Category Archives: Birthday

This and That

It was a beautiful day on Friday and we did some mowing since the ground was still somewhat wet from rain we had into Thursday that means not as much dust kicked up. After mowing the front we worked on the back and we moved on to weeding and clearing some areas of rock. We didn’t hear the commotion on the road.

We had several law enforcement agencies show up after a car ended up in a ditch on our road.

I brought in the first of the peonies that are blooming. We have a total of 5 bushes of this deep blush variety.

The Columbines are opening up. We have at least three different color varieties.

The Hostas are filling out nicely.

Thankfully these visitors don’t like to eat Columbine.

We enjoyed leftovers for our main meals on Friday and Saturday and then cooked up these shrimp for something different. Delicious with sweet chili sauce.

Sunday was our oldest sister’s 75th birthday so us sisters sent her a bouquet of flowers delivered on Saturday.

We were so pleased that the bouquet was as advertised and shown on the website. Our sister was celebrated well and it was fun to see all the special things she was treated with.

This is a busy week coming up for us here in Colville. Hope you all had a good weekend and your new week goes well.

The Presents and Cake

This is a long post as I included all the rest of the fun we had at JJ’s fishing birthday party and the 2nd party on that day for his Uncle Andrew. The venues changed but the fun continued.

When it was time for present opening our little fisherman was getting very tired from all the excitement and he quickly had a melt down but then daddy stepped in and held him and helped him through.

He was pretty disappointed with that underwear but don’t worry Baba and Gramps bought you a bicycle, too.

The fish cake that JJ’s mommy made for him was really cool. The sand is graham cracker crumbs.

Happy 2nd birthday to our precious grandson. He is full of life. He has a few clear words but regardless has many a tale to tell and we are excited for the day the words become clear and we understand the whole story. He loves to do whatever big sister is doing. He enjoys food and is verbal while eating letting everyone know his enjoyment. He loves sticks and rocks and yard equipment.

After cake and before his nap there was time to play with some of the new toys he got for his birthday.

After naps the party venue moved to our country bungalow for a belated Steak birthday dinner for Uncle Andrew who was another year older the week before.

We had birthday pie!

The other birthday boy got to try some Root Beer!

What a fun full day we all had.

The Fishing Crew

These are the people who made up the fishing crew for JJ’s birthday party back on April 17th.

I’ve got a couple more posts to complete our Jaymison’s birthday party fun for the history books.

This week we mowed the lawn for the first time since the beginning of Fall and we have been clearing out some stuff out of the garage and visiting Habitat for Humanity with donations. Hard to believe today is the last day of April. What will May bring? Time will tell.

Casting Techniques

Continuing with JJ’s Fishing party and the fun we had watching JJ and Addy casting their fishing line to catch some treats.

Enjoying his ‘catch’.

This girl has form!

There was some fishing out of doors, too.

Fishing was fun and we still have more to share from this special day.

This week we have a forecast of temps that rise each day reaching a forecast of 77 degrees this Thursday! What’s happening in your corner of the world?

JJ’s Fishing Birthday Party!

We were greeted in fishing style for JJ’s 2nd birthday celebration.

O-fish-ally Two!

This would be where the littles could cast and fish for treats.

Fun fish party themed events and food for the day.

Puffer Fish fruit kebobs.

Fish Veggie tray.

Cattails.

The tackle box with worms and bait.

Fishing floats.

Lunch was fish themed, too, with tuna sandwiches, fish sticks, shrimp, etc.

Our daughter in law always finds the best ideas for themed parties.

Too much fun to make it into one post. More to come.

Happy new week everyone. We are looking forward to a low key week that will end in May!

The Birds

I was driving with our daughter-in-law and noticed all these Canadian Geese on this grassy field. I grabbed my phone and tried to get the photos before they all took off.

We had a nice little road trip and are home again. Time with loved ones and lots of good food and shopping was on the agenda. We tracked down our favorite waitress at a different Mexican restaurant from where she formerly worked and enjoyed a couple meals at her new location. She wasn’t able to work during most of the restaurant restrictions but has found a place that has given her some hours. It’s a nice Mexican restaurant with good salsa. That’s a plus for us.

