Summer Flowers

We don't have very many flowers around our house as the deer tend to eat them. Here are some they don't seem to like.

Shop Hop

My sister Julie and I headed out for a Shop Hop adventure. We started in Lynden, then went to Bellingham, Anacortes, Mt. Vernon, Stanwood, Smokey Point and Arlington. We had a great time visiting all the quilt shops gathering our quilt blocks as well as some new ideas. We visited 14 shops in all. I'm at Folktales in Lynden looking through some patterns. This is a wonderful "little" shop with some great projects. I found a pattern here for making a Fourth of July candle mat.
Another benefit of this adventure is that it takes us places we might otherwise never go. The little town of Arlington has a great quilt shop and the ladies were so friendly. They even showed us their "red, white and blue" bathroom. That was pretty cute!Some of the blocks are quite detailed and we occasionally had to buy a "finishing kit", which contained materials needed to finish the block. If there was a prize for the cutest finishing kits it would go to Cotton Pickins' in Stanwood. They certainly put extra effort into theirs. This year their theme was tropical. The clerks had on hula skirts and leis and there were other tropical decorations around the store. In the picture the small package with the umbrella contains the directions and some pieces for the quilt block. According to Shop Hop rules each store must provide one piece of the theme fabric, one of the coordinating fabrics and one piece of their choice. If it takes more fabric than that to complete their block they can provide it in a finishing kit. Cotton Pickins' finishing kit is in the glass. It contains 16 pieces of fabric. Like I said their block is always quite detailed, and quite amazing!

We had a great adventure!

New Cameras

Several years ago I bought a new camera. It was a Panasonic Lumix TZ1. It was probably the best camera I have ever had. Since then I have recommended it to many of my family and friends, who have also bought it. That would be Karen, Rosemary, Cathie, Liz, Amber, Jodie and Jen K. After Cathie got hers we got together for a camera day so we could familiarize ourselves with all the features. Well, here we are many years later and it's time for a new camera. My old one has taken many, many pictures and is starting to act up. Of course it doesn't help that I slightly abuse it by taking it clam digging and getting sand in the zoom lens and etc. So, Cost Co had the Panasonic Lumix ZS6 with a $50.00 off coupon. How could I resist. There are a couple things I have to have in a camera and that is a good zoom and macro. This camera has both. In auto mode I have a 24.9 optical zoom. WOW! I never use the digital zoom. The macro also has a zoom feature I really like. So, I was off to Cost Co. I told Cathie I was getting it and she said she would too. Now Karen wants one, in red, and Rosemary is also thinking about upgrading again. We are all loyal fans! So, the point of this story is that Cathie wanted to get together, just like we did before, and have a camera day. We did, and here are some of our pictures.

Here is Cathie with her new camera. I tried a setting called pin hole, that is why you see the dark shadows in the corners. It looks like it also mutes the colors. I may have to experiment with this one some more.
Of course we had to try the self portrait feature. We are getting pretty good at taking pictures of ourselves. We are even centered!

The sun was out and the roses were beautiful, so of course we had to try the close up feature. It's one of my favorites. I got to experiment with the macro zoom, which is a feature I think I will really use. Often times when you are taking pictures close up the camera gets in the way of the natural light and creates shadows. I can now be back a little further and zoom in. Great feature!

Shop Hop

It's time for the Western Washington Shop Hop 2010. Stores from Lynden to Vancouver, Washington participate. Each store gives away an 8" block pattern and 3 pieces of fabric. The fabrics were designed especially for Shop Hop by In The Beginning Fabrics and Clothworks. Today I went to Fourth Corner Quilts to help them put their block kits together. We made 1500, with another 1000 that can be put together if they should need them. This is a lot of work for each of the shops, but it also brings in lots of business over these 5 days.

Digging Geoducks

This is the start of the search for the Geoducks. We were quite happy as the ground was not as mucky as we have had in the past. No sinking up to our knees this time. You may be wondering how they know when they have found a Geoduck. It seems that each type of clam you look for has a different sign.

If you see this it's a Geoduck. However, if you see something like this, but it is sort of fuzzy, that would be a horse clam. Believe it or not, but this guys body is about 3 feet down.
Randy was our spotter and he is showing the boys where he saw a Geoduck.
This whole thing is quite a process. First they put the "gun" around the Geoduck. This keeps the sand and water from filling the hole back in. Then they start to dig and dig and dig. Unlike Razor clams, the Geoduck does not move. It no longer has a digger. When they are young they dig down into the sand and then stay in that same spot the rest of their lives.

This was probably the hardest "Duck" they have ever dug. It was really deep and as you can see the "gun" has gone down a long ways. Will is trying to grab the Geoduck now, but the water is already beginning to come over the edge of the tube.

Ah, here it is and it's a nice big one. They boys really worked hard to get it.

