Memorial Weekend

Memorial weekend did not start out to be busy. When it comes to my three day weekends I prefer to have some down time. We managed to pack it full and wonder at the end of Monday where our time went.

I was able to get a little gardening done Saturday morning as I had bought some plants a few weeks previous and they needed to get in to the ground. The photo below is the only real garden I have. It's about eight feet wide by two feet deep. That's just fine with me. Right now it's mostly green but I have Lilac, Trumpet Vine, Crocosmia, Nicotiana, Snapdragon (the only color there right now), Poppies, Mexican Hat Coneflower, Delphinium, Salpiglossis, Iris and Hosta. The colors are mostly orange and purple. The dirt space in front of the garden will be filled in with pavers later this summer.

The below photo is of my Crocosmia from last summer (bright orange and yellow flowers). I LOVE this stuff! It fills in really nicely, has the most wonderful flowers (they look like small Bird of Paradise) and come back every year. My friend Vanessa was kind enough to give me a TON of it for my yard.

To the right of my garden I have a clematis planted that is trained up a trellis and along the bottom of the deck above our patio. I don't have photos from last year but the flower is a lavender color and smells like vanilla. I used to have some Jasmine planted in a pot here but it was not doing well. Might need to get a new one.

Planted in the hanging basket is Nemesia (orange flower on top) and Lobelia (which will be a dark blue/purple). Last year a bird had a nest in here and the hanging basket was full of potato vine. I really like potato vine but it didn't do well here.

Here is another Lilac I have in a pot. It produced two flowers this year. After it is done blooming I plan to prune it back to encourage more flowers for next year. I am leaving this one in a pot because I want to take it with me when we move. I LOVE white lilacs! When we move I would really like to have an all white garden somewhere on my property.


I bought temporary hair dye for the kids a couple weeks ago. Alex saved hers to wear on her birthday. It's hard to tell in this photo but her bangs are blue. We had a BBQ for Alex birthday Saturday night.

My hubby is like the guy from Home Improvement. Never use a match when you can use a blowtorch to light birthday candles!

Sunday we went to the annual NW Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center. It truly brings out the most interesting people. You have never seen more dreadlocks, leg hair (on women) and piercings in your life. Also, you can't help but smell a little cannabis now and again.

One of the main reasons for going to Folklife this year, aside from people watching and eating yummy food which is always a good time, was to buy myself another pair of Indian shoes. I bought a pair four years ago and had planned to buy a new pair of shoes since last fall when my old ones finally wore out. I tried fixing them by sewing them back together but it didn't work. So, even though this is considered "extra spending" it was budgeted for and I WILL get my monies worth out of them. This gal has a stand where she sells items from India (she travels there once a year) and does Henna tattoos. LOVE these shoes!


Here is one of the interesting things about Folklife. I'm not certain what this woman was supposed to be (do you remember the cartoon The Bugaloos?). I suspect she was a mime who had drank too much coffee. She would stand completely still for a minute then do erratic movements much like a mime, never speaking at all.

Below is our friend Bagpiper Don. My hubby and I have known him since highschool, hubby played bagpipes with him at one time and he played at our wedding. He can play lot's of typical highland tunes, some eastern sounding tunes and even Thunderstruck by ACDC.

Here is Don with a member of the NW Jr. Pipe Band. He was awesome and had only been playing bagpipes for seven months.

Monday was spent at the annual Cruizin to Colby car show in Everett. Below is a Triumph TR6. Hubby and I bought a car similar to this we were going to restore. It sat in my parents driveway for two years so we sold it and decided to wait and restore a car when we had a driveway/garage of our own to work on it in. This one is even painted the color we want to do ours, British Racing Green.

An exceptional woody wagon.

A Woody Studebaker like I have never seen before. My dad has restored three in his lifetime and this body style is new to me.


Love cool hood ornaments from the 40's!



This car was interesting and one of the most imaginative at the show. You can't tell well from this photo but it had a spider web in the roof and the gear shift was Frankenstein's head.

After seeing the cars we took Alex to Old Navy on a shopping spree for clothes for her birthday. Then we had dinner with friends.

Where did our weekend go?