Back to the Baseboards

We started our home renovation in 2006. Hmmmm? How long has it been? Construction is so expensive in Hawaii that we had the contractor build the outside of the house and Art planned to do the inside himself, just as he did on the mainland.

And yes, slowly but surely he's getting it done, but there's still a ways to go. Right now he's working on the baseboards.

First we have to go to Home Depot and pick out the BEST baseboard and quarter rounds.

It's a good thing that after the drywall was put up, I marked the walls so we'd know where the studs were. We did hire someone to do the drywall after we hug a couple by ourselves. We're not as young as we used to be.

Then Art had to measure, measure again and then cut the boards.

Once he pounded the boards in it was my job to use wood putty and caulk to seal the holes and spaces. Then I painted everything to finish it off.

The hallways are finally done!

Now we just have three bedrooms and two bathrooms to finish.  Ack!

I told Art I didn't want to go on anymore trips until this was done.

Uh oh! Gotta go. He said we need to go to Home Depot again.

More License Plates

Many of  you know I'm always on the look out for clever vanity license plates. Here's a few I've found recently that had me wondering.

MY DNA?

What in the world could this mean?

















MYMYMY?

Sounds like a really fun person looking at life with humor.

MARKET?

Does he mean STOCK or SUPER?













I do see a lot of devout Christian vanity plates around Hawaii.

This person must like surfing.  You can also see the sticker at the bottom left hand corner of the back window that says, "I TAKE CARE OF MY BEACHES."

Must be a responsible surfer.









I found this car at Zippy's where you can indeed find musubi (rice balls). Do you think it was the sushi chef's car?

And here is my favorite. OK. Everybody say, "Awwww..."

What would you choose for your vanity plate? It can't be more than 7 spaces; numbers, letters or both.

I think I like GR8TFUL. Art says he'll take HAPPY2.

The Rewards of Honesty

One of my favorite times in Illinois was the Winnetka Rummage Sale. People used to come by busloads from Indiana for this sale which was proclaimed at one time as the biggest rummage sale in the U.S. I wonder if it still is.

Tiffany has always loved going since I did drag her to it with me many times. Now 8 year old KC loves going with her because she can choose all the books that she knows her mom is happy to get her.

Tif did have a lovely story to tell me though. Apparently they were in the Girls Clothing room and KC had found a cute little bag that she wanted. When she opened it, she found a $5.00 bill and showed it to her mom. Tif told her that she should turn it in later.

After choosing more clothing that KC liked they stood in line with all their items. When they neared the cashier Tif was happy to see that KC had already taken out the money to turn in all by herself.

The ladies manning the table were quite shocked to see this little girl turning in money. They apparently all praised her and quite a bit of attention from everyone around who saw what was happening was showered upon our granddaughter. They told her how the money would be going to help a lot of people who were in great need. And then they gave KC $1 to keep for herself.

When they got home Tiffany told Ed (my son-in-law) what his daughter had done.  He was so pleased and proud of his little girl that he gave her $10, forgetting that it was $5 that KC had found.

"But, Daddy... I only found $5," said my wonderful granddaughter.

"That's OK," said Ed. "You can keep it."

And so she did. It went right into her piggy bank.

I'm finding it humorous that by returning the $5, she is now $11 richer. Who says honesty doesn't pay?

Shedrain Umbrella Lifetime Warranty

Several years ago, our cousin, Renee gave me a Shedrain solar umbrella which I've taken everywhere.

Last year I took it with me to the Big Island and used it quite a bit to protect us from the hot Hawaiian sun.

It's a great umbrella because it is UPF 50+ which I especially need in Hawaii.

Unfortunately, eventually one of the umbrella ribs snapped off. I was really disappointed. I looked up the cost of replacement and saw that they were very pricey.

That's when I noticed that wrapped tightly around one of the ribs was a tiny slip of paper that said Lifetime Warranty. It gave an email address so I wrote to them to ask if I needed a receipt because it had been a gift. I also sent them this photo.

