01-30APR16 - Sultan, WA (variable weather & visiting family)

The weather in the month of April in Seattle is generally cool & wet (ever hear of April showers?); but this year the weather was all over the place.  The month started with great spring weather, cool & sunny; in fact Dan got one more day of excellent spring skiing at Stevens Pass, like he did last week.  Then the weather shifted to typical cool & wet, followed by record sun & high temperature records that were the highest on record!  The month finished with heavy rains; not records, but higher than average.

In addition to Corrie’s constant gardening to our landscape (no matter the weather); we started & finished two projects to the house/property during the month:

-first was raising kitchen TV off the counter, hiding the wires, & attaching it to the wall.  By having the TV on the counter, it pretty much made the counter “useless” (wouldn’t want to spill something on the TV?).  Now we have three more feet of usable counter.

-second was removing the grass under our new solar array (4 months old), build a retaining border, & filling it with chipped wood to prevent future grass growth.

Sunday, 10APR, we headed to the Best of Northwest Arts & Crafts Show at Magnuson Park.  Magnuson Park is located on what was the site of Naval Air Station Sand Point.  NAS Sand Point was where Dan’s parents would once a month pile the entire family into the car to shop at the Naval Exchange & Commissary.  The Ryan kids did not enjoy these trips but if they were lucky, they would visit one of their many relatives that lived in Seattle on the return home.  Also, the BOQ at NAS Sand Point is where Dan and two of his best friends spent an unsupervised summer in 1973 as part of their Coast Guard Academy “training”J!

The crafts & artwork at the show were excellent but not truly different from other juried craft shows we have attended.  The attendance was not as high as we expected.  Maybe because of the cool/damp weather; or because Magnuson Park is off the beaten path?  Then it was on to Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, for their Sunday market that we have attended many times.

www.nwartalliance.org

Tuesday, 12APR, after having our RV for over two weeks the Freightliner dealership finally calls & says the RV ready.  Resulting in late afternoon drive thru rush hour to pick it up & then fighting our way back thru traffic!  The servicing done was better than the last time we used them, but the lack of communication & calculation of the final bill were poor at best.  So we will try not to use them down the road, unless we have no choice like this timeL

Thursday, 28APR, we headed into north Seattle for medical reasons.  Which allowed us to stop by Dan’s aunt Madeline’s (who we last visited 28NOV15) for a nice visit.  It was a nice day, so the ladies spent the whole time wondering the yard discussing gardening.

Saturday the last day of April we spent all day away from house.  First stop was a dutch bakery in Marysville.  The bakery was disappointing because they were pretty much out of all their Dutch items & were selling typical “american” bakery items (donuts, fritters, rolls, etc).  And it wasn’t like they had had a run on all the Dutch items, it was obvious they had been out for days (if not the entire week) & hadn’t bothered baking/restockingL

From there we stopped at Dan’s cousin Rob & wife Pattie (who we visited briefly 20MAR) for lunch & a visit.  After discussing the recent rash of medical issues among us; the guys talked about home projects, while the gals discussed gardening.

The last stop of the day was a visit & dinner with Dan’s brother Shawn & wife Cindie (who visited us Easter, 20MAR).  As always a fun visit, with Shawn grilling some undersized hamburgers.