Category Archives: Awards

Feis Day Two

Day Two of the Feis was Deirdre Haran Abeid Day.

The Haran School of Irish Dance was founded in Kettle Falls by Deirdre Abeid over 45 years ago. Her daughters Caitlin Trusler and Claire Worley have continued in her footsteps, running the Kettle Falls and Spokane branches of Haran for the past 25 years.

All signed in and ready to dance

 

There are breaks between the soft shoe dances and hard shoe dances.

Both Addy and JJ appreciated Uncle and Auntie being at the Feis on Sunday. I appreciated it, too, as Laura could get up close and take photos and videos that I was not able to.

Soft shoe, hard shoe and then it was time for another soft shoe competition.

There is a trick to lacing the soft shoes!

When all the traditional jigs and reels and treble and Hornpipe were completed it was time for the creative water/sea dance. The dancers who wanted to participate in this dance had to come up with their own costume and dance.

This is the outfit conception that Addy came up with thinking about water, ‘under the sea’. Here was the completed outfit Addy and her Mom created.

It is so good to have the support team of mom and dad in the dancers corner.

Waiting for their solo performances. I wish I could share the video Auntie Lolo took of Addy’s dance but I’m unable to on my blog. It was a wonderful performance and we found out while we were out to lunch that Addy had received a 1st place for her outfit and dance!

We gathered for lunch before taking Uncle and Auntie back to the airport for their flight home.

After lunch on their way home Dan and Jamie stopped by the convention center to pick up Addy’s prize for her creative under the sea dance and costume.

Her 1st place trophy!

After getting home Addy donned all her awards from her first Feis!

Well done, Addy. Your hard work was rewarded. Hmmm, I wonder if she’ll want to sign up for another Feis?

Thanks for coming along and for all your kind comments.

Adieu to Summer Hodgepodge

A summer sea scape dinner party to celebrate the end of summer from our deck in our former home. This is also a nod to Addy’s creative under the sea outfit at the Feis. (End of post)

It’s time for Wednesday Hodgepodge and Joyce has a fresh batch of questions to prove it.

Dinner parties were mentioned in one of our questions so here are a collection of dinner parties from the past with the Mennonite Girls Can Cook in Canada.

1.  Are you more life of the party or more party pooper? If your answer is somewhere in the middle which side of the middle do you lean towards more? 

I think I’m a little above middle, more toward life than pooper. 🙂 I might be one of the first ones to say goodnight these days.

Birthday party, beach party, cocktail party, dinner party, charity fundraiser, surprise party, costume party, garden party, Christmas party, reunion...what’s your favorite kind of party? 

Dinner party and Christmas Party are my favorites!

2. Cheese, wine, and balsamic vinegar all improve with age. What would you personally add to the list? 

Personally I believe human beings, relationships, marriage, and friendships should all improve with age. Most importantly, my faith and trust in Christ should improve with age and I should be more like Christ each new year. This is challenging and humbling and something I’d never attain to without the Holy Spirit, our Helper.

3. How do you feel about your birthday? How do you want to be celebrated? Or don’t you? 

I enjoy my birthday regardless of fanfare. I do enjoy having special meals with loved ones to celebrate my birthday. I’m past needing or wanting gifts other than good times with family and friends. A card or note or text is gift enough.

4. What remarkable feat, interesting piece of trivia, or historical event occurred on your birth day and month? Not necessarily your same birth year, just the same date/month. 

March 14th: It is Pi (π) day, 3.14.

In 1942 Anne Miller became the first American patient to be treated with Penicillin on this day.

5. Share two good things about your life right now. 

Right now my health is good (I do have some typical old lady aches and pains) and my life in the country is good. I’m where I’m supposed to be. It is so good to be in the same town as our grandchildren.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

On Friday I’ll share more about Addy’s first Irish Feis!

This outfit isn’t representative of an Irish Feis but it played a special role in a creative dance challenge (Water, Under the Sea) at the end of the festival (feis).

Hello May Hodgepodge!

It’s the Merry Month of May and time for our first May Hodgepodge. Thank you to Jo From This Side of the Pond for the timely questions.

I’ll be using photos from my archives for many posts until I can figure out how to be able to add more media to my site. Such a revolting development.

1. Mayday! Mayday!…when was the last time (or a recent time) you literally or figuratively needed to call for help? Elaborate. 

A few months back we had to call our son to help with our water heater that wasn’t putting out any hot water. Brrr. He was a huge help scraping out a bunch of residue and helping Greg with draining the thing and installing some new parts.

2. May Day…when was the last time you danced?

At our brother and sister’s 60th birthday party at a ranch in Texas on July 29th 2023 we enjoyed some line dancing.

Do you have a lot of baskets?

I have a few baskets.

What’s something you keep in a basket?

Napkin rings. I have a lot of napkin rings, y’all. I have sets in ziplock bags. Sets of 4, sets of 6, sets of 8, sets of 10, sets of 12 and some sets over 12. Sets of 6 and under are in a basket. Sets of 8 are in a basket. Sets of 10 and over are in a basket.

What’s your favorite purple flower? 

Oh, this is a hard one. I love purple flowers. I’ll go with lavender even though we won’t see fields like these until July.

This collage is from several years ago at the Annual lavender festival held in Sequim, Washington.

3. What’s something you may do this month? 

We might be putting out our outdoor furniture soon.

4. Do you like eggplant? Quick topic changes lol? If you said yes in answer to the eggplant question how do you like yours prepared? Of the following purple foods, which one is your favorite…plums, purple carrots, purple asparagus, eggplant, acai berries, blackberries, purple cauliflower, elderberries, purple potatoes, or passion fruit? 