Now they have to try and get the "gun" out. It usually just pops out, but it also has never gone down in the sand this far. It took a little prying and digging, but they finally got it.
Look at the size of this one! It was much easier to dig and this time Jennie went head first in the hole to get it.

The weather was beautiful and the water calm, so after dinner Will, Jennie and Ron went for a canoe ride.
Here is Randy's sailboat at anchor in front of their house. Jennie and Will slept in the boat. Talk about a wonderful guest cottage!

Thank you Randy and Beth for another wonderful weekend filled with friendship, good food, and Geoducks. We always look forward to spending time with you.

Lizzy's Birthday

Lizzy is a friend of ours and she is turning 3! She is having a Snow White party. Amber remembers when I made doll cakes for their birthdays and she wanted to make one for Lizzy. It ended up being quite an involved project. Since I used a real doll the shirt cake was not tall enough. You can see in the picture that I added another layer onto the bottom to give it more height. Amber was good about squirting all those stars. Now is where the catch comes in. She is just using up the last tube of frosting and there was no more to be found in town. We called all over and finally found some in Mt. Vernon. Sooooo.....we left early for the party and drove to Mt. Vernon. We sat in the car and finished the cake. We thought we better stick close to the store that had frosting just in case we needed more. Thank you JoAnn Fabrics!

Lizzy was pretty excited to see her Snow White cake. She grabbed a bite right out of the front and in the mouth it went. Mmmmmm

Here's the birthday girl giving us a little pose. I was lucky to get this shot as she was on the move the whole time. They had a blow up jumping house for the kids and they were in there having a great time. They came out for cake, opened about 3 presents and then right back in they went for more jumping. I bet they all slept well that night.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZZY!

Geocaching

Jennie now has an iPhone and Will and I have Droids. It's like carrying around a mini computer. I have thought that it would be fun to try Geocaching, but never had the hand held GPS. Our phones give us access to the website to look for caches in the area as well as a GPS and compass. This weekend we were equipped and somewhat ready to give it a try. For those of you not familiar with "Geocaching it is a high-tech treasure hunting game played world wide by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment." http://www.geocaching.com/ . So, we chose a cache to look for and off we went. Will and I are checking our coordinates as we think we are close to our first destination, but we can't find it. We later learned that we were looking for an "earthcache", which is a location and not a container. We are actually standing right where we were supposed to be. See the signs behind us? There are 3 of them that give some history of the Keystone Spit area. Hurray, we found our first cache!We found our next geocache and as you can see flashlights are sometimes needed. This was a special coin cache and you were supposed to leave a coin that had some importance in your life. For example one with the year you were married, or a child was born. We just left a coin as we hadn't come prepared to leave one. Jennie is reading the log. This geocache has been in this location since April 11, 2004. I have no idea how many times we have been here and had no idea there was a treasure hiding within easy reach. That's actually the way it is supposed to be. If you aren't looking you are not supposed to be able to see them.Here is a close up of the log Jennie was reading. It's the 8th log for this location and has been in place since Feb 8, 2009. It's really getting full, but Jennie did find a small place for us to sigh.
Our next stop was quite a challenge. I'm not going to tell you where we were, or how we found it, as I don't want to spoil your surprise if you should go looking. We think the coordinates were off, but we did locate it after a bit of looking. As you can see Jennie is down in a dark hole and that flashlight came in handy again.

Though this tin is right out in plain site it could easily be missed as it blends right in with the other rusty metal.
When Jennie opened the tin we found this was actually a "multicache". Some people are so clever. The note gave us the coordinates to the next location. It also tells anyone finding the tin that this is part of a global treasure hunt and to please leave the tin right where they found it.

This was our last and biggest find. I am amazed at how cleverly the caches are hidden and that people actually leave them there for others to find. Jennie has moved a piece of driftwood so we can see the geocache, but see how cleverly it has been hidden under the cement slab? It's important to leave them just as you found them.

This cache was full of treasure. You can just look at the treasure, you can leave something, or you can also take something. If you take something you must leave an item of equal or greater value. There are also some traveling items that may show up and you can move them to other caches and make note of their move. There is a lot going on here and we are just beginning to learn about it. It sure added to the fun of our weekend.

Lobster Mania

It was another fun Memorial Day weekend at Keystone. It rained most of the time, but we did have a few sun breaks. The weather doesn't slow us down and we had great fun. This was also Lobster Mania weekend for us. The men like oysters, so they cooked them in the half shell on the BBQ. We have decided that we like the lobster cooked that way also. The boys had the oysters and us girls had lobster. I think we are the lucky ones as oysters really aren't for me. Some Caesar Salad, garlic bread, Famega white wine (If you haven't had it try it), and key lime pie made for a pretty delicious meal. Most people think we just cook hot dogs when we are out camping. Ah, not in this camp, we always cook some pretty exciting things, and we certainly never go hungry.

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