Last of January Linky Love

The above video is mesmerizing.  Definitely watch with volume.

Research: 3 Ways Yoga May Help Relieve ADHD in Children

Policing with Velvet Gloves - This is really interesting how the San Antonio Police are handling mental health crisis situations.

The Letter Your Teenager Can't Write

What I learned in January

I am linking up with Chatting at the Sky - What I learned Linky

Getting Pooped on by a Bird is LUCKY

I guess the odds of winning the lottery and getting pooped on are the same.  Well I got pooped on by a seagull so I guess I need to buy that lottery ticket. Unfortunately it happened the day after the power ball drawing. That is my story and I am sticking to it. Fortunately, it was mainly on my jacket and luckily I wasn't wearing my nice wool jacket.

Stencil's Make Cool Shadow's

I broke out my stencils to make my homemade valentine's.  My hometown is Loveland, Colorado.  I don't live there anymore but I still re-mail from Loveland.  IT IS NOT TO LATE TO RE-MAIL- February 6th is the cutoff for out of state valentine's to be re-mailed from the City of Love - Loveland, CO.

Baking Experiments - Orange Rolls

***This post contains amazon affiliate links

My family loves the canned orange rolls but ON A DARK STORMY morning I decided to make some from scratch, Hey, who is motivated to bake on a dark and stormy night but a dark and stormy morning is a total different matter.  That is my story and I am going with it.

I decided to give making orange rolls from scratch.  I used the recipe from Life As Mom's other blog Good Cheap Eats.  It did not disappoint.

I put my main servant, my kitchenaid mixer, to work. I love my bread maker but I decided to branch out.

My most reliable servant!

The result were these mac daddy (huge) orange rolls.

Life as Mom - Jessica aka Fishmom has written several cookbooks that are definitely my go to's.  I am especially a big fan of Not Your Mother's Make-Ahead & Freeze Cookbook.

Marine Park Playground

The playground structure in background is built to look similar lighthouse that was here originally

It has been forever since I have had a playground review.  My kids are teenagers but we had a chance to visit Blaine, Washington's newest playground - Marine Park Playground.  I thought it deserved a review.  This park is right along the waterfront with views of Vancouver and the Peace Arch Border Crossing.

Nice Size Climbing Rock

Ship complete with sails

This park contains two great play structures. One is a light house and the other is a giant sailing ship. There are lots of things to explore besides the slides and such - bells to ring, drums to play, rain sounds to make, optical illusions to see. This is a thoughtfully designed playground. There is a gang plank to the ship that is accessible to strollers and wheelchairs. There are rest rooms nearby in the adjacent building and across the street at the marina.

Along with all the great hands on things for kids are picture panels of the waterfront with snippets of the history of Blaine's water front.

This is a great place to visit if

If you sat in the long wait at Peace Arch border crossing, this is a great place to get the wiggles out.

In the summer if you just took the Plover Ferry from Semiamhoo, this is a great place to bring your lunch and catch a later ferry back

You brought out of town guests to visit Peace Arch State Park.  There are only swings at the Peace Arch so after look at the arch venture over to this great kids park. Adults get their history and garden fun at Peace Arch and kids get their fun at Marine Park Playground. 

The Lighthouse Play Structure would be awesome to watch the sunset from.

Just Some More Linky Love

Want to go Ice Skating through a Forest in Canada?   This looks like a lot of fun.

Happy People Tend to Value Time Over Money - DUH

Washington Summer Road Trips - It is never too early to plan for summer vacation.

WATCH this Hometown - new HGTV program pilot is on tonight. What It Was Like to Film the Pilot for Hometown

IF you haven't been reading Victoria Elizabeth Barnes blog and her love for GIANT FANCY THINGS - You really have been missing out. I think we might be soul sisters.  Check out her latest post - Giant Fancy Things ... Cheaper than Therapy

Give your Valentine Card VIP treatment

Loveland Colorado is my Hometown.  It is a family tradition to remail our Valentines from Loveland. I usually send out far more valentine's than Christmas cards.  It is a sweet way to give your valentine card some VIP treatment.  When you remail from Loveland - you get a cache stamped on the front of envelope that changes each year and the Loveland postmark.

Here are the details

Diary of a Mediocre Homemaker- My Creative Process is MESSY

Dear Diary
My creative process at best can be summed up as MESSY.  I cook messy and I create messy too. I have been trying to come up with my all important valentine card.  I had a spare hour last week so I got all the supplies out and played around. I have been experimenting with some print making. I was simply using those kid foam stickers on cardboard in essence making my own stamp. (in above pic). I painted over the homemade stamp and pressed the paper into it.  I was only mildly successful in getting a nice clear print.

The above picture.  I put foam sticker on the paper and painted around the bird foam stickers.  I then peeled the stickers off. The stickers came off OK.

When I watched kids, my absolute favorite thing to do with them was to craft.  They have no fear and the kids embrace the mess. With young kids it is about the messy process not the product.  In the end, none of these ideas are what I went with for my valentine card but it was fun to break out of the routine.

January Linky Love

Coloring by Cody

The Ultimate Pacific NW Bucket List - I have posted this before BUT now there is a PDF list.  Which is awesome. I have some work to do on my list. I made a Pinterest Board

How to Unlock Secret Netflix Categories -   I am a big fan of Netflix so I found this interesting. Works best if you watch on your desktop.

7 Things that Good Mother's Do that I am Going to Stop Doing - This made me chuckle but good stuff

Advantages (and Disadvantages) of being a Geo Teen - teen geocachers

The Barndominium - I love Chip and JoAnne Gaines on Fixer Upper.  This barn renovation was awesome. I just want Chip and JoAnne Gaines to ADOPT ME.