Not a huge fan of eggplant and I don’t think I’ve ever cooked eggplant. In my Russian culinary heritage there is a dish called Ikra that is a popular dish to spread on bread or crackers to enjoy, an eggplant caviar. My mother did make it and my sister Vera has made it. The recipe is in our family cookbook that Vera put together.

  • 1 eggplant, peeled and chopped
  • 1-2 carrots, grated
  • 1 onion chopped
  • 1 can tomato sauce
  1. Saute onion in oil until tender.
  2. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer until eggplant is soft, 1-1/2 to 2 hours.
  3. If it gets too dry, add more tomato sauce.
  4. Another method is to bake the eggplant in the oven until it is soft and then peel and chop it. This will reduce the simmering time.

From the list of purple things, Blackberries are my favorite.

5. The calendar turns on Hodgepodge Day…

“Then you have to remember to be thankful; but in May one simply can’t help being thankful that they are alive, if for nothing else.”-L.M. Montgomery

Tell us one thing you’re thankful for today. 

Just one!? I’m thankful for how our Grands are growing and learning about our God who created them and loves them.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Tonight is Awana Awards night. These photos are from the last couple years. JJ graduates from Cubbies tonight and next year he’ll be a Sparky. Addy will get some awards tonight because she finished all her books and all her verses and then did some extra books and verses! She will still be a Sparky next year.

This is Addy two years ago when she was still a Cubby.

Happy May everyone!

Summertime

Summer has been full of sunshine and some usual events and unusual events, too.

Fishing on the shore and throwing rocks is always fun.

Soccer camp is over but soccer teams have now formed and continue through August.

Our son Josh signed up for his first ever triathlon and his goal was to ‘not drown and to finish’. He achieved both and finished well. Laura was there to see it in person and document this epic achievement.

He was being cheered on from near and far!

We were all so impressed and happy that he could accomplish this goal. I was particularly happy he didn’t drown!

After all that excitement we were ready for a week of Vacation Bible School and that will be a separate post.

We are already at the middle of August and so many have started back to school already. It’s always hard for me to get my mind wrapped around that since I’m such a traditional school year kind of gal. Start up after Labor Day and end by or shortly after Father’s day! Happy days of summer to all of you.

 

Awana Awards Night

Our little Cubbie enjoyed her first Awana Awards night on Wednesday. Cubbies are the 3 to 5 year old group.

She really lights up for her friend.

She had lots of fans in the audience to watch her receive her award.

Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed, AWANA. 2 Timothy 2:15 is the theme verse.

There were hotdogs, chips, cookies, lemonade and games for the kids outside after the Awards Ceremony.

JJ enjoyed himself.

On Thursday our temps got up into the 80’s! Our community participated in the National Day of Prayer at the Colville Courthouse lawn. Several pastors including ours prayed for different groups, our government, our schools, law enforcement and military, our familes, our businesses, and our churches. Stevens County Commissioners read a declaration pertaining to the National Day of Prayer.

We have a busy few days ahead of us here at our Country Bungalow. Do you have any plans for Mother’s Day Weekend?

 

You Give Me Happy Feet ~ An Award

How cute is this. Mary at The Work of the Poet gave me this little award and it really makes me happy just to look at it. The following is what she says about this award she created! Thank you Maryt. I appreciate you and your visits to my blog.

Every morning I wake up I notice that I dance into my office and sit down at my computer with the happy expectation that I will touch base with my dear Blogger Friends. It occurred to me to create this award for those friends, and it’s called the

“You Give Me Happy Feet” award 
  

 

 

When I think of you my feet begin to tappin’ and I pirouette across the floor in total delight that I will be talking/commenting to you in a little while. And of course my feet aren’t the on only parts of my body that are happy because of you.

My head is boppin’, my mouth is smilin,’ my hands are clappin’ – all because of you.

Awards and Stuff

Before this week gets away from me I wanted to acknowledge simultaneous awards I received from two Bloggy friends.

Thank you Willow and Thank you Scrabble Queen

Thank you very much for this kind acknowledgement. I appreciate it. I’ve met Willow and we’ve become walking buddies in California. I told Scrabble Queen that it would be so wonderful to have a bloggy tea party so we could meet. Blessings on you both.

I’m going to share my bouquet of flowers that I bought at the Kirkland Farmer’s Market Yesterday for you all to enjoy.

 

 

Before I headed to the Farmer’s Market yesterday I managed to get a lot of steps in walking around Juanita Bay again. It was a cloudy day compared to last time I did the walk. Since I only had 4491 steps at the end of the day on Tuesday I was determined to do better on Wednesday. When I finally layed my head on the pillow I had walked 12,895 steps! Whoohoo! Here are a couple photos from my walk.

 

 

Have a wonderful day. I’m trying to get motivated to get out and walk again…

And the Winner Is ~

 

 So I am happy to announce the winner of my bloggy giveaway! The generator chose #33 from the 797 comments left on my blog for this giveaway. Whew I’m tired just thinking about it. So who is #33 you ask….

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:

33

Timestamp: 2008-02-01 14:01:14 UTC

My number 33 commenter is (drum roll please!) Barbara H. from Stray Thoughts!!!!

Here’s her comment ~

on January 28, 2008 at 6:44 am33 Barbara H.

Ellen, that’s gorgeous! You know I love hearts. -) Count me in!

So Barbara you were counted in and you were the winning number. Congratulations. I’ll be emailing you for your address. Blessings and may love flow from your heart when you wear this necklace or give it away….

Thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway.