Cameron's Adventures

Today was an unbelievable day. We woke up and started riding on the motorcycle to our friend Todd’s place. We then went riding on the Chuckanut drive. I have not ridden the motorcycle since last summer so I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it. but we started out slow and with the beautiful weather, the ride was amazing.

But soon it got more challenging as we went on the freeway. It was my first time riding so fast and boy was it amazing. The wind was blowing at at 80 miles per hour one little wrong move and you’re done! But nothing like that happened. I did however, manage to break the rear brake and so we had to stop at a hardware store and find a screw.

After getting my break fixed, we continued on to Tayler’s landing but not before we took in the beautiful scenery.

After 200 miles of riding, the five haugs separated and enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing.

Over a month ago, Laurie’s brother wanted to print an Orchid on canvas for her. I decided since I never printed on canvas before that I’d try it out on my printer. It turned out gorgeous. So yesterday, after Laurie and Jesse came home from vacation we met up for dinner and I presented her with the present.

I think this was a successful present!

On Friday, I picked Teika up from the vet with a new suit. This time she’s a disco dog wearing a very shiny brown suit. Here she is modeling the suit.

A few days ago, I went and visited my neighbor to see the four little baby chicks that he got for his two little girls. The girls were very cute showing me the chicks and the elder one was clearly the “mama” of the chicks. She was very knowledgable of the chicks and how to take care of them.

I was informed that in just a short time they will grow up and be fully grown chickens. It is amazing to think of how quickly adulthood happens in creatures all over the world. Live every day to the fullest as if it’s your last day!

The name “rose” is lovely and romantic. It is sweet with beauty and fragrance. Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? I do not think so. It is the name just as much as the flower that makes it so perfect, so heavenly, so amazing. And it is this lovely flower that I wanted to plant in my garden. And last year, we did.

Now as the rays of sun touch their petals and give life to every stem, the flowers are awaking and radiating their significance. It is with the awe that I have taken a few pictures of my roses.

Today we spent the last day of the great Memorial Day weekend in Seattle in a more relaxed way that we’ve done for the past two days. We woke up early and took the debris from the patio to the dump. It was a very dirty job but we had to do it. After that, we  rested some then continued working in the yard. Here’s the deck a little bit more cleaned up.

And in the evening, we enjoyed our first dinner of the summer outside.

Of course, I can’t resist sharing a few pictures of Teika in her lovely suit. She is my little priest.

Or my little bear?

She is my cutie pie who loves, loves to get her ears scratched!

         
It was a great day for sure.

Tonight ends two very laborious days for Rory and I. We started the Memorial Day weekend deciding we were going to finally do a patio in the back yard. Here’s what we started with:

On the surface it looks all right. Just a nice piece of lawn. However, to the right in the deep corner of the yard there are hundreds of bricks. These bricks used to be part of our fireplace that we tore from the middle of the house when we redid our kitchen.

Here are just a few pictures (from 2007) to remind you of where the bricks came from:

So it feels good that even though it’s been a few years, we were able to reuse these bricks and have them stay close to home.

Of course, I must say that Teika was supervising our every move right from the beginning.

We woke up early on Saturday morning and started digging. After we made a serious dent in the grass we filled in the gap with sand, appropriately named “play sand”.

The first day ended with a decent area of the patio already placed in. A lot of the job besides digging involved hammering the bricks to break up the extra concrete they contained. That was a tough job!

Things were starting to shape up and of course Teika was a great boss telling us when it was time to pay attention to her and when to do the work.

The picture below of Rory reflects how we both felt after the first hard day of working. We were thoroughly tired.

Saturday ended with a lot of progress but today we woke up early in the morning and started the work all over again.

In the process, we hit a concrete pole which slowed down our work. But with some creativity and clever engineering we were able to remove it.

Finally, we were ready to fill the hole with play sand. Of course that required a trip to Home Depot. Luckily we found out that the play sand there was 1/2 the price at Dunn Lumber. So for just $68.00 we got 25 bags which was enough to finish the job.

Ah, it feels good to be done… well almost. We still have a lot to do around the patio but these past two days were well spent.

And as a bonus, here are some photos of my vegetable garden. I’ve started them from seeds. Radishes, lettuce, carrots and a few others.

Today we went and visited Rory’s parents at Lake Bay. His dad broke his leg yesterday falling off a ladder. As luck would have it yesterday was Ron’s birthday too. But he is doing all right being all drugged up. It will be another 6 weeks or so before he’ll be healed. As always, I enjoyed Carol’s garden taking picture of the flowers while Rory mowed the lawn and Teika relaxed in the sun.

I ran across my friend Marcus Barry’s blog this evening called Genuine Seer and remembered the photo he took of me a few years ago in Las Vegas. It’s a fun picture and as I’m wearing all black, I seem very much like a ninja. It helps that I love movies with ninjas and I think that sometime in my future lives, I will be one.

Usually what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas. This is an exception!

Today we enjoyed the sun outside. It has been a while since we’ve had a warm day here in Seattle, and today was going to be a great one. I decided it was time to take some photos of Teika, Rory and I. Luckily our neighbor was close by so he took a nice family portrait:

Unfortunately the day turned sad. We were going to to celebrate 3 May birthdays this afternoon. But as we were waiting for Rory’s parents to come by, we got a phone call that informed us that Ron had fallen off a ladder and was in the hospital. He had broken his leg. So our celebration ended short.

Tomorrow we will go visit the in-laws and see how Ron is doing.