Nature – Page 4 – Preparation Education

A Ferry Ride

December 19, 2011December 8, 2011prayingmother

My kids and I all agree that it is fun to ride the ferries. We used to ride them sometimes when we travelled with my husband to one of his far-away clients, but we moved and now a bridge makes for a better route. So now, ferry rides are a not-very-common treat.

We recently got to take a ferry ride on one of the Puget Sound Ferries and enjoyed the birds, smell of the water and air and the views. Here are a few photos that my kids snapped on our ride. I wish I could share the smell of the ocean air and the call of the seagulls with you too. Those are too things that I just absolutely love.

First is Zippy soaking up sun through the window, with the baby behind her making fingerprints on the window.

The kids really enjoyed watching the birds trying to keep up with the ferry. They would go out on the deck and cheer them on if they began to lag behind.

And I just thought this view was interesting. It’s the combination of the beauty of God’s Creation mixed with the mess of man’s labors. The cranes are for unloading ships that have arrived, no doubt, from China. Not that I don’t appreciate that we can import, it’s just not near as beautiful.

We are already planning our next trip that will require a ferry, just because we want to ride the ferry.

A Day to Remember at Deception Pass and Rosario Beach

December 6, 2011November 30, 2011prayingmother

One of my very favorite spots that I’ve ever been to in all of my life is Rosario Beach. I went there for the first time when I was fifteen, with my high school biology class. That trip had many good memories with birding, tide pooling, and of course good friends. When I moved back to the Northwest, I took my husband there as soon as possible and since then, we have tried to squeeze in as many trips as possible. We probably get there an average of twice a year. We were there two times this summer. That’s where we went for the baby’s first birthday.

Then between my brother’s death and memorial service, we wanted some family time in a place where we could experience some healing. Nature is such a good place to go, when you need healing of the soul. Because my husband and I love Rosario, and also because my brother had some really enjoyable trips to Rosario when he was alive, we persuaded the family to take a day at Rosario/Bowman Bay. We even had family join us from Germany there. It was a day to remember for all of us.

We stopped and enjoyed a view of Deception Pass Bridge.

I enjoyed time lots of time talking with my sister. Sisters are indeed a special gift. I didn’t get a sister until I was fifteen and I’m sure thankful for the blessing that I waited so long for.

We did a little birding. Although it seems that my brother needed all the binoculars or something. Actually I think he was being helpful, and since he loves birding, he could test everybody’s binoculars to see which ones were the nicest.

My kids enjoyed having their uncles home. Their uncles are very special to them.

We enjoyed a picnic all together, with some of my mom’s delicious potato salad.

We did some kayaking…

…and some hiking…

…and some exploring.

Then we gathered together at the top of the bluff overlooking the ocean and shared memories of my brother Ben and shared promises from the Bible to bring comfort to each other’s hearts. And we cried together.

Then we stayed on and watched the sunset and thought about how it was like my brother’s life. It was beautiful while it lasted, but it came to an end, but even the end was a beautiful experience.

Sooner or later, the sun sets on all of our lives. Will we be ready? Will it be the end of a beautiful life? Will it be something that our loved ones will want to remember? Questions for all of us to ponder.

It was a beautiful end to a beautiful day and it seemed to so fitting a way to remember somebody that was so dear to all of our hearts.

p.s. Today would have been my brother’s 34th birthday.

Camping on Orcas Island, part. 2

November 16, 2011November 10, 2011prayingmother

Just a bunch of people shots (well mostly people shots) from our camping trip, that I thought were fun.

Baby is happy about her first camping trip!

Baby still learning to walk! Dirt is forgiving!

“This is great! I can throw food on the floor, without Mom freaking out!”

Our next nature buff discovering fir cones.

Can’t camp without a campfire, and they’re especially appreciated when the mornings are chilly!

Dirty but happy!

Camping bed head!

JD Boy’s picture of one of the many seals hanging out by Shaw Island.

A poppy. Another picture by JD Boy. He’s taking after his father’s photography skills.

A picture of the real photographer among us.

I have no clue what he was taking a picture of. I think I was the one that had the view in my viewfinder, all that was behind me was a stone wall. Oh, well, camera wars are fun, especially with my hubby.

Camping on Orcas Island

November 15, 2011November 10, 2011prayingmother

We had a very fun camping trip to Orcas Island this summer. One of the most fun camping trips ever. Well, I always say that unless it rains on us. I really enjoy camping with my kiddoes. It’s so fun to go exploring in the wilderness with them. We saw so many things. Here are a few.

Of course, we had our binoculars and kept our eyes open for new and loved birds. Here are a couple that afforded us their picture.

A wren singing his heart out. Something that just always fills me with delight to see and hear.

A Rufous Hummingbird sipping from Great Hedge Nettle. (I hope I got my flower identification right.) Talk about jewels. This kind of beauty just makes me get goosebumps. I love God’s artwork!

