Sunny days and rainbow ribbons
Jul. 13th, 2014 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elabyIt's been forever since I put up a bunch of pictures, but I've been taking them all the while :) I find that I like taking pictures better than I like looking actually through them and uploading them XD Rachel and I have been doing all sorts of happy things together this summer: taking walks in the elegant old Victorian cemetery down the street, going to the beach, seeing fireworks up close and personal at our neighbor's Fourth of July party... and today, we did a little redecorating and rearranging in our bedroom to give it more of a cozy, witchy, magic-cabin-in-the-woods feel.
Lots of pictures ahead!
These pictures go all the way back to mid-May, when our yard was bursting with violets. There's a place behind our garage filled completely with wildflowers, but it doesn't look messy or overgrown. I think the lady who lived here before us may have purposefully planted it to look like that.
It's such a delight to walk among them.
Around that time, huge purple irises bloom in our yard. There are so many of them.
Also, the lupins come out <3 We always make werewolf jokes XD
We both adore lilacs (and my mum does too!) and we have one bush out front and a little one out back. Neither of them bloom very much, but I think they're getting better year after year.
We went to a flower sale at the Hamilton House, a historic house in the area. They were selling flowers from the garden -- they're especially cool because they're descended from the original flowers that the owners planted (several different owners over a long period). We bought a whole bunch, but the forget-me-nots thrived especially well. For some reason, though, they're not blue!
It's been really hot lately, but the weekend of the Fourth of July, we had severe thunderstorms. The next day, the weather was perfect: low 70s and sunny, with a gorgeous breeze. I insisted as soon as we got up that we go for a walk, so we went down to the Forest Glade Cemetery on our road. It's a sprawling cemetery with rolling hills and trees like towers, and it's different every time we go. This time, one of the old gazebos was completely enveloped in vines.
The leaves were huge, bigger than my spread hand.
On one side, the vines have covered the side of the gazebo so thickly that only a tiny window of light gets through.
Rachel looking adorable through one of the less vine-covered sides <3
I loved this vine in particular because the heart-shaped leaves decreased in size perfectly.
That evening, my neighbors held their Fourth of July party. Everyone likes our Mexican dip and they're all really nice, so it was fun to go. It's also really great that we live right next door so we can run home if we need anything (or need a break from people) and we can get home easily and when it's over.
I sat next to a little girl who made special snacks out of the party mix: a scoop-shaped tortilla chip filled with a Cheezit, a pretzel, a piece of popcorn, a blueberry. She made up more and more creative names for her concoction each time, and she kept feeding them to me :3
They handed out glowsticks! :D There are always a lot of little kids there, but the grownups play with stuff too XD
They had sparklers! :D I was so excited to get this picture -- all of the other ones were super blurry, but this one perfectly captures how they looked in real life.
This was the first time I got to try out the fireworks setting on my camera. OMFG. You can see by the trail in this one that the rocket spun as it shot up.
I love the electric blue streaks in this one and how you can tell which way the wind was blowing.
Rachel said this picture looked like dandelion puffs on fire. I love the six-pointed stars that appear all throughout.
There were some fireworks that were shot into the sky, but most of them were the kind that pour up out of the canister like a fountain, going seven or eight feet high.
These were our favorite kind to watch. It was so cool to see the sparks hit the ground and bounce.
I caught this one right as it was starting to ignite. This is my favorite picture <3
One weekend, we took a picnic and went to Short Sands in York. The weather was gorgeous with the sea breeze and we did a lot of wading.
We got candy at the Goldenrod, a summer-only restaurant that I've been going to since I was little. It's delightfully nostalgic -- there's a fountain soda counter where they serve you ice cream in metal fluted goblets, saltwater taffy that they boil and pull in the front windows where everyone on the street stops to watch, and a penny candy counter where candy doesn't actually cost a penny anymore, but some candy only costs 2 cents a piece. We also got shave ice in town because they have the kind that Rachel used to get in Hawaii (actual shave ice, as opposed to snow cones) and it turned Rachel's teeth green XD
We wandered up and down the beach and I took a lot of pictures of the surf. The waves were beautiful that day.
When the waves roll back out, they do cool things to the water running over the sand.
Rachel sacked out for a while on our picnic blanket while I took pictures of waves <3
Today, we decided to re-arrange and re-decorate our bedroom. Rachel was inspired by some pictures on Tumblr of a cozy, quilt-strewn room hung with lanterns and patchwork drapery. Using what we already had, we gave our room a similar (if more colorful!) feel.
This is my side:
This is Rachel's:
The lights we hung up used to be strung behind the headboard of our bed. I really like them on the ceiling.
We used ribbons we already had to create a rainbow hanging behind the bed. I absolutely love it.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures! <3 <3 <3
Lots of pictures ahead!
