I wanna live like we lived in the summer

Washington's giving us some glimpses of summer. You really have to pay close attention though, ha!

One of my favorite summer time activities (depending on the temperature) is hiking.

There are two hikes that I've always mixed up. Cougar mountain and Tiger mountain. Mixed up that is until Shannon Ryther and I straightened it all out this last Saturday.

Cougar mountain is in Bellevue, off of Lakemont Blvd. Tiger mountain (the mountain where all the hang gliders go, according to my neighbor) is a few more exits down and right off the freeway.

Cougar/Bellevue Tiger/Snoqualmie Got it?

So after taking a leisure scenic route filled with highway, house and recumbent bicycle. We made our way to Cougar Mountain.

I discovered when we parked there that I hadn't done this hike in 6+ years. The last time I did it was when I was getting my Associates degree at Bellevue College (Then Bellevue Community College) taking a plant identification class. The syllabus for that class was: Show up at class in tennis shoes everyday ready to HIKE! Best class I've ever taken.

Shannon and I took the route towards Coal Creek Falls. A beautiful hike. We had so much shade cover from the trees, we did just fine in the 78 deg weather without sunscreen.

Hurrah for hiking. I love it! Thanks for coming along Shannon

And another 'peek of summer' day I was able to catch was just a couple days ago. Monday night Kelsey Rudd and I headed out to Seattle to the Arboretum.

Whoooooo! talk about fun. Arboretum + Canoe + Paddles = a raving good time.

Kelsey and I went under around, forth and back

And now I really want to go Kayaking. Anyone else?

But, yes thanks to WA & the great northwest. You may keep us in puddles, just keep shining the sun every so often.

Garden? Why, yes I'd love to!

Firstly, I've been on another cultural excursion. Props to Jacob for reminding me of this event.

The center house in Seattle annually holds a Spirit of West Africa Festival. I headed out (post garden shopping) to it this last Saturday. They have many musical performances and other presentations throughout the five hours that it lasts.

One of the first musical performances I saw was a man from Gambia (I think...am 95.7% sure) playing the 21 string harp exclusive to West Africa, the Kora.

see here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kora_(instrument)

The Kora is traditionally passed down through the family. This man spoke of how his father had taught him and passed the instrument to him. Cool!

After this man played I noticed a fashion show on the schedule board and accordingly let out my squeals of excitement!

If I can just break here for a moment to explain my-self.

Christina LOVES culture. So, this wasn't some of kind of runway fashion excitement (I love my sweats) No, this was a "AFRICAN CLOTHING?!?! What they wear on the other side of the world!?!" excitement.

At the start of the fashion show they talked about how the cotton is locally grown and how that directly influences the quality of the fabric.

I was in AWE when the ladies came out with how gorgeous the fabric is. The vibrant colors, the texture. It was a really great show.

Now, on to explaining the title of this blog post:

I've never had a green thumb. But wow, these days I've got a green thumb and probably entire hand, shoulder, foot....well you get what I mean

The gardening sale my mom and I attended before the festival was over at an extension office for WSU. It's an annual sale put on (always the first Sat. in May) by the 'Master Gardeners': Men and Women in our community to be worshiped for their wisdom and knowledge of gardening, or at least to be called (they have a handy hotline, er web site http://mastergardener.wsu.edu/).

Plants and Flowers sold at this sale are locally grown (remember the quality factor). And they're DIRT CHEAP..haha with dirt in them. Double points!

Very swiftly, or not so swiftly (I think we spent two hours there) my mom and I weighed ourselves down with $1 herbs, $3 tomato plants etc.. and trekked like sumo wrestlers to my car.

romaine lettuce, green leaf lettuce & rainbow chard

So, point!? I've been gardening for the last few/many days and LOVIN IT

2011!

Ha, I'm such a bad blogger.

Yes, it is 2011! Here are some favorite photos from 2010:

2 year olds give the best smiles

Kanom

I'm official- Daughters of Norway

Sore throat, BUT beat the average

She really sleeps like this

So fun to make

Jacob (Cub) William Sprecken

JOHN MAYER AT THE GORGE!

The coolest kid you'll ever meet

I didn't make it, but I will someday

Joy ride

Elder Griffin found gourd carving a bit straining

Gourd + sweat and struggle = maraca

I'm all about the intricate

Rock Canyon Park-sledding just like Fresh year

She actually loved this...

Burley ID -Has some crazy wind

That's all.

Catch up!

Wow! Two months gone by....