The Mysterious Link Between Autism and Extraordinary Abilities

Whidbey Island Cache Machine

View of Whidbey Island

We are, I guess di,e hard geocachers.  When we heard there was going to be a cache machine nearby, we knew we were going.  A cache machine is a set route of geocaches that people cache as a group.  This one I believe had 79 caches on its route.  We invited our friend Cheezer to round out our group.

My husband looks less thrilled

We did several earthcaches which are geocaches that bring you to a location to teach you about a earth feature and there is no physical cache.  Instead you answer a series of questions about the location the coordinates bring you to. The first earthcache on the route was on Pass Island on Deception Pass. Cheezer found a golf ball.  That is random.

There is another earthcache on Goose Rock Trail which I would like to do one day.

Another Earthcache location - large random rock

Near the end we get a little loopy. We cached a little over 7 hours. That is a lot of driving and finding.

I think we ended the day with 45 caches of  which included 2 events, 3 earthcaches, a multi cache. Not a bad day of caching.  We ended the day by eating Chinese buffet.

What I read January

***This post contains Amazon Affiliate Links

I am linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy's Quick Lit.

Well technically I didn't read this in January but at the end of  December but I thought this deserved a mention.

The Woman who Heard Color by Kelly Jones

The book is about a woman, Hanna who lives in Germany and hears color.  That is called sysnesthia. I had never heard of that before.  She marries who employer a Jewish gallery owner who specialized in modern art works. She then starts to work in his gallery.  One of her favorite artists was Kandinsky who also heard in color. When WWII starts she is eventually has to sell gallery and the Germans draft her into catalogue all the works of art.  Later an art detective, Lauren comes to find out what happened to all the works of art in hopes of returning the artwork to their rightful owners.

Recently, there has been lots of books/movies about the theft of art by the Nazi. While "The Woman Who Heard Color" is a work a fiction.  It rings true to the real life account about what happened to art during World War II. This fictional work was a hard to put down read.

Below I have listed some companion works books and movies.


Monuments Men ( Book/Movie} My review of the book.


Woman in Gold  (Movie)

Diary of a Mediocre Homemaker - Powerball Dreams Crushed

Dear Diary

I didn't win.  I KNOW shocking!! My husband did buy tickets.

We had a lot of Canadians come down and buy tickets.  I thought for sure one of them would of won.

No one more than me wants to win the power ball but if I can't win I would love to be adopted by the person who won.  I am all about "Dreaming Big".  

Did you buy a ticket?

Colorado Christmas Adventure

My Mom's Tree

I was lucky to get to go to Colorado with my kids and visit my parents the week before Christmas.  We left Christmas Day. I thought I would share a few pictures.  It is hard to narrow down what to share.

cousin's in front of stables

Cody

As luck would have it , some of the Clydesdale horses were at the Budweiser Plant in Ft Collins over the holidays.  It was amazing to see these creatures up close. These horses are HUGE! They had three horses in their stables taking a vacay from the west coast team.

I-25 North to Loveland

THERE WAS SNOW! Colorado got about 10 inches before we got there and while there they got a tiny bit of snow.

My parents live in Loveland so we also visited the Loveland Museum.  This is a great place to walk through with some interactive exhibits.  Loveland you have a sugar factory so there is a huge display about sugar beets. After the museum we went to visit Mariano Medina's grave an early settler of the Loveland area. These were recently moved back closer to their original location.  Back in the day, I guess my grandfather was involved in moving the graves to a nearby park but now are back in their original location.

I love the lights of Christmas.  We got a chance to go to Ft Collins to see an amazing light display The Gardens of Spring Creek.

Of course, I couldn't resist putting my face in a cut out.  I am nothing but predictable.

IT was fabulous to be able to spend Christmas Eve at my Mom and Dad's.

Crazy Cousin Duo

first linky love 2016

Hello 2016!


Cultivating the Good Life in 2016 Becky Higgins aka scrapbooker extraordinaire

26 Books Being Made into Movies in 2016

How I made $2145 Last Month Decluttering

New Year's Eve Day and Eagle Viewing

According to my handy dandy calendar today, January 5th, is National Bird Day so it is only appropriate I post some pictures of some birds.

I have been seeing lots of post about flocks ( yes flocks) of the eagles hanging out at nearby river to partake in the chum salmon run.  So New Year's Eve Day we decided to headed to nearby Deming Washington and see what we could see.  We were not disappointed there were about 20 hanging out near the Nooksack River.  There were also lots of people with their professional camera gear.  My point and shoot did get this good picture of two eagles in the river.   It was amazing to see them up close.  You can't help but say what magnificent birds.

What Worked for Me in 2015

I tried to jot down what was successful for me in 2015. Things that worked for me and what inspired me and the things I learned. I am Linking up with Chatting at the Sky - What I learned last Year

Picture taken during walk at Hovander Park

Walking is my exercise choice. HOWEVER I do my best walking with my friends.  Walking is way better with company. I use a fit bit and I think it is a good motivator. Walking is a bit exercise and a bit therapy for me.

Blog wise my most read posts were my Book reviews aka What I Read linky at Modern Mrs Darcy. I plan on continuing to READ lots and lots of books and give my little book reports

Interesting T-shirt found at Value Village

My biggest three series on my blog were Diary of a Mediocre Homemaker, T-shirts with a Message, and Linky Love.  I plan on continuing those series.

Post it To Do List from Life as Mom - I used this system the entire year with some minor adjustments. It basically kept me on track.

Keep Going on Adventures  - Big and Small

*ET Highway
* Hedge Maze
* Dropping a Friend off at College aka cougar calves
* Colorado
* lots of geocaching adventures