Today is our son-in-law’s birthday. Happy Birthday Andrew. We will celebrate Andrew and JJ this coming weekend.

We are in for a very nice week weather wise here in our corner of Washington state. Weather in the 60’s to begin the week and then climbing up to the 70’s by the end of the week. We are looking forward to JJ’s 2nd birthday and party this coming weekend so those temps will be nice for any outdoor activities. His party theme is Fishing.

Easter Monday

I’m working on getting my photos from Easter day uploaded and will share them tomorrow. Last week our niece and her husband flew up from California and spent a couple days with our ‘Coast Kids’. Laura shared these wonderful photos from Tulip Town in Mount Vernon.

Our niece Debbee with her hubby Lenny.

Cousins…Laura, Debbee, Katie

Laura and Josh

Katie (Andrew is traveling for work)

Laura does a remarkable job taking photos with her phone.

Our son Dan flew to the ‘coast’ for a quick overnight trip to surprise his best friend for his 40trh birthday and arrived just in time to see his cousin Debbee and Lenny before they left to the airport on Friday afternoon. Now it was time to surprise Jamie D., Dan’s best friend since 2nd grade.

Surprise was a success and the celebrations were the best! Both our sons and Jamie have been the best of friends through the years and Jamie’s family is considered our family. Happy 40th birthday Jamie. Hi Beth :).

It’s a fun thing that Dan found his beautiful bride in Colville many years since meeting his best friend in 2nd grade and her name is Jamie, too. Jamie stayed home with Addy and Jaymison while Dan had his quick overnight trip.

Happy Easter Monday everyone. We’re recuperating from a wonderful day of celebrating our Risen Savior!

A Few More…

March is almost over and it’s going out like a Lion!

Auntie LoLo takes the best photos and then she is kind enough to share them.

Let’s dance Baba!

The photos were from Addy’s 4th Birthday party on March 20th.

On Sunday the 28th of March we enjoyed a Raclette meal with a family from church. After our meal their 3 elementary aged children enjoyed our Ninja Warrior Obstacle Course. Our grands will enjoy that for some years to come. Sunday night we had a wind event that lasted into Monday and most of our area lost power off and on through Monday. When we lose power here at our country bungalow we lose everything including the flow of water because we are on a well and the pump requires electricity. Thankfully we only lost power for a couple hours. During the outage I made some good progress on the Owl Puzzle. There is light at the end of that tunnel!

Happy Easter Week everyone. We are fortunate here in our neck of the woods to be able to have a Good Friday Service and a service on Easter Sunday. I’m so thankful that we can gather this Easter unlike last Easter.

Family Celebration for my 70th

A week ago nine of us met up in Spokane for my birthday dinner.

Three vehicles made their way to Spokane for our dinner reservation. Two from Colville and one rental car from the Spokane airport. My dear friend Jeanie sent me the 70 and Fabulous tiara and sash and I wore it happily. When we were directed to our table for 9 this beautiful bouquet of flowers was on the table.

Reading the card I was so surprised to see that they were from Lovella all the way in Canada. She arranged with our daughter in law to have them delivered to the restaurant by a local florist. A very sweet and thoughtful surprise. Thank you, Lovella.

Addy looked carefully at my tiara and then proceeded to draw a likeness of me with the tiara while we were finishing up our dinner at Churchill’s. I love it!

Laura’s mother sent me this apron for my birthday. How very thoughtful was that!? Thank you, Pat!

From the restaurant we all traveled north 70 miles back to Colville. We met up at Dan and Jamie’s and they had me sit down and get comfortable on the couch to watch a video of greetings from the 9 Mennonite Girls Can Cook in Canada, my siblings, Dear’s brother’s family, my nieces and nephews and some life long friends. I was overwhelmed and grateful. Jamie had the idea and Laura was able to contact everyone and put it all together. Laura added songs that my family have sung and she had recorded them a few years ago. I told my kids afterward that it was a lot nicer to view a tribute like this now instead of having that kind of video at my funeral. So remember no video at my funeral instead Sing together in worship, share the Gospel and then go eat!

