I inherited my love of gardening from my mom (and my love of overalls from my dad). In fact most of my phone calls with my mom consist of: “How are you?” “Fine.” “How are you?” “Fine.” “But the deer and slugs are wrecking the south bed.” “I know, slugs are trashing my hostas. But my lilies are being fantastic.” Etc. It can go on for hours. My siblings think we are both weird.

So digging all of these new flower beds, I knew it was going to be crazy expensive to get plants to fill them. But my parents have an lovely 5-acre spread up on Whidbey Island and I knew that Mom would have a ton of stuff that she could give me that would just end up in her compost pile if I didn’t go up and fetch it. So I planned a trip — get plants and have a nice visit with my folks. Perfect. But I needed to go sooner than later because they were going on a cruise for most of the month of May. After juggling my work schedule, the dates were set. Then by cosmic chance, I found out that most of my aunts and uncles would be there at the same time — a nice surprise since I only get to see them every few years. This is all working out swimmingly!

I headed up on Monday morning early and met Mom, aunts and uncles in La Conner — a cute little town known for its annual tulip festival. We spent the afternoon wandering around town and then went to see the flowers — one of my favorite little adventures.

Aunt Debby, Uncle Al, Aunt Linda, Uncle Larry in the tulips in La Conner

Tulip fields in La Conner. The lines of blooms is one of my favorite things.

Mom as a tulip angel — quite fitting, I think!

The next day, Mom and I got to work. She basically let me go shopping in her yard, which was great for her too since I was basically helping her clean out some of her beds.

This is the house they built a few years ago. It has an amazing view across the Skaggit Bay over to the Cascades and Mount Baker.

We filled the wheel barrow up with all sorts of fun for my yard.

After some other fun with the relatives that night, I left Wednesday morning. But I snagged a cuddle shot of them first.

My Mom and Dad — aren’t they cute. Even with the raspberry on Dad’s head from falling over. He needs to stop doing that.

Made it home with all of my bounty without any drama — not single pot tipped on the ride. Hurray for not driving like a yayhoo — as my dad would say! Thanks for the lovely little weekend, Mom and Dad!

There is a whole lot of cute packed into the back of my truck.