Ladies Who Lunch

Blogging has brought much joy and happiness to my life.  I've gotten to know people from around the world - other bloggers and non-bloggers who leave nice comments - and even have gotten to be good friends with other bloggers here in the Portland area.  We get together for lunch as often as we can with all our busy schedules.  Betsy on the left drove 6 hours from her home in Spokane to meet us!  Gracie is next to her, me with my shawl and Taci on the right.  She's the baby of the group.  :-)  I asked the waitress to take a photo of us toasting *YOU* - my readers, commenters and fellow bloggers.  So, my friends, here's to *YOU*!  Cheers!!

Some gifts were exchanged.. 

I brought cotton yarn in ecru for everyone and Taci gave us each some red, white and blue variegated cotton.  Gracie gave each of us a wonderful book - this one was mine, I was so excited to receive a "Molly Makes" book!  I LOVE it!  Betsy brought us a cute little metal bucket with some "I Love This Cotton", a gorgeous crocheted lace bookmark, some cute little magnets and a cute grasshopper figurine.  After a wonderful lunch and catching up with each other's lives, Taci headed back to work and the other 3 of us went to a fabric store to pick up a few things and I found some heavy cotton in colorful stripes to use as a liner for my rainbow Lucy bag I crocheted.  Thank you, my friends!

Today my 2 sisters, Roberta and Denise and my "best friend from 7th grade" Shirley met to celebrate my birthday for lunch and then to go to a plant nursery that Shirley found.  

The restaurant, Oswego Grill, treated me to a banana split for my birthday which I shared with the girls.

Shirley rode with me and was the navigator to show us the plant nursery called Margie's Farm and Garden.  My sisters followed us.  What a great place!  Here are several colorful pots of flowers on the floor.

The huge nursery was hung with hundreds of colorful flower baskets.

They were all different and so pretty.

What flower is your favorite in a hanging basket?

Shirley gave me the most interesting hot pad!  It's felted balls sewed together, made in Nepal.  Denise gave me a most interesting skein of yarn, she hauled it all the way from New Zealand from a recent trip.  And it's made of merino wool and... POSSUM!  Learn about it HERE.  Wouldn't a little shawlette look nice with this pretty and soft variegated yarn?  My sister Roberta gave me some $$ in a card which I planned to spend on plants at the nursery.

I wish you could feel this.

After the guys unloaded my plant purchases I took some photos.  Can you believe this huge and full purple Rhododendron was only $35?  I told my husband it only cost me $10 as the rest was a gift from my sister.  :-)

I've always wanted a purple Rhodie to add to our others here on the farm, now we have one!

I got 3 of these orange and yellow Dahlias to pot together.  Only $6 per plant!

I got 3 Lantana - 2 yellow, orange and yellow and one all yellow.

I love the way the colors change as these flowers open.

And a huge flowered Impatiens in my favorite color.

Now some planting needs to be done!  Have you gotten some fun new flowers to plant in your garden for the summer?  I'm off on a Portland Women's Forum tour tomorrow.. more about that later.  ((hugs)), Teresa :-)