Abandoned Footwear

The title of this post is in honour of a friend of mine who has a photo album of this name on his Facebook account. He takes pictures of various shoes he finds lying around cities, parks, roads, or wherever, without an obvious owner, and often without a match. I spotted these boots stuck in the rain outside La Casita, a delicious Mexican restaurant on 9th Street in Walla Walla.

The Sentinal

This large tree stands at a corner I pass by every morning on my way to work. It towers over the house and the telephone pole next to it, and I think it looks even more regal with the snow on its branches, don't you?

Christmas Morning

Image taken by my friend, Charley,
at our church's living nativity program, 2009

Luke, Chapter 2
New International Version
The Bible

1In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.

⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Merry Christmas!

Hip

This is another shot from my salon, Bella, where my friend Rachel does my hair. I love how modern and comfortable they have the place decorated. It's also quite festive with the red and green being quite appropriate for this time of year. Happy Christmas Eve!

Baked Potato Soup

A warming image for a chilly day. This was my lunch at a local cafe the other day: Baked potato soup with foccacia bread. Mmmm! Perfect for a cold, snowy day.

On the Way to Work

This was the view I had this morning as I left my house for work. The sky was beautiful; for the last several days we've had nothing but fog, so to see the sky was amazing enough, but the cloud formations and lovely colours were a nice bonus. Good morning!

Congregational Church

As promised, a better view of the church at the "end" of Alder Street. This is the Congregational Church of Walla Walla and it really is a beautiful building. My sister-in-law got married there, and her father-in-law directs the music there (or did...not sure if he still does). You can see that this is where Alder jogs to the right (south) and dumps drivers onto Palouse, but you only have to go half a block before turning left to get back onto Alder. Sometimes streets don't make any sense, and this is one of those times.

Crosswalk

While stopped at an intersection on Alder street (one block south of Main Street) in Walla Walla, I snapped this picture through my rainy windshield. I also took a shot of the church you see at the end of the street once we got a bit closer. (No, I was not driving.) As you can see, Alder Street appears to run straight into that church. In fact, Alder Street jogs to the south (right) at the church and continues one block over, effectively ending Poplar Street, which runs parallel to Alder until the street in front of that church, which is called Palouse. Tomorrow, a closer view of that lovely church. (By the way, do you think that guy crossing the street noticed he was having his picture taken?)

Public Christmas Trees 2

This lovely tree is quite a bit larger than the first Christmas tree I posted. It's probably about 30 feet tall and decorated beautifully. It resides in front of the firehouse in the 8,000-person city of College Place, and is highly visible from the main drag, College Avenue.

Try the Pumpkin Pancakes

Welcome to Clarette's, one of the most popular - well, perhaps THE most popular, according to the sign on the wall there - breakfast restaurants in the valley. Granted, we're a small town, so it's not like Clarette's has much competition, but there are a few others. The restaurant is located on the edge of the Whitman College campus in Walla Walla, which means it is often haunted by college students. My favourite meals there: Pumpkin pancakes and butternut squash ravioli with a creamy pesto sauce. Delicious! And the best part: They serve breakfast all day.

Shopping at the Movies

This is the corner of Colville and Main Streets in downtown Walla Walla. As you can see, the dominant building is Macy's, a well-known high-end department store. I don't shop there much (due to the "high-end" part of that last sentence), but occasionally I like to browse. The store is kind of neat inside, since it used to be a movie theatre. Some of the floors are sloped, the walls are rounded and decorated, and the doors are wider than most store doors. While most of the inside really does resemble a department store, the youth section is very much still in the theatre shape, with a ramp into the section and a step down into the shopping area, with very high ceilings and angled walls instead of just a large square or rectangular room.

Red Shoes

This is only my second "shoes" post; the first was a black and white shot of a young girl's "I'm a woman now" shoes. These are actually MY shoes; I performed in two Christmas concerts on Friday evening and though the apparel requirement for women was "all black" I made my uniform a little more festive with these. I spent two years hunting for the "perfect" pair of red shoes and finally found them a few months ago. In this shot I was sitting backstage, waiting for my part to come.

Public Christmas Trees 1

I'm going to try and take a picture of all the area outdoor Christmas trees this year, but I make no promises! This is the first of the series, and it is a tree located outside of a church in Milton-Freewater. I really love the colour of the sky in this shot.

Mill Creek Brew Pub

This charming edifice is one side of the Mill Creek Brew Pub in downtown Walla Walla. A down-to-earth, casual dining place, the Brew Pub (as it is commonly called in town) is not only a restaurant but a microbrewery as well. They also serve sweet potato fries year-round. It is called Mill Creek Brew Pub because it is situated on top of one part of Mill Creek, a mostly underground waterway that makes its way throughout the valley and empties into the Columbia River.

Bella

I like colour. That's why I like these shelves of hair products in my salon of choice, Bella. My friend Rachel does hair there and she's amazing...so is the atmosphere of the place. Located at the east end of Main Street in downtown Walla Walla, I highly recommend giving it a try.

