Frogs at Shadow Lake

I am getting a little ahead of myself, posting this out of order, but decided I wanted to post the frogs today anyway. We were up at Reflection Lake after our hike to Frozen Lake and a frog jumped into the water by Kathy. She said she would have missed these completely if not for that frog. Aren't they grand?




IF you CLICK on them, they will enlarge. . .

Butterfly refreshment . . .

I chased many butterflies at Mt. Rainier on the 4th and 5th day there. One of these days you will get to see the others. They were too fast to use my digital zoom on but I think I captured them nicely anyway. This photo will enlarge if you CLICK on it. When I check on the flower with my leaflet downstairs, I will let you know the name of this white beauty. Katney won't believe that I have forgotten it. . . HEY! I will blame it on the high temperatures we have been having. It is a Sitka Valerian.

Stairs to more natural beauty

When you have a digital camera, one tends to take photos of things you might not ordinarily take if you were printing them. I like stairs! These look so natural in this setting. AND what is this setting? I am not sure as I just chose it in a hurry when a young girl was teaching me how to load photos from my camera on the PC upstairs in the community room. I think it might be on the way to the island where the huge old trees were which I have temporarily forgotten the name of again. For this post, it doesn't matter. Just focus on the artistic stairs highlighted by the flowers on the side and enjoy!

Old wood and flower

I thought this was the neatest composition for a photo! I love old fallen trees and the new blooming flower (maybe it's an Indian Paint Brush?) highlighted against it. This was on one of our hikes at Mount Rainier.
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I am learning to use a PC computer in the rec room to blog. A young girl visiting her Grandma here taught me how to upload three photos so I will have two more blog posts in the next few days. When I learn how to do it by myself, I will be able to get back to our camping trip. . . but actually these photos are from the camping trip but not with the narrative I was going to use. I am just so happy to be able to use this computer until I can fix my own or buy a new one. Thank you for your patience. I will try to get around to visit other blogs asap. Our heat wave of 105 today says stay indoors to me -- it is expected to last up to 5 more days with hot temperatures so I will have time to learn how this PC works. I hope!

My Mt. Rainier Vacation -- Part 1

Spending 5 beautiful, sunny days on Mt. Rainier with Katney this summer was quite the experience. This is the second time I have been to Mt. Rainier with her camping. This time, there were 5 of us: Katney from Katney's Kaboodle and her hubby; Martha from Martha's Musings and her hubby; and ME! I used a tent
while Katney and hubby enjoyed sleeping in their their Little Guy trailer and Martha and hubby had a neat van camper, complete with everything including hot water!

Growing up, I was a Girl Scout and later, a GS leader for many years, so am used to tent camping and enjoy it. This time I also helped cook by making Fajitas our first evening there and Breakfast Burros one morning later on.

After setting up camp, we went for a short hike at the Trail of Shadows and then hung across the street around taking photos of this deer




and the sunset over the mountains in Longmire by the National Park Inn where two ladies were playing autoharps on the veranda and others were just watching the deer and sunset from comfortable chairs. . . I took photos of the ladies but they did not turn out well so won't share them.






(to be continued. . . )

I give up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have tried for days to upload the photos I wanted to for my Rainier camping trip. My computer keeps turning off during the uploading even when I upload only one photo to blogger at a time. I tried uploading one photo to Image Shack and it worked for one time. The second time I tried, the computer shut down again. I don't know what is the matter besides it being an 8 year old computer. I checked the plugs and connections. Maybe I jsut need to reload everything but I would hate to lose the photos I have on it and not burned into CD's yet.

I will try sometime in the near future to use the rec room computers upstairs (PC) with my CD I made from the first half of my camping trip. (It made 9 CD's.) I haven't made the last 400 photos from my trip into a CD yet because the card isn't full. I suppose I could take my camera with me upstairs and plug it in there if I take my adapter. . . Just thinking! Ü How I wish I had a good working computer. Maybe it will cost less to repair one of them than to buy a new one. I am just so discouraged. It will be months before I can buy a new computer.

Maybe I will just go read blogs and forget blogging myself. I don't know. That's not much fun. Maybe I will take a break.

Sorry!

Latest note:

I am having touble uploading photos of my camping adventure for the post I wanted to do for Sunday but I will keep trying. If nothing gets up, I am still working on it. Sorry!

Heart shaped leaf

Although ther were many pretty flowers, I think this is my favorite photo of the things that grow that I saw at Mt. Rainier.

