Quirky-

-strikingly unconventional.

When Dear and I were on Bainbridge Island in March we came across these quirky structures.

Q is for Quirky and I’m adding this post to ABC Wednesday started by Denise Nesbitt and continued by the great ABC Team!

Here’s my Bible Verse for the letter Q!

Speaking of the letter Q, I’m on a quest for the next couple months to drop some of my “fluff” before our son’s wedding the end of June. I feel like I deserve a medal only after two weeks of de-fluffing. I am way more fond of feasting than fasting. In reading Shauna Niequist’s book, Bread and Wine (a love letter to life around the table with recipes), her chapter on feasting and fasting resonated with me and helped me finally get on with a “fasting” time in my life. She uses the term fasting loosely meaning the opposite of feasting not the traditional fasting where for spiritual reasons you have set aside a time where you only have broth and juice. There are times in my life where it’s appropriate to feast and times when it’s appropriate to fast. My fasting consists of only having a certain amount of calories per day. Even in this short two month quest there are events where it’s not appropriate for me to fast, like when my kids take me out for Mother’s day this coming Saturday. Life goes on. I know at the end of this quest I’ll feel more like a Queen for the day in my mother of the groom dress.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! I’m saving my calories for Tequila Tuesday at our local Mexican restaurant tonight.

Peonies and Purple Blooms

Time for ABC Wednesday and the letter P! Thank you Mrs. Nesbitt, Roger and the whole ABC Team!

I love all the shades of purple that are growing in my yard right now. My lilac blooms are almost full.

Pansies and the ground cover have purple blooms.

I have the promise of more peonies this year than last.

More perennials that are purple.

And here’s my Bible Verse Card for the Letter P!

And on the subject of peace here are some words from the Prince of Peace, Jesus;

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” John 14:27

I’m continuing to enjoy a peaceful week at this old house. We had some very warm weather here on Monday. It reached 76 degrees in our town. Tuesday is another story. Hopefully I’ll be able to mow the lawn before the rain comes in.

Do you have promises of more blooms in your yard?

Make New Friends but Keep the Old…

…One is silver, the other gold.

I’m linking up to ABC Wednesday for O is for Old and for the fact that this post will go on and on! Thank you Denise Nesbitt, Roger, and the ABC team!

One day, four events! I flew from Seattle to Santa Ana (California) on Saturday and had a full day filled with time with old friends!

I arrived at John Wayne Airport at 8:30 A.M. and drove to La Habra, California. My pop and I went to his favorite breakfast spot and I treated him to breakfast. This is what he always orders, 2 sunny side up eggs, hash browns and sausage. He enjoyed every bite of food and each slurp of his coffee.

My pop is now living with my oldest sister and thriving. He lets me know frequently how much he loves the chair Dear and I bought him. Lately he’s occupied with jigsaw puzzles.

At 11:30 A.M. I drove down Whittier Blvd. to our dear friend Alice’s home for a Baby shower in her beautiful back yard!

This is Alice with her son who will be holding his new son soon and this will be Alice’s first grand baby! Alice has always had an open home and is the most hospitable lady. Many of us at the shower have been graced with hours of good times in her home with good food to eat.

The new dad and mom to be with our friend Natalie in the middle praying a blessing on them, the baby and the festivities.

My best friend from college days and beyond, Heidi, with her daughter Nikki.

My nieces Melissa, Michelle and my SIL Kelly.

Heidi, Alice and I had some fun adventures in our college days. Alice lived in San Francisco and we spent time with her there and she came down to L.A. to spend time with us. We hadn’t seen each other for over 35 years!

I caught my sister enjoying her food with my blast from the past friend, Alice.

I took off from the baby shower before gifts were opened to drive on 2 more freeways to get to my high school mini reunion.

We had a great turnout with close to 50 grads from Montebello High School showing up.

I was so happy to see my friend from elementary school days through high school at the reunion. I hadn’t seen her for over 46 years!

Lots of good memories came back to me and I have to admit some of the people that were there didn’t drum up any memories from my dear old brain.

These girls I’ll never forget. Nancy on the left was my good buddy and Anne her cousin is on my right.

I left the reunion after 4 hours and finally headed to my hotel to check in at 6:30.

My dear nephew David and niece Kristin picked me up at the hotel door to take me out to dinner at 7:00. They had been out on a boat with their friends for the afternoon. How sweet of them to take the time and treat me to dinner and catch up conversation.

My hotel experience was good to start with and I fell asleep exhausted since I had been up since 3:15 am. At 1:15 the room next door was visited by some very loud guests who were pounding on the door. I woke from such a deep sleep that I was disoriented and didn’t know where I was for a few moments. My heart was racing. I called the front desk and they said they’d come up and talk to them. It took me a long time to fall back to sleep and then they woke me up again at 5:30 a.m. oye and bother!! When I talked to the front desk in the morning the person behind the desk said they’d take a percentage off my room. When I got back to my room I got a phone call from another person on staff who told me how sorry he was for my experience and that they would comp my room and I didn’t have to pay anything.