Here Comes the Sun Again

Not an amazing picture, but the reason I took it is amazing: SUNSHINE! The valley hasn't seen this for over two weeks, and this was a brief glimpse, but definitely enough to make a lot of people smile, if only for a few moments. This shot was taken on my cell phone as I crossed Main Street after getting a haircut at my favourite salon, Bella. I have a couple of pictures of the salon to show you, too, but wanted to post the sunshine picture first.

Beautiful Disaster

So many books I don't even know where to start! This is another shot of the inside of Earthlight Books, a new and used book shop located near the east end of Main Street in Walla Walla. I particularly like the random origami art hanging from the ceiling here. Another picture taken just for my friend, Ciel, from Versailles Daily Photo. Bonjour, mon amie!

Just for Cieldequimper

This may look like a mess to you, but to a local Walla Walla bookworm, this is heaven on earth. Welcome to Earthlight Books, a favourite haunting place for people like cieldequimper, author of Versailles Daily Photo, who visits the valley from time to time and adores this little book shop near the end of Main Street in downtown Walla Walla. This shot is for you, Ciel...and there's more to come tomorrow!

Typical

This is a typical scene out my office window in the winter. Well, when there's snow. Really I'm just getting at the fact that it's quite dark and grey for a majority of the colder months here in the WW Valley. A lot of people strongly dislike this fact, but I suppose those same people are appeased when June, July and August roll around with its 100-degree (F) weather every summer. They can have their summer...I'll enjoy wearing scarves and hats, thank you!

Cugini

This little shop is on the edge of town in College Place, and is one place I've yet to visit. It can be quite handy to have a place like this in a small town where, sadly, no Italian eateries exist. If you can't go to a restaurant, learn to make it yourself!

U-Church

The biggest church in the valley, the Walla Walla U. Church, stands tall and regal, surrounded by the first snow of the season and given a backdrop of blue sky - some of the only glimpses we've seen for over a week! A couple thousand people attend this church every weekend, many of them university students. The university is part of the Seventh-day Adventist school system, which has over a dozen colleges and universities in North America alone, with dozens more around the world, including locations such as India, England, France, Australia, Philippines, Spain, Austria, Argentina and more.

Remodel

Close to two years ago I posted a picture of Rogers Bakery & Cafe, one of my favourite places to eat in the valley. Last spring a fire starting in their attic caused them to close due to fire damage. While the roof was repaired relatively quickly, the rest of the building needed some work, and unfortunately they ran into several complications, forcing them to keep their doors locked for seven months. Yesterday morning they opened their doors for the first time since April, and wow, what a difference! They took advantage of the need for fire repairs and completed a much-needed makeover. I am impressed and excited to eat lunch there today. (This picture was taken yesterday morning when I went for coffee and a bagel.) Oh Rogers, how I've missed you!

Update

Some of you may recall my post last spring of my daughter at eight months old. It's one of my favourite pictures to this day and hangs in large version on the wall in my living room. I also posted a picture of when she was only three days old, taken back at the beginning of August 2009. Here is an update shot...she's now walking everywhere, dressing like a big girl and growing slowly but surely. She can say a few words now, and understands almost infinitely more than she did even a month ago. This is her walking with her daddy to the car after church this past weekend.

Good Morning

I just love the view from my front window on days like this. The snow makes everything clean and quiet, and the sunlight on such a scene makes me warm inside. In America it is now officially the Christmas season, now that Thanksgiving is over (though all the stores and many homes put up decorations at the beginning of November). This scene is quite fitting for that time of year, as all of us in the northern hemisphere imagine white Christmases! (Sorry, Aussies...I just can't imagine a Christmas on the beach!)

Fire & Ice

This was taken through my kitchen window earlier this week. The sun was just peeking out over the Blue Mountains and was making the icicles look as though they were glowing.

Frosty Morning

Earlier this week it got down to about five degrees (F) at night. When we woke up there was not only frost like this on the kitchen window, but in our bedroom there was ice on the inside of the window. Our house is old and not well-insulated, and the windows are old and drafty. The frost did create a pretty scene through the window, though.

Snow, Snow and More Snow!

It snowed practically all day yesterday and we had several inches by the time dinner rolled around. (I'm not sure what the official count was.) I took this photo from my (warm!) car; the central building on the Walla Walla U. campus is the administration building and the campus seems to fan out from this central point. It was, indeed, still snowing when I took this picture yesterday morning.

Tangled

The first thing that catches my eye about this photo is of course the bright red berries in contrast with the dark branches and white snow. But the next thing I noticed was the incredible woven "pattern" of the branches of this beautiful bush. This was taken at Walla Walla U. yesterday morning.

Perseverance

Yes, the snow hit the valley this weekend. We are forecast to have eight inches by tomorrow morning, and I believe it might just happen. I love the way the summer's last flowers look covered in snow. Their colours look even more vivid this way. This particular flower is determined to survive as long as possible on the Walla Walla U. campus this winter.

