Alright, this is not my best photography, but it gives you an idea of what I have been up to. These are a few of the presents I have wrapped recently. Honestly, to me wrapping the presents is as much fun as the presents themselves. My mum taught me how to wrap such beautiful gifts! I love that she shared this with me, and that we get to spend time together wrapping.

This bird is one of my favorite packages to date. This little friend was a real treasure to find, and I just got a red version of her yesterday that I look forward to matching with the perfect gift. And this lovely bird has a clip, so instead of gluing her on the package as I do with all the other embelishments, I simply clipped it on the ribbon, so that the person recieving the package could put her anywhere they wanted to enjoy when ever they wanted.

I love all the different looks you can give the packages. Just like the presents inside, each wrapping is unique. Its a challenge to match together different elements, getting the colours right, and a balanced looking embelishment. There is an amazing selection of beautiful flowers, greenery, and glittered bobbles to choose from.

Some people collect figurines…… my mom and I collect Christmas wrapping supplies. We have a couple boxes that we pull out this time of year. Filled with all kinds of bobbles, colours and ribbons. We have a 5 gallon bucket full of tubes of wrapping paper. The possibilities are endless. And we are always in search of a new unique piece to add to our collection.

I love wrapping gifts in a way that they are fully enjoyed as a beautiful gift before they are even opened.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Holiday Season!!

What are you enjoying this Holiday Season?

Today I am Thankful for Natures Amazing Beauty!

My day was filled with crisp winter Beauty.

Mt. Baker shining in the sunlight.

A Bald Eagle circled over me silently as I smiled and enjoyed its company.

Nature never ceases to Amaze me every Moment.

I was looking through my photos yesterday, and came across my collection from when Bernie and I lived in Winthrop Washington. It really is a beautiful and magical place. Looking through the pictures brought back fond memories of our time there. It has such a peaceful “home” feel to it. This first picture was our “back yard”. It was a large field next to our house. It was a lovely open space with great views. On the other side of the house was a couple driveways, and then trees (state land, open for us to explore). We had some fun times out in that field. We hit bright orange golf balls out in that field with about 8 inches of snow. That was a hoot! The snow was pretty crunchy on top, so the ball wouldn’t sink in too often, but once in a while it would dissapear, and it became a treasure hunt.

This old building was always facinating. I loved its colour and strength. Right next to it was a pretty big, old orchard. We would go collect the apples when they were ready in the fall. They weren’t very good quality, very old trees, and very little care. But we would put them in a box in our kitchen, and feed them to the deer that visited our house through the winter. The apples would keep quite a while, and the deer loved the treat when they were having to walk through 4 feet of snow all day long. There was also a very little creeklet that ran right next to this house. It was clear why the house was built on this site, because water is much needed through the dry, hot summers in this area. There actually was a little spring that popped out in the basement of this house, you could see where they once piped this spring for use through the house.

There were so many beautiful plants in this area. This Pondorosa Pine was up where I used to work. I love the shape of it. It truely looks like a Bonsai. Ah, I do love looking at these pictures. I am sure I will spend more time in Winthrop some day. Until then, I will remember my time there with much love!

Sorry I have not been keeping up with posts well at all. I have been keeping up with Facebook much more than I have with my blog. I simply have not been taking pictures lately. But now that I have wandered back into my old photos, perhaps I will take you on a tour of my adventure in Winthrop.

Bernie has been posting about our Pacific Crest Trail Adventure on his blog.

He has been posting the pictures, and sharing our feelings and insights from the trail.

There is much more to come! So be sure to check in if you enjoy our journey.

Visit his blog Here

Yesterday Nature was expressing herself passionately through weather around here. She was fluctuating between big hail storms and blue patches in the sky. It really was a beautiful day, and had so many magical moments to it. This picture is looking toward our neighbors house, the sun was casting such an amazing glow on everything, contrasting beautifully with that dark background. And there is our little bull calf enjoying the scenery as well.