Brandy wrote right back saying I should send the umbrella to them. They would check it out and fix or replace it.

I sent it to them immediately and she wrote back several days later along with this photo saying that they don't have the same manual model, but could send me this auto open/close model.

I was thrilled! I'm looking forward to seeing it. I'm just amazed they stand by their product completely.

I love it!

POSTSCRIPT:  I just got it and it's great!!!  Just in time for the hot Hawaiian summer sun.

Prime Time Breakfast

Last week, Art and I went to the annual PrimeTime breakfast hosted by the First Hawaiian Bank at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. It was like a mini seminar for seniors. The topics were on financial matters and "The Importance of Hearing and Your Mental Health."

Sorry about the photo quality, but I took it with my iPhone 4S, not the 6. Sigh...

Breakfast was fruit (which was good) and rice, sausages and scrambled eggs (not that healthy).

There were about 700 people present. We were a bit late so it was a good thing Art's friend, Ed had saved us a couple of seats.

Yes, there was entertainment. The crowd was mostly people over 70 years of age I would guess.

My favorite part was the BINGO game. I won a mini cutting board. I took this photo after the second game had started.

Ed was a big prize winner. He won this Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner!

And everybody got one of these. I just love Post-It notes!

However, what I found most interesting was the talk on hearing given by Randy Wohlers from the Family Hearing Aid Center.

He introduced his topic saying research showed that what gave people most happiness was not fame or fortune, but friendships.

He then presented some very interesting research data:

36-38 million Americans have a hearing loss.
50% of those 75 and older have hearing loss.
26 million Americans age 20-69 have high frequency hearing loss due to noise exposure.
Ear buds are often detrimental to hearing.

 Dr. Frank Lin (otologist, epidemiologist) of Johns Hopkins in 2011 stated:

"Our results show that hearing loss should not be considered an inconsequential part of aging, because it may come with some serious long-term consequences to healthy brain functioning."

"Memory and concentration of those with hearing loss declined 30-40% faster than those with normal hearing."

"People at risk of dementia due to hearing loss:

Mild loss:  2 times greater. 

Medium loss: 3 times greater

High loss: 5 times greater."

The problem according to Randy Wohlers is that with hearing loss, people become isolated and friendships are harder to maintain and without friendships it's hard to be happy.

Bottom line: Protect your ears and get your hearing checked.

I just told Art and he said, "What?"

Great Fruit Tree Book

Art's friend, Cal recommended a fruit tree book that he has been reading with a great deal of interest.


The book is written by Ann Ralph of Northern California.

Art really enjoyed picking up quite a few tips from Ann Ralph. She also validated some things he's already been doing.

According to the book you  can trim your tree so that all the fruit is where you can easily pick them without a ladder. Art already does that. Every so many months he prunes off the top of our lemon tree.

It also says you should thin out your fruit or they will be too small. We've seen this happen, but have a hard time doing it. I guess we'll try to do this from now on.

Another thing it mentioned is that you should plant your tree without enriching the soil at the root ball so that the tree will be accustomed to the soil in that area and won't be shocked when its roots grow past it.

I wonder if it had anything in it about papaya trees that grow too tall. Do you have any fruit trees? What kind?

Cleaning Your Grill

Someone sent me a news video about the dangers of using wire brushes to clean your outdoor grills.  I looked it up and sure enough, it can be dangerous.

I got this from the CDC (Center for Disease control) website.

"Foreign object ingestion is a common reason for visiting an emergency department (ED), particularly for children. In recent years, internal injuries have been reported following unintentional ingestions of wire grill-cleaning brush bristles by both children and adults. A series of six cases from a single hospital system with two EDs during July 2009–November 2010 was reported previously. This report describes a series of six more cases identified at the same hospital system during March 2011–June 2012. The six patients ranged in age from 31 to 64 years; five were men. Like the patients in the previous series, all six reported outdoor residential food grilling and use of commercially available wire grill-cleaning brushes. The severity of injury ranged from puncture of the soft tissues of the neck, causing severe pain on swallowing, to perforation of the gastrointestinal tract requiring emergent surgery. Awareness of this potential injury among health-care professionals is critical to facilitate timely diagnosis and treatment."

