98th Birthday!!!!!

The boys Grammy Zenner turned 98 years old on May 12th!!! What a Birthday!!!!

She is the sweetest lady. I imagin all the stuff she has seen!!! in all those years!!! R1, R2, R3(my Hubby) are in the picture with her. Grammy is the only immediate (besides children and each other) living relative that the boys have. They have some cousins, but the rest have passed on.

Happy Birthday Grammy Zenner!

A walk in the park....

It was a beautiful day for a walk in the park.

I dont know what kind these trees are, but they are gorgeous in bloom!

Close up of the tiny little white flowers on the trees.

Wonderful gnarly trunks too. Keep in mind the van on the right, I will explain that later.

Are not they just gorgeous!!!

The Azaleas are in bloom too.

Purple is my favorite. We are working our way around to this building in the back ground.

There are a lot of centennial markers for the town of Washougal, this park was dedicated at the centennial celebration. In the middle of that circle, Hubby is reading the marker.

The brick paths are pretty too.

Inside the little building are historical boards, 8 of them in all, here are a few, this one tells how Washougal got its name.

The ealy fights on whos was whos in the area.

There is not a town of Parkers Landing, but the landing is still there. I admit I didnt read them all, or I could explain why, obviously Washougal won!

Walking back up the hill to another historical marker, this time....

....Local people were able to buy the red bricks and put their names on them or names of ancestors that moved to this area to start this town. Now anyone can buy a brick, to donate to the park.

All of the red bricks have names on them. You can see where they sprayed for the weeds too.

They are extending the bricks with names to the bricks that line the paths too.

Another little gazebo in the park.

And, back to the van that is parked here most days. It is the Washington dept. of wildlife, fisheries.

Here on the Columbia river we have a bounty on the Northern Pike Minnow, or Squawfish. You get paid for catching them according to how big they are. Some people make a fair amount of money when they turn them in. We have done it in the past, the biggest one I ever caught was around 20 inches, that was years ago. I think I only got $3, for my fish at that time. They are considered a predator fish, not native, that endangers the native Salmon. We can catch these fish, but Washington and Oregon are not allowed to kill the Sea lions that are decimating the Salmon at Bonniville Dam! But that is a whole other can of worms. I believe they should allow the Native Americans to harvest the seals, but HSUS keeps this in litigation over and over, to keep, well I dont know what they want to keep but I better just keep my mouth shut! LOL

You do have to register each day you fish and turn in your catch at the end of the day, by a certain time. I believe you are then given a voucher to fill out and mail in to WDFW.

A fishing guide coming off of the river, I cant believe they were out with as high as the water is.

This was the site of the old Parker House restaurant, which I posted about in the past. This was supposed to be the new, Black Pearl on the Columbia, restaurant. Sadly the man who started this building, died in January, and his wife says she just does not have the heart to finish it. Sad. So the empty shell sits there, waiting for another new investor to come along. Maybe someday I can get pictures inside, when someone finishes the building and opens it again. I really wish that a McMenimens, franchise would open here!!

Well that was our walk in the park, it has been raining, here ever since!

Roll on Columbia Roll on!!!!!

Hubby and I took a walk today. We went down to the Port dock to see how high that the mighty Columbia river has gotten. She is way up.

This is a road, benches overlooking the launch, under water.

This is that same road looking down river. From that Fir tree to the fence is usually the road, it is just a short little road that loops down by the marina docks. On the right side of the pic you can see the guy standing up in the park where I took the pics from.

This is the Puffin Cafe, The Puffin has a cute, cute cute little bar and a Caribbean flavor food. They have great fish tacos!!! The only way to get out to it is from the Port launch dock! See how that bridge in the middle is slanted up! It usually is a 12 foot drop!!!

This is looking to the left to the Port dock, there are three, you cant see the closest one. The other two are not accessible!! The one closest is a lot longer, and the Puffins only access to their dock!!

They are staying open during the high water.

The water has been much higher. Everyone is talking about the flood of 1996, when the water was up to the top of the pilings that you see on each side of the bridge, now that was high!!!

Hubby and I then walked around the park, the flowers and trees are blooming and it was 65+degrees!!!

There are several Veterans Memorials here along the water front.

We had not heard of the Silver Rose memorial.

This has all the local people that gave their lives to War.

I think , unfortunately it may get longer, with Iraq and Afghanistan....

The back side.

From this view you can see that the docks are getting close to even with the shore!

The river was supposed to crest today, we will see, we are supposed to get 1/2 to 1 inch of rain on Wednesday!

We walked through this section of the park next. It contains the centennial celebration markers for this area, beautiful trees and azaleas in bloom!

