Well, what a week it was in the Pacific Northwest…record high temperatures and lots of sunshine. It’s hard to believe we have had so many beautiful days around here and although it was a bit warm towards the end of this past week, you won’t get any complaints from me…I enjoyed the sunshine and warmth…but must admit when it began to cool down, it did feel nice and made sleeping at night much easier.
Two days a week I watch my granddaughter, Jayden, who is 3 1/2 years old. She’s SO much fun and never ceases to amaze me…and as you can imagine (and have seen on my blog and website) I photograph her OFTEN! She can be a ham, a little model or just irritated with me for photographing her. This week, with the nice weather, I of course took the opportunity to take some photos of her outside…and some of her friends when we got together with them and enjoyed the outdoors. I must admit, I love photographing people, but am especially drawn to children and maybe it’s because they are a bit more of a challenge, but also I think because they do what THEY want most of the time and you get to see just who they truly are…I love that about kids…they don’t pretend to be someone else…they are who they are!
It’s much cooler now and the week ahead looks to be more normal for this time of year…I do hope though that this wasn’t our summer…and that we get more days (weeks, month!) of some warmer days…
Enjoy the photos…and I hope everyone has a great week!
Ahhh…popicles, the perfect after treat…to help stay cool…and of course, you must “toast” with them!
Exhausted from the heat and playing hard…Jayden curls up with our dog, Aussie, to rest a while!
Today was another beautiful day of a perfect weekend…my husband and I enjoyed the sunshine and took advantage of the chance to work in the yard with this rare warm weather around here in May! This is more like July or August weather…and the nice thing is the forecast shows it to continue for a while! I’m loving it!! With all the yard work, I didn’t get much of a chance to photograph, but last night while we were enjoying dinner on the back deck, I did bring the camera out to try and photograph some birds in the yard…some were bathing in our rock fountain and others were just flying around from fence post to fence post. I did get a few that were not bad, but it was about 8 pm and the light was fairly low, so most weren’t quite as sharp as I would have liked. I also took a couple other random photos…a couple of our first clematis bloom of the year and some of a branch on our Japanese maple tree. It has been since I’ve gotten out to photograph the beauty that surrounds us and that felt good…I need more of that time!!
Tonight, after our work, we enjoyed another great dinner on the back deck. We found this recipe in the latest issue of Costco’s Connection magazine and it sounded good. Well, we LOVED it and it has been added to our collection and will definitely be made again during the summer. So, I thought I’d share the recipe with you…and if it sounds like something you might enjoy…I highly recommend it!
BLACK BEAN TACO SALAD
2 limes, juiced 6 cups shredded
romaine lettuce
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil 1 tomato, diced
2 tsp. cumin 20 whole-grain
2 cloves garlic, minced tortilla chips, crushed
Dash or two of salt ½ avocado
1 ¼ cup black beans, drained & rinsed
(or 6 ounces cooked, diced chicken breast)
Whisk together lime juice, oil, cumin, garlic and salt. Toss all ingredients together. Makes 2 servings.
**We used ¾ black beans and 1/3 diced chicken breast and combined the two. And instead of the whole grain tortilla chips, we made a tostada shell with a whole grain tortilla and served the salad in the bowl.
Have a great week and enjoy the sunshine…but remember your sunscreen!!