 I guess this is just one more thing to think about before the summer barbecue season starts up again.

Omiyage from Canada

Omiyage giving is a Japanese custom of giving gifts that you bring back for your friends and relatives when you return from a trip. To be honest, it's not easy. We always end up spending a day or two concentrating on what we should bring back to share.

On our last trip to Canada we saw these icewine dark chocolate candy bars.

I like wine. I like dark chocolate. Granted, it was not cheap. They were about $2 a bar and the bar wasn't all that huge. What the heck! I figured this would work nicely for my Zumba friends.

Well... I had one bar left so I tried it. It was OK... Dark chocolate is always good, but I'm not so sure about the ice wine filling. It had a rather biting after taste that I'm not positive I liked. Art opted for a maple syrup center for his Honokaa friends. If there's one left over, I'll have to do a taste test again.

What is ice wine anyway?

It's always fun to look for something for our granddaughter. We know she's now fascinated by rocks of all kinds so we got her these things. Not the bunny though.

The first thing is an inuksuk which is a man-made stone landmark used by the Inuit people. It must mark paths so people would know which way to go.

The polished stone was just something that tickled our funny bone. I hope she doesn't think this applies to the ground rules set by her parents.

We also got some dish towels, maple syrup and something called Moose Droppings. Actually the moose dropping are chocolate candies.

This omiyage buying can get out of hand, so some of our closer friends have made a pact with us that we would not bring omiyage if any of us travel to the mainland... only foreign countries.

Hmmmm... we were thinking Japan next year. Let's see... rice crackers, chopsticks, dried seafood, dishtowels?

Note to WORDPRESS Bloggers:

I've been experimenting with commenting. If you will click Anonymous instead of Wordpress and do the one click in the square that says "I'm not a robot." it will probably be a lot easier when commenting on Blogspot posts. Let me know if this still doesn't work for you.

Blogger Helpline: Help for Wordpress and Blogspot

Last night Dianne (Wordpress) of Schmidleysscribbling wrote me that she was not able to comment on my blog.  I checked on Blogger Help Forum and stated my problem. You can imagine how surprised I was this morning to find a comment on my blog from Dianne! I also got an email from a Chuck who told me to check my blog again. I looked on Help Forum and got this detailed message from him.

To be honest I don't understand everything he said. I just know it seems to be working again although Delaine of Dkzody's (Wordpress) Weblog said she had to jump through hoops to leave a comment because of the CAPTCHA.

When I told Chuck about that, he said, "The CAPTCHA thing is a pain, isn't it?  Unfortunately, having no CAPTCHA is much worse.   I'll look forward to your progress reports."

I'm just so surprised and thrilled that a live person helped me. 
Thanks so much, Chuck! Yae!

His letter about the Wordpress/Blogger comment thing follows.

Hi Kay,

Thanks for reporting the problem.

The blog does not want for comments, in general.  What is different about your WordPress Followers?  How are they trying to identify themselves - Anonymously, using Google accounts, using WordPress accounts, using what?  Do the WP followers report any error messages, or symptoms?

I left a test comment, on the blog.  The blog uses an embedded comment form, with all levels of authentication accepted.

The Blogger / Google login status, and the ability to post comments, is sensitive to both cookie and script filters.  Your readers may need to enable (stop filtering) "third party cookies", in their browser and on their computer.  The effects of the newly unavoidable CAPTCHA, and the Google "One account" login, requires third party cookies, even more than before.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2015/01/security-problems-affect-many-blogger.html

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2014/11/the-google-one-account-login-and-cookie.html

Third party cookies filtering, in a browser setting, is the most common solution, overall - but your readers may have to search for other filter(s) that affect their use of Blogger / Google.

