Category: Travel Theme
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Travel Theme: Edge
There are several reasons I chose this photo for Alisa’s travel theme “Edge” but my favorite element is the line of Gulls patiently waiting their turn to stretch their wings and fly away.
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Weekly Travel Theme: Simplify
This week Alisa’s weekly travel theme asks everyone to share what comes to mind when they think of the word “simplify“. After a day of thinking about how we’ve tried to simplify one aspect of our busy days I settled on our food choices and a photo of this pretty yellow truck at…
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Travel Theme: Meeting Places
There’s nothing quite like the mix of summer weather, interesting beaches and kids with plenty of imagination and time on their hands. Driftwood forts are a common sight on Lopez Island and each beach we visited had at least one great structure ready and waiting for the next group to meet…
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Weekly Travel Theme: Purple
My sweet niece, Sophia checking out the amazing flowers on this Butterfly Bush. July 4th, 2014. Posted as part of Alisa’s Weekly Travel Theme: Purple.
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Travel Theme: Decoration
I thought this cheery beach smile from Spencer Spit State Park on Lopez Island would be fun to post as part of Alisa’s weekly Travel Theme: Decoration.
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Travel Theme: Cities
Alisa’s newest Travel Theme: Cities is a great excuse to post another photo from our recent visit to the top of the Space Needle. This view is looking south towards the Downtown area over Elliott Bay and one shot manages to show you a gray spring day, the Port of Seattle,…
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Travel Theme: Metal
For Alisa’s Weekly Travel Theme: Metal I have a small section of John Fleming’s Grass Blades installation at Seattle Center. The blades are actually segments of painted stainless steel stacked vertically to emulate the gently swaying movements of grass in the wind.
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Travel Theme: Blossom
For Alisa’s new Travel Theme: Blossom I have one more photo from our spring trips to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. This colorful display was filled with so many varieties it looked like an enormous bouquet!
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Travel Theme: Close-Up
This week Alisa’s weekly Travel Theme: Close-Up is all the encouragement I need to post another view of the unusual curved sides of the Experience Music Project Museum at Seattle Center. This museum is dedicated to the history and exploration of music, science fiction and popular culture and its unique…
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Travel Theme: Glow
Maybe I’m just looking for another opportunity to post a tulip picture but I can’t stop looking at these glowing red tulips under a stormy spring sky. Yesterday I drove a very excited Ryan to Anacortes, WA to join a group of 18 middle school kids and 6 scientists for an…
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Travel Theme: Round
We found this old wagon wheel just down the beach from the driftwood pirate ship I posted yesterday. The owners of the property have a knack for collecting and re-purposing old items and interesting pieces of wood but I think this wheel is at the end of its road… Posted as…
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Travel Theme: Misty
I love living by the waterfront with easy access to the beach but our proximity to Puget Sound also brings plenty of misty days . In the fall we can spend weeks at a time wrapped in thick fog and even though I know the trees are turning brilliant shades of red and yellow and that the sky…
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Travel Theme: Statues
The Santuario de Guadalupe in Santa Fe, NM is the oldest shrine to our Lady of Guadalupe in the United States. I wrote a little about the history of this place in a Black and White Tuesday post about the Church here and today, as part of Alisa’s Weekly Travel…
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Travel Theme: Pink
I know I’ve been very quiet this week but don’t worry I hope to spend some quality time with my reader as soon as tomorrow. I plan to be back to a more normal schedule by next week and can’t wait to see what everyone has been up to while I’ve…
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Travel Theme: Garden
This isn’t a traditional garden picture but March in the Pacific Northwest is a challenging time everyone who loves the outdoors. It’s cold and damp 90% of the time with a few brief stretches of sunny weather that give us all spring fever but send pollen counts into the double…
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Travel Theme: Tempting
In honor of Alisa’s newest travel theme “tempting” I have a set of his and hers photos. Grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s is always full of tough decisions. This morning I stopped in the entry debating if I should get the Bunch of flowers or do I pick up the Bigger…
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Travel Theme: Work
Fresh flowers are scarce during Pacific Northwest winters but the hardworking families at Seattle’s Pike Place Market use creative combinations of fresh and dried flowers to keep their stalls full year round. Christmas Eve in front of the Original Starbucks. Inside, customers enjoy hot beverages in bright red cups while the street musician wears a…
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Weekly Travel Theme: Romance
As part of Alisa’s Weekly Travel Theme: Romance I’m sharing a well-loved photo my husband’s Grandparents as a young, engaged couple in the early 1920’s. They married soon after and had four children starting with my father-in-law and followed soon after by three beautiful sisters. I’m sorry I never got a chance to meet Joe and Bess but…
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Travel Theme: Yellow
Alisa’s Yellow travel theme has me dreaming of spring days and a visit to the Skagit Valley Tulip Fields. I can’t wait for April!
