March Gladness

March 1 - Morning Birdwatching

March 2 - Beautiful day in the Yorkshire Dales

March 3 - Before Picture (time to paint the foyer)

March 4 - the toy aisle at Asda (a supermarket owned by Wal-Mart, so it feels a lot like home)

March 5 - After Picture with fresh white paint

March 6 - I always find just what I need in the charity shop.  This time, a nice full-sized mirror!

March 8 - Writing in his diary

March 9 - Evening Walk

March 10 - I love homeschool so much.

March 11 - Getting ready for Guests!

March 12 - First daisy of the Year

March 13 - Blossoms, blossoms, blossoms

March 14 - Evening Walk with Seth and Lua

March 15 - Getting excited about our other guests coming!

March 16 - King James

March 17 - Special Treat from Home (She ate it in 2 weeks.)

March 18 - Beautiful Bride

March 19 - American friends LOOOVE fish and chips.

March 20 - Some Target Dollar Spot love from my sister-in-law

March 21 - in front of the York Minster

March 22 - Teaching Big Daddy a new game before school

March 23 - My Love and I

March 24 - Beautiful Wales, Beautiful Family

March 25 - View from our Condo

March 26 - Sunny Sunday at Maypole Practice

March 27 - Tea-Drinking, Homework-ing, Andy Griffith watching

March 28 - Chair-Recovering Project Complete

March 29 - Good-Byes and Scary Drawings by James

March 30 - The Pink Way of Delight

March 31 - that time of year when you're glad you stocked up on off-brand Claritin

It was such a fun and full month with the last couple of days being very quiet as we get our house in order again.  Now all I need to do is come up with a good April Fool's prank for tomorrow...

A Welsh Sunrise

We had such a lovely trip into Wales with K.J.'s parents last week.  The weather was gloriously sunny and beautiful, and the view from our living area where we stayed was just the same.  Our last morning there I recorded a video of the sun coming up over the distant hills.  It's not a dramatic sunrise, just really peaceful.  And if you look closely at the bottom half of the screen you can see sheep grazing.  

Ella and I have been really encouraged by Ellie Holcomb's music lately, and we agreed this snippet from her song, As Surely as the Sun, was a perfect accompaniment.

Welsh Sunrise from Lynn Pugh on Vimeo.

Quite out of the Everyday

March is a month for having house guests for our family, which has been a delight in so many ways.  Here's a list of 5 out of the ordinary things having guests from home with us for the past two weeks has added to our lives.

1.  I went to Betty's twice!

If you come visit us and you want to do something very English, I'll probably take you to Betty's.  I took Seth and Lua, and then we had a girls' outing to celebrate their marriage and ostensibly to give some good advice on marriage to Lua.  All she walked away with was "to kiss a lot," but I think that should serve her well, right?

Your tea will come in a perfect pot with both white and brown sugar cubes, and you will feel very proper.  Ella highly recommends the Fondant Fancy.

2.  I visited York twice in one week.

This post is highlighting the things we like to do with guests.  If you go with me, as Seth and Lua did, you'll get the second-hand bookshop tour.

If you go with K.J., you'll get a little more focus on the York Minster and spend more time on the city walls.  I'm a fan of those places, too.

3.  I went out for dinner!

We very rarely, i.e. almost never go out to eat.  It's just never been something we do very often, and we've done it even less since moving to North Yorkshire.  We're slowly learning good places to go when the occasion arises.

4.  I photographed a bride.

I love this new friend.

5.  I went on a road trip to Wales.

This is the view from where we're staying.  Isn't it so peaceful?  It's been quite windy at times, but the sun has shone all day long today, and it's been so lovely.

I hope March has held some out of the ordinary events for you, too.

North Yorkshire Loveliness

It's been feeling more and more like spring lately, and the warmer temperatures, sunshine, and blossoms (not to mention the baby bunnies in the field!) are really lifting my spirits.  

We really do love the closer relationship we have with the outdoors living in the country.  We don't have to try hard to spend enjoyable time outside.  Of course, we also miss the convenience of the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru, but life is full of trade-offs. (How did we communicate without emojis?  I am finding it so hard not to insert a winky-face at the end of that sentence to show that I meant that as a kind of joke.)  The times, the times.

We can all identify so many more types of flowers than we could have in our previous life.  There's no excuse not to learn them when the returning bulbs come up and fill every roadside and wooded area with snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, and bluebells.  Flowers are definitely dominating my Instagram feed right now.

The downside to all these blossoms may be starting to show its head with James's runny nose I noticed last night.  We move from colds to allergies around here.

All the baby bunnies!!!

The way they fly through the field makes it look like a lot of fun being a rabbit.  I took this picture shortly before a man and his dog came along, at which point they all scattered into their burrows and refused to come out again.

And last but not least in a tour of the North Yorkshire springtime, the lambs are back!  This little one was fresh out of the womb.  We happened along just after his mother gave birth, and I was convinced she had another one coming, but we never saw it happen.

"The world looks like something 

God had just imagined 

for his own pleasure, doesn't it?"

- Anne, from Anne of Green Gables -