Latest Painting in Progress

You can barely see the initial pencil sketch on this canvas, which is 24"x36".
First layer of glazes and some texturing.
The letters represent the first initials of my friend Allison's family. This painting is a combo gift for both her recent birthday and house warming of her new beach house out on the WA coast. The color palette is to complement the beach house decor. Hope she'll like it, it's almost done!

Annie Get Your Gun - Aug. 23rd

My niece Madison is quite the thespian. I think she's now been in over 8 productions, and "Annie Get Your Gun" was the most recent, which I got to see along with Marina and Ryker Aug. 23rd.
This is after the show, we waited for the cast to emerge from the dressing rooms back stage, and there was lots of excitement in the air. Here's Madi and one of my other nieces, Kendyll, and over Madi's shoulder you can see Delaney, my almost 10 year old youngest niece. That's Darlene, my sister in the blue in the background. xoxoxo!

p.s. it was a great production, my favorite so far of all of Madi's plays!

TWO Birthdays Today!

This was Marina at 8:35 this a.m., at the orthodontist's office.
This is Marina at 9:15 this morning, celebrating the 'birthday' of her new smile with Dr. Tingey! Yippee!!! We are so happy to see her beautiful, shiny teeth again! Next week she will get her retainers. Now Ryker is anxiously waiting a couple more months to get his off.
Happy Birthday to my sister Darlene!

This is not a picture of her today... she's had a few more birthdays since this was taken, but she's just as cute and just as sweet, and I LOVE her!

Here we are together. How does that neat phrase go? Fate made us Sisters, Love made us Friends.

Payton's Place

On Lake Couer d'Alene in Idaho, our friends the Paytons have a wonderful get-a-way home. Natalie invited Marina and Tess to spend a long weekend there this past week. Jill took the girls out on Thursday, and these photos are from Saturday afternoon, when Kari & I arrived, along with Kari's older daughter and a friend who needed to be dropped off Sunday in Spokane @ Gonzaga University for "Washington Business Week" which is for high school kids - sort of an educational camp. They went early, and I tagged along, so we could spend one night with the girls at the lake.

The Paytons have spent the last couple years completely remodeling the interior of this house (wow, you should see the before pics and the results inside - amazing!) and now they are having all the decks re-done and plan to update the exterior soon too. I just loved what they've done - it's a beautiful place!
Natalie, Tess and Marina in the bow of the boat while we cruised the lake and they went tubing.
Nat, Marina and Tess - right after they each climbed the ladder 1/2 way up a train trestle bridge over a river that feeds into the lake, then jumped! What fun!!!

Painting Puppy Portraits

This is my first attempt at dog paintings. This is the red undercoat and dark line painted sketch of Moka. I also have one at this stage of Mufasa.
The other day I finally picked up brushes and paints and attempted to capture Biscuit's "look". I see lots of things wrong with this, but for my first ever pup portrait, I think it's not bad.

Happy 4th of July!

This year on the 4th of July, the Ghent family came over for a BBQ. They are Bob, Jill & little Owen (who is almost 3!). Jordan and Owen had lots of fun playing in our backyard - this was a quiet moment on the swing-bench.
David turned down the hot tub temp. so it would be a "warm mini pool" for some fun entertainment before dinner for Owen. That is Jill - who is expecting their 2nd child in Dec., and Bob, sitting in the tub with Jzo and David (not shown).
Marina arranged to go up to the City Commons town celebration with friends. She hung out with us long enough to enjoy our yummy dinner, and then took off. Ryker was also with friends and also ended up at the city's fireworks show, which Jzo and I walked about a mile to sit and watch from a distance.

Random "Stuff"

This was Marina on the last day of school (8th grade). She got this cute top from one of her friends for her b-day.
This is how messy our dining room has been (off & on) for almost 4 1/2 years since we created this room with a remodel. I had attempted a few years ago to finally order the glass shelves for the upper cabinets, but there were "issues".
FINALLY! The shelves arrived. Okay to be serious, I finally ordered them again, and picked them up Monday. Well, after much angst on my part, having discovered that I ordered them 1/16 too wide to accommodate the metal pegs that hold the shelves... David saved the day and suggested I buy new pegs with less 'bulk' to them. That was Monday afternoon. Yesterday I was too busy to work the project... today I realized that the middle hinge of the doors is positioned at the exact spot where I wanted one of the shelves... (trying to hide the horizontal line of glass behind the panes of the doors) but all-in-all, I am happy!