Here are some more pictures from our trip West (thru ND, Montana, family time in Seattle, Oregon (Hells Canyon), thru Idaho, into Yellowstone, home through MT, ND, and Minnesota).  Worth every gallon of gas!

Family Tree.  Here we are in the Grove of the Patriarchs, an island of land surrounded by the Ohanapecosh River, allowing these trees to survive, protected from fire.  There are trees over a thousand years old here.  In front of this fine specimen are some of our own Matriarchs and Patriarchs (and these six fine specimens, all siblings, total over 410 years!!!  John, we missed you.  You could have made the total 480 years!  Pretty soon you guys will be older than this tree.)  This is in the Mt. Rainier National Park.

Douglas, fer sure.  Here is Nephew Doug in front of a giant tree.  Doug, is this a Douglas Fir (or a Douglas, fer sure)?  I know some of the trees are.  Doug would know.  He’s our forestry man!

Stumped.  Here I am with DH Jim.  One of these giant trees fell over at some point, and you can climb into the empty stump.  Very awesome.  I look slimmer.  I’m going to only have my picture taken in stumps from now on.  Who knew???  (I think the scientific explanation is, it’s the dump-your-rump-in-a-stump effect.)

I’m posting these vacation pics according to various stops, so check back for more pictures.  And if you’re looking for quilts, check back too! 

Sue

(Additional information on this post:  I was searching the Web to see why this river has such beautiful turquoise water.  I didn’t enhance this photo at all — it truly is this amazing color.  It turns out that there is a glacier on the southeast flank of Mt. Rainier called the Ohanapecosh Glacier.  So this is glacial water, similar to what we’ve seen in Alaska.  This effect is caused by rock flour in the water.)

We had a wonderful time on our West Coast trip.  One of the first outings we had was with extended family.  We went to the Grove of the Patriarchs, a park part of the way up Mt. Rainier.  I would highly recommend it if you get to the Seattle area.  It is truly awe inspiring.  And a BIG thank you to Niece Julie who planned this outing for us and was our leader!  We all had a great time.

We crossed the beautiful Ohanapecosh River on a suspended bridge.  The water had the same sort of color as the glacial water in Alaska — kind of a milky green-blue.  I understand it’s from the snow melting on the mountain.  (Please honor my copyrights on this site.  Thank you.)

~Sue

Yesterday was Mom’s 80th birthday party, and it was a lot of fun.  It’s always amazing to me that when you have an open house, different groups of people come and go in waves, and yet we had a nice, comfortable group at any given time.  We were just going to do cake, nuts, mints, and beverages.  Then I saw the strawberries.  On sale.  $1.50 a quart for big, beautiful, red strawberries.  So we had strawberries.  As I was driving home from the grocery store, I had a vision of strawberries dipped in chocolate.  Perfect for an afternoon (mostly ladies) party.  Yummy!

(I can’t get the photo to come up right now, so the link to my photo album is the best I can do.)

I asked my mom if she ever had a birthday party before this one.  She couldn’t remember that she ever did, being the third of seven children (closely spaced) during the Depression.  She did, however, remember a birthday when she was about four or five.  Her mom (Grandma) made her a birthday cake in a 1# coffee tin.  Grandma allowed my mom to take the knife and cut the cake into five servings: three children and mom and dad.  Mom carefully cut the cake down the middle.  Then she gave one half of the cake to her dad (my Grampa), and divided the other half four ways for the rest of the family.  What a Daddy’s Girl!  I love that story, and I would never have heard it if it wasn’t for this little party.

Road trip coming up, and I’ll be working on my Grandmother’s Flower Garden (see post below).  I’m excited to get a large chunk of time to work on it, so I hope I will be able to post progress soon.

~Sue

It will be our 37th anniversary this week.  This is my favorite photo of all our wedding pictures.  My Uncle Dwight was our photographer, and he really captured the moment in this picture.  Is Jim handsome, or what???  And don’t you love the glasses?  And THEY’RE BACK!  I could probably go and buy the same glasses now.  I made my dress and veil, and my bridesmaids made their dresses also.  We all sewed back then mostly out of necessity; now we’re all sewing for fun!