More to come.

Beautiful flower basket and the blue balloon....

This is the beautiful basket of flowers that Meghan brought me for Mothers day! Isnt it gorgeous!!!! I have bought my seeds, now I have to get to planting!!! Its finally warmed up and dryed out a little!!

I bought zucchini, yellow zucchini, blue lake pole beans, muncher burp less cucumbers, jack be little pumpkins (love to bake these and eat them!) and two different sunflowers. I like to grow the sunflowers and leave them for the birds to eat.

The Goons and the Balloon.

This goon #1....

and the extra fat goon #2.....

  Well the story goes,  Emma had a 6 foot long blackberry cane stuck in her tail, when I fed them this morning. So I put out their feed and went and got some gloves.
  They were loose in the field this morning. Emma let me grab her tail and I pulled out about half of the berry vine, and then she took off, and she wouldnt let me halter her after that. Then, Mickey starts acting all goofy too. They both run to the other side of the pen, staring at the road. I am wondering, what the heck? As goon #1 and goon #2 spook and run around in circles, ignoring their breakfast.
   Finally I see what has them all worked up.
 
A lone blue balloon.

 .... helium still in it,  is floating, and drifting in the breeze, in the neighbors field and up onto the road, bobbing around in the wind, quietly mind you, I dont think balloons make to much noise, until they pop!!
So they wouldnt settle down,  I left the rest of the vine to get later. Tonight when I fed, I brought them in and got the rest of the vine out with no problem! The big goofballs!!! I had dreaded waiting to get it out, thinking I might have to cut her tail to untangle it. Luckily it unwound out of her tail easily.

  Horses can be so funny sometimes. It makes you think how our powers of observation are so different.  I hate to think what they might have done had the balloon floated into their pasture and came closer!

First walk on the Dike of 2011....

These are benches before the mouth of the tunnel below. I love the pretty way that they deter skateboarders! The darn skateboarders will tear everything up, and they dont care.

Of course Max was nervous and had to "do his business" LOL You can see one of the benches beside Meghan.

Mt Hood, in all her glory. Still covered in snow! The snow level is supposed to be down around 3500', that would be the hills in the fore of the mtn. Is Spring ever going to come? Oh and above the first red tank from the left in the Vista House in Oregon, a really cool place to visit on a non windy day!! LOL A beautiful overlook of the Columbia Gorge, great gift shop and the architecture is wonderful, there are memorials and history from WW11, it is a fun place to visit.

We seen a bunny!

zoom! it ran away!

Max watching the bunny.

This view is East up the Columbia river.

Exterior wood Inc. Hubby worked there for 15 years, his brother still works there.

Some wildflowers are trying to show their happy faces!!

I put the kids in the boat and made them pose! LOL

I cropped this, but it made it blurry.

Then we walked down the hill to the river. More boats, they are all made of cement.

This one even has fish in it!

Max checking out the water.

Dublin jumped in at first and surprised himself!! LOL No you can not walk on water Dublin!

Dublin loves to run in the sand, but he wasnt so sure about the water after his initial splash.

Dublin being a goof! LOL

She did get him back in the water!

The trail back up to the Dike. We walked about 2 1/2 miles, the Dike has 1/4 mile markers all along it.

A barge on the river, and you can see a helicopter on the right side. The helo was picking up water with a fire bag and dumping it somewhere over there, dont know if they were just practicing or?? There was no smoke.

We decided to go to the dog park, so we could let the boys run loose. Dublin and Max had fun playing with those three Pugs! LOL They all were chasing Dublin at one point! Max did very well and showed no aggression towards the other dogs at all! I was very happy with him. Meghan got yelled at by a lady that came in later, because we had Dublin on the small dog side. She said "I am going to call the people on you!" What people LOL The rest of the people around us told us not to worry about it.  We seen the sign that told the wieght restrictions on the ground when we went out. Dublin wouldnt hurt a fly, her poodles where way more aggressive than him, growling and threatening, they made me worry about Max a little, but he just ignored them. The guy that had the Pugs he was so nice and funny! LOL Despite the lady we had fun. We went into the small dog side because the wire fence mesh is 2x4inches, in the large dog side it is 6inch squares, I think Max could get through. It would be a real pain to have to take one on one side and one on the other. So we left soon after that.

It was 70+ degrees and no wind, so nice!!! Then it went back to rain rain rain. Maybe someday we will get Spring!!! Before summer! Doesnt Summer start in June???? We are going to go from 50 degree weather, straight to 80 again!!! I hope it dries out before the first of June, or I wont be able to have a garden again!!! The ground is just to wet and sticky to till ((sigh)).