First Snow

A friend of mine grabbed this photo from what I call Mt. Hope Hill, as it is where Mt. Hope Cemetery is located in College Place. We got our first snow of the season on the Blue Mountains, all the way down to the base of the foothills, on Wednesday night. She took this picture on Thursday evening.

Layers

A sunset earlier this week had the clouds simply glowing and it was irresistible.

Unusual View

I had a meeting downtown earlier this week and it was held in a fifth-floor conference room. I'm rarely this far above the city (this may, in fact, have been my first time), so I had to take the opportunity to get some photographic memories. Unfortunately this window didn't open so I had to deal with the glass lines. I do, however, love the sunlight on the side of Banner Bank and the foothills of the Blue Mountains in the background. The intersection you can see there is the corner of 2nd and Alder in Walla Walla.

Solitude

I was driving from a meeting in town back to my office when I saw this scene and knew I had to capture it. Fortunately I was on a semi-back road and there were no other cars, because I quickly pulled over and snapped this quick shot from my car. The sunset last night was beautiful! One of the many reasons to love the WW Valley.

Awaiting Their Fate

The university grounds crew had come along and used their power blowers to push all the fallen leaves into one big long pile, presumably to pick them up and dispose of them. I liked the way it looked with all the oranges, browns, golds and yellows in an endless line.

Happy Birthday!

A friend of mine threw a birthday party for her little girl who turned one at the beginning of the month and my daughter and I spent an hour with them and the other guests, laughing, keeping the kids from fighting over the new toys the birthday girl got, and generally having a good time. Before she cut into it, I snapped this quick (blurry - sorry!) photo with my cell phone. She made this cake herself; the top and bottom tiers were applesauce spice cake and the middle layer was butternut squash cake. I tried the applesauce part and it was delicious! She's a fabulous cake maker. I feel like I'm friends with Martha Stewart sometimes.

From Under the Stormclouds

The sky was dark and foreboding when I snapped this quick photo with my cell phone, but the sun was doing its best to get below the darkness and light up the fall colours. Oh how I love autumn colours!

Wagons

Another photo editing experiment...Above is the original photo. It was taken at Klickers, which I've posted pictures from before, I believe. In the summer they sell strawberries, in the fall it's pumpkins and in winter it's Christmas trees. They also have an antique shop, fruit/veg stand and ice cream parlor, where they sell their homemade ice cream. It's quite tasty. Everything they sell is grown on their farm. These wagons are for use in hauling pumpkins; you pick a wagon, pull it down to the patch, choose your pumpkins and load up the wagons to go back to the shop and pay. They're 20 cents per pound this year. Below are the edited versions of this photo. Which one do you like best - original or one of the edits? And why?

Edit 1



Edit 2

Edit 3

Brunch

Perched on a fence at the side of our house, a flicker was munching on some late harvest grapes. The fall colours really make this picture, I think; the flickers have really been enjoying our neighbourhood lately and I'm not sure why. Flickers are common in this valley, and are related to woodpeckers, so they have hearty, thick beaks and can be heard hammering away on telephone poles and thick tree trunks throughout the summer. When they are in flight they have a distinctive wing-flap/swoop pattern, and the underside of their wings display a splash of rusty red.

Idyllic?

Evening light casts a warm glow on a College Place barn and the Blue Mountains in the distance on a chilly fall day.

Can't Get Enough

I seriously can't get enough of the fall colours in this valley...though I do understand they are nothing compared to those in the Northeast. I spent five days in upstate New York a couple of weeks ago and the foliage simply took my breath away. Though this weekend the peak colours around this valley have done the same thing. I will get more foliage photos for you in the coming week, before they all disappear (it seems to happen overnight every year!).

Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands

The parents of some friends of mine built this mini faux creek next to their house when their yard kept flooding due to spring swelling of Mill Creek, a small river that flows through Walla Walla and College Place. A lot of Mill Creek is underground in Walla Walla; there are several spots downtown where you can stand at a fence and look down into the swiftly-flowing water (in the summer) or shallow stream (in the winter).

Autumn Skies

The sun heading toward the horizon on a fall evening in College Place.

A Different Kind of Colour

Believe it or not there are still a few flowers blooming around the WW Valley. These gorgeous daisy-style flowers (I know, I'm terrible -I don't know my flora!) were quite prolific around a local front yard - in two different colours.

Stubbornness

These leaves are stubbornly refusing to give into the fact that it is fall and they should no longer be green. At least a couple of them gets it...

Evening Walk

Original Photo

This family was out for a walk on an autumn evening and I snapped a quick photo, then decided to play around with some effects. I'm just dabbling in photo editing, so it's nothing amazing, but I had fun.

Reduced Colour



Greyscale

2-Colour (Black & White) with Brightness and Saturation Adjustment