When you are 70 you need posts like these to help you remember all the good times!

Full of Hope Hodgepodge

2016-04-13 pablano soup

Thank you to Jo From This Side of the Pond for the Wednesday Hodgepodge Questions!

1. “Hope springs eternal”…discuss.

I’m taking the quote out of the realm it came from and putting God’s eternal twist on it.

From a mother’s perspective I always hope for our children to progress in their walk with the Lord, to be content, to stay faithful in their marriages and to look forward to their eternity with God.

From a grandmother’s perspective I ask the Lord continually to have mercy on and save our grandchildren and my hope is for their salvation.

This is my same prayer for any friends or family who are not born again.

For me personally, my hope is in eternity with my Lord and Savior.

2. Last time you needed to ‘spring into action’ or ‘spring to someone’s defense’…explain.

These days my springing into action generally happens around our grandchildren quickly diverting them from danger.

3. Tulips or daffodils? baby birds or baby bunnies? The cherry tree or the dogwood tree? Jelly beans or peeps? March madness or spring training? Peas or carrots?

Tulips, Baby birds, Dogwood Tree (see photo at the top of this post), Jelly Beans, Spring Cleaning no madness or training, Carrots.

4. I read an article here on the South’s best cities on the rise. They are-Baton Rouge Louisiana, Fayetteville Arkansas, Greenville South Carolina, Huntsville Alabama, Lexington Kentucky, Norfolk Virginia, Tulsa Oklahoma, Waco Texas, Wilmington North Carolina, and Winston-Salem North Carolina. Of the cities listed how many have you seen in person?

Katie and I drove to Airlie Gardens in Wilmington North Carolina when our Son-in-law was stationed at Camp LeJeune.

Which one on the list would you most like to see?

Waco Texas because of the Fixer Upper phenomena. Would be fun to visit Magnolia.

Have you spent much time in the southern states (USA)?

We’ve spent more time in the Southwest vs. Southeast being born and raised in Southern California. We’ve spent time in Arizona and New Mexico. We’ve visited family in Dallas, Texas. We’ve been to San Antonio (for a conference).We’ve spent time in North Carolina when our Andrew and Katie lived there during his Marine days. Katie and I traveled to Beaufort, S.C. for Andrew’s Marine Corps graduation. Dear and I spent a few days in Florida for a medical conference he attended. We’ve been to Atlanta, Georgia for another conference. On a road trip from Seattle to Jacksonville, North Carolina, Katie and I spent nights in Tennessee, Asheville N.C., Raleigh Durham.

Any spring road trips on your calendar?

Only a short one across the mountains to our kids home after Easter.

We are making plans for a longer road trip to North Carolina for a wedding in October. On the way we do plan a stop in Lexington, Kentucky after we visit The Ark. Our route home from North Carolina will take us through Dallas to visit my brother’s family. Looks like we could hit a few of those cities on the way to Dallas from North Carolina if we wanted to.

5. Tell us how your outdoor space needs sprucing up this spring?

We still have a lot of grassy bushes that need some work, pulling out the old to get ready for the new growth. Now our front acreage has a million small pine cones that the trees have shed. Those are a bear to clear.

Which do you enjoy more (or hate the least-ha!) yard work or house work?

I enjoy riding my lawn mower to cut the grass. Not a big fan of pulling weeds and less of a fan these days since it makes my back sore. The housework that I’m the least happy to do these days is to clean our shower. I’d love to have the unit replaced. There is calcium deposits that are impossible to remove that look like dirt. We are on well water here. So all that to say there are parts of outdoor work that I like and parts of indoor work that I like. Other parts are not pleasant both indoors and outdoors.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

We are catching our breath after a celebration filled weekend with our kids from the ‘Coast’ here. A belated birthday dinner for me on Friday and then our granddaughter’s 4th birthday on Saturday. We were all in church together on Sunday morning. We had all our meals together from Friday dinner to Monday lunch except for Sunday morning. The ‘coast’ kids flew home on Monday evening.