Author Archives: Ellen

Reunited and Celebrating

Our dear grandchildren are back in our neck of the woods and we were able to enjoy a meal together at our home on Friday evening June 17th. After the meal JJ and Addy were keen on preparing me another meal in their play room. JJ prepared the crab for me while Addy put together a sandwich.

Later we headed outside for some time enjoying the latest skills these two have developed on their Big Wheels.

In the same week our kids on the Coast enjoyed a meal out together and sent us this picture. Love seeing them together.

On Father’s Day we received texts with photos and Happy Father’s Day greetings from all our kids and grands.

We enjoyed a Taco bar meal together in Colville with extended family. These two fathers were celebrated.

So happy these 4 are back home in our neck of the woods.

Happy First Day of Summer. We are supposed to enjoy some sunshine the rest of the is week instead of the cloudy rainy days we’ve had up to now! How goes it in your neck of the woods?

Sister Day

On Monday June 13th (my last full day in Southern California) our sister Kathy drove out to Huntington Beach to spend the afternoon and evening with us. We went for lunch to Summer House in Corona Del Mar. When we finally got our food it was very good. We didn’t realize they were having a ‘soft opening’ after being closed for renovations. A brand new cook and only one cook and other new staff people who were all very pleasant but it took over an hour for our food to reach our table. Good thing we weren’t on a lunch break. We were on a leisurely outing. From there we hopped over to Roger’s Gardens in Corona Del Mar.

The succulent wall gardens were amazing.

We looked at all the beautiful hanging baskets and pots filled with flowers that were amazing and very expensive. The individual plant starts that you could buy were comparable in price to what I’ve seen at Wal-Mart this year.

These hanging succulent baskets were very cute.

After the gardens, on the way back to Vera’s, we stopped at 85degrees, an Asian bakery with lots of goodies. Vera was making dinner for us and I wanted to contribute the dessert. So many beautiful desserts to choose from.

Back at Vera’s bungalow she started on dinner and Kathy and I relaxed enjoying the aroma of onions and garlic and someone cooking a meal for us. Our youngest sister, Lana, arrived home from work and all the sisters enjoyed the evening meal together. Vera’s daughter-in-love joined us, too. It was good to be together.

Vera made a ‘shepherd’s pie type dish’ using ground beef, zucchini and crushed tomatoes and for the topping instead of mashed potatoes she substituted mashed cauliflower. It was very good and I suppose lower in carbs. We made up for those carbs in our dessert.

Here are the desserts we enjoyed, a chocolate cookie cream loaf and a strawberry cream tiramisu. Light and tasty.

It’s not very often that all four of ‘the sisters’ are all together in one place so we had to take the obligatory sister shots. Kristin was our photographer.

Lana, the youngest, me, Vera, and our oldest sister Kathy. A seventeen year span between the oldest and youngest. An 12 year span between me and our sister Lana.

Lana lives in Texas as of a month ago, I live in the state of Washington, Vera and Kathy live in Southern California about 20 miles from each other. Kathy lives about twelve miles from where we all grew up.

This was one week ago already. The laundry from my trip is done. I’ve mowed the lawn. I pulled a few weeds. We had our Colville kids over for a meal. Life is back to ‘normal’ here in the country.

How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds ~ Hymn

How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.

It makes the wounded spirit whole,
And calms the troubled breast;
’Tis manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary rest.

Dear name! the rock on which I build,
My shield and hiding place,
My never failing treasury filled
With boundless stores of grace!

By Thee my prayers acceptance gain,
Although with sin defiled;
Satan accuses me in vain,
And I am owned a child.

Jesus! my shepherd, husband, friend,
O prophet, priest and king,
My Lord, my life, my way, my end,
Accept the praise I bring.

Weak is the effort of my heart,
And cold my warmest thought;
But when I see Thee as Thou art,
I’ll praise Thee as I ought.

Till then I would Thy love proclaim
With every fleeting breath,
And may the music of Thy name
Refresh my soul in death!

Words: John Newton, 1779.

Mocha Toffee Dessert

I got this recipe from my mother over 45 years ago and have no idea where she got it from.

serves 4

Ingredients:
  • 1- 3 or 3 1/4 ounce package regular vanilla pudding mix
  • 1 Tablespoon instant coffee powder
  • 1 3/4 cups milk
  • 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
  • 2/3 cup of evaporated milk
  • 2 chocolate covered English toffee bars (5/8 ounces each) coarsely crushed
  • whipped cream
Method:

1. In medium saucepan, combine pudding mix and coffee powder.
Gradually stir in 1 3/4 cups milk till mixture is blended.
2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil.
3. Remove from heat and cover surface of pudding with waxed paper or plastic wrap, cool and chill.
4. In small saucepan combine chocolate pieces and evaporated milk. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture boils and chocolate is melted. Cool and chill.
4. Remove paper from pudding mixture.
5. Spoon the pudding mixture equally into 4 parfait glasses.
6. Sprinkle crushed candy onto top of layer.
7. Top with a good portion of chocolate sauce and top with more crushed candy.
8. Finish off with whipped cream and a sprinkle of crushed candy.

If you use taller and narrower glasses you can make more layers before you top it off with whipped cream.

I found the smaller containers to work better as this is a very rich dessert.
Instead of crushing two candy bars I found these packaged toffee bits that worked real well.

Sunday Night in Cali

On Sunday afternoon/evening my sister and I were invited for dinner at our friends beautiful home in the city of Orange. We sat in their patio and enjoyed appetizers, lots of conversations and then dinner. It’s hard to tell from the photo above but that is an infinity pool in the background.

