Prehistoric flowers?

Hawaii is home to one of natures oldest flowering plants: the Protea.
It's believed that the flowers ancestors were around 100 million years ago! This unusual flower was named after the Greek God Proteus in 1735 by Carl Linneaus. In Greek mythology, Proteus could change form at will. The flower itself has many shapes & colors as well. Living up to its name quite well!
The following pictures are mainly called "Pink Ice".
I hope you like then,
I think they are one of the most beautiful blooms I've ever seen!

Beauty in Nature

We spent an hour or so wandering the beautiful, misty fields of the Ali'i Kula Lavender Farm Upcounty the other day. Most of the lavender had reached its peak a few weeks earlier, but many of the other flowers & plants caught my eye...

Ever heard of a surfing goat?

No, not a real goat surfing, but a dairy farm on Maui called "The Surfing Goat Dairy" where they make YUMMY cheeses & have some of the most adorable goats...especially the babies!

Some of the babies were only 1-4 days old...but we were lucky enough to be there when a mama was giving birth to two baby boys! We enjoyed watching the first of the brothers trying to stand just minutes after he was born!

(I'm posting this from my iPad & don't have all the formatting choices, so sorry if it's all jumbled together! It doesn't post the pix in the order I place them, so there's the older babes mixed in with the newborns! And, I can't write any captions with the pix!)

Mating Season

Just wanted to share a few more pix of the deer in our yard the other day...in one shot, Nick is setting up the play set while a buck is chasing a doe!

Getting settled

Wow! Can't believe it's been almost a month since I posted!

What a whirlwind that month has been!

We've been in the new place for 2 weeks today & we are LOVING it! (Thank you to our great friends & family that helped move all our stuff over here in one day!! They totally ROCK!!)

The area we moved to is only 20-30 minutes away from the city, but it feels like we are in the middle of the forest! Beautiful views of the foothills & millions of Ponderosa Pines everywhere!

It's so peaceful & beautiful here! No more traffic noise!!! Honestly, the only time there's a traffic jam is when we have to wait for the coal trains to pass before getting onto the highway a short distance away!

On our first morning here, we had 3 deer come into the yard as if some movie director had queued them up just for us...little did we know that this would be a daily occurrence!!!

These were all shot within that first week & yesterday, we had TWELVE of them in the side yard...it's mating season & we witnessed a couple of bucks fighting over a female! (sorry no pix of that, was too awestruck to remember my camera!)

I have managed to unpack the main living areas (kitchen, baths, family room & Maggie's room) before we leave to Maui today for our annual timeshare trip. I am looking forward to a little break from the chaos & it will be good for Maggie to have a week to decompress after her first week at the new school (which she seems to love!). When we return, I will be unpacking some of my studio, Christmas shopping & then it's off to Nick's family's for the Holiday! I'll need another vacation after all that!

That's it for now.

I'll try to hop on while we're on vacation...I miss writing & catching up on things!

Have a wonderful day!

Cheers!

It's been a while!

Sorry to be mia!

I'm still here...busy packing...finally moving from a little house in the city to a big house in the woods!

After a great trip to Oregon to take a class from Alisa Burke & visit with my friend Rachel Carlson, I am overwhelmed by my recent life events! Literally 2 weeks prior to that trip, we put a contract on a house! For those of you who don't know, I have been anxious to move since about the 3rd year I moved into my husbands house! We close a week from Thursday & hope to move the weekend before Thanksgiving! YAY!!!

Haven't had much time for art lately & it's KILLING me!

Hope to be back in the full swing of things soon! I promise to share more when I can breathe again!
Hope you are all finding time to be creative!

Cheers!

WE HAVE A WINNER!!

LUCKY #12 - MORNINGLASS

you were picked by the random number generator to win the StEaMpUnK necklace!!!

Email me your addy so I can get it off in the mail to you!!!

Cheers!