Any filters are subject to update, by the creator.  If the problem started a few days ago, your readers may have to look on their computers, and find out what product or accessory was updated, a few days ago.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2014/01/almost-nobody-controls-their-own.html

[FAQ] Why Can't I Access My Blog / Comment / Follow Blogs?

I just had a thought.
Have those of you who post comments using Anonymous been having the same CAPTCHA problem? Is it hard for you to get your comments posted on my blog? Are all Wordpress bloggers having the same problem commenting on Blogspot blogs?

POSTSCRIPT:  I'm getting the feeling that Blogspot bloggers have no trouble commenting on other Blogspot blogs. People who sign in as Anonymous can also comment on Blogspot blogs. My daughter tested this out for me and said it was easy for her to post using Anonymous. It appears that it's just Wordpress that has a hard time synching in with Blogspot blogs. Sigh...

Thinking About Nepal

My son, Keola sent this email to me recently and I felt I needed to share this.

"Whenever people ask me what is the best place I have traveled to, I always say Nepal.  I went there in 2003 when I was returning from the Peace Corps and I went back twice while I was in Bangladesh. I loved trekking in the Himalayas and exploring the truly magnificent temples of the Kathmandu valley. 

It is absolutely heartbreaking to see the destruction of these temples now.  Temples I climbed less than a year ago are simply not there anymore.  The Durbar squares (there is a huge one in Kathmandu and others in nearby towns) -- entire plazas full of Hindu temples are now full of rubble. It makes me so sad to know these places are gone and that the people who live there are suffering immeasurably.
 
I'm sure All Hands will send teams to help respond and eventually rebuild once it is appropriate. I look forward to the opportunity to help out whenever I can."

Through All Hands (non-profit disaster relief) Keola did volunteer work in the Philippines to help rebuild homes destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan as well as doing more building work in New York. He says he really respects the work All Hands does around the world and that it is a wonderful organization to send your donations to. He sent me the link to All Hands here.

It's funny how Nepal seems so far away and so removed as I look out my window at the blue skies of Hawaii and take for granted our comfortable situation. It can change in a minute as it did for the people of Nepal. Now, I'm seeing it all through Keola's heavyhearted eyes and it's brought it much closer.

Yes, we've sent in our donation. I hope the world will help.

POSTSCRIPT: According to Keola, All Hands is rated highly by Charity Navigator. You can click on the link.

Appreciating What You Already Have

We traveled through Seattle and Canada to see the gorgeous spring flowers which we truly enjoyed. Mom had wanted to see tulips and cherry blossoms. We made it a point to search out as many cherry trees as we could in all those places.

And then my daughter sent a whole bunch of photos to me from her front yard.

Oh yes! Gorgeous! We planted that weeping cherry tree for her in 2009!

Happy spring, everybody!

And Now Lipstick!

I keep marveling at what I learn from other bloggers. Here's something I picked up from Honolulu Aunty about lipstick. If I put on lipstick I always have to worry about getting it on anything. If Art hugs me without warning after we get ready to go out somewhere, he's liable to get lipstick on his shirt. Lipstick is not the easiest thing to clean off of anything.

Therefore I just had to try out Revlon's Color Stay Ultimate Suede lipstick when Honolulu Aunty said it would stay on all day, even after a meal. That was pretty hard to believe. How can this be?

So I tested it out and sure enough, most of it stayed on. Wow! You don't really have to reapply.

It stayed on all day and came off with baby oil at night.

This kind of lipstick will usually dry out your lips, but this wasn't too bad. I could also apply a little lip gloss to moisten my lips if needed and it doesn't affect the staying power.

Honolulu Aunty recommended Catwalk for a lovely color that Asian women might like.  However, they no longer sell that. I bought Couture and it works for me.

Now, the ultimate test... I gave Art a kiss on the cheek and there was no evidence of it.

