Bellingham by the Bay

I have often said how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place. Bellingham is located on Bellingham Bay and Mt. Baker is near by. Needless to say, the scenery is amazing. This morning I opened my email and a friend had sent me this slide show with the song "Bellingham by the Bay". I wanted to share it, so those of you that don't live here can get a feel of what we Bellinghamsters get to see every day.
Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUeqj8uSqbA

Shrimping

We had another wonderful time at Keystone. It was the last weekend of the season to go shrimping, and they had a great catch. They went out Friday and Saturday. We cleaned and bagged the shrimp in 1 pound bags. They are kind of prickly little things, but they sure are pretty and they taste delicious. We boiled some, similar to cooking crab, and stir fried some others with onions and yellow peppers. Mmmm, lucky us. We never seem to go hungry when we are out camping. The weather was partly sunny, no rain, but the cold wind that is so typical of there was blowing. We did get in a little walk on the beach.

If you click on the picture below it will make it larger. Click on that image and it will become even larger and easier for you to see.

Baby Robins Day 13

Baby Number 1 out of the nest. Well, actually I think this was Baby Number 2. This all happened so fast that somewhere along the line I lost track of one of the babies. I thought they might start to gradually step out of the nest to test their wings, but not these babies. Once they got out of the nest they never went back. That's why I think the first baby got away before I even saw it. So, here we have one baby out and the other one staying safe inside. This little guy sat on that branch for several hours. Oh, he was pretty shaky and almost fell off a few times. I think what made him mad though is that when Mom came back with food he never got any. Only the baby on the nest was fed. He squawked about that and finally started hopping around like he was going to go back into the nest.

Here is Mom. She sat and encouraged those babies to get a move on, or she was telling them to get back into the nest. I really don't understand Robin talk. One thing I did notice is that they were cleaning their feathers practically every time I looked at them. Must have been getting ready to fly.
As it turned out Mom must have been telling them to get out of the nest and explore. This little guy had waited all day and finally out he came. It wasn't long before he had even left the tree and was in a bush next to it. Next time I looked they were both completely gone. So much for my theory about them hanging around the nest for a few days. Since this all happened so quickly I am thinking that the 3rd baby must have left the nest sometime when I wasn't looking.

Busy Weekend

It was a busy weekend! It's like a whole months worth of events all came at the same time. Fortunately they were timed perfectly and I was able to make all of them. I started on Friday night with Lynne's retirement party. She was the Principal for 10 years at the school where I taught. She is also a great friend. They asked me to help with the decorations so I made the silhouettes for the windows and also the table decorations. We had a western theme, so everyone came dressed for the West. It was a great party.
On Saturday morning I had a Bridal Shower Brunch for Ali and Bennett as they are getting married in August. It was a nice day and we were able to eat outside. Bennett's Aunt Karen planned a wonderful party and the food was delicious. It was also great to get together with my church friends. I actually took this picture at church on Sunday morning. Bennett's mom Betsy is the choir director and they came to play for a piece the choir was singing. It was beautiful!
Next I was off to Lynden as Jeter's family had invited me to his recital. He was one of my students last year. This year he decided to participate in the Children's Musical Theater instead of playing basketball. He said he "sucked" at basketball. He sang "Hello Dolly" in a small group number and also sang "Sittin' on the Dock by the Bay" for a solo. I think theater just might be his thing. It was great seeing him and his family again.

My next stop was The Blue Mountain Grill in Acme for dinner and listening to Bandzandt. Our friend Doug plays with the band, so we try and support them when we can. It's always nice when a local group does well and they are very good. As you can see the view behind them is beautiful. The grill has a "Million Dollar" hamburger. It's really only $5.00, but it comes with a million dollar view.To top off dinner, and fun with friends and the band, we had a brownie. Yup, ONE brownie. We ordered it with 6 forks. It's a dinner plate sized ooey gooey brownie topped with ice cream, whipped cream, and drizzled with chocolate. Mmmmmmmmm! Even with 6 of us eating it we still had a little left.

Sunday I was back in Lynden at the Claire VG Theater for the play "Noises Off". It's one of the funniest plays you will ever see. I actually went to the opening night dinner theater and thought Julie, my sister, would like to see this, so got tickets for us at the Sunday matinee and went again. I am always intrigued by the sets at plays and this one was quite unusual. The play starts and ends with the set in the picture below. The play is about a group of people who are practicing and then presenting a play.
After Act I the whole set is turning around and we are now seeing what happens back stage during a production of the play. This is a very small theater and they only had 4 inches to spare as they moved the set. It was absolutely AMAZING!!! After the play Julie and I went to The Nuthouse for dinner. A very busy, but fun filled weekend.

Baby Robins Day 9

Sad news about the babies today. I noticed only 3 of them in the nest when I looked out the window. I made sure the mom was gone and went out to investigate and found one of the babies on the ground dead. I have no way of knowing if it fell out or died and was pushed out. I can tell you the nest is pretty small to hold all of them. I was watching them today and one of the babies had it's foot on the edge of the nest and had lifted itself up and was flapping it's wings. I thought for sure it was going to fall out. I hope they learn to fly soon! I'm probably worrying about these babies more than the mom is. As you can see in the picture they want food and are keeping mom busy. I see both mom and dad around sometimes. Looks like one of them should be staying home to keep their children in the nest.

Baby Robins 1 Week Old

Isn't it amazing how much the babies have  grown in just 1 week! They now have their eyes open and are getting real feathers. Oh, and I can now hear them chirping when Mom comes with food. I had thought I heard it before, but it was very faint. They now have stronger voices too.  It's fun to watch mom try and sit in the nest as there really isn't room for her. She gets a foot on each side, tries to gather the babies under her and then sort of perches on the top. She is away from the nest more and more as she is gathering food.

Mother's Day

We had a wonderful Mother's Day. The whole family was here, which included Julie and her kids. We put the ham in the oven and the kids brought everything else. I do love spending time with my girls. What a treat!

Baby Robins 3 Days Old

Can you believe how quickly they are growing? I often see both Mom and Dad bringing food. It looks like worms are the favorite. See how the baby in the bottom of the picture has it's beak just on the edge of the nest? I often see it leaning out further and even poking out from under Mom. Maybe it's a little more adventuresome than the rest. I wonder if it will be the first one to learn to fly?

Baby Robins 1 Day Old

All the babies have arrived in the world. I think the 4th one hatched yesterday, but I couldn't really be sure as they were all so close together. This picture is a little off center, but one of the little guys thought I had food and I wanted you to see it. At this point they are just like all babies, all they do is eat and sleep.

Newborn Baby Robins

We have babies! Well, we have 3 of them at this point. I'll keep a watch on that other egg. I hope I can get a picture of the mom feeding them. They are pretty excited when she comes around with food. I had nothing to offer them, so they just slept.