These pictures go all the way back to mid-May, when our yard was bursting with violets. There's a place behind our garage filled completely with wildflowers, but it doesn't look messy or overgrown. I think the lady who lived here before us may have purposefully planted it to look like that.
It's such a delight to walk among them.
Around that time, huge purple irises bloom in our yard. There are so many of them.
Also, the lupins come out <3 We always make werewolf jokes XD
We both adore lilacs (and my mum does too!) and we have one bush out front and a little one out back. Neither of them bloom very much, but I think they're getting better year after year.
We went to a flower sale at the Hamilton House, a historic house in the area. They were selling flowers from the garden -- they're especially cool because they're descended from the original flowers that the owners planted (several different owners over a long period). We bought a whole bunch, but the forget-me-nots thrived especially well. For some reason, though, they're not blue!
It's been really hot lately, but the weekend of the Fourth of July, we had severe thunderstorms. The next day, the weather was perfect: low 70s and sunny, with a gorgeous breeze. I insisted as soon as we got up that we go for a walk, so we went down to the Forest Glade Cemetery on our road. It's a sprawling cemetery with rolling hills and trees like towers, and it's different every time we go. This time, one of the old gazebos was completely enveloped in vines.
The leaves were huge, bigger than my spread hand.
On one side, the vines have covered the side of the gazebo so thickly that only a tiny window of light gets through.
Rachel looking adorable through one of the less vine-covered sides <3
I loved this vine in particular because the heart-shaped leaves decreased in size perfectly.
That evening, my neighbors held their Fourth of July party. Everyone likes our Mexican dip and they're all really nice, so it was fun to go. It's also really great that we live right next door so we can run home if we need anything (or need a break from people) and we can get home easily and when it's over.
I sat next to a little girl who made special snacks out of the party mix: a scoop-shaped tortilla chip filled with a Cheezit, a pretzel, a piece of popcorn, a blueberry. She made up more and more creative names for her concoction each time, and she kept feeding them to me :3
They handed out glowsticks! :D There are always a lot of little kids there, but the grownups play with stuff too XD
They had sparklers! :D I was so excited to get this picture -- all of the other ones were super blurry, but this one perfectly captures how they looked in real life.
This was the first time I got to try out the fireworks setting on my camera. OMFG. You can see by the trail in this one that the rocket spun as it shot up.
I love the electric blue streaks in this one and how you can tell which way the wind was blowing.
Rachel said this picture looked like dandelion puffs on fire. I love the six-pointed stars that appear all throughout.
There were some fireworks that were shot into the sky, but most of them were the kind that pour up out of the canister like a fountain, going seven or eight feet high.
These were our favorite kind to watch. It was so cool to see the sparks hit the ground and bounce.
I caught this one right as it was starting to ignite. This is my favorite picture <3
One weekend, we took a picnic and went to Short Sands in York. The weather was gorgeous with the sea breeze and we did a lot of wading.
We got candy at the Goldenrod, a summer-only restaurant that I've been going to since I was little. It's delightfully nostalgic -- there's a fountain soda counter where they serve you ice cream in metal fluted goblets, saltwater taffy that they boil and pull in the front windows where everyone on the street stops to watch, and a penny candy counter where candy doesn't actually cost a penny anymore, but some candy only costs 2 cents a piece. We also got shave ice in town because they have the kind that Rachel used to get in Hawaii (actual shave ice, as opposed to snow cones) and it turned Rachel's teeth green XD
We wandered up and down the beach and I took a lot of pictures of the surf. The waves were beautiful that day.
When the waves roll back out, they do cool things to the water running over the sand.
Rachel sacked out for a while on our picnic blanket while I took pictures of waves <3
Today, we decided to re-arrange and re-decorate our bedroom. Rachel was inspired by some pictures on Tumblr of a cozy, quilt-strewn room hung with lanterns and patchwork drapery. Using what we already had, we gave our room a similar (if more colorful!) feel.
This is my side:
This is Rachel's:
The lights we hung up used to be strung behind the headboard of our bed. I really like them on the ceiling.
We used ribbons we already had to create a rainbow hanging behind the bed. I absolutely love it.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures! <3 <3 <3
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no subject
Date: 2014-07-14 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-14 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-14 03:27 pm (UTC)I covet your violets. :)
The cemetery looks so different in summer! It's kind of lovely all the time, but I'm loving the vines on the gazebo.
Great fireworks pictures! I've never had a chance to use the "fireworks" setting on my camera, but this gives me hope that it might actually work!
Beautiful ocean and sand pictures. Makes me want to go stick my feet (and whole body) in the ocean.
Love the picture of Rachel on the blanket. And she is TOTES wearing your hat! (Which is like my hat ...)
Your new and improved bedroom is extremely beautiful. <3
no subject
Date: 2014-07-14 11:39 pm (UTC)Thank you, Mama! <3 I'm so glad you like the bedroom! And I bet your fireworks setting will work really well :)