Springtime in the valley is one of the prettiest times!  The colors of green are so unreal.  I always feel like I need to put the photo in my editing program and take out some of the color because it is so vivid that people might think I added that color.  But this is really how it looks out there.  

Springtime also brings us some pretty amazing rainbows.  Sun and rain...a great mixture.

And we always get some hard springtime winds.  I could not believe what was left of my umbrella plant!  It blew the leaves right off it.  I wish I had left it inside just a day longer!

 One of my very favorite things is finding tiny bird egg shells.This one had been stolen from a nest.  When I found it in the garden, it had been cracked open and the yolk was still inside.  Sad 

 Here are a few of the springtime visitors to the place.  A whole eagle family was soaring over the house.  They stayed for most of the month but have moved on now, I guess, since we only see the hawks now.  

A trip to Blue Lake with the grandkids.

   I am so sure that I found my Mama Goose!  I didn't have any food with me, so she didn't come all the way up to me, but she came so close!  I called her and she started walking up to me, I know that if I had some cracked corn, she would have eaten it out of my hand like she used to.  I now have cracked corn in my car and will be ready for her next time.  I zoomed in the photo and the markings on her face are just exactly like the shots I have of my Mama. I can't believe that she still knows me.

I signed up for a class at the college!  Photoshop.  I have always wanted to learn to edit with it, but it is so complicated.  I have tried to self teach, but just could not move forward.  Now I have learned what each of the tools is for and how to use them. It is going to take a lot of practice, but at least I have an idea where to begin now.   Here is a photo of my first night's project.  hahaha

Arianna has continued sewing.  She is so natural at it that it never ceases to amaze me what she can do.  I picked her up after school one day and took her to the fabric store.  We went through the pattern books and she picked out a dress she would wear.  Then to select the fabric.  That was so cute to watch.  She knows exactly what she likes and you could see her picturing it.

I have never been able to get the videos to work, so here we go again, just in case.  She runs the foot pedal all by herself and has perfect control of what she is doing.

We came home and preshrunk it while we had lunch, then she cut it out.  The next week, we started sewing and finished it the third week.  She was so proud of herself...but not as proud as I was!

 The yard is all in order for now. It seemed easier and faster than before, but I guess that is because I have spent the last couple of years trimming and transplanting and making it all mine.

Apple blossoms are always top on my list of favorite spring flowers. 

Josiah started a baseball team.  It just does not seem like he is old enough for that!

 It is pretty amusing to watch him in the field...he finds his ways to keep from getting bored while he waits to go back to the dugout and wait to get up to bat.  Sometimes, he goes through the motions of pitching the ball as the machine pitches it to the batter.

 And at his very first game, he went up to bat and he actually HIT it and made it to first, then another 

batter got him to second and then came third and

HOME! 

He was the first one to make it home!  

It cracked us all up as he raised his hands in victory!

I wonder if he had practiced that in his mind.

62 years!  Jessi's family and Lindy and my parents all came to dinner to celebrate.

Maria, Alison and I have been friends for 50 years!  That is how long it has been since we met in the 6th grade at Outdoor School.  For the past year, I have been going through my old photos and put them all together in a book to surprise them.  

The kids got to spend the night again.  It was one of the warmest days so far, so we celebrated with a trip to Dairy Queen.  We all had our ice cream an

d then Josiah said he really wanted a hot dog.  He sat there and ate it all, even after eating a blizzard.

 It is always fun to see what remains of the kids when they have gone home.  So sweet to find their dolls all in position for them to begin again when they come back.  I finally busted out my doll clothes from when I was a little girl.  It was my very favorite toy.  Mom made us so many clothes and they are all still in perfect shape and now the girls are old enough to play with them. I am sure my Mom had no idea that she was making doll clothes that her Great Grandkids would be playing with!

Jessi invited me along with them to the Wooden Shoe Tulip fields.  

 The colors are so vivid your eyes can not take it all it.

Two nights later, Bonnie and I drove back to shoot the tulips at sunset.  The sunset was not very vivid, but it was nice to see them fields in different light. Below are some of the shots from sunset.

 I think it is pretty funny, right in the middle of the beautiful flowers, are rows of flowers that have finished blooming and been trimmed off.

We started out the month with an overnighter with Jessi's kids while she and Ariel went to a retreat. We spent the time playing around here, pizza party in the living room, and going to see a movie.  We saw Peter Rabbit.

 Spring flowers are bursting out!

 I have been busy knitting through the winter.  

I have a little collection of rock hearts.  I love it when the kids leave and I see little things around that they have done.  Here Arianna had lined them up in a row.

 I forgot to post this last month.  It was just like this when I arrived home from Gabe's party in LA.  Cyndi left them for a Happy Spring Welcome Home from our trip.

A family of eagles have been practicing their flying skills.  There are 3 babies and the two parents soaring over the house and down through the canyon.

 We had a new flock of birds come through.  A first time for me to see the Evening Grosbeak.  There were about a dozen of them all taking turns at the feeder.

There seem to be a few more hawks this year too.

 The hillside is beginning to leaf out.  I love the pink tint.

 Bazzel has decided that my foot makes a good headrest.  He just sits there with his head on my foot.

 I don't know if you can see it very well, but way out there along the horizon is a rainbow in the fog.  It was pretty unusual.

 Larch Mountain showing off the snow.  I like the line where the snow level is, you always hear it on the news that we will have snow to the 'whatever' foot level...here you see it. Just like there is a line drawn.

Mt Hood still attracts me with my camera.  I don't think it will ever get old.   

 One of the eagles soaring at sunrise.

 Lindy turned 60 on the 6th.  We picked her up and took her to lunch and then topped it off with pedicures.

 Afterwards, we all had dinner and birthday cake at my house.

At the end of the month, we hit the road for LA again.  This time it was for Daniel's birthday.

 Road food isn't always fast food.  We found a really good Indian Restaurant.  For years we have seen it as we drove on past.  I am so glad we gave it a try!  Amazing Food!

 I don't know why we waited so long to take the detour to Burney Falls.  Such an amazing falls!!!  It is in the Shasta area.  I think I need to go back.

A little on down the road, suddenly John pulls off and heads down a side road.  He had spotted a Wildlife Refuge sign.  It was worth the detour!  Ibis nesting in tree tops and huge flocks of brown geese and snow geese and some kind of bird with a long curved bill.  Its another place I want to return to.

 I spotted a flock of wild turkeys out in a nut orchard.

 We made it to Dennis' place in time for the party.  Daniel had a couple of friends join him at the
trampoline place and then back to his house for a pizza party and cake.

 While John tore out the powder room, I entertained the boys all week while they were on spring break.  I really enjoyed my time with them!  Quality and Quantity time!  I love seeing them in everyday life and being a part of their lives.  We went to swim class, practiced Gabe's violin, saw Sherlock Gnomes at the theater, played in the park and in their pool, and every night we had our Never Ending Story time.  I start out the story and one by one we all take turns adding to it.  Every night it continues until we have to put it on pause until the next visit. 

 We spent a couple of nights with Uncle Jim again.  He is always so happy to see us and makes sure we are happy to be there.  

The citrus trees in Oxnard are overloaded this year!

I found this old dead vine on a wall on one of my walks.

And then it was time to get back home...

sights along the way...

 Off in the distance, we could see smoke, as we got closer, there was a sign that it was a controlled burn.  Kind of strange to see firefighters STARTING fires instead of putting them out!

We had plans to stay in Reno a few nights, expecting to have a spa day.  For some reason, it was packed with people there, must be spring break or Easter.  Anyway, the spa was fully booked and so we decided to come home a day early.  But it was a nice ending to our trip anyway.