Guess What Landed on Our Awning!? (It's Pretty Funny.) And Other Snapshots of a Wonderful Weekend

Hiya How Bourgeois friends!

I hope that everybody has had a wonderful past week, and an even nicer weekend! I'm just popping in to post some pictures, and to say "hello!" The funniest thing happened on Sunday too. Read below to find out what that was. :)

For those of you interested, I'll have another post on gray hair in the near future. This one might be slightly controversial, where I talk about the "should you" or "shouldn't" you go gray if you don't have to. I came across an interesting article that strongly takes one side of this argument. I wanted to share, and see what you thought too! I have my opinion, it's something that I've thought about A LOT! 

Also, a big THANK YOU to one of my dear readers, (you know who you are!) for asking about the status of the next "YEAR OF YOU" post. Thank you so much! I promise to get right on that. The fourth installment is all about simple ways to go about injecting some peaceful rhythm and routine into your life. If you find yourself generally zapped of energy these days, or your weeks are very hectic, starting a new, gentle rhythm to your time can INSTANTLY work WONDERS! It's one of those things that is so simple, yet so effective. That's a fun post with real suggestions, coming up soon!

I feel like I posted a version of this photo last week, but I just wanted to start off by illustrating that suddenly, SPRING HAS SPRUNG over here!!! Everything is blooming.

One of the best parts of living in our little downtown, is having the city tend to a beautiful mini-garden, right outside our windows. We call this "Tulip Island." It's GORGEOUS. I need to take some more pictures. Each year these tulips bloom, and each year they amaze me. Throughout the seasons, different plants and flower come up or are planted. It's always fun to see what's next, but the tulips are my favorite.

Something that I've been waiting and waiting for, was for the cold weather to leave, so we could just get on with it and plant some flowers! Finally last weekend, we decided it was ok. This beautiful potted arrangement is called "Candy Land." That's what it said on the tag, and now she happily sits on a stand on my front porch. I love her colors.

As you can see, we're really new to gardening. We don't know a ton, but are learning as we go. I'll have to take a more close-up photo soon, but Jon and I chose several different types of colorful annuals that will hopeful begin to grow and fill in. This pictures doesn't do justice for all of the different colors!

Avert your eyes! Except for the two flower pots below! This area needs some work, but I just wanted to note the beautiful flowers that Jon selected and planted into these golden pots. I loved how it all turned out.

On Saturday night, after a long day of planting in the front yard, and then spreading bag after bag of mulch, we decided to treat ourselves to a dinner out. It was high time that Noah had his fist official Ethiopian meal. (Well, he might have had some in San Francisco, but he was too young to really experience the food.)  I've been a fan of Ethiopian food for a long time. It's one of my favorites! We visited The Blue Nile restaurant in Ferndale.

It was such a nice night. We walked around the funky, creative, small but bustling town and then ate A LOT of food. I don't know why Noah looks so forlorn here. He was actually really excited!

I ordered the "Vegetarian Feast." Here it is on our platter. This is before our waiter brought Noah and Jon's "Meat Feast" out and put it in the middle. Noah's favorite, the spicy chicken. Mine has always been the yellow cabbage and the buttery potatoes and carrots! Oh, and the injera bread....yum!

We had so much to accomplish this weekend, that I specifically asked for a low-key Mother's Day. It ended up being the perfect day, getting all of our planting done and having such nice weather. In the morning, Noah gave me what Jon coined: "The Best Mother's Day Gift" and he was right! It was that Noah woke up and started playing with toys instead of asking to play Minecraft. I was THRILLED!

The boys gave me nice cards and a gift card to Michael's Arts & Crafts. Isn't that nice? :)

On Sunday evening I went out for my usual walk on the hill. When I was about halfway down the hill on the first trip, and passing the small pond, I noticed a strange rock alongside the water. From across the street I wondered what the rock was doing there. And then, I thought: "Wow! Is that a big turtle?" As I walked closer, I was surprised to find that it was a bird, hunched over the pond, with his back to me, "fishing!"

What in the world kind of bird was this!? I was SO INCREDIBLY excited. A new species for me!!!!!

It turns out that this guy is a GREEN HERON ! (That's All About Bird's picture below by the way, not mine.)

It seems to be that he's here for the summer breading season. I'm not too surprised though, because we live just above a big watershed area, and I know that at least one Great Blue Heron lives down there. Isn't that cool!? 

Speaking of birds..... Guess what landed on the back awning!!!?? Can you tell........?

It's a DUCK!
He looked a little confused.

But finally, the duck figured out how to fly up to the roof where his wife was.
From underneath though, it was just hysterical. You saw the shadow of the little webbed feet walking, and you heard: "quack-quack-quack!" :)

Poor Willow. She REALLY wanted to go out and see what all the commotion was.

And that my friends, is the scoop!

Until next time, 

xoxoxooxoxoxoxoox,

Lauren :)