Wine Among the Vines

It was an evening of good wine, beautiful weather, lovely plants and flowers, art, a silent auction and some great finger foods. We also listened to live violinists. We had a great time at  Sunnycrest Nursery last week during the Wine Among the Vines fundraiser for Mary Bridge Children's Hospital.

Our table.

A great escape

I am moody. Sometimes I'm in the mood to read books, and sometimes in the mood to not read and just be entertained by television or something other than books. I love reading, and I read something every day, but sometimes books are just too demanding. I have time to read a newspaper, but when my life is so busy, to commit to a book takes some doing. I always have a pile of books by the bed, though, and there have been times when I've had three books going. I love escaping into a book for a while. It feels like I've traveled to some distant land, or even back in time. Books are a great escape for me.

Right now I'm in a reading mood, which means I'll probably blaze through a bunch of books within a few months.

I just updated my list on this blog because I finished "State of Wonder" quite some time ago. It was a great book, BTW. It had me thinking for at least a week after I finished it, and that is the sign of a good book for me. In fact, I thought of it yesterday.

In the book there is a group of women in the Amazon who continue to have children into later years, and a scientist is there studying this, and some other things. I thought of it out of the blue yesterday because I realized how difficult it would be for us to have children into our 60s and 70s and beyond. Our bones can become brittle. Carrying a baby would be such a strain on our bodies, not to mention a delivery. (It was a great book.)

Before I had even finished that book I was aware that I would want to be reading another one right away. I love the library, but I am terrible at getting books read before they are due. Plus I just always forget when they're due and I'm not good at keeping that little slip of paper that tells me when they're due. I've never in all these years come up with a good system for keeping track of library books.

So instead I went to the thrift store. I knew those books would be older ones, but like I said, I get in moods and out of moods. There are a million books out there that were popular within the past few years that I never got to read because I didn't have time, number one, and secondly, I wasn't in the mood.

I got a bag full of books for about $6. Yes. $6. Amazing. I'm reading a little paperback book right now called "To the Wedding," by John Berger. The writing style is totally different from any other books I've read. I usually read it late at night, and maybe that is why it has been a little confusing to me. It feels like it jumps from one voice to another and I have to take a moment to figure out who is speaking.

I've read so many good books. There are a few that I want to re-read they were so good.
Some of my favorites that come to mind, and these are just a few:

The Dao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
The Devil in the White City--soooo good. by Erik Larson
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler Ross
There are so many more. What are your favorite books? Do you have a reading list this summer?

Dinner and a Movie

A crab spider waits for a tasty treat on a hydrangea plant.

July was full of activity. We had so many things going on with the business, and we spent a couple of weekends getting ready for the upcoming family reunion.
It's so rare that Chuck and I ever get to have a little bit of alone time to just engage in a relaxing conversation.
Some days I handle it OK, and other days I just don't have any patience with interruptions when I'm trying to talk to him. Phone calls, kids, other people; it just gets frustrating when we're in the middle of a conversation.
On Saturday we had an opportunity to spend some time together. Both kids were with their other parents, and Chuck was off. He suggested a community social event and I declined.
We've spent lots of time at social, community functions. I like them, but I need time with him that is focused on us. When we attend events we end up talking to everyone else but each other. So we're together, but not really. We're just at the same event.
When that happens I feel so cheated. Sometimes there are a lot of things we need to talk about, and we end up with no time. Then when we do have a little bit of time after work,  I feel rushed to try to get as much conversation in as possible before we have to do the bedtime routine.
He was so understanding when I explained that I would rather not spend our time with a bunch of other people. We originally intended to attend the event for a short put-in-an-appearance time and he suggested we leave there and go out to dinner and a movie. Time got away from us and we skipped the social event altogether.
I wore a dress, and he work slacks and a nice button down, just like we were on an actual date, and we went for Maxwell's Speakeasy and Lounge dinner-and-a-movie deal in Tacoma.
Maxwell's Speakeasy and Lounge partners with The Grand and has a special dinner menu for two, with two movie ticket vouchers for $60. We had wine and grown up conversation, a really good meal,  and then we went to see "Your Sister's Sister" at The Grand.
It was a good movie about relationships. When I asked Chuck what he thought of it, he said the message he got from it was to enjoy life. He asked me what I thought and I said I agreed with him, and I it also seemed to be about forgiveness. We had a pretty good conversation about it on the way home.
It was a lovely evening.

