Sunny Weekend

OLD STOMPING GROUNDS: Friday afternoon, we had to return to our former neighborhood to deliver a birthday cake. It was a hot, sunny day, public parks are back open in Seattle, and so we decided to hit a couple of our favorite parks in the old 'hood.

First, we went to "Secret Beach." I don't think the park is even named. It's just a spot at the end of a dead end road that gives one access to a rocky beach with fantastic views. Airplane traffic is way down, but there were plenty of ships on the Sound. 

 We saw numerous stand up paddleboarders.

 The Olympic Mountains are still snow-capped.

I told the kids they *had* to throw at least a few rocks into the Sound, like they used to do when they were kids. ;)

From the beach, the Space Needle peeks out from behind treetops.

After the kids got their feet wet, we got in the car and headed toward "The Bluff." It's on the southern border of Magnolia, a cliffside rising from Puget Sound. 

I leaned out over a fence to capture this shot of Rainier.

 There's also a great view of the city skyline.

The kids and I talked about how long it has been since we've been up on the Space Needle, and wondered when we might get another chance. 

Google photos decided I needed a movie of the shots from Friday, so here's that. 

It sure is a pretty neighborhood. I miss the scenery, for sure, but not a lot of the other stuff (traffic and property crime, to name two).

DOUGHY CANVAS: Weeks ago, we stumbled across an artist who used bread as her canvas. Using all sorts of savory edibles, she creates lovely designs atop homemade focaccia bread.  

We've been wanting to try our hands at it for awhile now. We decided Saturday, when it was 85 degrees out, was the perfect time to fire up the oven to 450 F.

CJ had a hand in making the dough. The recipe was super simple, fortunately. 

Peppers, tomatoes, capers, two kinds of olives, cilantro, asparagus, dill, cherry tomatoes, and peppercorns are all in the mix.

Below, Bee builds her bread.

Here are pictures of our focaccia right before they went into the oven. Mine is first, followed by Annabelle's.

 Here are the afters.

I like Annabelle's ladybug. 

We'll definitely give this recipe a go in the future, as there are a couple of things I'd like to do differently. For starters, I'd want to have radish slices and red onion in the mix. Also, we needed much smaller baby peppers. That would have helped our scale and have helped our objects look more like real flowers. 

SQUASHED: Finally, one of our summer squash seeds (sown straight into the ground) has emerged. We're hoping the bunnies (which are so abundant this year) don't eat them down to nothing. 

BONUS SHOT: Here's Little Laika enjoying some fresh air. Some of the many irises planted on this plot are in the background. We have dark purple, yellow, light purple and pink irises.

This is her after a haircut, if you can believe that.