After the nice weather last week, it's a bit depressing to go through a 3rd day of fairly heavy rains this week. So, to cheer myself up, I looked through some past pictures and found a few more from spring when the sun started to shine after a few months of being blocked by cloudy skies during the winter and the flowers started to bloom.

Even a heron or stork paid us a visit!

Here are some really great pictures I took while we were back in the Bay Area during Easter break (April 9-13). The day was perfect -- clear, sunny, and warm -- at Baker Beach in San Francisco. I almost lost these pictures because my harddisk crashed. Fortunately, only the OS partition had bad sectors, so I was able to recover all of the pictures. Whew!

I just planted some dahlias and gladioli, so I'm looking forward to seeing some nice flowers this summer, but here are some spring flowers currently in our backyard.

Well, not really. Just atop the hill above U.C. Berkeley where the Lawrence Hall of Science is situated. We had a great time with MJ and her kids.

Last Saturday was unusually sunny and warm (yes, we're still seeing mostly gray skies here in Bellevue, and it's May already!), so we decided to visit the arboretum for the first time. As soon as we got there, Marichu and I gave each other that look that was like "Why didn't we come here before?"

The place is very nice -- big, clean, grass (yes, grass!) trails. Here's a couple of my favorite pictures from our walk. I love how the light partially hits the ferns.
 

Here's a couple of shots of Joseph blowing at a dandelion.

Here's a very nice flowering Japanese plum tree (oh, that's -- second from the right -- Sophia's best friend, Thalia, from school).

Look at the sheer size of this rhododendron!