Mother's Day at The Rhododendron Gardens

Yesterday was a wonderful Mother's Day.  We spent the morning at church, and the highlight of service was a baby dedication for all of the extremely darling babies and little children that have joined our congregation this year.  The weather was stunning, and it was the perfect day for an outing, so after church we drove into Portland to visit the Rhododendron Gardens.

The Crystal Springs Rhododendron Gardens is located in Portland, Oregon right by Reed College in the Eastmoreland neighborhood.  You can read a little bit about the gardens history here.  This garden is roughly five acres, and is full of mature Rhododendrons and Azaleas, most of which are in full bloom right around Mother's Day.

This garden is so beautiful, one could walk around for hours enjoying the beauty.  We had a wonderful time exploring and snapping lots of pictures. Here is a photo tour of our visit.

We were greeted by this beautiful pink rhody when we first walked in.

As well as this huge Blue Atlas Cedar tree.

When you first enter the garden this is the view overlooking the bridge, such a pretty sight with the layers of trees and shrubs.

There are beautiful trees all throughout the garden.

There were so many different colors of rhododendron and azalea, I loved the way they were grouped together, such a beautifully planned out garden.

This picture gives perspective as to how large some of these Rhododendrons are, some were so tall it was amazing.

I love the yellow and orange flowers.

Here is Gary getting a close up of this buttery yellow variety.

There are various ponds throughout this garden, full of ducks and geese.

I love this hot pink pink color, my grandma's garden when I was a child was full of Rhodys and it is probably why I love these flowers so much.

...more pinks

 more stunning yellow and orange.

Beautiful layers of white to pink.

The Red Wing Blackbirds were singing all through the gardens, here I caught one mid flight, and you can see the pretty red on the shoulder of his wing.  We have these in our backyard as well, and love their singing.

The water makes a beautiful backdrop for all the plants.

Here Sarah and Joseph are enjoying all the ducks and geese, as well as the view.

Perfect spot for family pictures to add to the scrapbook!

Happy Mother's Day to this Goose Mom and her two little ones which were so cute!

After pausing to enjoy the birds and the water, we set off to hike through more trails.

I really loved the entry to this path.

and I really loved this stump, perfect gnome home :)

Another huge pink Rhododendron.

The red with pink was very pretty.

I love these bold colors.

We came upon a huge patch of shamrocks!

Another hot pink blossom.

A path of beautiful large Rhodys.

It was nice to stop in the shade by this waterfall, Gary and I are planning to put in a water feature this summer, it was inspiring to see all the different water features all around the garden.

The stone work throughout the garden was wonderful, here is a rock wall with ferns growing in multiple little pockets.

Near the end of our walk through the garden was this peaceful view under the bridge, such a pretty stream.

I enjoyed this mossy rock wall along the path.

Another waterfall.

This beautiful stone stairway led back up to the entrance.

 One last bit of pink.

What a wonderful outing this was, I would highly recommend visiting if you live nearby.  

After our trip to the Rhododendron Gardens we headed home for a nice relaxing evening, what a memorable mother's day!

May Gardening and Maurice Sendak

Time for a garden update- in mid May the garden really gets going, many different flowers are blooming, as well as the excitement of getting the veggies going.

I love the bright pink flowers of Dianthus, a very easy to grow perennial , I love planting perennials, they might require a little more care than annuals, but you get more bang for your buck since they grow back year to year.

I planted four more this year, this dianthus below is especially pretty with it's white edges.

Every year I look forward to this Azalea blooming, sometimes I think it is like getting to see a friend that comes to visit once a year, such a treat.  Welcome back pretty orange blossoms.  You can read my Azalea and Lavender post  to see this plant last year as well.

One of my favorite things is following the garden year after year.  Oregon has many beautiful Azaleas and Rhododendrons I am hoping to get a chance to visit the Japanese Gardens and Rhododendron Gardens this spring while every thing is in bloom.

The Lavender is in full bloom, with the bees happily buzzing away, if you want bees in your garden plant Lavender, it draws in so many different bees.  I will let the bees have their fun, but this year when the blossoms die down, I have quite a bit of repair work to do to my Lavender patch, and I will probably replant a good portion of them.

