Another busy late summer weekend: Saturday

Greek Festival...we went again!
I think this was my fifth or sixth time going.
The event has grown over the years until now it lasts for four days.
It is the longest running Greek festival in America, now in its 37th year.

The Festival is held to raise funds for twenty local charities.
I haven't found out exactly how much they raise, but with 50,000 people attending you can imagine the dollar amount raised with just the five dollar fee to get in.

We love seeing the dancing.
The Greek Orthodox kids are taught traditional Greek dances and move through various dance group levels until they are college age.
I imagine it must be such a great way to bond the kids together, teach them how to interact with the opposite sex, and also gain a skill that can be used at any Greek gathering around the globe.

But...truth be known...we go for the food. The festival has the very BEST Greek food!
The lines to get food are very long but move efficiently.
The women cook for months,

 

and the men are in booths around the tent working over open flames to cook chicken, lamb and pork.
The smell is delicious!!!
(Poor Luke.  No Greek food for you this year. Next year buddy, we promise!)
Funds are raised from the sale of food too...

With the music going it is almost impossible not to want to get up and dance a bit too.
The Festival has so much to offer, with kid zones for play, museum and sanctuary tours and gift shops one could hang out there for a whole day.

But that afternoon we had other places we want to go explore too...
All over town there have been billboards touting the opening of "Kitty City"!
(Seriously...who wouldn't want to go to a place called Kitty City?)

Our local Humane Society owns a fairly large piece of property, and the Boyces donated funds to create "Kitty City".
Instead of homeless cats being put in cages...

Now they have spacious rooms geared just for their pleasure!

Cats are fostered and once they are in adoptable condition, they are move into Kitty City.
This is a common room which several cats share. 

Then there are Kitty Condos for smaller groups.
Three to a room, two, or even one right now.
Apparently adoptions have been skyrocketing ever since Kitty City opened three weeks ago.

Each of the twenty or so condos have a screen playing DVDs of birds and mice and rats with tantalizing chirping and squeaks.

There are also "get acquainted" rooms for people to interact with just one cat at a time.

The condo furnishings are first rate!

Along the hallways one can enjoy cat related artwork which are offered for sale as fundraisers.

Isn't this cat  a beauty?
The cats were mostly very comfortable in their condos, purring when petted, and not shy at all.

Nothing like an orange cat with a very striped tail!
We didn't adopt any kitties since our four more than meet our household cat needs for now.
But that won't stop us from occasionally visiting Kitty City just to meet other wonderful deserving homeless cats who have managed to land on their feet in a most pleasant place...a shelter that offers excellent accommodations and is striving to reach a No Kill status.
They are very close...only really sick cats are put down right now.
It is a bit troubling to consider that these cats have it better than many children in the world.
Still...I am glad for the homeless cats.

The day ended with a sky show.

I try to go outside at sunset and watch to see what beauty will form above me.
(Notice the black clouds between the trees....)

The sky  hosted both dark storm clouds and airy clouds as well.

 

As I write this we are having a few most welcomed showers.
The air is scented with the warm damp earthy smells that end of summer/early fall can bring.
The pictures above were from Saturday...tomorrow I will share about our Sunday.

Crazy times

Isn't this picture a riot?
Seriously....what kind of woman would willingly get herself in such a position?
With a LION beside her no less.

I get a chuckle and my head shakes every time I see this photo.

Lately I have been looking for things that would make me laugh a bit.  The long overly warm summer, several sad situations involving family and friends and of course the DNC have all made me rather glum.

In the midst of all that I have found a good laugh is sometimes hard to come by.

But...

Youtube usually has something that makes me laugh.

 

For instance THIS clip (which should be above) about how to wear one sweater sixteen ways, demonstrated in like four frantic minute.  This girl is FUN!  

And THIS one below on how to turn a tee shirt into a "sexy" one piece bathing suit.

 

I laughed so hard I thought I would fall off my chair at this one. 

Maybe I have weird sense of humor, but I have been swimming enough times in my life to imagine the outcome of taking a dip in this otherwise lovely creation.

                                           Anyone else have something funny to share?

Three Day Weekend!

We filled our Labor Day weekend up to the brim with events!
Just Sunday alone included church, then a trip up to Snowbird for Oktoberfest (yes, it was still September, but they like to spread the fest out over a few weekends.)

We got there before the crowds, believe it or not! 

German music, German dancing, and German food.

German food packs a good amount of calories and since we didn't dance, we needed to do something else to burn the calories off.
A hike...

Up to Cecret Lake (that is the correct spelling, with two "C" instead of a "S".)
The one mile hike there would be a piece of cake if it wasn't up to nearly 10,000 ft above sea level.

I looked up my blog post about my first hike up there four years ago which happened at the same time of year.  There was snow on the ground nearby that day!

Totally worth the effort and I didn't hesitate to sit for a bit to catch my breath along the way.

Several families were having family portraits taken up there.
Bernie took my picture, I took his.
Our empty nest family photo session: Done and done in two shots.