Our wonderful host and hostess, Ken and Heidi. Heidi was my best buddy in my college years and beyond. She was living with Dear and me when she met Ken, dated him, got engaged and then married. I was her matron of honor. She is truly the hostess with the mostess.

Ta-da and toodle-pip!

Toodle pip is a very British and informal way to bid farewell.

Thank you for a beautiful evening, great food and good conversation. Till next time…

Driving home from Ken and Heidi’s I took a photo of the gas prices at this station.

While I was in Cali the local kids dropped by on Sunday to pick up a package that was delivered to us for them.

JJ and Gramps also went next door to pick up one of my packages that was mistakenly delivered to our neighbor. Addy conquered the gravel mountain in front of the shop.

Back to Colville and the Country and away from the big city lights. Tonight we are having our local kids and grands over for dinner. This will be the first time since April 29th. For much of May and into June they were in another state for a Workation.  It will be fun to have some extended time with Addy and JJ and see what new skills or vocabulary they have developed.

For those in the U.S. and Canada a Happy Father’s Day weekend to you!

Truth for Today #22

Thursday June 16th

On Thursdays my posts will include verses that stood out in my readings from the Bible during the week. One, two, three or maybe more. If you have a verse/verses that you read during the week and would like to share, leave it/them in the comments and I will add it/them to the post. Let’s dig deep in God’s Truth this year!

1 Timothy 4:1-5

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

From Cheryl:

Psalm 19:14

“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.”

From Vera:

‭‭1 John‬ ‭3:2-3‬

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

Beach Walk Sightings

Home again after a long day of traveling and no energy to participate in Wednesday Hodgepodge. Alaska Airlines upgraded me to First Class for my flights home and that was a nice treat. The flight attendant was cheerful and happy to serve which made things even more enjoyable. After landing in Spokane on my second leg of the journey, we made a stop at Hobby Lobby to try to find a few things for the walls of my of our guestrooms that we upgraded to a King bed, etc. My brain was in slo-mo which made making design decisions difficult. We left with two small items and headed to Costco to fill up our vehicle with gasoline and buy a few items. Back on the road home we tried to stop at a favorite spot for dinner in Deer Park but it was closed for some mysterious reason. We tried a new spot in Loon Lake and it was good enough that we will stop there again in the future. Once home we had absolutely no energy left so the unpacking will be slow. Here are some extra photos from a walk along the Beach that my sister and I enjoyed.

Besides the beautiful ocean and beaches we saw both pretty and unusual things on our walk Friday the 10th of June.

The dog walker. This made us smile. This was a group of very well behaved dogs!

And besides seeing things on the ground we spotted this group in the sky.

Getting back in the groove here at home. Thank you for following along and all the kind comments. I’ll be responding soon. And just like that we are at the middle of June!

Walk on the Pier

On Sunday my sister Vera and I were happy to see that June Gloom was nonexistent. We dropped our brother off at the Orange County airport for his trip back to Dallas and decided another trip to the beach was warranted. We had a good meal at Dukes at the Huntington Beach Pier with this view from our table…

After our meal we headed to the pier to walk it and enjoy the views.

I’ll have a full post with this pelican as the star later.

The crashing waves looked like snow from above.

This post is being published on Tuesday June 14th, Flag day. I will be in the air for a few hours and then on the road home.

Happy Flag Day from Huntington Beach and Newport Beach.

Memorial and Reunions

Saturday morning June 11th was our friend Alice’s Memorial service in Whittier, California.

Her daughter Svetlana read the eulogy.

Our childhood friend Natalie is musically talented along with her husband and sons and they sang a favorite song of Alice’s, One Day at a Time Sweet Jesus. This is Natalie, her sons, and her husband is in the background on the keyboard.

We were able to take home Alice’s memoir of her escape from China. Alice’s father was Chinese and her mother was Russian.

Alice is on the left and her older sister on the right.

These are the last two paragraphs in Alice’s story of her escape and journey that eventually brought her to the United States. Her story is one of miracles traveling through China to Shanghai and then being able to sail on an American ship to the Philippines.  From there after a few years, her mother, older sister and Alice were finally able to immigrate to the U.S.A. and they landed in San Francisco in January of 1951. Alice was twelve when they arrived in San Francisco.

Five of my brothers and sisters were also at the Memorial and we took some photos together.

It was good to see so many old friends at the Memorial and to catch up on each other’s life events. It was good to great Alice’s kids, nephews, nieces and extended family and old family friends, church friends, and high school friends.

Later that evening some of us gathered at our niece’s home in Huntington Beach for a meal and more time catching up with each other.

 

Three of the four sisters and our friend Heidi with our youngest brother photo bombing.

A good but draining day. My time has been full here in Southern California with more get togethers to come.

Children of the Heavenly Father ~ Hymn

Children of the Heavenly Father

Children of the heav’nly Father
Safely in His bosom gather;
Nestling bird nor star in Heaven
Such a refuge e’er was given.

God His own doth tend and nourish;
In His holy courts they flourish;
From all evil things He spares them;
In His mighty arms He bears them.

Neither life nor death shall ever
From the Lord His children sever;
Unto them His grace He showeth,
And their sorrows all He knoweth.

Praise the Lord in joyful numbers:
Your protector never slumbers;
At the will of your defender
Every foeman must surrender.

Though He giveth or He taketh,
God His children ne’er forsaketh;
His the loving purpose solely
To preserve them pure and holy.

Words: Karolina W. Sandell-Berg, 1855.

This was my Mother-in-law’s favorite hymn sung in Swedish.