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Travel Theme: Dry
I’ve found the only sure way to enjoy home-grown Pacific Northwest flowers in January is to cut an extra bouquet or two and set them aside for drying. I have the best luck with late season Hydrangeas and if kept out of direct sun their deep purple, pink and blue pigments can last for years. Posted as part of Alisa’s weekly…
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Travel Theme: Wood
This huge beach log is one of the most photographed spots on our favorite Edmonds beach and of course I can’t help stopping several times a year to try capturing a new angle. When the tide is out this section of the log is almost as high as my shoulder and the…
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Weekly Travel Theme: Silver
Alisa’s weekly travel theme is posted every Friday and the newest prompt is the word “Silver.” I thought I would keep my entry simple today and show you these beautiful King Salmon from Seattle’s Pike Place Market. They are as fresh as you can get without stepping on a boat and…
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Weekly Travel Theme: Illuminated
I always look forward to Alisa’s weekly travel themes and this latest challenge has inspired some beautiful images of light from around the world. For my Illuminated post I hope you like this view of a fiery evening sky as seen from the top deck of a Washington State Ferry.
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Weekly Travel Theme: Possibility
Seattle’s Pike Place Market is a fantastic place to shop for top quality produce, seafood and flowers and every film crew that’s ever visited town has shown the fish sellers tossing their latest catch under the main entrance. Each year millions of people walk through the upper level of this Seattle landmark each but not everyone realizes some of the really fun…
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Travel Theme: Birds
Every time I try to take a picture of a cute little bird something goes wrong. If the shot isn’t terribly out of focus, then the bird will move at the last second or the finished image is just too boring to post but my lack of photographic timing doesn’t stop birds from flying into my pictures each time…
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Travel Theme: Winter
When I read Alisa’s latest post announcing “Winter” as her weekly travel theme I knew I wanted to wait until December 21st and take a photo of the first day of winter. December 20th brought our first snowfall of the year but we were still officially in Fall so I waited……
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Travel Theme: Still
Alisa wrote a lovely post today about stillness and the origins of the word solstice as December 21st is almost here. She explains the word comes from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still) referring to the point at which the sun pauses on its seasonal path (as viewed from Earth)…
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Travel Theme: Fragrant
This week Alisa’s travel theme is all about fragrance and she has some beautiful examples of wildlife, baked goods, fresh fruit and spices posted at Where’s My Backpack. Since the theme for my blog is a view into our corner of the Pacific Northwest I thought it would be fun to show…
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Travel Theme: Short
As a mom who doesn’t ride motorcycles I can’t help but feel relieved that Ryan is still too short to ride my cousin’s Harley Davidson but this smile in Jake’s driveway tells me loud and clear he’s going to find a way… Posted as part of Alisa’s weekly Travel Theme: Short
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Travel Theme: Connections
Walking with my brother’s dog Heidi, my son Ryan and his new friend from school this morning I was thinking about connections and how lucky we are to have a great community of friends and family around us. Of course I couldn’t help taking a few pictures along the way and once…
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Travel Theme: Delicate
This is the first, and hopefully only, time I post a photo of a slug but this little guy just insisted on being the center of attention today. Yesterday brought a huge windstorm to the Seattle area and today John, Ryan and I ventured out hoping to visit a “new to us” beach. The…
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Travel Theme: Stone
During a recent hike in the Mt. Baker – Snoqualmie National Forest we ran into a layer of high mountain fog which hid the fantastic views of Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan and directed our gaze lower, to the rocky foundations of these mountains. I had a chance to see what I’d…
