Andre is the guest host for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge this week. His theme is Summer Vibes. He posted some biking, mountain climbing, hiking, swimming, diving, sailing, surfing, kitesurfing, and beach sailing photos.
He said, when it comes to the style of spending this most valuable time of the year, wishes would differ following their personal preferences.
I spend a lot of my summer in my garden
I love the cheerful sunflowers. The bees like them as well.
This baby grasshopper stayed on the African lily long enough for me to take a few photos. It’s the size of a grain of rice.
The monarchs have been doing very well this summer. I’ve raised about 50. There are still two chrysalises and one caterpillar. Then I’ll be done for this year because I’ll be away quite a bit the rest of the summer.
I also take summer trips with my husband and family
Hubby Lynton dived in Great Barrier Reef, Australia.
Our family went on a whale-watching trip at Huntington Beach.
Photo on the left, Lynton and I went hiking at Waimoku Falls in Haleakala National Park. Photo on the right, we watched the crashing waves on Makena Beach, Maui, Hawaii
I love to watch my granddaughters having fun in the summer
Autumn and Nora were building sandcastles at the beach in Three Creek Lake Campground, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon.
Autumn is getting good at paddle boarding at Three Creek Lake, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon.
The theme for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #180 is Favorite Images of 2021
The year 2021 was a roller coaster. There were many excitements because we could resume doing things after being restricted for a year or longer. Those moments seemed serene yet felt like wanting to shout for joy. Those were my favorite images of 2021.
My younger granddaughter was born on March 22, 2020. California reinforced the restriction on March 14. I canceled my flight at the last minute to be with my daughter for her childbirth. By March 2021, the restriction of traveling eased a little. We wanted to be there for Nora’s first birthday. I booked the flight with premium seats so that we didn’t have to pass by many passengers. We were so thrilled to see Nora for the first time.
We spent Mother’s Day with my daughter every year except the year 2020. In 2021, we were with my daughter for Mother’s Day and had a wonderful time having three generations of girls together.
Three generations of ladies
The summer of 2021 was my first-time raising Monarch butterflies and there were some casualties, but 20 butterflies made it to adulthood.
This Monarch struggled to open the wings all the way, but it finally made it to leave the cage.
I booked a trip to Banff, Canada in August for our anniversary, but the border was closed. I canceled the trip, and we went to Santa Barbara instead. It was the first long trip since Covid.
Santa Barbara Harbor
We also wanted to take day trips to the beaches, but many beaches were closed during the pandemic. We eventually made a trip to Laguna Beach in September.
Laguna Beach with high tide
We missed Autumn’s 3rd birthday in 2020 but we were excited to go to Autumn’s 4th birthday party in September last year.
Happy Birthday, Autumn!
Last but not the least, we had a white Christmas with my daughter’s family and had fun watching the grandkids playing in the snow and making a snowperson in the backyard. Autumn helped to put the pebbles on to make the eyes and buttons and put the carrot on for the nose. Nora gave the snowperson a big hug.
The Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “puzzle.” We use it any way we’d like!
I’m thankful to live close to the water all my life, places such as Hong Kong, Portland in Oregon, Seattle in Washington, and Orange County in California. Water is gentle, soft, soothing and yet it can be powerful and forceful.
I love walking around Laguna Lake, which is one mile from home. It takes 3 minutes to drive or 20 minutes to walk there. I also love to take day trips to the beaches. The most visited beaches are Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, and Laguna Beach. They are about 30 to 33 miles from home and take about 35 to 45 minutes to get there.
Hubby and I went to Laguna Beach on Wednesday, September 15. It had been almost two years since our last visit. It is a small city with less than 10 square miles, but there are a lot of things to do for the locals and visitors. The weather treated us well with mild sun, clear sky and a gentle breeze.
When we visited Laguna Beach years and years ago, we took many quarters to feed the parking meters. Eventually the parking meters are converted to taking credit card payment even though the coin slots are still there. When we came on the weekends, we usually circled around many times to find a parking, but on this day, we spotted many available spaces closed to the beach.
It was lunchtime when we arrived, so we went to our regular seafood restaurant right by the beach to have lunch. Hubby had a fish and chips, and I had a Fettucine Alfredo with shrimp. Hubby had three bottles of Bud Light. I ordered a Genius Taut for its bitter taste but drank only half of it because I’m allergic to alcohol. Hubby helped to share half of mine.
We visited several art galleries. I enjoyed many of the contemporary, abstract art as well as the landscape, and portrait. We saw some contemporary and inventive sculptures and also realistic sculptures.
