A Grand Day For 'Little Bit'!

Today, the Little Bit stables at their new location were officially opened! A day we have all been waiting for for years. The now two year waiting list will hopefully be reduced very soon for this extremely worthy cause...

Yes, that is me where that arrow is pointing...  <wink>

One of my regular riders was asked to help out with the ribbon cutting ceremony (at which the mayor of our town was present) and so of course 'her' team had to present to help her carry the scissors! 

The Queen and her entourage!

It was absolutely bucketing with rain while we were waiting outside the arena before we were allowed in, but we were all so excited, we hardly noticed. May I present to you our fjord horse Gigi:

And some of the other horses around and the beautiful new facilities of course:

All pictures were taken by my lovely Miss M.!

And as you can see from the pictures above, the sun came out after all so it was just a great day!  {big smile}

PS Plus I ran into a fellow blogger, Vicki at Simply Hue Designs, which was so much fun. We had never met before in person, only in blog- and Facebook- land. Who knew this blogging lark could turn out so great...  <wink>

Alive...

The Hills The Trees are alive with the sound of music!

We woke up in very thick fog this morning, but now that the sun has broken through it is just plain gorgeous. Our ornamental pear trees in the front yard are absolutely buzzing with happiness and bees, so many bees!

And the smells, oh the smells...

A Spectacular Easter Day...

Yes, it was wonderful. Just look at these views!

We had a delicious lunch with my aunt and uncle on their deck, enjoyed spectacular views both on the way there and on the way back and afterwards the kids and I spent two hours in the freshly cleaned hot tub: it felt like the summer holidays already! {smile}

Mr. G. has just left San Francisco airport and is on his way to Beijing, China on an exchange trip with students from school. They will be away for 12 days or so. Very much looking forward to his return and his stories of course...

Today will be the last day of the sunny weather, so outside I go for some more enjoyment of all that sunshine! I'm reading "The Discovery of Heaven" by Dutch writer Harry Mulish in English...

Off To Auntie's House We Go...

And we're bringing dessert!  {smile}

So Sorry...

My apologies to those of you who are still struggling with wintry woes, but our weather here is just too beautiful not to share...

Bloom!

Even though we do not celebrate Easter, I could not resist making a small reference to it... (see left)

In The States they don't observe Good Friday (i.e. you do not get a day off of work), nor is there a long weekend or something like that. Some people do have their Spring Break around this time, ours is not until a week for now.

We have been invited to a lovely Easter Brunch however this Sunday at my Dutch aunt and uncle's home, not too far from here. Apparently we will be meeting a second or third removed cousin from my grandmother's side! Too complicated to explain, I'm not sure I even get it myself... Should be fun and interesting to hear her story!

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So yesterday pretty much our whole day was very overcast, but then right at the end of the day the sun came out and the light was just perfect. There were some thunderstorms in the far distance, that's why the sky in the background was such a dark grey: beautiful! (all these pictures are straight out of the camera, so no editing involved)

I snapped lots of pics and here are the prettiest ones. Enjoy and I hope you will have a wonderful weekend with hopefully some Signs of Spring here and there...

Just Visiting...

This little guy is just so so sweet! It is still a baby...

And so fast too!  <wink> He flies up and down the bird feeder pole, up and down the rain gutters and up and down the tree. All that in the blink of an eye!

Two different effects, just for fun...
(click! on photo to enlarge)

Behind Closed Eyes, Part Deux...

Another beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest...

Behind Closed Eyes...

This is sort of what it looked like behind my closed eyes today...

Sixty Five Degrees Fahrenheit = Eighteen Degrees Celsius: mmmmmmm!

For all of you still suffering in the cold, I hope this will give you some hope and some warmth...

Miracles Do Happen...

Remember my snowy pictures from two days ago? Yes? Now look at this:

Click! to enlarge...

The past two days have been just incredible with lots of sun and even some warmth. (sunscreen was used!) We spent hours outside, weeding, raking leaves, power washing the patio and just some plain old enjoyment of the sun in one of our deck chairs with a book: Glorious!  {smile}

Clean cut grass edges make me very happy!

Beautiful Raspberry color!

Tonight Miss M. is cooking dinner for us and our neighbors for a school project. I think she is supposed to do all the cleaning up also... no complaints from this side! She has made pasta from scratch (!) plus a cream sauce with peas and crispy bacon. A filled salad on the side and fresh fruit and ice-cream for afters: Yummie!

And look, the Flickers are also enjoying the sunshine!

Always so cute these little guys...

Mail Call!

Look what came in the mail just now:

An absolutely lovely present from my dearest sister at Pike Street: dank je wel lieve zus!!!  {smile}