One day filled with so many old memories and friends. I’ll put the hotel experience way behind me!

New Blooms

It’s time for ABC Wednesday and the letter N. Thank you to Mrs. Nesbitt for starting this meme and to Roger and the rest of the ABC team who keep it going.

N is for New Blooms or New Blossoms! It’s a stretch but they are too pretty not to share.

First my Bible Verse Card for the letter N…

For my next few posts I’ll share our time in Eastern Washington with all our kids!

Mister B.

M is for Mister B., the marvelous man I’m married to.

Joining in with ABC Wednesday that was begun by Mrs. Nesbitt and is carried on by the ABC team!

My Dear is quite the man. Not only is he a professional in the workplace, giving out medical information but he’s the most handy of men in the home.

He’s outstanding in his field.

Dear with our oldest son.

Here is a photo series of one of his latest home projects. It’s taken months to get close to the end of this project but other projects and weather took precedence during this time period.

Before he started on the siding on this end of the house we decided to take down this tree that was serving as a ladder for varmints to get onto our roof.

He replaced the attic window.

With this old house there is always another project ready to start. The back side of the house will be the final side to get horizontal siding. We are hoping to get that done by July. The tar paper is up and ready for the first half of that project to start.

I will leave you with my Bible Verse Card for the letter M!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter and Passover. We had a marvelous celebration. Have a good week!

Lunch in La Conner and Tulips!

This post is mostly about tulips and daffodils but we ladies (Mennonite Girls Can Cook) did enjoy lunch in La Conner after we tiptoed through the tulips and daffodils. So I’m linking to ABC Wednesday for L is for Lunch with the ladies in La Conner! Thank you to Mrs. Nesbitt and the ABC team!

Seven out of ten of the girls were able to meet up for a few hours in the Skagit Valley of Washington State. Six of the girls had to cross the border from Canada into Washington State. I live in Washington State so I just drove North for a little over an hour to meet up.

You can call these rows of tulips but since we are on the letter L we can call them lines of tulips.

When us girls are together there are lots of photos taken.

Such lovely landscapes!

You can look at lots of varieties of tulips at the gardens open to the public like Roozengaarde and Tulip World.

Other flowers besides tulips are planted in the gardens. These lavender colored hyacinth blooms are so pretty paired with yellow blooms.

We love each other and laugh a lot when we get together.

I’ll add my Bible verse for the letter L…

You will encounter lots of mud if you want to walk out to the fields of tulips or daffodils so mud boots are a good idea to lug with you and make sure you bring a plastic bag to put them in when you are done and put your clean shoes on.

It really is amazing to have this area in Washington State to enjoy and to rival the tulip production of Holland.

Kingston to Edmonds Ferry…

Dear and I enjoyed an overnight trip to Bainbridge Island last Friday to Saturday. On Friday we took the Seattle to Bainbridge Ferry to get to the island and on Saturday after visiting the Bloedel Reserve we drove from Bainbridge across the Agate Pass Bridge to the Kitsap Penninsula and took the Kingston Ferry across the Puget Sound home. Have I confused you yet? Here are some photos from our Kingston to Edmonds voyage…

If you look closely in the window you can see Dear smiling at me in his shades!

That’s downtown Seattle in the distance with the Space Needle to the right…

It’s nice to have a good ferry system so we can enjoy easy trips to the beautiful islands and peninsulas in our area.

I’m linking up to ABC Wednesday with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her ABC team! K is for Kingston to Edmonds Ferry and KNOW!

Here’s my Bible Verse card for the letter M! Know…

Joyful, Joyeux, Joy…

…can’t get enough of these great words beginning with J. My weekend was filled with many joyful moments. It was my birthday weekend and I celebrated with friends and family.

That one card I received pictured top left was hilarious. “It’s Birthday!, Blow out candles and make wish for good thing! Won’t get but is fun tradition anyway. Wishing you to have Happy Birthday”

Still going on the Russian theme I received this fabulous apron and kitchen towel from my daughter in law’s mother. Thank you Pat! So sweet that she thought of me when she saw these Matryoshka themed gifts. Things like this from my heritage give me joy.

I was overloaded with gifts including a tasty meal out from our dear friends, Dave and Beth. This Gusla with the beautiful painted Russian Fairy Tale scene was part of the things Beth brought for me or someone in my family to enjoy. It’s a great instrument that is simple to play with cards that slip under the strings showing you the strings to strum playing the tune. I played Happy Birthday to Me on my birthday morning feeling quite accomplished!

On Sunday afternoon we drove to downtown Seattle for dinner and live Irish music at Fado, an Irish pub with our oldest, youngest and their fabulous spouses. Our middle son lives 6 hours away so he couldn’t join us but he sent along a card. The company and music was fabulous. I received such wonderful written notes from each of our children that really brought me so much joy.