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Travel Theme: Brown
Growing up in Bellingham, WA a trip to Tony’s Coffee in the Fairhaven District was a huge treat. My favorite thing on the menu was hot chocolate and if we were lucky Mom also ordered a dinner plate sized cinnamon roll for everyone to split. By High School my mug of hot chocolate switched…
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Travel Theme: Deep
Seven year old boys are so much fun, everything is an adventure and anything goes when it comes to work, play and clothing choices. Raking leaves at our old house was a huge job but Ryan was always ready to step up and help. This cold afternoon he dressed himself in…
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Travel Theme: Height
It’s not quite as dramatic as Devils Tower in Wyoming but looking up at Table Mountain in the Mount Baker – Snoqualmie National Forest always reminds me of the great 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind… If you find yourself in the NW corner of Washington State searching for fantastic…
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Travel Theme: Through
Alisa’s weekly travel theme is all about the word “through”. You never know what will come into focus through these view finders but this time we saw crystal clear views of Mt. Baker, migrating birds heading south for the winter and someone out for their last warm kayak trip of the season. Posted as part…
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Travel Theme: Multicoloured
The vendors at our Edmonds Farmer’s Market had an amazing assortment of peppers available this morning . I love their bright, cheery colors and wonderful variety of flavors so of course we ended up with more than one bag for our fajitas tonight! Posted as part of Alisa’s weekly Travel Theme: Multicoloured
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Weekly Travel Theme: Hidden
Every time we walk past the window of this empty shop space Ryan says “look, there’s Olive Oyl. You know, from Popeye.” When I finally realized he was talking about the group of toys I wondered how I had missed her in the crowd. Now I see her bright red top every time. I think she is…
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Travel Theme: Play
This simple slingshot has been our “go to” toy of the summer. It travels everywhere with Ryan, tucked into his back pocket, along with a few small pebbles ready to fire whenever we are in a location that is wide open and away from windows. I love that his first choice for play…
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Travel Theme: Big
Visiting National Forests, travelling around the Pacific Northwest and taking lots and lots of pictures with family are some of my all time favorite activities. It is also fun to share our world with WordPress and in the past few months my Dad started his first blog and my sister began her second.…
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Travel Theme: Architecture
The Ganahl-Hanley log cabin was built in the Seaview neighborhood of Edmonds by Gaston Ganahl. Mr. Ganahl fell in love with the guest cabins at Yellowstone Park and in 1930, hired the builder who oversaw their construction to come to Edmonds and build his dream home. All materials for the cabin came from the land surrounding the…
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Travel Theme: Wild
As part of Alisa’s weekly Travel Theme: Wild I have some photos of wild flowers, wild life and wild water on Mt. Rainier in Washington State.
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Travel Theme: Sweet
Sometimes revenge is a little sweet… Halfway through our first hike in New Mexico Ryan stepped off the main trail and landed right on a low growing Prickly Pear Cactus. It’s needle sharp spines buried so deeply into his shoes, socks and skin that it took a pair of pliers to clear the last ones out of the rubber soles. At lunch the first…
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Travel Theme: Tilted
Alisa’s current travel theme challenges us to show images illustrating the word Tilted. I spent a few days looking through my archives and finally chose two photos from summer vacations that were a little off kilter… I really admire the tenacious nature of these tough pine trees surviving on the edges of the San Juan…
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Travel Theme: Motion
Ryan never stops moving …especially on the soccer field. Posted as part of Alisa’s weekly Travel Theme: Motion.