A similar piece of this painting costs $10,000
This sculpture is about 24″ high, costs $8,000
There are three beach valley ball nets on the beach. On our previous trips, we saw people playing valley balls, but it was quiet on Wednesday. I wasn’t sure if it was a pandemic restriction or because it was a weekday.
My favorite thing is walking from the beach valley ball area to the tidepools to look at the little sea creatures in the rocky area where the ocean meets the land. This area has many pockets of sea water usually filled with snails, sea slugs, sea cucumber, mussels, sea stars, hermit crabs, and small fish. Families came with their children, who went from one pocket of water to another to look at these sea creatures.
As we walked closer to the tidepool area, to my surprise, the area was diminished significantly. Only a couple of pieces of rock were above the sand, and the lower rocks were not there. Hubby saw my puzzling look, saw the rows and rows of tire tracks on the sand, and said, “It seems like they brought in truckloads of sand.”
“Why did they cover the tidepools with sand?”
The remaining couple pieces of rocks above the sand didn’t collect too much water with sea creatures in them. I was somewhat disappointed. The sand level looked like higher than what I remembered. It could have been between the timing of the tide and the timing of adding sand to the beach. The tide was coming in and the waves were high by the time we were there. The tidepools could be under the water. The more I think about that, the clearer I see those tidepools under the water.
I had fun taking tons of photos and videos of the waves pounding the beach and the rocks. There were two surfers, one on the left and one on the right of the video.
John Steiner is the guest host for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #155. He says throughout history, people have gravitated to water for trade and for relaxation and he invited us to share the photos on the water.
This week, I have fun reflecting and finding the quotes and sayings about water and ocean. Please enjoy the scenesand the wisdom about Water throughout history.
“Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.” – Lao Tzu
Toledo, Spain
“Water is soft and humble, but it is the most powerful and is the most endurable.” – Debasish Mridha
Huntington Library, California
“There’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” – Sarah Kay
Newport Beach, California
“Dance with the waves, move with the sea, let the rhythm of the water set your soul free.” – Christy Ann Martine
Maui, Hawaii
“Water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing, in the end, can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone.” – Margaret Atwood
“Water is the driving force of all nature.” — Leonardo da Vinci
Moulton Falls, Washington
“Life is like the ocean; it goes up and down.” ― Vanessa Paradis
Bondi Beach, Australia
“To reach a port we must set sail. Sail, not tie at anchor. Sail, not drift.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Pacific Ocean, Ensenada Cruise, Mexico
“We ourselves feel what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” – Mother Teresa
“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” ― Ryunosuke Satoro
This week for the Lens Artists Photo Challenge #137, Ann-Christine wanted to continue with another S – Soft. This is all about how we interpret Soft.
I see soft Physical appearances, softness of characteristics, and hear soft sounds everywhere. The photos included here represent the several things that are soft in sight and in touch.
“Perfect happiness is a beautiful sunset, the giggle of a grandchild, the first snowfall. It’s the little things that make happy moments, not the grand events.” – Sharon Draper
This photo was taken from the ship of the Ensenada Cruise. It was my first time watching the soft glow of sunset in the middle of the ocean, even though we were not too far from land.
“Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
We saw the fluffy clouds all the time when we were in Maui, Hawaii. They don’t seem to bring any rain except on one trip among our multiple trips.
“Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This clearly shows the principle of softness overcoming hardness. ” Lao Tzu
Water is soft, but when it combines with other natural phenomena, it can be powerful. The tide was coming in this sunny afternoon on the Makena Beach, Maui.
“The red rose whispers of passion, and the white rose breathes of love; O, the red rose is a falcon, and the white rose is a dove. ” – John Boyle O’Reilly
I love the softness of the Iceberg Roses. The innocent color brings me refreshing calmness.
“The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats…” – Albert Einstein
This was my daughter’s neighbor’s cat. She had such an unusual combination of soft fur colors and soft blue eyes, and I wondered if it was a kitten. I would love to have a kitten like this one.
“A wee bit of Heaven drifted down from above, a handful of happiness, a heartful of love.When the baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into thousands of pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.” From Peter Pan
Thank you for Balroop Singh‘s comment on the softness of a newborn baby. I added this photo of my younger granddaughter Nora. My daughter Mercy did a photoshoot of her when she was three weeks’ old. Nora will be one-year-old on March 22! I look forward to going to her birthday party.
The Showers of Blessings 