Happy Birthday Carlie Jean

On the way to our pickup the other day we passed a little business on the side of the highway. It was in a little "town" and I use the term lightly because the "town" consisted of three buildings. This business caught my attention, and on the way back I tryed to get a picture for you because it was SO hilarious to me...but....I kina forgot to turn my camera on. So even though sweet hubby slowed way down, holding up traffic I might add, still I have no picture to share. You can imagine my consternation when I kept pushing the button and nothing would happen. Anyway, I can still share the humor, though I doubt it will be the same without the image to go with it.

Picture if you will a quaint little wood building, painted rusty red, surounded by trees on the side of a two lane highway that has the river on one side and a mountain on the other. Now here is the sign out front... Centered is the businesses name, flanked on each side by their services. On the left..."tanning and toning." On the right...."saw sharpening."

Thats right ladies....now while you wait for your saw blades to be sharpened, you can work on your tan!!! Ingenious don't you think?

Today is Thursday August 7th and its Carlie Jean's birthday. She is one year old today. Here is a picture of the birthday girl, waiting for her cookie. Hard to believe...they grow up so fast.

This totally portrays her personality...you can't do ANYTHING without Jean having her nose in it. She can be very annoying, but we love her anyway.

In honor of Jeanie's birthday, Malcolm and I, after unloading our fertilizer in a quaint little isolated town on the plains of Washington, walked across the street to a very hip little espresso shop and had latte's and breakfast. I had an almond latte...maybe my favorite flavor now, and a huge apple muffin....ate the whole thing myself...again. Very yummy. We sat on the porch and watched the farm trucks go by, and turn into the drive through at the espresso shop as well. Even Farmer Brown likes his latte's apparently. And I sat there and thought once again, for the ten thousandth time, how much fun it would be to have a cute little coffee shop like that one. A few flowers in the yard, some birdfeeders, simple little patio furniture on the porch, a couple of tables inside...just oh so sweet and....well I just think it would be fun. I would like to run a little coffee shop. And I think I'd decorate with frame prints of my photographs, that could be purchased if desired. Too bad that adorable little coffee shops are a dime a dozen...yes...even in Montana.

I had a very enjoyable drive this afternoon, across Hwy 12 in Washington. Got to drive along a deep river gorge, through a dense coniferous forest, and got a glimpse of Mt Saint Helens AND Mt Ranier, in all their snow capped glory! And when I say "glimpse" I mean I was driving through the edge of Mt Ranier National Park, so you can imagine how close I was to it...and Mt St Helens, was life size, not miniature on the horizen! It was peaking out between two other forested mountains, so it was quite obvious which one it was.