God’s artwork is just as beautiful in wide shots as in those close shots.

We took a nice hike to this beautiful waterfall in Moran State Park. It was stunning, no doubt about it. I decided to add the view to my nature journal, since I tend to add close pictures to my nature journal of birds and flowers and things like that and I’d like to learn how to draw nature scenes like this. Unfortunately, one of my boys decided that mother nature was calling loudly, just as soon as I had seated myself and started my sketch, so it is still unfinished. The good thing was that my husband had the camera, so maybe I’ll finish someday, looking at these pictures for reference. My son and I ended up hiking back out much faster than we had hiked in. We freaked out my husband and the other kids, because we couldn’t get their attention as they were ahead of us and my son didn’t want to lose time chasing them down. Anyway, we obviously met back up, but it added a few laughs for our camping trip!

This one was taken after I left, but I love it.

This is the newest toy at our house. (Thanks to Craig’s List.) We took it with us. And enjoyed lots of paddling in the lakes. Now we need another one.

This is the view from the fire lookout tower on Mt. Constitution. Actually, this is only part of the view. We could see a long ways and see lots of islands. Other than the fact that being a fire lookout might have been boring most of the time, this one sure had awesome views.

On our way to Orcas, we visited a couple of other islands, here a couple of shots from Shaw Island.

This is Shark Reef at Shaw Island. I want to take my dad here. He’s a very good artist. I want him to paint what he sees. It’s on my list of things for him to do!! Doesn’t that look like it should be made into a painting to you?

Two stragglers we found there.

Bad hair is one of the fun parts of camping. I have a few of those kinds of shots too, but I’ll save those for my next post. I just get this devilish little thrill of taking pictures of people around the campground, you never can get pictures quite like that anywhere else. So next time. Thanks for enjoying the beauty of our trip with us!

Happy First Birthday, Baby!

November 13, 2011November 10, 2011prayingmother

This is actually old news, but I still want to post it on my blog, because it was a fun day!

Time flies. That is one thing that parents all agree on. Children just keep growing and growing. (And parents keep aging, but that’s a different story.)

The past year has been a whirlwind. And I can’t believe that our baby is now one. I love those newborn days and smells. And I did my best to cherish every moment, because I have, by now, learned from experience that newborn is a fleeting stage of life. But one year-olds are no less enjoyable. They are so fun. Personality starts popping out. They learn to toddle around. They learn to say “mama”, which thrills my heart every time I hear it. They learn to say “no”, which, well, isn’t quite as much of a blessing. They enjoy eating real food and make a glorious mess of it too. We are having so much fun with our little miss. She is definitely my most serious baby. If you come and introduce yourself to her, she will scowl back at you, very skeptically. So don’t feel offended, she does it to everybody. On the other hand, she’s quite the clown and can have us doubled over with laughter on a regular basis. You’d love to meet her. Well, everybody loves to meet babies, so I knew that was safe to say.

We had the privilege of taking our family, along with some of our closest friends, on an all day excursion for her first birthday.

Here she is enjoying the beach with her little friend. Both our families love the outdoors and are introducing even our youngest ones to that love as quickly as possible.

She didn’t get to blow out her candle. In fact we couldn’t even get it to light. The breeze was too strong. But, oh well, most one year olds are pretty baffled by having to blow out candles.

Now she’s ready to hike in style. Her big sis got her, her very own sippy-cup water bottle.

Up the slide…

And down.

Happy birthday, Baby!

Gardening

November 11, 2011November 10, 2011prayingmother

We had a lovely garden this summer. This was the first garden that we have had at this house and it produced well. Unfortunately, the only pictures I got were of us planting.

We put in grow boxes in the spring and grew our whole garden in the grow boxes. It was a fun experiment and I think that we are going to add more grow boxes before next summer.

I believe that a lot of lessons can be taught to children in the garden. Every family that possibly can should have a garden, if for no other reason, because it provides a wonderful lesson book for the children. That is why Jesus used seed sowing and plants and trees in so many parables.

Here is a quote about how valuable the garden is in teaching children spiritual lessons: “The parable of the sower and the seed conveys a deep spiritual lesson. The seed represents the principles sown in the heart, and its growth the development of character. Make the teaching on this point practical. The children can prepare the soil and sow the seed; and as they work, the parent or teacher can explain to them the garden of the heart, with the good or bad seed sown there; and that as the garden must be prepared for the natural seed, so the heart must be prepared for the seed of truth. As the plant grows, the correspondence between the natural and the spiritual sowing can be continued.

“The little children may be Christians, having an experience in accordance with their years. This is all that God expects of them. They need to be educated in spiritual things; and parents should give them every advantage, that they may form characters after the similitude of the character of Christ.” Ellen White, Counsels to Parents, Teachers and Students, p. 142.

