Why God made flowers

Friday night we sprinted up to the Washington Gorge area on our continual quest to chase wildflowers. As Rennaissance Man turned up a dirt road near a winery, I wondered how this was possibly going to lead to anything beautiful. Seconds later, we turned a bend and before us lay endless green hills exploding with yellow and purple. As far as we could see...we were giggling with excitement as we saw thousands of photo ops laying before us begging to be captured for his portolio that is gaining quite a bit of attention from local professional photographers.

He will probably kill me if he knew I posted this here as these are not worked on or processed at all and it's amazing how the finished photo pops off the page in comparison to these raw images. Right now, these pictures are somewhat dark and in a week, I will post a picture from this shoot that has been processed so the lighting reflects what we actually saw. But, I have to share.

• This one location seemed to me to be what heaven will look like - and yet it was just one ravine of hundreds to be explored, but it's all we had time to work. Rolling green hills of various shades, full of flowers, with a stream running through, a gorgeous oak tree and all leading to and pointing towards Mt Hood. In one shot!! I have described my perfect photo but never thought one place on earth would have it all. And there we stood, in the middle of my dream, only it was real!

I took some great shots too with my Nikon D70...but they are still on my camera. Of course, mine have elements like a certain blond gal, twirling in childlike bliss amongst the endless fields.

I was so drawn to the coupling of our children, running with wreckless abandon, giggling and laughing, through these endless fields of flowers. God created flowers simply as a way to paint his earth with His Joy - color at all for that matter did not have to be so vivid - and children, with out a care in this world running through fields of flowers put their for our joy alone is a priceless image. I'll post later!

We enjoyed a beautiful evening camping near a lake and then had a delightful drive home on Sat to let our Wildman sprout go nuts on the soccer field again. One of the dads, for fun, pulled power-foot Sprout aside and teased that he'd pay him $1 for every goal he made...so he went out with kill in his eyes and slammed in 5 goals before the halftime mark, each time looking back at this dad with a finger in the air reminding him that he owes him yet another $1. We left early to get him to traveling team tryouts - this kid needs to be with other kiddos that passionately crave soccer like he does.

Sat evening rounded off with an absolutely amazing musical at my husband's highschool of Annie. I was bursting with pride that our community has such talent - from young orphans through highschool kids, the singing, acting, dancing, and instrument playing was phenomenal. I was blown away. And what a timely message for all of us - Annie reminds those around her in the midst of the Great Depression that the Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow!!

And being amidst God's flower heaven hours before, I had felt the same whisper in my heart as I am struggling to find a job in our town and know that many are unemployed - that the sun will come out tomorrow, His world is in motion as He directs, and things will look up again soon.