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Travel Theme: Sculpture
Sculpture is the new travel theme over at Where’s My Backpack. I always like photographing outdoor sculpture and as luck would have it we had a picnic at the fabulous Shidoni Gallery in Tesuque, NM just last week. Ryan, John and I wandered through the grass taking pictures after lunch until the heat got…
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Travel Theme: Flow
Alisa’s newest travel theme is Flow and I have some fun photos of a very chilly but exciting morning in December when Ryan and I grabbed our warm coats and went to the beach to experience a Winter King Tide. King Tides occur when the sun and moon align increasing the gravitational pull on the…
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Travel Theme: Peaceful
A quiet moment at Lake Wilderness on the 4th of July. We enjoyed a few peaceful hours swimming and kayaking before the fantastic, celebratory firework show started at dusk. For more images of Peace please visit Alisa at Where’s My Backpack and the new Travel Theme: Peaceful
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Travel Theme: Costume
Halloween is a huge holiday in our family. It’s my husbands favorite time of year and he really enjoys planning new, spooky decorations for the house and costumes for Ryan. I don’t usually take photos of people in costume but looking through my photos reminded me we have plenty of…
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Travel Theme: Pathways
This week Alisa asked us to share photos of pathways we have travelled. These are a few of my favorites from our adventures through Washington State from the water to the mountains. To see more paths from around the world take a look at Where’s My Backpack and the Travel Theme:…
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Travel Theme: Beaches
This week Alisa over at Where’s My Backpack says “let’s have a beach party!” If you have visited my blog more than once you know I love spending time by the water so this theme should be a breeze. Well, looking through all of my Northwest beach pictures is a…
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Travel Theme: Light
An hour before these pictures I had to break the news to my son that his Grandpa Joe was moved into hospice care and would be leaving us soon. While my husband quietly spent the day with his father and sisters I took Ryan to the beach for a walk and a chance to…
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Travel Theme: Contrast
Alisa at Where’s My Backpack has challenged us to share photos that celebrate contrast. A few days ago I posted my first black and white iPhone photo here and the always curious Photography Journal Blog promptly asked if I was going to show the original color version too. Thanks for the great…
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Weekly Travel Theme: Benches
Alisa’s weekly travel theme is all about benches and the unique stories each location has to share. I knew immediately which bench I wanted to show you but had to wait a day to make the trip to Bellingham, WA to capture the image. The weather switched between snow and…
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Travel Theme: Pale
Alisa of the wonderful Where’s my backpack has asked us to search our archives for pictures that embrace the word “pale”. I usually lean toward bright and bold colors but there are days when softer hues capture my attention. If you would like to join in this week’s travel theme please follow Alisa’s directions below: Create…
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Travel Theme: Smoke and Mirrors
Today Alisa has selected Smoke and Mirrors as her fun weekly travel theme challenge. I had no idea that March 29th was Smoke and Mirrors day but what a great way to showcase some spooky photos that wouldn’t have a home in a more traditional post. Some of you may remember this photo of…
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Travel Theme: Time
This week Alisa at Where’s my backpack has chosen Time as her weekly Travel Theme. I am always watching the time trying to coordinate multiple projects and schedules for both my work and my family so I thought this would be an easy post to illustrate with a great image. A quick…
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Travel Theme: Green
To celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day and the arrival of spring Alisa’s weekly Travel Theme is all about the color green. I love green and living in the Pacific Northwest gives me plenty of opportunities to photograph this beautiful color. Today I chose three pictures that I think highlight the themes I like to talk about…
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Travel Theme: International Women’s Day
This week my mind is filled with memories of my two beautiful Grandmothers. I quietly observed the 18th anniversary of my maternal Grandmothers death a few days ago and had the great fortune to attend my paternal Grandmother’s 95th Birthday party in February. In celebration of International Women’s Day and Alisa’s…
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Travel theme: Roads
I have a lot of fun following Alisa’s travels around the world through her blog Where’s my backpack. This weeks theme is Roads and I want to share a few of my pictures from a beautiful day on San Juan Island in Washington State. The original road is almost overgrown now but this is…
Northwest Frame of Mind 