Pretty amazing. I am wondering what they put in it to make it work so well though. I hope I don't find out later that it will turn my lips blue or something.

Just for the Ladies.. or Maybe Not

Art laughs because although I go without make up most of the time, I wear it when I go to sweat it out in Zumba or when I'm meeting up with girlfriends. One problem I've had to tackle more often as I get older is droopy eyelids that will smear my eye liner.

I was thrilled when Jalna of Photos By Jalna wrote this post about Elf eye liner that she found at T.J. Maxx for $2.39. I wasn't able to find it there because it was all sold out, but Walmart carried it and I believe so does Target. And it does cost a bit more now, but not much. The cream eye liner comes with a small brush, but I chose to buy their longer handled one which is easier for me to control.

I had to get used to using the angled brush, but by golly! The eye liner does not smear even when I'm sweating in Zumba.  Too wonderful!

I really love learning things from other bloggers! Thanks, Jalna!
Tomorrow: Lipstick! (Sorry guys)

8 Year Old Opera Lover

I'm rather amazed. My daughter, Tiffany called to say that our neighbor who happens to be a university professor had taken my 8 year old granddaughter, KC to an afternoon of opera. Tif had asked KC if she wanted to hear some music with Auntie Caroline and KC said yes.

"Grandma, Grandma!" exclaimed KC on the cellphone. "I liked it! It was fun. My chair squeaked though so I didn't want to move in my seat. It was 2 hours long. Auntie Caroline said I was the only kid there."

I can just imagine! How many kids could sit for two hours listening to opera in a foreign language and not move?

Caroline has watched our kids grow up from the time they were in kindergarten.  She's also been a surrogate aunt to KC since she was born.

I'm just so pleased that the two of them could have this special time together.

I'm just blown away that KC sat for so long listening to opera and enjoyed it. Wow!

It's true. It's true. I'm rather proud of her.

Happy Mother's Day!

We decided to celebrate Mother's Day together at Gyotaku Japanese Restaurant with my brother and sister-in-law, Dennis and Nancy.  Also joining us were our nephews, Cody and Barry with his wife, Miho.

We thought we were being rather clever by celebrating on Saturday instead of Sunday, thereby beating the Sunday crowds, but I'm afraid a lot of people were just as clever as us. When we arrived before opening time there was a rather long line in front of the restaurant. However, the wait was not very long and we were happily seated in a lovely private area.

Mom and I were surprised with cards and leis that everyone brought for us.

We admired and were intrigued by the way the leis were made with a LOT of orchids that were folded in creative ways.

I wanted to do something different for dessert this year. Instead of getting a cake, I decided to buy an assortment of different kinds of pastries. We took mom along to choose what she would like to have. After leaving the restaurant everyone came to our house where we all had fun choosing what we would like to try. Nobody took what I thought they would.

It was a lovely Mother's Day!

To everyone everywhere, Happy Mother's Day!

Cable Aggravation with Hawaiian Telcom

We have never had cable television before. We always relied happily (most of the time) on our antennae for free TV. Auntie Grace used to tape Japanese TV shows from her NGN (Japanese) channel for mom.  We'd go over every week or two and they would exchange already watched for newly recorded tapes. Auntie's VCR recorder and ours would die every year or so and we'd have to buy a new one.

After Auntie Grace passed away in February, Art and I decided to go ahead and sign up for cable so Mom could watch some of those Japanese shows she so enjoyed.

We don't have a ton of options in Hawaii, but I called Oceanic since that's what pretty much all my friends had. Then I thought I'd give Hawaiian Telcom a call after seeing their commercials on TV as being a locally owned company. Comparison shopping is really difficult with all the confusing jumble of different packages. Art and I rarely watch TV so this was never something we needed.