As I sat at the water's edge I was struck by the artful designs reflected in the water. 

I have been very non-camera oriented this summer.  Once the weather cools off I hope to get back into doing more photography, including some more abstract kind of shots.

 

Bleached out roots on an overblown tree have such an interesting beauty.

The Cecret Lake area is pretty in every direction.
The towering wall like mountain face looks so powerful and fragile at the same time.

Chip and Dale...aren't all chipmunks named Chip and Dale?

After we hiked back down the mountain and cleaned up we went over to our son's house for grilled salmon and his mother-in-law made her famous Maryland crab cakes.
(She was raised in Maryland and so this was an authentically made dish. Oh was it delicious!)

Debra makes her crab cakes heavy on the crab, light on the cake...
She explained that where she came from in Maryland crab cakes are consumed sandwiched between two saltine crackers with a dash of worcester sauce.
Her equally Maryland raised husband touted his family's method: Just eat the crab cake.
I'm with him.
Saves tummy room for more crab cake! 

Luke enjoyed time with his Northern California Grandparent fan base.
We enjoyed them too.
Wish they lived closer!

So that was Sunday.
Monday we went to another lake. 

Bernie and I went for a dip in the Great Salt Lake the first Labor Day that we live in Utah.
We decided that day that going for a dip in the Great Salt Lake would become our Labor Day tradition.
This year we invited our son and daughter-in-law and her parents to come along for a float session.
And of course Luke came along too..

Each year it has been just a little bit different.
For example, the first year there were lots of brine shrimp tickling us as we floated like corks in the salty water.
This year I only saw one!

I was so intent to get into the warm water and float I didn't wait with my camera to get a shot of Luke getting his feet dipped in this body of water too.
Seems fitting that a Utah born boy would get his toes in the Great Salt Lake during  his first months of life, doesn't it?

This made year 4 in Utah for us.
 It has been a very good four years.

 

Pussywillows, Cattails, Soft Winds....

For weeks now windows views have been hidden during the day.
Windows coverings kept the baking sun rays out, but did allow shadowy hints of what the world was like outside.

 

Beautiful in their own way, the plant shadows swayed in the warm breezes and teased me to come outside and play.

 

The ripening berries on the ever lengthening vines were plucked during the cooling sunset hours.

The rest of the day the vines bore up under an unchecked assault from gnawing insects.

This window is in our basement where we retreat from the daily heat to find a cool place to relax.

Air conditioning blows upstairs, blowing dollars away at ever quickening pace with each degree of coolness sought.

Downstairs...well, it is true that cool air is heavier than hot air and the cool air tumbles down the stairs faster than it fills the upstairs quarters.

But eventually....

One finds oneself driven to look again outside.

 

 

Could it be?

Could it really be fall already?

A look up our street says fall is seeping out from the mountains folds where it has been hiding from sight.

 

The calendar says it is still summer.

The thermometer in the garden says it is 94 degrees.

The mountain tops say the seasonal change has begun anyway.

 

A peek from our deck to Mt. Olympus:

A view I see every morning as I eat my breakfast and linger over coffee.

No...I swear it...no...the colors were not there two days ago.

Our volunteer sunflower plant that towers above me is now sporting its own color change.

The sunflowers are now bowing away from the sun, drooping in the heat, ready to face the ground and release ripened seeds for their own future journey.

Each leaf shows its veins and age spots dapple formerly green velvet shapes.

The summer vegetables are riping faster and faster each day in a race to complete their purpose in days that are still hot yet shorter.

The peppers store up the blazing summer heat too.

We will taste again the scorching heat of summer in our winter meals thanks to them.

Our small vegetable garden patch has run wild with tomatoes of every size and color, beans in three colors, eggplant in two, and broccoli heads now are quick to bloom if not swiftly plucked.

A trip to the market shows harvests of other sorts.

My cell phone camera is used to savor the textures and colors of summer harvests.

Locally grown watermelon piled high are almost too beautiful to eat.

The fruit...almost clown like with green stripes and splotches hiding the deep red meaty heart inside.

Each melon a work of art...

I treasure the changing seasons of Utah, but even California has its own seasonal hints.

Last weekend I made a quick three day trip back to San Diego again.

(The airfare was just too good to pass up....especially with the ocean temperatures at a balmy high.)

The date palms fruit was riping too...

 

 

Who says palm trees don't turn color?

Oh autumn is coming.

The time for harvesting fresh delights and outside summer dining still seems like something that will never end.

But the mountain above me tells me something different.

Summer will give way to Fall once again.

 

 

(All this talk about yummy summer food is really unfair to those whose diet is restricted to milk at this time.  Luke has contemplated his current dietary options, and has chosen to broaden his menu to include an occasional snack of baby toes instead of tomatoes.)

 

Years ago I fell in love with this song by the Canadian Gordon Lightfoot.
Each seasonal change that I find in nature makes me recall this song.
Someday I would love to figure out how to set my own photographs to the song.
And someday I suppose I will finally stop feeling a bit melancholy whenever I hear it sung.
That someday has not yet come....