Good news

They weren't lost. I just didn't realize I had uploaded the two photos that are among the 18 you can take without a card. I recently clicked on the button that said "view all" and there they were -- over 800 photos! I have 400 hundred to still look at because I can't upload them to my photo program on this old computer so am slowly sorting them. I hope to blog again in a day or so. Thanks for dropping by.

Another note. . .

I was going to post at least some of the 13 butterfly photos I took while on vacation BUT I am not feeling much like blogging now. . . you see, I did something with my first card accidently and I think I erased three and a half days of photos and I am too upset to blog. I don't know when I will return. :o( I had such a fun experience and had thousands of photos from it and now lost half from the first three days . . .

A Few Pretties For You To Enjoy Until I Return . . .

I am going to go camping with a special friend. I will be gone several days and since I moderate comments here, I decided not to schedule posts on this blog (but will schedule posts daily on my bench blog that is not moderated and I share with Kerri) until I return so here are a few pretties to enjoy until then and for those who might drop by for the first time or haven't come by for awhile. If I don't get those comments moderated before I leave, they will be fine until I return so PLEASE leave a comment if you drop by.

Which do you like best? I couldn't choose. . .

Yellow beauty

I don't knpw what it is except delicate and beautiful. . . even gorgeous. If anyone knows its name, please tell me so I can title it correctly.

Getting some practice with my new camera. . .

My new camera is another Olympus. It has 20 digital zoom. I could care less how many megapixels it has -- I don't plan to print my photos huge to hang on a wall. The photo guy at camera shop agreed with me. The official name is Olympus SP-565UZ. I am just learning to use it. It costs just over half of what my original digital camera cost me. Love that prices come down even tho the digital zoom goes up. So far I am using auto but one of these days I will branch out and do more including more macro shots. It uses the double AA battteries again so am happy about that as I have lots of spare ones but for my trip with Katney, I bought a couple of sets of new re-chargeables anyway. They came charged. We will be camping in two places at Mt. Rainier. I hope I have mastered it enough to get some wonderful paper memories.

A Rainy Sunday

Just trying to capture a few raindrops while experimenting with my new camera. . .CLICK to enlarge.

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I snapped this photo from a photo posted on the bulletin board. It isn't his best photo but he has on his red hat that he always wore.

FRED
I walked into the mailroom
Not quite two years ago. . .
He sat there watching the goings and comings. . .
“Hi, pretty lady,” he said as I entered.
“Hi,” I said back. . . “I’m Paulie. . . what’s your name?”
“Fred,” he said.

Sometimes old folks don’t have good memories
I am an old folk too so I had to think of something fast.
I could associate the store, Fred Meyers, with Fred
That would help me to remember his name.
I play these association games all the time.
It works for me. . .

Next time I see Fred, he says “Hi, pretty lady.”
I say, “Hi, Fred.”
Every time he sees me he says “Hi, pretty lady.”
Blushing got pretty old and finally I said to him. . .
“Fred, you don’t remember my name do you?”
A little embarrased, he admitted it and I told it to him again.
That day forward he called me Paulie . . . but once in awhile he still called me “pretty lady” too.

I don’t know much about Fred. . .
He liked to watch sports on TV.
He loved ice cream and had two cones at our social last year even tho he wasn’t supposed to eat ice cream.
Every morning, he was up bright and early and headed for coffee at the corner Starbucks.
He rode the bus and we met there sometimes.
The other daily routine he had was to buy a daily lottery ticket.
He won several times small amounts and most recently a thousand dollars. . .
He told me he spent a little of it but put the rest in the bank.
First, he asked me if I needed anything. . . and I said no graciously.
I told him he should go blow it on something he enjoyed --
Instead, it just sits in the bank and only he knows the final plans he had for it.

I know he’s in a better place.
I also know that I will miss him.
But each time I go past the mailroom,
I will hear his words in my heart. . .
"Hi, pretty lady!”
I am glad I knew him a little -- if only for a short time.
Blessings come in all kinds of packages.
This one was named Fred.

Iris blooming in July!!!!!!!!

Last week when I was at the park for Saturday Farmers Market, I spied these delicate purple Iris. Now, I was almost shocked as it is long past Iris season but . . . there they were, many plants blooming in several spots near the old Slocum House which is now a theater. Of course, I had to take a few photos. . . isn't God good?!?

A Rainbow of Colors

Usually, I find blue or white Hydrangeas but recently I have located other colors too. These are some of them. I never knew a flower could be so beautiful in so many different ways.








I couldn't find my white ones. . . I was told that the color they become is depended on the type of soil it is planted in BUT THEN why is this bush multicolored?