I enjoyed getting to experience it from different perspectives. Earlier in the day I sat next to the warm woodstove and watched rain and then hail come down in sheets. Then I ventured out during a moment in between storms, getting lightly misted at times, to feed the chickens. And at the end of the day, Bernie and I went and sat under the overhang of one of our out buildings and enjoyed a show of Thunder and Lightning, accented with sheets of rain, and moments of hail.

These pictures were all taken just before Bernie and I sat down to enjoy the show. Nature sure does provide some spectacular scenery! Beauty, our draft horse took a moment to pose for me before the next storm rolled in.

To enjoy more beautiful photographs visit:

Now the Grand Canyon is a very magical place in its own way. I love that I got to see and experience it once again, and look forward to going back some day. But I do have to say, my favorite place on the whole trip was Sedona. Again, I had been there 7 years ago with Bernie, and loved the little bit of exploring we got to do then. It was wonderful to feel the amazing energy of this place again.

The whole area is immersed in these magic Red Rock formations. The colour in these photos is not messed with, they are really that red. Its a great experience to be surrounded by so much vibrant colour provided by nature. And look at it against those amazing clear blue skies.

We went for a couple little short walks. The wonderful thing about being immersed in the middle of these formations is you can take a very short walk, and be right next to the rocks. This walk was 1 mile each way, mostly flat. It was a good healing walk for moms cold. We got her out in the warm sunshine, enjoying some beautiful scenery (that is her in the white shirt)! The weather continued to warm as we were in Sedona, and we were able to melt the little bit of chill left over from the Grand Canyon from our bones. Being from northwest Washington, it was really nice to experience that warm dry air for a change.

There are a few energy vortexes in the Sedona area. This is a unique thing to experience, and is quite advertised in the area. We went to one that was easy to get to, and sat there just after sunset until the sky got nice and dark. I can not say that I have had a life changing experience on one of these vortexes, but I do believe that I can feel a slight difference in energy, kind of comforting and cozy. I am sure with some time spent just being in these places, one could tune into the energy more. It is an aspect I would like to explore sometime in the future. Its easy to understand why these vortexes exists here once you have been to the area. The energy of the whole valley is just different from anywhere else you have been.

Above is part of the town of Sedona. Its both lovely and sad that it snakes its way through the rocks. What a magical place for a town to be, but also a bit sad to see chain stores and mini malls right in the middle of such a view! But the beauty does attract people….. and where people go, building follows. The fun aspect of all the people in the area was watching the trick or treaters in uptown Sedona. This is the main tourist shopping area, and lots of people turned out to get treats from the businesses. We sat at a sidewalk cafe and had dinner, watching everyone walk by in their costumes. There were mostly plain costumes, cute, but not creative. But I do have to say we saw a couple unique ones. Probably the cutest of the night was a girl of about 10 or so dressed up as Barbie, but they went one step farther. They rigged up a whole box to look like the box you buy Barbie in. they had the little viewing windows, painted pink, Barbie written across it. Very cute! She walked around inside the box, lifting it up as she walked, setting it down to pose for pictures. Wish I had gotten one!

This was the view from our room. I was standing on the little balcony attached to our room to take this photo. It was truely peaceful. We had a little creek, Oak Creek, flowing right below the balcony also. It was so lovely to sit out there in the morning and listen to the water, and watch the sun slide across the Red Rock. Then at sunset the rocks would glow like this. Amazing!

Well, the trip was magical in many ways. And we had a beautiful time in Sedona. We got some Christmas shopping done, did some lovely little walks to see some rock formations, relaxed in the warm desert sun, and had a good time together. We packed up our belongings, quietly said our goodbyes to Sedona, promising to return in the future and started our drive back to Las Vegas to catch our plane. When we started our road trip out of Vegas we had seen a couple herds of Big Horn Sheep near Hoover Dam. There was no place to pull off to get pictures, but on our way back, after we had crossed over the dam and started to get back into the populated area of Las Vegas, we saw a herd of males next to the road, enjoying the well watered stretch of grass along the highway. We were able to safely pull off, and I snapped some shots. This guy seemed to enjoy the photography session. I have loved Big Horn Sheep since I first saw them in Yellowstone, they are quite majestic creatures.

