Pictures from this weekend

A busy weekend we had here at Casa de Gerald Ford. I just wanted to share a couple photos with folks here. This first picture was taken just before we went to the Sunday Hanamatsuri service at our Temple:

This is Baby in her new Sunday Dress. My wife picked the dress out because of its Asian-theme (given that my daughter is half-Asian, it’s quite fitting). Here she’s practicing her walking with me. She loves to walk back and forth, up and down stairs, and keeps going long after Mommy and I are tired.

The next picture comes from the annual Tulip Festival we attended up in Skagit County (about 1 hour north of Seattle). This is one of the fields of tulips in bloom:

We went to the Tulip Festival with Baby last year, but the weather was terrible, and Baby (only 4 months at the time) got a runny nose from the cold wind, so we left after only staying for about 10 minutes. Keep in mind that we spent an hour driving up there, and another hour back.

This time though, the weather was perfect, and we stayed for some good burgers and chili, as well as the tulips.

In Pure Land Buddhism, the Pure Land of Amida Buddha is described as having huge and wonderful lotus blossoms of all colors. Seeing the Tulip Festival makes me wonder if this is a sample of what the Pure Land must be like, if you replace tulips with lotuses.

Namuamidabu