The food was good, too. A little Irish and a little Russian made for a nice meeting of two cultures!

And I’ll end this post with my ABC Bible Verse Card for the letter J!

Knowing I have a God who does not change and who is faithful brings me a lot of joy and peace.

Linking up with ABC Wednesday with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her ABC team who keep things going each week.

I is for Iwo Jima

The anniversary of the Flag raising at Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima is on February 23rd. I visited the monument in D.C. in 1970 for the first time.

Retro Ellen b. , I’m 19 in this photo.

I visited the monument again in May of 2011 on a night tour and took this photo on the opposite side of the monument. We won’t publish how old I was on this visit but you can do the math!

This is a replica of the monument at the MCRD, Parris Island, S.C. (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) when my daughter and I attended her future husband’s India Company graduation in September of 2010.

I is for Iwo Jima for ABC Wednesday. Thank you Mrs. Nesbitt and the ABC team!

I’m a little fuzzy in the brain since all the fun activities from this past weekend and the time change always takes a few days to get oriented to. I am enjoying the longer daylight hours here in the Pacific Northwest.

History and Heritage…

I posted this on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook Blog on Sunday for our Bread for the Journey and I’m re-posting here for my own records on The Happy Wonderer. That’s wonder not wander. I’m adding a few more photos from Russia and Persia in this post. Today I’m linking up with ABC Wednesday with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt, Roger and the ABC Team! I’m also linking up to Testimonial Tuesday #5 at Jerrelea’s Journey.

We are in the middle of a new series on Sundays called “Movement”. As we launched into this series our pastor encouraged us with this statement: “The book of Acts tells the story of a group of first-century, rag-tag followers of the Risen Christ who became the movement that would change the world; it’s God’s movement because He is a God on the move, and He invites us to get on the move with Him.” As a follower of Jesus “I am an integral part of the most powerful, life-changing movement in the history of the world.”

It’s an encouraging exercise to look back over your life and the life of your ancestors to see how God has led and moved you to where you are today.

My father’s family

My mother with her brother and younger sister.

For me part of my story is God moving both sets of my grandparents to flee Russia on foot with their children to Iran in the early 1930’s. Both sets of grandparents settled near Tehran where my parents later met and got married. God moved my father with the desire to come to the United States. One of the things that influenced this desire was how my father was treated while working in an U.S. Army base kitchen in Iran. The soldiers were kind to my father and let him take food home to his family because they knew my father’s family was struggling.

My parents with my oldest sister shortly after arriving to Los Angeles, my mother is pregnant with my sister Vera in this photo.

My parents filed the proper paper work and were granted permission to immigrate to the U.S.A. With my oldest sister they traveled to the U.S.A. settling in Los Angeles shortly after World War II ended. In 1963 my father went to hear Billy Graham at the Los Angeles Coliseum and my father was born again. My father’s decision to follow Jesus turned my family’s world upside down in the right way. That same year I accepted Christ and my new life in the greatest movement of all time began. We won’t know the whole story on how our own lives impact God’s movement till we see Him face to face but we can see part of the story now and be encouraged to carry on and follow Him where he leads us. He doesn’t call us and then leave us alone. He has given us his Spirit, He intercedes for us, He gives us strength. He multiplies the little that we have when we are willing to step out in faith with Him. What an amazing movement to be a part of! You, too, can be a part of this movement. Ask God to reveal Himself to you, to show you the way.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16-17

Jesus said to them, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

Here are a few more photos from Russia and Persia that I promised… Sorry about the quality of some of these but after all they have traveled a long distance!

This one was taken in Russia before my father’s family fled to Iran. This is my paternal babushka’s relatives, the Sisoev’s, in Prelestnaya Village in Russia.

This is my mother next to her brother Paul on the right. My mother is standing next to her future sister-in-law, Nina. Nina is to the left of my mom and Nina’s brother Nikolai is next to her on the left.

My mother with her brother Paul.

These are two families, who were close friends in Iran and considered family to each other. There were also marriages that connected these two families together further. This was taken in Persia after my parents had immigrated to the U.S.A. I believe all but two of them made it to the U.S. My maternal grandfather seated on the lower right was killed in Iran and my maternal grandmother seated next to him immigrated to the U.S. as a widow with my Uncle Paul and Aunt Nina (pictured together upper right). Aunt Nina was part of the Katkov family and the others in this photo are her siblings and mother and father. The little boy between my grandmother and grandfather is my cousin Alex. One of the sisters from this family married a U.S. Soldier stationed in Iran and she is not in this photo. I’m not sure if who I lovingly called babushka Manya (seated next to my babushka Vera) came to the U.S. as a widow, also, or if her husband Nikolai was able to immigrate with his family.

Well this post is long enough for now. When I scan more photos that I came across from Russia and Persia I’ll share.

Hope you have a happy day…

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Category Archives: ABC Wednesday