Here are some highlights:

August

Grandma Fredrickson (Grandma Fred)---An AMAZING woman in my life

Esther Clella Fredrickson

Funeral Services were held August 19th. My immediate family and I sang "O love that glorifies the son. " It was always one of her very favorite hymns.

I hope to honor the life she lived with the way I live my own.

September

Bumbershoot! Couldn't pass this up. I love music WAY TOO MUCH.

The lead singer of the band Civil Twilight

It was Aaron's 1st time to Bumbershoot

Jamie Lidell, like James Brown..only white

Thanks for the invite Shannon!

Caroline's Wedding

Weddings, weddings! "Marriage is what brings us together today."

Yup it's what brought my ol college roommates in town. Had a blast. It was like Freshman year all over again (Well except the group of boys playing pranks on us)

Caroline Mina Chong is now Caroline Mina Chong Pickett!

April and I checked out the Asian Art Museum when she first flew in. You can never fail with some good ol culture.

Chyea ! And this wonderful month was finished off with a nice and WET backpacking trip. Discovery Lake was discovered!

X marks where we camped (eh, well semi close)

HA, Sun was on our side till about 4pm then down came the rain.

Squish, squish went my hiking boots.

Thankfully we had a fire to top all fires! We were able to get it so hot that it burned wet logs from the lake.

Despite it being a cold and wet trip, it was a BLAST! I love backpacking

October

So far.....................

I'm just noticing some similarities...

FALKOR!!

I didn't know puppy-cuts turn dogs into dragons.

Otter Falls

Phew! 10 good miles of trail. This has got to be one of my very favorite hikes now. The hike is easy (ie there's only a 300 ft elevation gain the whole trip) BUT! It's pretty, very pretty. There are many water features along the way.

The top of Otter Falls with Lipse Lake below

Me at the bottom of the falls

Me in front of Lipse Lake

A close up of Marten Creek Falls

Marten Creek Falls

Hiking back I met a 90 year old man with a big ol frame pack BLAZING down the trail.

That'll be me, that'll be

Summertime and the living is easy

Mmmm this weather's been so nice. I love summers in Washington.

Well I've been working part time at a massage studio my friend owns and helping out with random business stuff. Perks for working at a massage studio... FREE MASSAGES. Oh yes, hehe it's a beautiful thing.

Yup but aside from work, I've been getting back into a lot of ol hobbies I haven't done in YEARS, so many years.

I discovered recently that an elderly neighbor across the street from us double majored in Art and Engineering. I got him to trade services with me; I bake him cookies, he gives me art lessons. So I get art homework every week. We're starting with drawing. Rendition after rendition of PITCHERS! I'm so sick of them. Morandi can keep the pitchers. But, my neighbor says I have to draw well if I want to be a realist painter. So more pitchers it is....

Another fun thing I've been re-visiting is Ballet. I took it many years ago with my sister. We'd gone as a family to see the Nutcracker and I fell in love with the dancers. So Laurianne and I signed up! We only danced for a couple years, but we were able to get up on pointe shoes in that time and do a lot of fun performances. One of the masseuses at the massage studio tipped me off about a place in Belltown that offers adult ballet classes for a very decent price. So last Friday, I attended! I never realized how much I really loved Ballet and the good work out you get from it until I went to this first session. I was dancing circles in the streets after the lesson. I can't wait for this Friday.

Boating! Got up on water skis for the first time the other day.

And HIKING! Can't get enough of it. I go once a week with a friend. We've done Rattlesnake Ledge, Little Si, Mt Si and this week's hike is Otter Falls, a good 10 miler.

Gotta love the Washington sunshine, that's all I have to say :)

Fragrant Flowers

Opps missed a couple months here.

So Korea hasn't happened yet. BUT! It's still a high probable future...be watching and waiting.

I had an interesting gardening experience the other day. My mom and I had these weird shrubs that were growing in between our Rhododendron. They looked like weeds. SHORT, UGLY, WITHOUT FLOWER and FRAGRANT-LESS!

I told my mom we oughta dig 'em up and send them out! But they still hadn't flowered yet, so we decided to wait a while and see if maybe our eyes were just being mislead...

Boy were we wrong about those shrubs:

They were actually peony bushes.

Peonies (as you can see) are BIG, BEAUTIFUL, HIGHLY FRAGRANT flowers. Nothing at all like weeds. So it just goes to show. You never can tell. Don't judge a book by it's cover. People (Plants?) are like onions (layers, layers, layers)..

So if you ever find what you think is a nasty weed in your yard, wait a couple weeks. You never know, you might just have a stunning peony bush!

FYI Peonies really are beautiful and very fragrant. I highly recommend them.

Happy Gardening!