Hawaiian Telcom promised Basic cable which would include the regular network stations. I made sure I'd also get the Japanese station KIKU and PBS.  I also made sure I'd get HD programming because we already get free HD with our antennae. I didn't want to switch to cable, pay a lot and then get a lesser image quality.  And then, of course, we got the premium NHK TV Japan channel for Mom. All that plus 3 months of free DVR was to be $71.

The Hawaiian Telcom installer came. I told him that we were supposed to get the Basic HD TV and the NGN 2 (NHK TV Japan) channel for mom. He said it was on his work sheet, but was puzzled because he didn't think you could get HD with Basic.

When he made all the connections, there was no HD.  The picture quality was worse than with our antennae although mom's premium channel came in beautifully with HD. The regular stations that we occasionally watch were not HD.

Our installer called the company whose manager said Basic does not come with HD. To get HD, we'd have to buy the Advantage package, but because they made the mistake, we could have it for $30 off the Advantage price. That would be $89!

"Are you telling me that I have to pay $18 more for something I didn't want in the first place?" I asked.

"Yes." she said.  "That's the best I can do."

I was fuming. "And how long is this price good for?" I asked.

"One year," she said.

At that time the price would jump $30+ more a month which means I'd be paying almost $50 more a month for something I didn't want! Aggravation!

Since the cable was already installed, we went with it.  We have a year (or even less if I'm motivated to research this again) to find another cable connector. In the meantime the only thing that makes us smile about the whole ordeal is Mom's enjoyment of all the interesting programs she's now able to watch.

POSTSCRIPT:
Linda, the Hawaiian Telcom cable trainer came in this morning and I asked her who I could send a complaint to after I explained what happened.  She gave me the corporate person's address to email, but asked me to wait until I spoke to an Ian who would want to try to fix the situation.

Ian called this afternoon. We went over everything that happened. It's a good thing I kept minute notes. He made a bunch of adjustments and promised me $63 a month instead of the $71 I was originally promised plus free DVR for 1 year instead of just 3 months.  He also said I could have the 2nd year for $73 a month.

I advised Ian that Hawaiian Telcom should send out an itemized listing of the package ordered plus COST by email or snail mail before installation so that everything was clear and there would not be this kind of mistake again for future customers. He agreed they should work on that.

Am I happy?  Yes!  Definitely!  Ian did make up for everything.

But again... the main thing? Mom did not know what was going on and has been blissfully watching her Japanese TV shows on her big screen TV everyday.

I'm glad I don't have to think about this for two years!

Do you have cable? Are you happy with it? Do the prices go up substantially each year?

Papaya Picker

Art loves papayas and he loves his papaya tree.  It produces very sweet papayas, BUT it's getting so tall that the fruit is hard to reach even with a ladder.

I told him he really should chop it down soon.

But no...

He insisted on buying this $20 fruit picker.

Unfortunately, the tree is looking pretty tired.  I'm not sure how much longer it can produce papayas.

All I can say is that the next dozen fruits or so will be pretty darn expensive.

Speaking of which, I mentioned that I needed to get a new computer monitor... a big one.

One Space or Two After the Period?

When I met DJan of DJan-ity at Skagit Valley last month we talked about writing and editing since she used to be an editor before she retired. She mentioned that nowadays, there should be a single space after a period. I was shocked. I believed her, of course, but I checked on it anyway when I got home.

This is what I found on Wikipedia:

"Claims abound regarding the legibility and readability of the single and double sentence spacing methods—by proponents on both sides. Supporters of single spacing assert that familiarity with the current standard in books, magazines, and the Web enhances readability, that double spacing looks strange in text using proportional fonts, and that the "rivers" and "holes" caused by double spacing impair readability. Proponents of double sentence spacing state that the extra space between sentences enhances readability by providing clearer breaks between sentences and making text appear more legible, particularly noting the very small visual difference between a dot and a comma."

It was surprising to see so much on the web about this single vs. double spacing after the period.

I guess what it all boils down to is that many of us ummmm... older writers still cling to what we learned in typing class.

