peckish and so we stopped at a fabulous Taco Truck called 'El Camion'.

Look, the Space Needle has been painted the original gold color to commemorate its 50th year of existence.
It looks more orange to me...  <wink>

What a fun day out together!  {smile}

Sunny Saturday...

The in-laws' house in Tacoma...

This past Saturday indeed turned out to be 'A Beautiful Day'. First we left around 10:30 in the morning to go and visit Mr. G's parents. We hadn't been there in way too long so it was fun to catch up again. They prepared us a lovely lunch and we strolled around in their garden. They have the most spectacular views of Commencement Bay and Tacoma and I can never get enough of it all. There was hardly any wind, it was warm and there were lots of little sounds of birds and bees etc. Just glorious! {smile}

View Southeast toward the Cascades...

Look, Sea lions on the logs! They were very loud, honking away...

Unfortunately we could only stay for an hour and a half because the State Finals in Soccer started at 2pm in Sumner, about a 30 minutes drive. The stands were in the shade which was a shame but we got hot soon enough because I think this was the most exciting game of soccer I have ever witnessed!!!

So many chances for our team (read 'heart stopping moments'!) but no score. Even after over-time nobody had scored so then we had to go to shoot-outs. Good lord, I could barely watch. (through the fingers though...) Anyway: We Won!!!!!

Very, very exciting indeed. The last time our school won the Soccer State Finals was in 1996 so you can only imagine everybody's excitement! {big smile}

Our car was parked in a side street and oh my, it was my 'street of dreams'! Just look at all these wonderfully cute houses. I could move in today!

After the game we had to sit in the car again for at least an hour, and I took these pictures just before we got home. (all the following pictures are straight out of camera, so no editing involved)

The Cascade Mountains

Love seeing the difference between the cut grass and the 'wild side'...

After we came home we poured ourselves a beer and enjoyed the last of the sun-rays with intensity because we knew that there wouldn't be much sun coming the rest of the week. So true because it has been super cloudy and overcast since then. The garden is thriving on this type of weather though. So so pretty everything... (again unedited photos, straight out of the camera)

PS We now have at least two babies in the nest and maybe even three. (it is very dark in there and they are so teeny tiny) I observed Penny feeding at least two mouths: so cute!  {smile}

"Bird, Bird, Bird... "

"... the Bird is the word!" (lyrics by The Cramps)

Yes, we have a little baby bird in the nest: how exciting!!!!

These little guys are not our own Howard & Penny but they sure look like them!  <wink>
(photo borrowed from the net)

The Start Of A Beautiful Day...

This is what it looks like through my office window (when I'm checking all your blogs!) at 6:30 in the morning:

"It's A Beautiful Day!"  (hear U2 in the background)

Treasure Found While Weeding...

Look what I found in the yard yesterday. Isn't it a beautiful color? Miss M. says it is a Robin's egg...

Talking about eggs: Penny & Howard have been sitting on the five eggs diligently for two weeks now so I'm expecting something to happen real soon. That is of course if the eggs are fertilized. We shall see...

And look at some of these other pretty 'finds' in the back yard yesterday...

Lots of color everywhere!

Plums!

Bee in the Tomato flowers

Hopefully we will have more of these skies today...

Leak pod...

The temperatures are close to average again so I am expecting the Peonies to bloom any day now. They got so heavy with all the rain we had earlier this week, I was afraid they would break, but so far so good...

This morning I will be off to Joann Fabrics. Always an 'expedition' of sorts. I make an extensive list at home of things to look at and special coupons etc. It takes me 45 minutes to get there so I have to make it worth my while. After that I have only one lesson at Little Bit and then we are ready for a long weekend since they are celebrating Memorial Day here in The States.

Miss M. has been invited to spend the weekend at Mount Hood, just east of Portland, Oregon (lucky duck!) and the rest of the family has no real plans yet. If our boys' varsity soccer team wins their semi-final today then they will be in the State Finals tomorrow so then we will be going there. (it is in Sumner for those of you in the area)

Hope you all have something fun planned for the weekend? Enjoy!

I will leave you with some birdie pictures I took through the window a couple of days ago...

Baby  Grosbeak (I think...)

No idea what this one is called,
but it looked very cheeky... <wink>

Return Of The Mojo!

See, I told you yesterday this 'lack of mojo' lark wouldn't take long?!  <wink>

After I wrote yesterday's post I kicked myself in the behind and went shopping at Value Village. (= second hand store) Major score! Look at all the fun goodies I found:

Fun paper lanterns to add some festive cheer around! (and yes we could do with some of that with all this cloudiness around...)

We have a wedding to attend next month and I thought these shoes would be perfect, they will go with whatever I will choose to wear. Yes, they look like shoes my Oma could have worn but I felt that added some charm. The most important factor though was how comfortable they are! If you look closely you can see that they have padding inside: Yay!

And then I found these two pillow cases that I just couldn't resist...

And a huge piece of sheer rose fabric. Not sure yet where that will go but that is not important isn't it?  <wink>

And then quite a few never been used sewing patterns, mainly from the Project Runway line for Simplicity: Yay again!  {smile}

Tomorrow there is a big Memorial Day Sale at Joann's (fabric store) where they will be selling patterns for $1 each (!) so I will be adding a few more to my collection this week. (and very probably some new fabric as well, just what I don't need)

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And as you might or might not have noticed, I've changed the layout and background of the blog a teeny tiny bit.  I was inspired by Ouchflower's template and she so kindly sent me the link of where she found it (Dessign). I checked it all out but was a little bit 'afraid' to go for such a drastic change so I decided to design my own and use Blogger's templates. I likey!  {smile}

OK, the sun is peeking out just a little bit so I think I might go out for a stroll in the back yard and see how much the weeds must have grown. With all this rain they grew a foot for sure!