Time to sit down, take a deep breath, and consider the blessings of this past week. Now visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in or to see some favorites. Thank you Susanne for hosting this great exercise…
Easter, Easter, Easter! I love Easter. I love that our Faith is defined by what Jesus did on the cross on our behalf. The whole Lenten Season culminating on Resurrection Sunday and now the days leading up to Pentecost are great days to focus and be refreshed. So here are my 5 favorites from this past week…
1. Getting together with my sister Lana G! and keeping our Russian Heritage traditions going by baking the Russian Easter bread and making and molding the traditional sweet cheese spread. I have to get more cans to bake the bread in by next year. Someone at our Easter table let it slip that she might have some in her garage. Along with these traditions watching my daughter color the Easter eggs is always a fun time.
2. The night before Easter I went to the opening Sounders Soccer game. I went to a nearby park and ride that was offering special buses to take fans to Qwest field. My bus ended up being real special as I was the only one on it!! The bus driver and me. I thought of you Thom! This was one of those really big metro buses, too. I had to chuckle. Too bad our team lost…ugh. On the bus trip home there were more people but the bus driver recognized me right away…
3. Easter was such a nice day of celebration for us. We went to a baptism of 2 little sisters we know. So sweet. We came home to get ready to host our Easter meal with my DIL’s family. There were 12 of us and we had a good time eating, sharing and laughing.
4. Whoohoo! I finally got to meet some of the Mennonite Girls from MGCC face to face on Tuesday. Five of the Canadian Mennonites had a field-trip down to the Skagit Valley to see the tulips and we all met up for lunch in La Conner. It was like we were old friends. Each gal is so unique yet so cohesive in the group. I don’t know if that’s the right word but I hope you understand what I mean…
5. Tulips, tulips, tulips! I love tulips. To see these lovelies like the sea before your eyes is absolutely amazing. I praise God for creating tulips and I’m so glad those immigrants from Holland settled in the Skagit Valley and grow them for our pleasure and for their livelihood!
Keep scrolling down to the next post if you’d like to see some tulips in the fields…
Have a great weekend everyone!
Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.
The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b. 
Ellen. .your review of your week is wonderful. I am really wondering where my cans are to bake the paska in. I know I inherited my mom’s but where did they go? Maybe I’ll have to go collect some from our local thrift store. I really like the traditional shape of Easter Bread. Oh ..I wish I could taste your cheese spread too .. next year.
Thank you again for meeting us ellen .. .we all had such a wonderful visit with you.
What a beautiful week… beautiful food, beautiful times… Thank you for sharing it with us, Ellen… Any bread or dessert left? ;o) Happy Weekend ((HUGS))
“Night before Easter” sounds like a beginning line of a fairytale 🙂 It’s wonderful to read about your happy Easter. Tulips are rare and expectedly very expensive in our part of the world. Lucky you for having them in abundance. Have a great weekend.
I absolutely love tulips! They are so beautiful with their vibrant colors!
Thanks for stopping by!
A beautiful review of your week Ellen..great memories were made to cherish!
So much delicious looking food! =D I’m hungry!
Sounds like you had a wonderful Easter celebration.
Have a great weekend!
You’ve just reminded me to keep my juice cans for paska. I had forgotten
The rice looks yummy – and I really like the little bird ornament.
Your week sounds terrific – make sure you do plan that field trip to PEI. I’ll be your hostess 🙂
I loved your post and your photos! Times of fellowship with family and friends are so special!
Your sweet cheese spread reminds me of the “yellow cheese” that my Hungarian mother-in-law used to make at Easter, but I don’t think it’s the same.
I would love to meet the MGCC girls, the blog is so beautiful and thoughtful, I’m sure they are wonderful people.
Love your pictures and your thoughts. I want to try that rice.
You had a great week my friend. I really enjoyed the pictures. 🙂 And the tulips…just amazing. Have a great Friday 🙂
I’ve yet to meet a blogger “in real life” that I didn’t already know. How fun! And though I keep hearing about that blog, somehow I have not checked them out. I should!
I am glad you had a wonderful Easter! And how gorgeous those tulips are!
Sounds like a great week and a lovely Easter.
Awesome pics. Gonna go check out how to make that rice! I’m starving now.
I love the Mennonite Girls! I have the site linked on my main page. Such wonderful food! ~ I see these picture collages everywhere and I want to learn how to make them! I haven’t figured out how to do it yet though. ~ I’m glad you had a nice Easter celebration! Have a great week!
Your Paska looks beautiful! Standing tall and icing running down.
Looks like the perfect Easter week to me…blogger get-together and all! (smile)
My grandma always baked paska in coffee tins…juice tins…and what have you. So cute! Mine are always more conventional…loaves, mini-loaves and buns.
Looks like you had a wonderful time meeting the MGCC girls! I love your photos, and like you, I adore tulips. One of God’s prettiest creations!
Sounds like a simply wondeful week. And I’m heading over to see that rice recipe.
Love your pictures, and the tulips are lovely.
Happy weekend!
I can hear your enthusiasm about all things Easter in your writing. Wonderful! And I’m so impressed that you and your sister are keeping family traditions alive.
Love the MGCC blog.
Blessings for a great weekend. I have not done Friday Fav Five for a while so I am getting around to lots of new blogs this time round.
R
Sounds like a very fun and fulfilling week you had!!
What a beautiful table! It is nice to keep family heritage alive through traditions.
The tulips are beautiful as well.
These are great FFFs! Your visit to Seeds with the MGCC group sounds like a perfect day to me. Easter, Sounders, dinner with family, yup, it was a great week. Blessings to you this weekend, too!
Love your eventful week, Ellen, full of friends and traditions and family.