Recording the beauty of long-stemmed flowers

Hello all! My family had a lovely visitor who is friends with my brother from college stay with us. She is in the coast guard, and needed a place to stay for a few days, so we opened up our house to her, and in return, she gave us some lovely long-stemmed flowers! I'm not sure what kind they are, but they are beautiful! This is the first time I've ever seen any long-stemmed anything! I might have to treat myself to some later on in the winter when things tend to look a little gray around here....

Here's any interesting fact: in Russia and many other Eastern countries, it is considered rude to give an even number of flowers. I believe that this gesture has something to do with death or bad wishes. I also know that in flower arrangement, it is best to use an odd number of flowers so that the eye can find a place to rest and look at instead of peering between two flowers or something. So our visitor (who is well-traveled) gave us five long stemmed flowers. 

I thought they deserved to become photographic evidence of beauty :)

I couldn't get all five in the picture, but I thought I would try to show their long stems. Aren't the colors beautiful together? And the petals really are this rich deep pink.

The underside of the petals are equally interesting

The rest of these pictures were all taken in the filtered sunlight in my dining room. They turned out rather well with nice shadows!

I love the little detail of the fluted ends of the petals and how the light highlights them!

Have a nice day! It is supposed to be up in the 80s here (this is considered boiling where I live :P )

old summer photo

Here's a photo I took last year when my family went for a drive down to the ferry docks. As the sun set, it cast beautiful colors and shadows. There is no editing in this picture aside from my name at the bottom!

Celebration!

Today is the last day I have with this view. It's lovely isn't it? It was certainly the best part of my room. The sunsets and clear days were beautiful.

And there a rose garden lay

As proof of exactly how taken up I have been with my (for once) fun and truly interesting classes (as in architecture and chemistry. The math isn't going so hot today. Maybe that is because I have my final....) I have to admit: I have been totally oblivious to my surroundings. You know, the environment that I pass everyday? Twice? Yup. Stuff happened and changed and prettied up, and I was too distracted to even notice them. 

So you say, maybe it was small, easy to pass up. But no. No it really wasn't. For who could miss the bursts of color amidst the surrounding gray concrete and green hedge-fences? Who could miss all FOUR of these large gardens surrounding Drumheller fountain? Who could possibly not notice all the fragrant smells of the hundreds of different buds opening before our eyes? Who would just walk right past them, a mere foot away from their grabby thorns and NOT NOTICE?

Um, yeah. That would be me.

For two weeks.

Oops.

But I finally came to my senses before my obliviousness got too out of hand ;) And at last on a beautiful sunny day while I wore a pretty sundress and traipsed about my classes, I saw beauty. She was a blanket laid on the ground, sparkling in the sun. Sometimes she waved in the wind, and became dancing colors.

And here are some pictures:

This is the President's Rose garden. All special, hand picked, and sometimes rare roses right in one place at once. The ones that drew me in the most were the variegated roses and the ones with bright colored petals. My favorites for sure were the orange ones. I just love the luminescence they pick up from the light, and how even their shadows look soft and urge you to stroke one.

And when I finally managed to peel myself away from such beauty, I found this nest in a lantern!

In other words, I'm having a wonderful week :)
Despite finals.