This week the sun has just been wonderful, we are expecting temperatures in the high 80's this weekend, which is a little crazy for May, but I love the warm weather and sunshine.  This week I took advantage of the good weather and got my peppers planted.  I love planting lots of Jalapenos for one of my summer favorites- Poppers, I also plant lots of bell peppers, we love them for sausage and and beef dishes, as well as for stuffing, and one of my hubby's favorites- green pepper and egg sandwiches.

The swiss chard is ready to pick, and will be on our dinner plates this weekend, I just love this bright neon pink as well as the orange and yellow stems, so pretty.

Radishes are doing well, I only planted a small pot, I will replant them again after they are harvested, we love radish and cream cheese sandwiches, radishes were the first thing I planted as a child, they grow so quickly, it is a fun one for kids to grow.

I thought I would give Peas a try this year, they are planted in barrels, I mixed both bush and pole varieties, it will be interesting to see how these do.

I got them in a little late, but they are starting to make their way up the bamboo.

Here are the rest of the seeds I will be planting- lots of Zinnias including a very pretty Lime Green and Purple variety, some Bachelor Buttons, California Poppies, and Bells of Ireland.  I will be planting a few varieties of Zucchini, a golden variety, a new Lime Green variety (I love chartreuse and lime green so I was excited to see a zucchini in this color, I look forward to seeing how it does), as well as the standard variety.  We always grow Blue Lake 47 Bush Green Beans, this year I will also be growing a bush bean called Purple Queen, as well as some Lima Beans.  I also plant a small pot full of corn, I do not have a spare bed for a good size corn patch but I still like to watch corn grow and think it is fun to have my mini corn patch.  I have also planted pots of tomatoes throughout the garden, some yellow pear and Sungold cherry sized tomatoes which do so well every year, as well as a few heirlooms that I am trying this year, Brandywine, Mortgage Lifter, and Saratoga.  I planted One Early Girl and still need to pick up a Roma or two.  I am really looking forward to my garden this year.

This past week - May 8th, was a sad day in children's literature as Maurice Sendak passed away.  I grew up with Maurice Sendak's books and wonderful drawings, his books are some of my most favorite.  Where The Wild Things Are, my, I must have read this story hundreds of times as a child, I could so relate to Max, when he yelled to his mother "I'll Eat You Up!" after his mischief filled day, and was sent to his room.  I was often sent to my room for one reason or another and also had quite a rich imagination, so this book was right up my alley.  I would highly recommend this book for any children's library.

Little Bear is also one of my favorites, and was illustrated by Sendak. I hadn't read much of Little Bear until my children were little, we also enjoyed the Little Bear cartoon based on this book series, it was a favorite show of ours when the kids were toddlers.  Little Bear stories are so sweet, again a highly recommended book series.

Lastly- a mini book set that I remember reading at the Library as a child, and was so happy to add to my library, I have mentioned this book set before, but it is such a favorite of mine it is worth mentioning again- Maurice Sendak's Nutshell Library, with its four little books, Pierre a cautionary tale about a naughty boy who always said " I don't care", One Was johnny A Counting Book, Alligators All Around an alphabet book, and Chicken Soup With Rice A Book of Months (my children memorized this book month by moth in  their kindergarten) I love how tiny this book set is, I have always thought it would make the best stocking stuffer or a wonderful tiny little gift.  Maurice Sendak willed be missed and definitely remembered.

You can read more about these great books through my Amazon links below.

This Mother's Days Weekend I hope to spend plenty of time in the garden, as well as enjoy some nice meals with the family.  I wish you all a Happy Mother's Day!

Linking to:

52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Week #18- The Little Mermaid

For week #18's fairy tale, I have chosen a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Anderson, The Little Mermaid.

Many people are familiar with the Disney version of The Little Mermaid, which came out in 1989, I was a sophomore in high school at the time, and my youngest sister, who was around six years old at the time, really enjoyed this movie.  Ariel the mermaid and her musical adventure and love story is a fun story.

I had never read the original version by Anderson until this week, I expected there to be differences in the original story verses the Disney version, and there are quite a few differences, especially in the very different ending.

