Shutterbugs and photo-lovin’ friends glad to have you join me for The World Through My Lens 04.2025. For this month’s edition I am joining Kym at A Fresh Cup of Coffee for her Every Day Images and Terri at Second Wind Leisure Perspectives for her Sunday Stills series.
Before we jump in here, just a reminder: Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After occasionally uses affiliate links which are usually italicized. If you click or make a purchase from an italicized link provided I may receive a very small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.
Please find the places and posts where I link-up on this page.
World Through My Lens 04.2025
Anybody else feel like the days, weeks and months are flying by? I can’t keep up!! Scrambling to get my April photos shared so I can start on May.
Everyday Images #60
at home (monthly): the dining room table set for Easter with a bird’s nest cookie on each plate.
flowers: I dropped PC off at the airport on the day we flew out for our cruise. Then I parked the car. On my hurried walk to meet him in the terminal, I had to take just a second to snap a picture of these lovely red flowers. They were planted all around the airport grounds. Imagine if I had missed the plane because I was photographing flowers?
looking up: at Lucia’s kite when we momentarily got it up in the air.
pause: started this particular morning with breakfast on the patio and just a few minutes quiet time before getting the day underway.
inside and/or outside: all of the elevator doors on our Alaskan cruise ship, the Holland America Westerdam, were like pieces of art. This photo is the door to the glass elevator which was accessed from the inside of the ship with views of the outside of the ship, the ocean through the glass panels.
on my plate (quarterly): pizza from La Bang Bang pizza. Most of the jury members took a field trip to La Bang Bang for lunch one day. It was incredibly delicious. Lots of different types of Detroit style pizza. The pizza wasn’t served on plates but in cardboard trays.
Sunday Stills
04.06.2025 April is National Garden Month: sadly, we don’t really have a garden. Well, not a flower garden. We are working on growing veggies in a raised bed PC built this past fall. We have pumpkin, watermelon, cucumber, squash and some struggling basil and cilantro coming up so far. And some wildflower seeds sewn in between. But for this prompt, I am sharing a photo of a baby cactus. I thought it was a goner last summer but it hung on and this year, has bloomed for the first time.
04.13.2025 monthly color challenge: shades of purple: this month I did a search for the color challenge word – purple – among my photos and here are some of the images that popped up.











04.21.2025 Earth Day: goodness, this was a tough one for me. We don’t typically do anything to celebrate Earth Day. But I try to pick up 3 pieces of trash every time I am out. And Lauren picks up trash in the Franklin Mountains State Park several times a year as part of her community service through work.
04.27.2025 National Kids and Pets Day (share children, pets, or activities with both): clearly, I didn’t take these photos and this is not exactly MY pet. This is my grandpup, Pumpkin. I just loved this series of pictures Lauren took so bending the rules or the prompt a little.




Pumpkin makes me happy. She is always glad to see me.
Your Turn
Thank you for spending some of your busy day here with me. Hope you will join me in visiting Kym at A Fresh Up of Coffee and Terri at Second Wind Leisure Perspectives to check the images they’ve captured for these photo challenges.
Happy Mother’s Day, friends. Whether you have children or not, chances are you have made a difference in the life of a child. And chances are you had a mother!! Make it a great week!!
Hugs and kisses,

Happy Mother’s Day to you!!
Thank you, dear friend. Hope you had a special day. I was surely blessed.
A great collection of photos and memories Lesley.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate the beauty of the world (and my sweet fam) when I am participating in photo challenges. Come join us!!
These are fabulous photos! I love the red flowers you found at the airport; the lighting is perfect. But I am very glad you did not miss your plane to capture them. Wouldn’t that have been quite the story to tell?
Thank you!! Ha!! We missed our plane to France sitting right there in the airport. I tell ya, anything is possible with me!!
I love all your purple-themed images, Leslie! It’s always ok to bend the rules with your take on creativity. I’m always happy when you participate. Hope you are having a nice Mother’s Day!
Thank you for the permission and encouragement to bend the rules!! I just loved the photos of my grandpup Pumpkin and me and had to use them for the pet theme. My Mother’s Day was divine. A hike to one of my fave places. Thank you!!
Always the best pictures!! I love the little princess so blurry – ON THE MOVE! LOL
& that pizza looks so amazing! It looks like a different kind & I’m here for that!
Thank you so much. I think I am going hit PC up for a trip downtown to the pizza place again. It was sinful it was so good. So glad you are back to blogging.
The pictures of you with Pumpkin are so fun! Makes me smile. Your shades of purple photos – you have a lot! I was trying to figure out the last time I took a photo with purple in it and had to go back a few weeks on my phone to even find one. That pizza looks delicious. And that elevator door on the cruise ship?! Wow! That is stunning. Have a great week Leslie!
Thank you so much. Pumpkin seems to kind of like me. We tease because she acts and looks a lot like a beloved pup we had when my daughters were children. Pumpkin took to me the first time she saw me and is just all over me whenever I am at Lauren’s house. We have often said maybe she is Cici reincarnated!!
The pizza we had while on jury duty was absolutely delicious. In fact, maybe I will get PC to go there with me tomorrow for date night.
All of the elevator doors on the cruise ship were like works of art. Beautiful. I felt like I was on the Titanic above water, though, thank goodness.
Lovely photos. The pizza looks amazing.
I love your Easter table sertting, and those glass doors on the cruise ship are so special! Loved all your purple photos – the Kentucky tulips really stood out to me. Thanks so much for linking up with Everyday Images – I appreciate you!!
I would almost trade you my green grass and itty bitty garden efforts for your pool! But, I don’t know that I could live without my green yard and your triple digit heat would wilt my socks!
https://marshainthemiddle.com/
We are busy cleaning the pool tiles this week. Oh, the calcium is just awful. We are really having to use old elbow grease on them. Exhausting. But the ones we have done look so much better than the ones we haven’t!!
Our summer temps are something else. I remember in the year of the OJ Simpson trial we had our second hottest summer ever. The summer of 2023 surpassed it. But that summer in 1995, I would come home from teaching summer school, strip down to my skivvies and lay on my bed under the ceiling fan watching the trial. Thought I was going to combust!!
You seemed to have a theme of cute grandkids and beautiful flowers this month! The elevator doors are so cool too!
Oh, the elevator doors on the cruise ship were like something from the Titanic but above water!! I think my grandbabies are my favorite subjects to photograph. Thank you!!
That pizza looks incredible. I’ve never seen such an amazing looking pizza. Lots of purple in your photos.