Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

This weekend, Angharad and I took an overnight trip across the border to see the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, leaving Ben behind to study in peace. (Note: "Skagit" rhymes with "gadget".) This was the third year in a row that I had wanted to see the tulips, so I was very excited to finally get there!

We set off at 9am on Saturday morning, and by noon we were driving around the fields of tulips and daffodils outside Mt Vernon in Washington state. Tulips are my favourite flower and daffodils are Angharad's, so we were in our element! We decided not to go into the two main tulip farms that charge admission and were brimming over with tourists, so we just took photos from the roadside and didn't need our gumboots after all.

Here's a field of daffodils...



And LOTS of fields of tulips...














This is what the roads around the farms looked like...


Some cyclists getting into the spirit of things...


And some close-ups from the gardens in front of the Washington Bulb Company...







For lunch, we ordered take-out (that's take-away for you Aussies!) from the charming but overcrowded Calico Cupboard Cafe and Bakery in Mt Vernon, and ate it in the car beside the Skagit River. Quesadilla for Angharad, and turkey pot pie for me...



Then we met up with Donna (previously featured in this blog, particularly in the context of US Thanksgiving!) to explore the Mt Vernon Street Fair. Here are some of the sights...

That evening we had a relaxing and entertaining time at Donna and Terry's, stayed the night with them, and left for the border after Sunday lunch.





We stopped in Bellingham to go to a craft store and do the obligatory grocery shop at Trader Joe's, and were home by 5pm. A very enjoyable weekend!

PS. Click here if you would like to see lots more tulip photos!

A life well lived

Yesterday we farewelled our good friend Ruth, less than a year after she was diagnosed with cancer. She was kind, generous, courageous, cheerful and adventurous... someone who fit twice as much life into half as much time.


We will miss her very much.

Barbershop concert

Last Saturday night, a group of five of us went to a barbershop competition winners' concert! The "Show of Champions" was at the Abbotsford Arts Centre, about an hour from where we live.

Our attendance at the concert came about because Ben's cousin Connie's dad, Merle, was one of the singers. Ben hadn't seen Merle (his first cousin once removed) for about 8 years, and I hadn't met him at all, so it was great to see him - brief though it was. His group hadn't placed high enough to be in the winners' concert, but he was in the large group that sang the American and Canadian national anthems at the start of the concert, and then he sat in the audience with us, Connie, Myla and YunJu for the rest of the show.

The singing was of a very high standard - even better than I had expected. After the anthems, the show started with a few songs by the guest singers: the all-female Westcoast Harmony Chorus from Greater Vancouver. Here are two videos of them:

As we didn't know which songs were about to be sung, it was down to pure chance which ones we ended up videoing. We didn't get a video of the song I liked best by the WHC, but click here to see them performing it as a flash mob!

And here are some videos of the barbershop quartet that scored the highest during the competition. They didn't actually place in the competition, as they were from another area and had only competed in this region's contest because they'd missed their own and needed the points to progress to the next level of competition. However, the actual 1st place quartet had to pull out of the winners' concert at the last minute, so they offered their spot to these guys. Aren't they great?!

And here's the chorus that placed first overall: the Gentlemen of Fortune from Greater Vancouver. Apparently they usually win. However, they do have the 2+ million population of Greater Vancouver from which to draw their 50 singers... whereas Merle's group has 22 singers drawn from an island of 4000 residents!!

This is the finale, "Keep The Whole World Singing"...

Here we are with Connie and Merle...


And that was the Show of Champions! What did you think?

Etta's 1st birthday

Last Saturday, Ben went to a 1st birthday party for sweet little Etta, daughter of our friends Kelly and Janae. I missed the celebrations due to being busy doing the first half of my PADI Open Water scuba diving certification (second half to be completed in Mexico in a few weeks' time!).





Here are some photos of the birthday girl discovering the joys of birthday cake, which in her case took the form of her favourite muppet, Wembley...

(Above photo courtesy of Donna and Terry)

And here are some pics of our other little local friends, Claire and Aydin...





Looks like I missed a lot of fun. I think Etta should have a birthday every year!