The Little Mermaid is the story about the youngest daughter of the sea king.  The Little Mermaid has five older sisters, each born one year apart.  They live in the beautiful underwater palace, surrounded by their beautiful gardens.  The Little Mermaid is very curious about the world of the humans, and asks many questions about it, but young mermaids are not permitted to rise above the sea and view the human world until they are fifteen years old.  Her sisters one by one turn fifteen, and get to go to the surface and view humans, each sister brings back different stories about what they have seen, and the Little Mermaid is very eager to turn fifteen, so she can  see for herself.

The day finally comes when the little mermaid is fifteen, and she rises to the surface, and sees a royal ship carrying a very handsome prince, who the little mermaid falls in love with.  Soon, however, a great storm comes up, and the ship starts to break apart.  Remembering that humans can not live in the sea, the little mermaid quickly works to rescue the prince, who is unconscious, and she brings him to a beach near a convent, where a  girl from the convent comes out and revives the prince.  The little mermaid left before the girl saw her, and the prince does not remember that the little mermaid saved him.

When she returns to the sea, the little mermaid asks her grandmother about human life, mermaids live to 300 years of age and when they die they exist no longer, and become part of the sea, explains the grandmother; humans live a much shorter time, but then go on to live eternally in heaven.  The little mermaid thinks being human is much more desirable, and she wishes to become human like her beloved prince.

The little mermaid visits the Sea Witch and asks her to turn her into a human.  The Sea Witch does have a potion that can turn the mermaid into a human, but there are risks as well as costs.  The Sea Witch explains to the little mermaid that if she can get the prince to fall in love with her, and marry her, that she will gain eternal life like other humans.  However, if she does not marry the prince, on the dawn of the day after his marriage to another woman, the mermaid will die, brokenhearted, and turn into sea foam.

In addition, the potion that will turn the little mermaid into a human, will feel like a sword passing through her, when she recovers from her transformation into a human, she will have beautiful graceful legs, that will be able to dance more gracefully than any human, but with every step she takes, it will feel like she is walking on sharp swords cutting into her feet and legs.  Lastly, the cost for this potion is very great, the Sea Witch wants the little mermaid's most beautiful voice, and so removes the little mermaid's tongue in exchange for the potion.

The Little Mermaid agrees to all of these conditions, because she wants so badly to be human, to be with the prince, and have eternal life.  She swims to the surface, near the prince's palace, and drinks the potion, and becomes human.  The prince finds her and thinks she is very beautiful, they become friends, and although the little mermaid is mute, her beautiful dancing pleases the prince.

The little mermaid becomes heartbroken, when she finds out that the prince is supposed to marry a princess from the neighboring kingdom.  The prince tells the little mermaid he will not marry the princess, as he is in love with the women from the convent that saved him when he was nearly drowned (he never remembered that it was the little mermaid that saved him).  The prince is surprised when he meets the princess, it is the girl from the convent who had saved him, she was at the convent studying.  The prince agrees to marry the princess, and they marry right away.

The little mermaid is so sad, she went through so much pain, and now she will become sea foam.  The little mermaid's sisters try to save her, they exchange all of their beautiful hair with the sea witch for a magical knife, if the little mermaid uses the knife to kill the prince, she will turn back into a mermaid and go on to live the rest of her 300 mermaid years.

The mermaid cannot bring herself to kill the prince, she still loves him.  So, the dawn after the prince and princesses marriage, she dives into the sea and turns into sea foam.  But instead of ceasing to exist, she felt sunshine and heard a beautiful melody, she had become a spirit, a daughter of the air, the other daughters of the air explain that because she tried so hard to gain an eternal soul, she now has the opportunity to gain a soul by doing good deeds, such as cooling a child from a hot country with a cool breeze, or carrying the fragrance of flowers on the breeze to please children, for 300 years.

For every good child a daughter of the air finds, God shortens their 300 years of probation by one year, however for every bad child they find, they weep and every tear they shed adds on a day.

The little mermaid spirit kissed the prince on the forehead, and soared away with the rest of the daughters of  air.

~

This story had some nice parts, but a lot of strange parts as well, the Disney version ends with Ariel becoming a human, gaining back her voice, and marrying the prince.  Quite a different ending.  In reading a bit about this tale, others have criticized this original ending as well, and it is much like a Victorian era moral children's tale, scaring children into good behavior- be good or else you are adding days to the the little mermaids probation. 