Well our flight home went well. It was a bit sad to see the grey skies again, and the rain. But we enjoyed our trip, and the photos are a good inspiration for us to return to this beautiful area some day soon.

Las Vegas was interesting, but I have to say that the trip really started for me once mom and I took off on our road trip. First destination: The Grand Canyon. We made it to Williams the first night out of Las Vegas. This is the gateway to the Grand Canyon, and it was a very cute little town. We spent the morning shopping a little bit, finding a few good gifts. It was SO cold though! I really did not expect it to get so cold on our trip, but alas it did. It spit snow on us a little bit driving into Williams that night, and then the next day right as we made it into Grand Canyon Natioinal Park we god a couple more snow flakes spit at us before the clouds started to slowly give up and drift away.

The clouds turned out to be perfect though, it added some dimension to the scenery. And with the lovely lens that Bernie let me borrow, with its great polarizing filter, I got some wonderful pictures on our journey! The colours of the Canyon simply amaze me. Its spectacular to look down into this gaping hole in the ground and see all these beautiful colours accenting every formation and bend.

Unfortunatly Mum started catching a cold at this point, and was having a hard time breathing. She did not feel up to any of the steep climbs that the Canyon is filled with, so we kept our outings simple. This was a lovely 1.5 mile walk along the rim. We got to see different view points (mum enjoying one of them in the picture above), giving us many perspectives on the Canyon. Its great to see the trails snaking down toward the river at the bottom. It made me really want to strap a backpack on and head down to the bottom. When I met Bernie seven years ago I was not a hiker at all, I developed this skill quickly as I joined him in his adventures. The Grand Canyon was my first real overnight hike with a backpack. We had been doing day hikes up to that point, and driving out dirt roads and camping, but we had not done a hike in camping trip yet (The Grand Canyon adventure was only a month or two after we had met). This was my first time back to the Grand Canyon since that adventure, and looking down at those trails brought back some memories. I have walked literally thousands of miles since then, and it would be great to go back down with a whole new perspective.

We saw a flock of beautiful little pygmy nut hatches in a tree along our walk. I do love the nut hatches. Such beautiful little birds, and a great personality! They jumped around the tree, gently talking in their happy tones to each other, gathering little morsels of food. I snapped this picture just as he pulled a seed out of the cone, and a moment later he had flown of to hide his treasure in a food stash somewhere.

There are many buildings along the rim. A good handful of them are giftshops such as this building, the Hopi House. Most of these structures were designed by Mary Colter in the ’20’s and ’30’s. They are all beautiful and unique in their own ways. Showcasing materials of the area.

The day we left the Canyon we drove along the rim to the east, and stopped at many of the viewpoints. Its amazing how quickly the Canyon changes. Each vantage point is spectacular, and reveals a new perspective.

Another of Mary Colters creations.

Standing at the edge….. Loving Nature!

This was the sunrise here the morning we left for Las Vegas. What a beautiful send off! I am not a morning person, so I don’t see a lot of sunrises, lol.

The convention that we were attending was at Ceasars Palace. We stayed at a different hotel about a (Las Vegas) block away. These are the statues that greet you when you first walk in Ceasars. All the details that they have put into this massive building is amazing. It is beyond imagination how much it cost to construct this monster of a resort. The whole place takes up a huge amount of land, and is a maze to get around.

This is an indoor cafe….. all the detailed painting, and statues. It amazes me.

One of the fun parts of one of the shopping areas there is the FAO Schwarz Trojan Horse. Only in a building of this size could something like this look at home. Its pretty neat. We went to the Forum shops at Ceasars also, very expensive over all, but kind of fun to look through. Things that I would not normally see shopping around here in Bellingham. I did find a Christmas gift for mom though.

One evening we made our way up to Fremont street to have dinner, do some shopping and experience the light show. For anyone that has not been to Las Vegas, this is a walking only street that has a huge lightshow built over it. It runs a couple blocks long, and every hour or so each night they put on this big show with music. We happened to be there for two shows, and each one was different. At the end of each show there was a Halloween bonus show. These two pictures are from one of the bonus shows at the end. Its a pretty amazing thing to watch. Nothing in Las Vegas is small.

