What I've Been Up To!

Hello ladies!

I sure have missed visiting with you all!  I'm sorry that I was MIA again, but the good news is, that we are finally moved into our new place in Washington State!  Moving day was Wednesday, and since then, I've been busy unpacking, cleaning (the house was filthy!), and putting things away.  I'm exhausted!  And there still is so much to do (sigh!). But, today I took a little break, and took a walk around the yard to see what was in bloom.  It was a beautiful sunny day, so I was very excited about that!  I'm discovering how changeable the weather is here in the Pacific Northewest.

 I was so excited to discover trilliums, here!  It is the state wildflower of Michigan, so it is very near and dear to my heart!

 A few pretty tulips.

 A rock garden with a resident heron.

 I'm not sure what this schrub is, but it has the prettiest red blossoms on (you can see a close up below).

 Lots of beautiful rhododendruns.  This one is the first bush to bloom.

Wonderful smelling grape hyacinth (my favorite spring bulb).

 I love blue flowers, especially these pretty forget-me-nots (sorry for the blurry shot!).

 I think these pretty white flowers are candy tuft.

 I bought a pot of Spanish lavender the other day.  I wish that you could smell it!

 Ok, keeping it real, this is what I have been dealing with!  Boxes, boxes, and more boxes!

And lots and lots of packing paper!  I get tired just looking at these photos!

A beautiful sunset (below) from our window, overlooking the Puget Sound.

  I hope to get caught up a bit on my blog visits this weekend, between unpacking and getting organized!!!!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Shop 'til You Drop!

Hi Ladies, hope you are having a good day!

I was thrilled to discover the neatest shops right down the road from where we are staying!  It is an entire little villiage, composed of an old farmhouse, and various old buildings that were salvaged from the area, including an old still from the Prohibition area, an old chicken coup, an old mill, and much more!

 The villiage is beautifully landscaped, and has old brick walkways, ponds, and even resident chickens and ducks!

 After our long, snowy winter back in Michigan (we hear that it has been snowing still back home!), it is such a treat to see flowers and trees in bloom!

 But of course the best part was the shopping!!!

 Love this bed and bedding!

 I thought this wire light was so neat!

 And I adore these pretty French themed pillows!

 I love birds, so I was especially drawn to this pretty print!

 Oooh, la, la!  If you notice the basket in the background, it has the most beautiful French label that has been decoupaged to it (it looks like something from the Graphics Fairy!).

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 There were lots of wonderful antique shops in the village.  Tons of shabby goodness!

 You know how much I love old windows.  I just noticed this one was only $18!!!

 Whoops, got a bit of myself in the mirror as I was snapping this shot!!

 And yet more shabby-cottage love!

 This giant rooster cracked me up!!

 And so did the real deal!  This guy was rather aggressive, so I quickly dashed off after snapping his photo!

 Lots of pretty and cheery flowers!

I especially love this Euphorbia.

I saw so many beautiful things, that I can hardly wait to get into our house and start decorating!

What projects have you been working on lately?

Views From Our Cross Country Trip!

Hello Ladies!

Hope you all have had a nice weekend.  After more than 2,500 miles, we are finally here!

I thought I would share with you a few photos from our trip.  The first few are in Montana.  The scenery was gorgeous.

The photo below was taken in Idaho.  I never knew much about Idaho except potatoes!  It is a beautiful state, one of my favorites that we passed thru.

After we got into Washington yesterday, we stopped at the Columbia River Gorge.  The photos just do not do it justice.  It was breathtaking!

I was a bit freaked out by the sign below!  Fortunately, I did not see any snakes!

More of the Columbia River.

This is our home away from home!

 Today we drove thru the Cascade Mountains.  I wish that you could have seen it in person, these pictures just not do it justice!  And, it was snowing!!!  This lake was even frozen over, hard to believe that it is the middle of April!

 Lots of steep climbs, and lots of curves, glad I wasn't driving:)

 We finally made it to the campground today, that we will be staying at for the next 10 days, til we can move into our house.  This is the view from our 'backyard"!  We are so happy to have found a nice place, as most campgrounds that we've found in this part of Washington are really dumpy, to put it mildly!  This one has two small lakes, with ducks, hiking trails in the woods (which Emily loves!), and some really fancy big rigs!  We have "Rv-envy"!  This is the nicest place that we have stayed at on the entire trip out here.  It feels so good to know that we are here, and I can finally do a little crafting and blogging!

So now I am off to see what you all have been up to!  Thanks again for all of your support during this journey and transition to a new state.  I really appreciate it more than you know!

We Finally Made it To Washington!

Hello Ladies!
After a week on the road, and over 2,300 challenging miles, we have finally made it to Washington State!

I wanted to upload some photos of the Columbia River Gourge that we stopped at today, but my internet connection is extremely slow, and wouldn't let me.  phooey! So I will try again tomorrow.

We took a slight detour, and headed to the Yakima Valley and visited some wineries today.  So, we only have about 150 more miles to go, yeah!!! We are staying at a  glorified parking lot campground  in Yakima, and then will head to the campground that we will call home until we are able to move into our house in about 1 1/2 weeks. It has been a long week, full of some hair raising, white knuckle moments on the road (major wind, where I thought for sure our motor home was going to tip over!).  I wanted to thank you all for your thoughts and prayers during not only this time on the road, but for the move itself, which has been a very challenging one for me!  I appreciate it more than you will ever know!  And I really miss you all, and look forward to getting back into blogging mode full time, where I can visit you, and catch up with what you are doing!

Hope you are having a great weekend, looking forward to seeing what you all have been up to!

Greetings From Montana

Hello ladies!

We have made it as far as Montana.  They don't call it "Big Sky" for nothing!  After 5 long days on the road in our motor home (pulling hubby's car) we are really, really tired!  But, we have been rewarded with the most gorgeous scenery here in Montana!

This is my first time in Montana, and after driving for hours and hours and seeing nothing but boring brown prairie  (below), this is the view that we came upon (above)!

 Mile after mile of nothing but this!  Ugh!

 These are the "Crazy Mountains".  Pretty funny, huh?  And pretty appropriate, considering that I was going crazy just thinking about our move to Washington State!!

Yesterday, we went to Mount Rushmore while we were in South Dakota.  It was just gorgeous!

 We woke up to several inches of snow yesterday!  Luckily I thought to pack some warm clothes, and my winter coat and boots!

 Mt. Rushmore is so much grander in person than in the pictures.  I am so glad that we took the time to stop and see it!!

 We also went to see the Crazy Horse monument.  It is very impressive, even though there still is much work to be done!

Tomorrow we should make it to Idaho.  It is great to be visiting all of these states that I have never been to. And we should reach our final destination in Washington by Sunday.  It will feel so good to finally get there!

My dear sweet friend Diana, whose blog is called 'Nana Diana Takes a Break", wrote the most wonderful blog post yesterday.  Diana is one of the kindest, sweetest and most thoughtful people that I have met here in blogland!  Anyway, Diana did a post about my move, and what I have been going thru.  You can read about it here if you want to.  I was so deeply moved and touched!  Thank you, Diana, for your kindness and friendship!  It means the world to me, and so do you!!!