The original tale is a pretty long read as far as fairy tales go, and has lots of disturbing elements, like the pain the mermaid must go through to transform, and the giving up of her tongue.  Although the element of the mermaid wanting a soul is intriguing, in this case, I think I actually prefer the happy Disney version with the cute music, funny Jamaican crab and flounder sidekicks, and happy ending love story.  I did enjoy reading the original though, it was interesting, and I would recommend it for adults, or older children, it would be a great fairy tale to compare and contrast with the musical version.  

For my craft, I attempted to needle felt a mermaid.  I wanted the tale to be wider, but ran out of blue wool, and her arms could use some trimming up.  I did have fun picking out the marine inspired wool colors for this mermaid doll. I really enjoyed taking her out to the garden for her "photo shoot", it was such a nice sunny day, the garden was perfect for pretend "beach" locations for the mermaid to sun herself. I look forward to running this doll passed my young niece, and getting her thoughts, my niece is however quite the fan of Ariel so we'll see. :)

May Activities

May is often a very busy month around here.  With school nearing summer break, it is time to finish up multiple projects, study for end of year tests, science shows, music and drama shows, as well as end of year field trips.  Work out in the garden gets more frequent, as we start getting the veggies and flowers planted, and tend to weeds which love to sprout up this time of year.  As well as getting the house freshened up for spring and summer activities.

So I thought I would write an update as to what we have been up to lately.

Sarah's trip to Disneyland and all the other fun places around Anaheim, like Universal Studios, Knott's Berry Farm, California Adventures and her visit to Huntington Beach went very well.  The weather was very nice, and she enjoyed her adventure along with her choir.  Her first plane flight went very well, and she came back sun-kissed from all that California sun.  Here we are at the airport getting ready to send her on her way to California.

When Sarah arrived home, she had to get right to work on multiple school projects, and studying for end of year tests.  She took her SAT this last Saturday, and as I write, she is taking her AP Psychology test.  She also has been hard at work on her physics projects- the one she worked on this weekend is a Rube Goldberg Machine that ends with the popping of a balloon.

Using a marble run and some hot wheel tracks, cars, dominoes, and other odds and ends she got it to work, it is pretty fun to watch all the parts in action, and she did a really good job coming up with all the different components.  Sarah was excited to do this project, and I have a feeling she will be making more this summer.

Joseph has also been quite busy these last couple of months with his Drama group, they have been practicing for their newest play- Fools by Neil Simon, a very funny comedy.  We had the pleasure of attending his performance twice this last weekend, and it was very well done and funny.  Great job Molalla Thespians!

On Saturday night we brought my grandma, Sarah and Joseph's Great Grandma, to the play.  My grandmother enjoyed doing plays in her youth as well, and was so excited to come out for Joe's play.  She is legally blind, and didn't see much or hear very well, but it was still exciting for her to be at a play, and she really enjoyed it.  In the picture below, my grandma is sitting with Sarah and Gary getting ready to watch the play.

We also celebrated Gary's birthday last week, as always, a good meal is always part of the celebration.
BBQ country pork ribs, baked potato, and corn- with a cherry cake and cheesecake for dessert.

Zoey jumped up to wish Gary a happy birthday as well as get a whiff of the cake.

For the cake, I made a white boxed cake mix according to instructions with a few additions,  using four whole eggs instead of three egg whites, a small box of instant vanilla pudding, and switched out half the water for milk, which made the cake rich and moist.  I frosted it with a thin layer of white frosting, then piped around the edges, and topped the center with a can of cherry pie filling.  This cake turned out very moist and delicious, and would be great for a fourth of July BBQ or a summer potluck.

Yesterday I stopped by the garden center in town on the way home from church, we found a few interesting special plants for our fairy garden that we will be working on this week, as well as a couple more varieties of peppers for the garden.  The weather is beautifully sunny right now, and I will be spending lots of time in the garden this week planting flowers, and getting in some of the veggies, I look forward to posting pictures of some of our new plants later this week.

With all this activity my fairy tale post has been delayed a couple of days, a few more touches, and I should be ready to post my fairy tale and project later this afternoon.  Hope everyone is having a nice spring day!