Mom and I had a good time in Las Vegas. It is an interesting place to visit once in a while. I have to say it is not a place that I would really enjoy living in, or spending too much time at. But its always good to get a different perspective on life, and Las Vegas will do that for you for sure! It is entertaining in its own ways, if you have never been you might ponder doing it once as a once in a lifetime experience. It’s unique!

Last Sunday when mom and I were at the Pike Place Market, there was a man and his beloved bird performing on a corner. He said that he got him when he was a featherless baby and now he is 15 years old. I never did catch the mans name, but the birds name was Phinius (really not sure on the spelling there). This guy had taught his bird all kinds of great tricks, and had us all smiling. I just loved this first photo, cant you just see the love that this guy shares with his bird? And that piercing gaze in the second photo, he was looking right into my soul.

I wish I had been able to get some video of the act these two friends did. They both seemed to enjoy the attention, and even though Phinius was doing most of the work, you could tell he was so much happier than a bird that had to sit in a cage all day. I have seen birds that live in a cage plucking themselves bald out of stress and bordom. This bird was as healthy as you could ask for, nice feathers, good weight and a wise joyful expression. So lovely to see!

Having grown up with many animals, I love to see someone that is so loving, and having so much fun with their animal companion. Its such a special relationship to some people, and that is just wonderful! I have never understood how some people can honestly believed that animals do not have a soul, or are incapable of thinking, I suppose we all have a different perspective on the world…… Whats one of your favorite experiences with a beloved pet?

I am off to Las Vegas tomorrow, and then the Grand Canyon and Sedona, AZ. I hope to get many wonderful photos to share on here, and to remember my adventure. I am truely blessed to have great opportunities to go explore the world, and am endlessly grateful for them. I may not have internet access again until I get back in a week (at this time I do not  have a laptop or other mobile device to take with me). I hope all of you have a magical week! (Oh! And my last post was my 100th post! Does not seem like I have had that much to say….)

This past weekend my mom and I drove down to Olympia for my cousins wedding on Saturday. It was great to see some family that I had not seen in a good number of years. Reconnecting ties that had started to slip loose. It was a lovely wedding, and the Bride was beautiful of course! Unfortunatly I don’t have the flash set up needed to get good pictures indoors, and thus I did not get any pictures that I thought were worth sharing. But on Sunday we got up and drove to Seattle so that we could visit the Pike Place Market. Its such a great place to visit, so much going on, and great things to see! These first two pictures are not the highest quality, but they are good memories for me. The first is the sign that sits atop the open air building that the majority of the market sits under. The second is my mum, giving me a lovely smile (its hard to get her to smile nice for the camera some times, lol). We had a wonderful time wandering the market together! How much fun. Mom found a couple Christmas presents for people (yes, it is getting to be that time of year already).

There were people of all types there, I liked this picture of a gentleman doing his weekend shopping. The  produce there really is beautiful! Its wonderful quality, and they arrange it in an amazingly artistic way. It makes it very tempting to buy! There are also many flower stands. There are little ladies standing there all day putting together the most beautiful arrangements. We bought two, but I did not end up getting a picture of them. Its great to watch these women piece together an arrangement one stem at a time.

There are also all kinds of crafts people selling their art. I got a T-shirt with a beautiful fish design and ‘Seattle Pike Place Market’ written on it. This lady does beautiful designs for shirts. My parents bought a raven one for Bernie last year, which is also very nice. They are based on Native American Art with this ladies personal touch on the design.

There were some amazing chili arangements in all kinds of shapes and colours. We were also blessed with enjoying the amazing Fall colours. The Northwest doesnt always get the nicest fall colours, because if it rains a lot (as it usually does this time of year) the leaves will start to turn colour and then they get all wet and just turn this blah brown then fall to the ground. This year though, they are amazing! I unfortunatly did not get any pictures of it, as we were always enjoying the beauty as we were driving.

It was a lovely weekend!