Beach Fun (Awww Monday), Inspiring Quote of the Week, and Poetry Monday

 ***********************************

Awww Monday is hosted by Sandee at Comedy Plus.

Join us every Monday for Awww...Mondays.  Post a picture that makes you say Awww... and that's it.

Make sure you get the code from Sandee's site, linked above, and leave a link to your post so we can visit you.  What better way to start the week than with a smile!

Yesterday at church. there was a lovely family, mom, dad, and 3 children, baby, 3-ish, and 5-ish, and they were dressed alike in tie-dye shirts.  There was no way to unobtrusively get all of them in the photo, the children were running around too much, but this gives an idea.

You can always tell when families are on the beach, they leave lots of sand castles around.

Time to start over, that makes  it more fun.

***********************************

Sparks is the brainchild of Annie of McGuffy's Reader, who wanted us to post something positive and uplifting at the start of the week.  While she no longer blogs, i like to post an Inspiring Quote of the Week in her honor.     

source

***********************************

Poetry Monday was started by Diane at On The Alberta/Montana Border.  Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey is on a blog semi-break and her poetry is sorely missed, we hope she comes back soon.   Charlotte/Mother Owl participates, and now Karen at Baking in a Tornado is jumping in at least once a month, too.  Anyone else is welcome to join in the fun, just let Diane know!

This week the theme is Roller Coasters.                

        

Bumping, jarring, side to side,

Sliding sideways, what a ride.

Bounce your bottom in your seat,

Sorry, but there's no retreat.

Faster, slower, up and down,

Then it throws you all around.

Wondering will it ever end,

All of it your mind will bend.

Wonder if you will survive,

No roller coaster, your morning drive.

(The roads around where we live sometimes feel like that!)

***********************************

Today is:

Day of the Living Children of Nut -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Feast of Epona -- Ancient Celtic Calendar (Rhiannon in Wales, Macha in Ireland, guardian goddess of horses, stables, horse owners, agriculture, and transportation; date approximate, and disputed, she was the only Celtic goddess worshipped by the Romans, and they celebrated her on December 18)

First-in-Line and Queue-Jumping Tournament -- Fairy Calendar

Ides of June -- Ancient Roman Calendar; related observances:

     Festival of Jupiter Invictus (Jupiter the Unconquered)

     Lesser Quinquartrus/Quinquatrus Minusculae (festival for those who played flutes at religious ceremonies; through the 15th)

Kitchen Klutzes of America Day

Queen's Birthday -- Australia (except QLD, WA); Gibraltar; Norfolk Island; Papua New Guinea; St. Helena

Roller Coaster Day -- the world's first "Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway", patented by LaMarcus Thompson, opened on this day in 1884 on Coney Island, at a cost of five cents per ride

Sewing Machine Day -- why this day is anyone's guess, but we must admit it's a useful invention

St. Anthony of Padua's Day, the "Hammer of Heretics" (Patron of amputees, animals, asses, boatmen, domestic animals, elderly people, expectant mothers, faith, fishermen, harvests, horses, mail, mariners, Native Americans, oppressed people, paupers, poor people, sailors, seeksers of lost objects, starving people, swineherds, Tigua Indians, travel hostesses, travellers, watermen; Amantea, Italy; Anzio, Italy; Brazil; Cianciana, Italy; Dorado, Puerto Rico; Favara, Italy; Ferrazzano, Italy; Giano Vetusto, Italy; Lisbon, Portugal; Nocolosi, Italy; Padua, Italy; Portugal; San Antonio Tiayacapan, Mexico; San Fulgencio, Spain; Sandia Indian Pueblo; against barrenness, shipwreck, starvation, and sterility)

     a municipal holiday in Lisbon, Portugal and parts of Spain

Weed Your Garden Day -- a reminder to get out there and do a little each day, so the little buggers don't get out of hand

Whit Monday -- Orthodox Churches

Anniversaries Today:

Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is founded, 1798

Martin Luther marries Katharina von Bora, 1525

Birthdays Today:

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, 1986

Raz-B, 1985

Rivers Cuomo, 1970

Jamie Walters, 1969

Ally Sheedy, 1962

Tim Allen, 1953

Richard Thomas, 1951

Ban Ki-Moon, 1944

Malcolm McDowell, 1943

Siegfried Fischbacher, 1939

Christo, 1935

Paul Lynde, 1926

Ralph Edwards, 1913

Red Grange, 1903

Dorothy L. Sayers, 1893

Basil Rathbone, 1892

William Butler Yeats, 1865

Winfield Scott, 1786

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Closer"(TV), 2005

Roadie(Film), 1980

"Les vêpres siciliennes"(Verdi opera) 1855

Today in History:

Coronation of Alexander III as King of Scots, 1249

Ibn Battuta, who was to become the foremost world traveler of his day, seeing most of the known world in his time, begins his first hadj, 1325

Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves, 1774

Mission San Luis Rey de Francia  is founded, 1798

Meriwether Lewis and four companions sight the Great Falls of the Missouri River, 1803

A fire devastates much of Vancouver, British Columbia, 1886

King Ludwig II of Bavaria is found dead in Lake Starnberg south of Munich at 11:30 PM, 1886

Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital, 1898

The University of the Philippines College of Engineering is established, the largest degree granting unit in the Philippines, 1910

Mir Mine, the first diamond mine in the USSR, is discovered, 1955

The United States Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them, 1966

Thurgood Marshall is nominated to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, 1967

Fahd becomes King of Saudi Arabia upon the death of his brother, Khalid, 1982

Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the solar system, 1983

President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea meets Kim Jong-il, leader of North Korea, for the beginning of the first ever inter-Korea summit, 2000

The US withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, 2002

The Al Askari Mosque is bombed for a second time, 2007

A capsule of Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa returns to Earth with particles of asteroid 25143 Itokawa, 2010

The U.S. Supreme Court invalides gene patents held by Myriad Genetics when it rules that isolated human genes are not patentable, 2013

Philae, the first spacecraft to land on a comet in the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, re-awakes after 7 months, 2015

Volkswagen is fined €1 billion (£880m) by German prosecutors over diesel emissions scandal, 2018

Archaeologists announce Scottish crannogs (fortified settlements on artificial islands in locks) are far older than first thought, as radiocarbon dating puts some of them as being older than Stonehenge, 2019