The baby mostly enjoyed eating the dirt. Yikes!

Mexico Pictures

March 2, 2011March 2, 2011prayingmother

We recently spent several days in Mexico. We have so, so many pictures. I don’t know how to choose which ones to post, but here are a few that I sure like.

1. Little Blue Heron, 2. Mama and Baby, 3. Sunset silhouette, 4. Captured Orange Fronted Parakeet, 5. Orange Fronted Parakeet Captured, 6. Orange Fronted Parakeet in Captivity, 7. Orchid, 8. Kids playing at the beach, 9. Leaf Cutter Ants, 10. Rosette Spoonbill, 11. Orchid, 12. Jacana, 13. Wood Stork, 14. Vermillion Flycatcher, 15. Tri Colored Heron, 16. Papa and Baby, 17. Little Blue Heron and Minnow, 18. Building Sand Castles

Dragonflies — Nature Study in Our Backyard

October 7, 2010October 7, 2010prayingmother

So I decided it was time to get back in the swing of doing regular nature study every week. (It was pretty sporadic when I was pregnant and sick.) We had a little powow and decided that we wanted to learn about Maple trees and start another year long study of cattails, since we didn’t keep up with the last one. We chose Maple trees first since we have some real beauties around our house right now and we set out with our nature journals, paints, colored pencils and our Handbook of Nature Study.

Wouldn’t you know it? As soon as the whole family had their shoes tied and were out the door, JD Boy remembered that he had a better idea. So off came his shoes and he ran upstairs to grab his butterfly net. Then back on went the shoes and he nearly flew out the door. He raced and jumped around the backyard and then hollered with delight. He had caught the subject of interest–a dragonfly.

He brought it up to me for my approval and then got another bright idea. He’s full of ideas! He ran off and got the butterfly cage (or whatever you call it) and quickly, I mean carefully coaxed his dragonfly into the cage. Then he was off again. Between he and Zippy, we managed to capture three dragonflies.

So you can guess that our Maple tree and cattail study were not a go. We studied dragonflies. I don’t really have any idea of how to identify dragonflies, but I found this blog post by the Dragonfly Woman that recommended a couple of books, which we have since been able to check out from the library. The titles are Dragonflies through Binoculars and Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West and are both quite easy to use. JD Boy thinks he has an identification of the dragonflies that we caught, as well as two or three other species that he’s seen around here several times.

White-faced Meadowhawk

Here are our nature journal entries.

The first two are paintings of the dragonfly by G’tums, age 4.

Dragonflies by JD Boy, age 7.

Dragonfly drawing by Zippy, age 10.

Colored pencil Dragonfly by Me.

Stehekin Trip

October 6, 2010October 7, 2010prayingmother

I have a whole bunch (and I mean A BUNCH) more pictures that I want to share. These are from a trip that we took to Stehekin, which is at the north end of Lake Chelan, Washington. We spent three days with my family and some friends. It was such an enjoyable trip. We definitely want to go back again.

Somebody windsurfing on the lake.

My sister enjoying a dip at Rainbow Falls.

My dad enjoying a moment to draw the scenery.

JD Boy taking a break on a hike.

One of two planes that water taxi people up there as there are no roads. We took the boat.

My younger siblings and a friend ready to go on their flight back.

Zippy hanging out on the bridge railing.

Me with a backpack and a frontpack. It’s the life!

The view at the south end of the lake. The top of the lake and the bottom of the lake are like two different worlds.

Actually there are several more pictures, but I didn’t want to make it so that this page would never load. So if you want to see more, here is the link to them Stehekin Photo Set.

Mt. Rainier Trip

September 28, 2010prayingmother

We had the privilege of enjoying a day at Mt. Ranier just one week before we moved, when Baby was 3 weeks old. It was fun to introduce Baby to our love of hiking and the beautiful world around us when she was so little!

We didn’t take a very strenuous hike. (Due to the fact that I was only three weeks beyond giving birth.) We walked a very beautiful trail though, called Grove of the Patriarchs. If you ever visit Rainier and want to take a nice and beautiful stroll, I highly recommend this trail. The trees are grandiose and there is a swinging bridge to cross. Here are a few pictures of what we saw while on the trail.

The kids decided to hold up some of the fallen trees!

Tree Holder

If you want to feel small, stand next to some of these trees. You realize, you’re pretty young and pretty small both.

Here they are standing inside the roots of a fallen tree.

We enjoyed watching this little bird (which I think we identified as a Western Wood-Pewee) feeding her babies. We stood by the side of the trail and watched for a long time. Other hikers stopped to watch when they saw us watching her. The ones who had children with them thanked us for pointing this out. It’s a reminder that it’s important to pay attention to what is going on around you, otherwise you might miss out on some really neat experiences.

Before we left the Park, the kids all got their Junior Ranger badges. This is one of the highlights for them of visiting National Parks.