She's Growing Up!

Little Miss Cassie is growing up!

She's become quite the lady.

Prowling her world which looks like a toddler playground! 

A big THANK YOU to Misty for hosting Camera Critters.

Wishing you well and a fun filled weekend.

Old-fashioned?

Pomegranate publishes books of postcards on a wide range of subjects

architecture and design among them.

This beautiful home is from a postcard book titled

The Arts and Crafts Houses of C. F. A. Voysey.

From the back of the postcard:

"Design for Broadleys, now Windermere Motor Boat Racing Club,

Gillhead, near Cartmel Fell, Lake Windermere, Westmorland, for Arthur Currer Briggs, 1898.

Watercolor, 265 x 45- mm. 1943.13"

From The Arts and Crafts Houses of C.F. A.Voysey:

"A leading figure in the British Arts and Crafts movement, Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941) specialized in the design of small country houses for wealthy clients. With their emphasis on ground-hugging horizontality, hipped roofs, brick walls covered with white-painted roughcast, and enlivening splashes of color, these houses were marked by a graceful simplicity and a refeshing freedom from the imitative styles that had bedeviled so much of England's nineteenth-century architecture."

"Voysey drew his inspiration from vernacular building traditions and practical considerations that led him to reject overblown decoration and clutter. He strongly believed that the architect should take responsibility for the entirety of a design and that no detail, no matter how small, was unworthy of attention."

"From 1910 Voysey's architecture was increasingly regarded as old-fashioned and his practice went into an irreversible decline. For the remainder of his life he was chiefly occupied with the preparation of pattern designs for wallpapers and textiles. The 1930's witnessed the rehabilitation of Voysey's reputation. In 1940, a year before his death, he was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects' prestigious Royal Gold Medal."

A big THANK YOU to Beth for hosting Postcard Friendship Friday.

***

We are having a mini-family reunion here next week.
Lots of folks in and out to visit with Mr. Dragon.
I'll try to check in and at least wave!

Wishing you well and a JOY and fun filled weekend.

Good Morning!

Thinking of those of you dealing with snow ....

I do love LOL cats! 

Tea Cozies

The celebration of National Hot Tea Month continues!

The folks at Favorite Crafts sent out an email with lots of tea related goodies. 

You can find the patterns on their web site.

Image from Favorite Crafts

They suggest that we hold a tea party for our friends,

or just for ourselves and make some wonderful tea party accents

to celebrate this special month.

Mosaic made from images from Favorite Crafts. You can find the patterns for these cozies there.

I do love tea cozies.

Some of the prettiest crochet cozies can be found at Crochet With Raymond.

There are so many lovely tea parties in blogland.
A few of them are:
Teacup Tuesday, Teapot and Tea Things Tuesday and Tea Time Tuesday.
A big thank you to all of our hostesses!

Wishing you well, a JOY filled week and a wonderful cup of tea!

There is the size of the leaf:
Its unique shape,
Its unique color,
Its unique fragrance,
A taste all its own.
And it changes ... sip by sip.
~Ron Rubin, Tea Chings

***

We are between family visits this week and looking forward to a little quiet.
Mr. Dragon is still able to go up and down the stairs,
enjoys food and has enjoyed seeing friends and family.
As he says, we will laugh, smile and enjoy life as long as we can.
Thank you for your prayers, kind thoughts, white light that you have sent to us.

African Forest

The Houston Zoo opened the new African Forest to the public in December.

It is 6.5 acres of fun!

The Greater Kudu is an African antelope and he shares his space with 

three young white rhino.

This kudu is quite handsome with his stripes and curled horns.

Love the tongue and it was one of those surprises I discovered when I got home and looked at the photos.

The white rhinos are young... one male and two females.

They were born in Kruger National Park, South Africa.

They were carefully selected for temperament and overall health

and prepared for their 54 hour flight (KLM) to Houston

and their new home at the Houston Zoo.

They seem to love their new home -- especially the mud wallow.

The Masai giraffe herd has a new home and larger area to roam

complete with an area where visitors to the zoo can feed them - supervised of course.

Masai giraffe are the most numerous of the nine giraffe subspecies, but only 90 are exhibited in North American zoos.

I hope you enjoyed this brief visit to the Houston Zoo and the new African Forest.

Thank you to Misty for being our Camera Critters hostess

and to

Mary for hosting Mosaic Monday.

Wishing you well.