Long story made incredibly short-

There is a town in Washington called "Humptulips"

HUMPTULIPS.
(you totally need to follow that link and read "references in fiction" because omg, its so true.)

See-


I'll have a GIGANTIC picture post later this evening or tomorrow morning detailing much of our weekend excursion, but I have to work on some custom orders (dont worry kymster, I'll finish your pin!) and get my laundry all caught up, plus do some exercising, so yeah..

But you should definitely be on the lookout for it. Its awesome.

-A

Today's TO DO list-

(I woke up late and am now just getting started)

Switch laundry
put away/load dishwasher
Take shower
Get dressed
make tiny shrinky dink fairy
create two strips of large cardboard bacon
call my mom with the dimensions of said cardboard bacon so that she can create proportionately sized cardboard fried eggs
begin packing for beach trip
finish "fun bags" for beach trip
Go to vampire Dr appointment (just going for a blood draw, its like a 5 minute app)
Clean living room
Clean both bathrooms
Straighten crafting area
go to bed early


If you notice the italicized sentance up there, you'll probably giggle a bit at how undeniably strange my family truly is.

So, yesterday Aaron and I went to this awesome park in the center of downtown Bellevue. 





Strange sculptures, check. Ducks, check. Reflecting pool, check. Lots of trees and a 1/2 mile track, check!

And heres a photo of Aaron and I, just for good measure-


No, his head isnt that huge. The camera angle was way high and he was just closer to the camera.
Note, we're both a little sun"kissed". *smile*

-A.

So somewhere along the way home, we had to stop and fuel up. After I showed Aaron the *proper* way to squeegee a windshield, Aaron let out a "YEEEP!" did a squiggly little dance and ran over to my window with this on his key chain.


Apparently, it startled him.

I let her on my hand and named her Madeline.







 Finally Aaron put a stop to my lady bug fun, snatched her up and placed her on a tree before we got back on the road.



Then, the sky opened up and gave us a sign!


..No really, a sign.


We took the next exit and followed a long country road until we found this.


WWJD?


Not so sure about What Jesus Would Do, but This is what Aaron did-


Ok, so thats supposed to look like some sort of illicit substance, but really its just a bottle of sparkling pomegranate apple juice.

A stop on the family history tour: Sarah Union Cemetery.
Tuberculosis and cemetery photos. Could the 4th of July get any more emo?

Anna and her devil kitty, Lillian.
I wish I got more clear photos, but black cats are kinda tricky to photograph.

Fourth of July pt. 3, section 1: Random pictures from along Interstate 5.
10 really random photos that are totally out of order.

Fourth of July pt. 3, section 2: Even more random pictures from along interstate 5.
Will the randomness ever end?!??!.

Now I just have to edit the photos of my nephew and a few more of Ridgefield.. and I'll be done!
srsly, I took like 800 photos. I think I narrowed the final products down to a little under 100.

-A.

I like road signs and bridges and flowers and clouds.







This was seriously the tallest billboard I've ever seen. I have to believe that the fish has something to do with whatever was being advertised on the other side, but the randomness of it appearing on the side that I viewed was greatly appreciated.

Also, This billboard was in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, just trees trees and more trees.


Another of my favourite bridges.


Frodo!


This "tour bus" was filled with hippies, and it was billowing black smoke from the exhaust. What a paradox.

I couldn't tell ya where half of these photos were taken,
but I thought they came out kinda pretty even if they are random.



Amber waves of grain?






A bridge in Tacoma.  Whenever we drive up under this bridge I feel like I'm in The lord of the rings.
I really dont know why.



The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.


...closer still.

There are a ton of bridges along I-5. All of them go over rivers with dirty sounding Native American names, too.


A little restaurant in the background called something like "Gerties gallup" where apparently bikers are welcome, but really I just wanted a nice American flag photo, since it was Quatro de Julio and all.





Section two of the randomness to follow shortly.

Anna on the front porch at my parents house in Ridgefield Washington.



Meet Lillian. She's all black, and very difficult to photograph...



Mostly because she's always attacking something.



She was quite partial to my shoes.



And Annas leg.



...Or hiding in the shadows and plotting your ultimate demise.





You just wait Anna.



She's super adorable though. Her tail is a little pointy thing that is shaped like an inverted cone. Apparently when they first got her, it was much shorter and just stood straight up. I wish I had been there to take pictures of that!
-A.

Sara Union Cemetery, Ridgefield Washington.
These are the graves of my great aunt Helena and her husband Phillip.



Clara was Phillips mother.

Less than a mile away, up on top of a beautiful hill on the way to Felida, Helena lived in a bright pink 2 story house that Phillip had build on his family's land. His mother and father lived next door in an old white farm house.

Back in their day, everyone in Ridgefield and Felida (neighbouring towns) was pretty much a farmer of some sort. My great grandfather had a huge field of strawberries, and a cherry orchard. Along with the fruit they grew for sale, they also had three fields with vegetables growing, and a grape vine that circled the property. His brothers were all farmers as well, and his sisters all pretty much married farmers.
Phillip's family raised cattle for dairy and beef. They also had goats and a few sheep, but mostly it was the cows.

