We broke the record today in Bellingham for the hottest day ever! It was 97 at the Bellingham International Airport and the record from 1958 was 94 degrees. It was a scorcher. I braved the late afternoon heat on the deck to photograph the lilies. I bought a bag of lily bulbs at Costco and planted them in early spring. Now they are blooming. They are so beautiful.
We are having a heat wave. Supposed to get up to almost 90 today. The cats are draped about trying to cool off. So are we.
Saturday we drove up to visit our friends Larry, Loretta and Xander in Canada. Our plan was to travel from Burnaby where they live to English Bay in Vancouver to see the South Africa fireworks show as part of the Celebration of Light. The weather forecast was for heat and sun. Little did we know what awaited us as we drove to a spot about a fifteen minute walk from the beach. As we walked we heard rumblings of thunder and felt the first drops of rain. We arrived at the beach at 6:30 pm and spent the next four hours getting soaked, seeing the most incredible sunset, watching one of the best lightning shows we've ever seen and enjoying a great fireworks show. The day was totally amazing. Check out the video on Youtube that I took of the fireworks with my little Flip MinoHD camera.
She may be old - 15 1/2 - but she is still elegantly beautiful. And of course still Queen of the Universe. The kittens have made Fiona younger and it shows.
Today I traveled with my friend Elaine to Samish Island to visit her cousin and photograph their grandfather's paintings. I've been working on a project for Elaine and her family to photograph all the paintings that the family has saved of his work.
The Festival is over for this year. It was fantastic. I took these photos at Western Washington University yesterday evening. The first two were outside the Performing Arts Center just before we went in to hear the pre-concert lecture and the concert. The third was the orchestra warming up just before the start of the concert. Our guest Larry is toward the back on the right. The concert was wonderful and we loved hosting Larry again this year. Sad to see the end of the Festival but happy that it was so great this year as usual. We are very lucky to have such amazing music here in Bellingham.
Took this one last Sunday when we went to the chamber concert held at the Alaska Ferry Terminal in Bellingham. The concert was part of the Bellingham Festival of Music. We heard a terrific performance of an octet by Schubert. The music was wonderful and the hors d'oeuvres were great too.
Many years ago Arvin and I bought Day Lily bulbs from a Midwest company and planted them along our driveway. We got a variety of colors and every year they bloom profusely. I love them and every year succumb to taking their pictures yet again. So here they are in July 2009.
Thanks to Nicole Graves for permission to share the pictures she took at my son Jason's 40th birthday party and some others she took of Jase. With Jason are close friend Andrea and Jason's wife Meghan in the third photo. Someone else snapped the bottom one of Jason, Nicole and Andrea. The birthday party was at Jase and Meg's place in Fort Green Brooklyn. Wish we could have been there.
How can you resist them? I know I sure can't. Duma weighs 12.6 pounds now and Mitty is 10 pounds. They are no longer kittens but cat teen-agers. Still cute and funny.
Our friend Dani invited us to a block party last night. We had a great time listening to the bands, talking with neighbors, eating hot dogs, and contributing to the cause. Of course I took my G1 along and took some photos. That's us at the top, Dani's son Tyler, Dani and her friend, and our neighbor Joy. It was a good party.
As I was getting ready for bed the other night I noticed interesting patterns in our tri-fold mirror. Had to go get my G1 and take some photos. Mehitabel was close by so she got into the action.
This year we have five blooms on the arum plant. It's a weird one that we got from a stranger at the Farmers' Market about ten years ago. He said he'd give us one of the bulbs if we'd plant it. We did and it thrives. The flowers are about twelve inches from bottom to top and they give off an unpleasant odor. Flies are the pollinators of this flower and it attracts them via the smell. I really like the color. When it's new there aren't the white patches. Didn't get out quite soon enough but this photo will give you an idea of what this plant looks like. In the fall it has red berries in a cluster where each flower was. We've got quite a few small ones coming up. Maybe it's time for us to carry them to the Farmers' Market and pass them on to another gardener.
Marie Wise made this painting using one of my photos as the subject. What an amazing painting. It sings. In my opinion it does what all good paintings with photo reference do, it transcends the photo and turns it into something wonderful. Thanks Marie.
Last night was the welcome party for the Bellingham Festival of Music musicians, their host families, patrons, and volunteers. Arvin and I are hosting Larry Knopp, the second trumpet player, so we were there. It was a great party held at the Ferry Terminal in Fairhaven. It was so good to see our old friends again. We talked to many of the musicians who've been coming for years and lots of our buddies from the Festival Chorus and other Bellingham Friends. It's Larry's second year with us and when we got home the three of us stayed up late catching up on the news. The first concert is Friday and we are really looking forward to hearing this great orchestra play again. It's going to be another great festival, the sixteenth and our fifteenth as hosts.
Just downloaded photos from my Panasonic G1 and what did I find, photos from the 13th of our visit to the Farmers' Market. This gal and her sisters were singing there and I really liked her expression of joy. They were singing songs from their country when I took this photo. Wish I remembered which country they came from.
