Nancy Lynne Photography

First off, Happy Birthday to my friend Kim. Now she's as old as I am. Newport's Seafood and Wine Festival was this past weekend, and was a huge success. The weather was great, the people were out and spending money, and the festival theme was piratical, so it all came together as a great time. I poured wine for the local Sweet Adelines , and this is the figurehead that was created to decorate the booth. Everyone wore costumes and they (we) looked very much in the spirit of the event. What fun! Yesterday Freckles and I met up with our friend Guy to traipse around on the beach and check out what fun things we could find down there. With his assistance, I found some AWESOME fossil pieces and brought them home to grace my backyard. If you are interested in fossils of any kind, I highly recommend taking a field trip with Guy - he is an absolute expert. Miss Freckles enjoyed the two hours we spent down there too, she was a very happy dog. She laid down when we got home and

Freckles and I took advantage of the warm sunny weather on Sunday morning and enjoyed a stroll around the horse pasture together. This is what we saw. These daffodil buds are only about 4 inches tall. The appearance of the skunk cabbage is always a welcome sight. The creek that runs through the pasture supplies the horses with their drinking water. A resident blue heron keeps a watchful eye on us. He's standing on one leg. He likes to hang out at the pond and pick off the baby ducklings and goslings when they are out and about. On the other side of the creek live two more horses, this one is a small Fjord horse - very cute. And this is his buddy, a large pure white horse... gorgeous. Back to wintry weather today with drizzle, gray skies and wind. *sigh* Come on, spring!! Oh, and I just had to share this from a recent family shoot. What a doll.

Freckles and I took advantage of the nice weather, and the fact that we were in Newport this afternoon to hit our favorite spot of shoreline. I don't really think of it as a beach this time of year because it is completely scrubbed free of sand. The upper shoreline near the bank is smaller rocks, where I find agates and pretty jaspers, and the closer to the ocean you get, the rockier it gets, and more solid. Very beautiful. These were taken with my cell phone and have a wonderful watercolor effect to them. Miss Freckles loves our trips to the ocean. As I was standing there on the rocks, drinking in the sunshine and the gorgeous place I that was in, a bald eagle flew directly over my head toward the south. I watched as he wheeled around and dropped nearly into the surf before pulling back up and continuing on. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world...

We finally had some sunshine and warmer temps on Saturday, so after our meeting and breakfast my friend and I went to the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse to capture some photos. She is doing some research on the history of the lighthouse and wanted some shots for a paper she's writing. I just wanted to shoot the scenery, it's been so long since I've been able to do that. We watched some surfers having fun near the bridge... the ocean was way too rough for surfing that day. Then, we were treated to a luncheon at our friend Polly's house. Her husband donned a tux and waited on us hand and foot. What a blast we had. That's a summoning bell in her hand... Then, as mentioned in my previous post, I attended the dedication of the signs proclaiming Business Highway 20 as Sharon Branstiter Memorial Drive. There was a good turnout of folks and the weather again was beautiful. Here is our interim Mayor Jim Chambers reading a long list of improvements that Sharon has accomplished for To

This is in today's News Times. Front page, above the fold, and a color picture. I am, to say the least, honored to have been asked to participate in this tribute to an amazing lady. And, on a personal note, the special man mentioned in my last post has turned out to not be the person he represented himself as. C'est la vie, life goes on. I'm just glad I found out early on this time. Onward and upward!

That is the expression often used by one of my good friends. And it keeps popping into my head these days. I seem to have a lot to be excited about lately. Toni, the friend who used this expression so often, and I worked together for several years. We became close friends when I was moved to her part of the building and we talked every day. Even when she was going thru a rough patch in her life, when we’d talk, the conversations were always peppered with “How Exciting!!” Toni moved away several years ago and we have lost touch. I still think about her all the time and it’s her voice I hear in my head saying, “how exciting!” Before she moved away, Toni gave me a gift that has become an amazing catalyst for this transition period in my life. It is a copy of Rosamund Pilcher’s ‘Winter Solstice’. I happened to find it on the bookshelf at the perfect time. The two or three days I spent reading it transformed my way of thinking. I realized that people really could love each other,