When they came of age, like most young men of age during WWI, Phillip and his brothers joined the Army. He served a small tour and then returned home to the farm. Being a worldly man now, he would travel to the city and that was where he met the beautiful and talented Helena, Who was just beginning her career as a Ballerina. Of course, she was looking to remain in the city, but love conquers everything, and she married Phillip and remained a country girl.

A long story short, Phillip's mother Clara came down with tuberculosis about a year before she died. They sent her to a sanitorium, which apparently was where you sent people with tuberculosis. Because of this, Phillip and Helena took charge of the farm.


Unfortunately, in late 1930, Helena took ill. Her symptoms so similar to Tuberculosis, and with the diagnostic tests being not so exact, she was sent to a sanitorium. The same one as her husbands mother. There she caught tuberculosis and died in 1931. Same year as Clara.

About a year after her death, it was revealed to Phillip the truth about Helena's death. The doctor that diagnosed her wasn't sure, but figured better safe than sorry, about sending her to the sanitorium. The results to the test that he did actually showed that she had become sick from bad milk. That made much more sense anyways, because the rest of the family had developed a slight rash and intestinal issues, same as Helena, at the same time, only hers were much more severe.

Phillip never remarried, and died in the house that he build for his beautiful ballerina. Many of her possessions made their way back to her family (The Bryants) and my older sister and one of my mom's sisters both have some of her costume jewelry and many of her photographs from when she was a ballerina.

George, Jim and Mary.
No one knows when George died (or when he was born, for that matter) But  Jim died in 1912, and Mary in 1936. The three are buried between two giant cedar trees, and until the late 1990's, the trees had completely covered the grave stone. When you approach it now, you'll notice the stone is artificially aged, since the original grave marker was damaged during the removal of the bottom half of the tree branches and the accumulation of years of overgrowth. For a few years, the broken gravestone remained, but it had been replaced since the last time I visited.


Many of the gravestones are shaped like tubes. Bryant brown is one of the many with this style of gravestone, apparently signifying that they served in the civil war.

There are quite a lot of servicemen in this cemetery. The flag in the distance is on the grave of one particular high ranking military man.



Another sad thing about this cemetery, is that about half of the graves are those of children that died at birth or under the age of 3. Of those graves, most were buried here alone, meaning that no one else in their family is buried there.


Buried alone, none of their family is buried at this cemetery.

Over the years, many of the grave markers have been damaged at Sara Union Cemetery. Most of the damage is due to nature taking its course, flooding and general neglect. A few sites have been vandalized, but generally people do not visit this cemetery.

Well meaning mourners leaving flowers that managed to sprout full blooming bushes that have in some cases caused gravestones to lift and buckle from deep roots and continued growth, funeral wreath holders, rusted and slumped over man of the graves remain undisturbed because no family remains in the area, and the church that maintains the cemetery generally leaves well enough alone.

A few of the oldest residents of this cemetery had their graves marked with wooden markers. Now there are quite a few people buried there that no one knows the location of, and even more that no one knows anything but a first or last name, or even just the year of their death.

This cemetery is about 10 feet from a main road, nestled a bit too closely to a power hub and a seeding farm. Still, its very peaceful, and not a bit spooky. Still, I always feel like crying when I see "baby" or "died at birth" written on a grave stone.

-A.

So, apparently the best view of Seattle is from Highland park in Queen Anne, Seattle.
Which was precisely where we spent our evening.


I took like 200 photos from about 7pm until around 9pm. The first one is a little after we arrived, this second one is from around 8pm-



Then somewhere around 8:30pm, these two drunk dudes show up, one who just looks so happy to be there, and never really did much except smile and sip on his beer...

...Then this other guy who promptly removes his shirt and attempts to engage in intelligent conversation with his beer bottle.


Here is Aaron posing with them, who were really only partially aware that they were having their photo taken.
Behind the shirtless one is a backpack and a grocery sack with a six pack of bud, bottled AND canned. Someone is havin' fun tonight!


This photo was taken right around sunset, which was around 9pm this evening. We stuck around a bit longer, but then the gnats came, and it was time to head back to Bellevue.


Its kinda funny how close we live to Seattle. It took us less than 10 minutes to get to this park, which actually required driving through downtown Seattle, and we of course got lost, so about half of that was me saying "No! Just turn right here and we'll be back on Harrison Ave!" hehe.

The trick is going during low traffic times.  We also hit only like, ONE stoplight the whole way. Lucky us.

Anywho, it was fun. I am now super tired/sweaty and ready to shower and sleep, so... Yeah.

I think tomorrow we're gonna try to make it to the Strawberry festival, but first I have to find more info on it besides the ONE banner I saw attached to a bridge over by Overlake hospital. heh.

G'nite folks!