My thumb automatically taps two times after each period. It's extremely hard to get it out of my head and thumb. However, the current standard is the single space.

I understand you can set your word processor to make the space corrections automatically now, but I can't do it on my blog posts.

Therefore, if you see those two spaces after my periods. You'll know I was going on auto pilot. I learn so much from bloggers! Thanks, DJan!

Going Home

We got up at 5 AM, had breakfast at the La Quinta and took the shuttle to SeaTac Airport.

 
There were a lot of people taking the shuttle to the airport, but we managed to all fit in.

From the airport window we could see clear skies and is that Mt. Ranier?

Our friend, Morris was there to pick us up right away and my sister-in-law, Nancy picked up Dennis.




It was a short trip but we were pretty worn out, especially Art who did all the driving because of Dennis' eye problem.

Back at home, our neighbor had a pot of juk (Korean rice gruel) waiting for us to have for our dinner. It was absolutely PERFECT! Light and easy on the stomach.

We all loved meeting my blog friends who were now simply great friends as well as seeing our old friends again, but it sure was very, very wonderful to be welcomed back by our island friends and neighbors again.

And mom? She's been smiling ever since and looking forward to our finishing our photo book so that she can share it with her friends and relatives.

Bellevue Gardens With Linda

We were originally planning to spend some time at Linda and Tom's place and then head out to Bellevue Gardens. However, since rain was forecasted for midday, we decided to do the gardens first.

Just like with DJan of DJan-ity, it was like I'd already known Linda of Linda Letters for years.















Tom drove us to Bellevue and reminded us that these were not cherry blossoms, but crab apple blossoms.

We were astounded at how much Tom and Linda knew about all the plants in the garden. Art remarked later how surprised he was that Tom often knew the Latin names as well. I love this rock sculpture.

Tom said this Cypress tree was doing naturally what bonsai growers are always trying to do with wires. Tom and Art have a love of bonsai in common. The peonies were also in bloom.

The daffodils were past their prime.

I don't know what this purple flower is. I'll have to ask Linda or Tom.

And look at the sky! We couldn't believe it! No rain!

My brother, Dennis took this photo. All the photos from my posts were taken by either myself, Art or Dennis. I haven't paid attention to who the photographer was....unless it's especially wonderful. In which case, I hope it was me. 











This is a red trillium. I didn't know they came in different colors.  I thought they were only white.

And of course we had to stop at the Japanese garden. Mom was loving all of it. Linda told mom her mother's name was also Violet. Linda and I have so much in common. We were both teachers. We both have two children, a girl and then a boy, we're liberals... 

This area had a lot of indigenous plants and the biggest skunk cabbages I've ever seen.

After our wonderful visit at Bellevue Gardens we went back to Tom and Linda's house.

Linda showed us the gardening shed that Tom built.

As beautiful as Bellevue was, when we returned home mom said she was most impressed with Linda and Tom's gardens.

I'd already seen so much of this on Linda's blog, but I LOVED seeing it in person.

Dennis and Art were really amazed at the gorgeous glass flower ornaments that Linda and Tom had created.

Art loved talking to Tom and learning more about gardening.















We were really, really impressed with the espalier trees at the fence line. I can't imagine how much work that took.  Wow!

And here are the women. I have no idea where the men went. It's easy to get lost in their large yard.










Tom brought over this mouse plant and showed it to mom saying it was a mouse.  She actually jumped when she looked at the flower.

People who read Linda's blog will not be surprised to see this beautiful table.

Linda had the most delicious rhubarb coffee cake and fruit salad. Absolutely YUM!

We really enjoyed seeing Linda and Tom's beautiful home. It's so perfectly laid out and they have the most incredible collection of collectibles. 

Once we got back to the hotel it started raining in earnest.

Dinner was at Denny's which was right next door and it was surprisingly good. We've eaten at Denny's before and wasn't impressed, but this time we really enjoyed our meal.



All in all, a thoroughly wonderful day!