Just one of those days

Today is just one of those days I am grateful to be surrounded by so much beauty.  The sun is shinning, the temperature is warm and the scenery is gorgeous.  Dave and I spent the day biking around downtown Olympia.  Now we are cooking up some local clams and asparagus that we bought at the farmers market.

We also stopped by a farm to buy some fresh strawberries, but they didn’t have any.  Instead they had some fresh raspberries. Oh yum.

I’m trying to soak up all the goodness of today because we don’t get too many days like this. The growing season is limited and the sun is in the clouds more days than not.

However for today, this place is perfect.

Victoria, BC

Dave and I recently spent some time up in Victoria, BC. I had been up to the city a couple times before but had never visited Butchart Gardens. So we went up and spent the afternoon at the gardens.

The gardens were so beautiful. I wish I could live there. My favorite garden was the Sunken Garden.

Dave really liked the Japanese Garden. We didn’t get very many good pictures in that garden but here I am walking across a pond.

After the garden, we went up to a view point in the city. Of course it is always prettier in person but here we are with the city in the background.

The next day we met up with my mom and the twins and went to the wax museum, IMAX, and went out for some Ethiopian food.  We enjoyed having a couple weeks off to catch up with family. We both start working on Monday so now it’s time to settle down and be grown ups.

Happy as a clam

Well maybe our clams weren’t so happy. We dug them up from their comfy home in the sand and ate them.

We are up visiting my parents and today we went down to the beach to dig up our dinner. It was a lot of fun. I hadn’t done that for a few years and the twins had never done it.

Here are some pictures from our afternoon:

Cool dude Miki

Dad teaching Tuni

Lots of digging

The couple

The group showing off some of our hard work.

Sisters

The feast!

Deep fried clam strips

Steamed clams (with a little sand included!)

Pan fried clams (like scallops) with butter and garlic

Our meal was really good. I had never really eaten clams besides in clam chowder, and I liked all of the different types of clam meat.

Today I took a little break from packing and cleaning to visit my friend Tracy. Tracy was my best friend in high school and we were voted “dynamic duet” of the senior class. We even lived together for a our first two years of college. She was my roommate when I met and fell in love with Dave.  I remember telling her in class that Dave and I were going to get married and she started crying right during the lecture!

This picture is of us in our dorm room our freshman year of college. Four years later we don't see each other as much but anytime we get together our friendship just picks right up from where we left it.

She was such a kind host. She treated me to lunch and took me to parts of Spokane I had never been before. We went to a park  which she described as plant Disneyland.  Unfortunately most of the flowers were not in bloom. Luckily there was a cool green house with lots of pretty plants.

Elk Creek Falls

We went on a little hike today in Idaho. It was a beautiful day -about low 70’s- perfect. The hike lead through  three different falls on the creek and was probably about 3 miles long.  We had fun enjoying the scenery.

Dave overlooking the falls

Me at a different viewpoint of the falls. I’m at the largest of the 3 falls, about 90 feet.

Dave took some more artistic photos and you can see those at his blog.