Canoes, Penguins and Giraffes, Oh My

Good Morning to all of you.  I hope you are having a great week.  It's been beautiful, beautiful up here in the Pacific Northwest.  Very few clouds, although the wind has been blowing.
We had an enjoyable weekend at the lake.  It does seem a bit strange not to be decorating gravesites on Memorial Day as we did when we lived in Nebraska.  We don't have any family buried up here.  My sister-in-law and niece are good about visiting all of the family and friends graves back home and putting flowers on them.

I did watch a few ceremonies on television honoring our veterans.  I am so grateful to each and every person who has served or is still serving in the military of the United States of America.  My father, brother, brother-in-law and my wonderful husband Dennis, have all been active duty military.  We have many friends who have sacrificed for each of us, and to them and all veterans I say "Thank You."  I know I'm a day or two late, but I don't think it's ever to late to say thank you.  We should remember them every day.

I have been working on this baby blanket all weekend and it's still not done.  There were lots of visitors and lots of talking and walking at the lake this weekend and not much knitting done.  In fact, yesterday I had almost 16,000 steps on my fitbit!  WOW!  I don't know the last time I walked so much.  I took a walk with Lori before coming home and then it was yard work and cleaning once I got home.  It's nice to see that number going up though.

I trimmed bushes and Dennis mowed last night.  Then I planted some flowers and did some weeding.

 Dennis' shed.  The sign over the door says "Papa's House."  That's what Piper named it while it was being built.

 I picked three grocery bags full of rhubarb yesterday and distributed it to neighbors.  As you can see there is still more.  It's been prolific this year.

 The marigolds are establishing themselves well.  There are even a few "volunteer" plants from last year that have joined in.  I love marigolds.  They will eventually grow big enough to completely fill in the bed and it will be one mass of color.  At least that's what it normally does.

Alex is building a canoe in the back of his office building in Towada.  He sent for the plans and discussed the procedure with his Dad over facetime and has begun building it this week.  It's looking good and I see by the photo he sent that he has found a helper!  Do you think it will be watertight?

Piper went to the zoo again yesterday and got to feed the giraffes...

 ...and pet the penguins!  How fun is that?  The company that her Daddy works for is building some new exhibits and they were able to get special passes to actually get "up close and personal" with some of the animals.

This little girl and her Mommy are coming to see us in June.  Yippee!  They are bringing the cats, Amelia and Franny to live with us.  They are 14 & 16 years old but Piper has developed a severe allergy to cats.  Of course they can't go to a shelter because who would adopt such elderly cats?  They are used to us and to Chloe so the obvious choice is to bring them to us.  They know our house and they know us.  It will all work out well.  We're hoping they will do okay on the flight from Omaha.  They flew from here to Washington, D.C. so that's not new for them either.

I have decided that after I finish the blanket in the above photo, I need to do a mitten marathon for awhile.  Kathyb has me wanting to do a log cabin afghan and I really want to work on my nine-patch knitted squares, but winter will be here and I haven't made very many mittens for the school kids yet.  Shame on me. Of course, there will be socks on the needles too, but the mittens need to be a priority for awhile.  I figure that they are small and therefore easy to work on in the heat of the summer.

What about you?  Are you working on a special project this summer?  I'll be back soon to visit and I'm tryinig to keep up with all of your summer news too.

'Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."

James 1:16-17

"My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." James 1:19-20

Blessings always my friends,
Betsy