Delicious dishes with berries

A few months ago we commissioned a local potter, Gary Andersen of Lakebay Pottery, to make us a set of dishes. The plates have our huckleberry design and are partly dipped in blue and green. The coordinating bowls are done in a design he calls Fusion. I chose the small mixing bowls as our cereal bowls because they seemed unique. I love them.
We ordered dinner plates, then added a couple of serving bowls and a platter, and I just recently picked up a set of little sauce/salsa bowls from him that I ordered. I took him an example of the size and shape and he made them. We love all of it. The dishes are all so pretty.

Raspberries are ripe and abundant. Sean likes them
on his Cheerios.

Garden wedding

Last weekend our friends Sheila and Randy were married in a beautiful backyard wedding. Another friend of ours, Jeff, officiated. It was the perfect day for an outdoor wedding. Everything was absolutely gorgeous and perfect. We started out by parking at a horse stable and waiting for the shuttle van to take our group to the house. They served mimosas while we waited. Our van driver pointed out the estate owned by the professor from Gilligan's Island. All of us old people were amused.

When we arrived we signed a mat inside a frame that 
held a photo of the couple in the middle. 

Sean took most of the pictures, and we didn't get a good one of the beautiful flower arch they stood under as they were married. The view was incredible as well. Water and mountains.

Here's Sheila making her way to the various tables at the reception.
She was so beautiful. They both looked so happy.

The theme for the reception was travel. Sheila and Randy have been all over the world, and each table was decorated with photos of their travels and items from that country.

Our centerpiece showed pictures of Italy.

There were a few other kids there and Sean made friends with them right away.

We were quite surprised that the boys were dressed
so much alike. It looks like two moms got together
and planned the outfits.

Loved the idea of a cupcake wedding cake. The top was theirs and had a replica of the Eifel Tower as the topper. The cupcakes were so delicious! I had strawberry, Chuck got orange, and some of our friends had chocolate.

It's hard to see the details in this photo, but the cupcake cake was
really pretty. They were so pretty it was hard to choose just one.

It was a beautiful wedding and reception. 

Campin' and crabin'

This sun star was caught in our crab net.
We enjoyed it for a while and then sent
it home.

The kids have been wanting to go camping for a long time, so last week Chuck suggested that we just go to a local campground for one night. July has been so busy, and there is no end in sight. There's just no way we have time to take off for a few days and go anywhere right now.
So after a full day of both of us working and running errands, I ran off to the chiropractor appointment and he slung some stuff in the back of each car. As soon as I was back we took off. It was a rush job. He found we still needed some chocolate bars for S'mores, so he went to the store while we went to scout for a good camping spot. Later we realized we were short one sleeping bag, which created quite the sleeping experience for us. But that's another story for another day. Let's just say my toes were so cold they were almost numb most of the night.

He remembered almost everything, which is amazing since he packed it all within about 30 minutes.

We found some sweet spots and started to set up camp. Kids' tent and parents' tent.

They've become experts in setting up that tent.
For weeks they had it set up in the gazebo. 

Ours was new, but not difficult to figure out. 

Once we got our tents staked down we headed off to the beach.

He brought the crab pot along.

I know this looks gross, but we did catch some crabs.

This one escaped from the net and knew the way home.

Lilly and Sean had so much fun examining each crab.

Once they were out of the water for a while the crabs weren't
as feisty. We let a lot of them go back home. 

We caught some things we didn't intend, including
a few eels. They also were turned loose.

This sea star eluded capture. We didn't really want to keep
him, but he was so huge and was on our net a few
times. He would flop off just as we raised the net out
of the water. We were hoping to at least touch him.

This pic is a little out of focus, I believe.
Chuck remembered the cooking pot, and he did
the cooking. I've never done it, and I don't
like the idea of putting a live creature in
boiling water. 

yep.

Operation Overboard

For the third year in a row Sean and his friend Kyle attended Vacation Bible School. Our church hosted a wonderful VBS. This year's theme was about diving deep into a relationship with God. The many volunteers who helped transform the church into an under-the-sea experience for the kids did such a great job! It was completely full, and it was so nice to see a church filled with children.

There were so many cute ways they decorated. The fish and sea turtles
greeted us as we entered the church.

I don't know how they got all of the kayaks up there.

Kyle at the helm.

Pastor Jim in his scuba gear.