In the Midst of Fog…

…there are still favorites. Things to be thankful for that shine through no matter what. I’m joining Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for Friday’s Fave Five.

1. January is a big birthday month at our house. Joshua’s birthday was on Sunday. We celebrated earlier in the month and the photo above was part of our celebration. Our Son Dan’s birthday was on the 16th and his girlfriend’s birthday was on the 15th. This year we celebrated Dan from afar while he celebrated in Eastern Washington. My brother Tim celebrated his birthday and our niece Hope will celebrate her birthday on Saturday. We love to celebrate our loved ones and that’s my first favorite this week.

Our son Dan and his girlfriend Jamie

2. My dear old pop has been having a hard time with a lot of shoulder pain and when he’s in so much pain he misses my mom even more. I was happy to see this photo of him with my niece Melissa enjoying a meal out and looking so alive and pain free. He has been feeling better and the pain with medication has been more manageable. I’m so thankful my father’s pain has been relieved.

3. We’ve been in quite a foggy overcast pattern here in the Puget Sound area. The afternoons where the sun finally broke through were another favorite of mine this week.

4. An early morning walk with Dear on Saturday was a blessing. It’s always good to get out and get some exercise in the Winter when we tend to want to stay inside and be couch potatoes. We were treated to some Eagle sightings.

5. Another favorite is visiting my bloggy friends each week. This week one of my favorite posts was this one from Gumbo Lily. I love seeing how other people live in different environments than my own and thrive “Day by Day”.

What were your favorites this week?

Update: I posted this last night and this morning I woke up to beautiful clear skies and amazing sunshine! Woohoo!

Full of Thoughts…

In my college years which happened to be the late 60’s and early 70’s I bought this album to keep me organized in my thoughtfulness. Appropriately the album is called…

These sweet illustrations called to me back then. Remember Holly Hobbie?

Each month has a page with a pocket and each day of the month is in a list form for you to add birthdays, anniversaries and other events.

I cherish this old album that is worn with age and use.

It’s time for me to go through that drawer in my desk…you know the one, where you throw everything in for future organization. I have wedding invitations and birth announcements and funeral leaflets to put into the appropriate month of the year pocket. These monthly pockets are wonderful now all these years later because so much has happened and I forget more and more about when these events took place. Each month I can flip the page and not only see who’s birthday and anniversary fall in that month but what year the event took place. Everything all in one book.

How do you keep organized when it comes to birthdays and anniversaries?

Across the Miles…

…we want to wish our son Daniel the happiest of birthdays!

Today is Daniel’s birthday. He gets to celebrate twice this week since his girlfriend’s birthday was on the 15th. Happy Birthday dear Dan! Happy belated birthday Jamie!

If you head over to MGCC you’ll see the apple tart I made from the apples off Dan’s property that he prepped so nicely and froze for me. We so enjoy Dan’s kindness and generous heart. He’s not a man of many words but when the time is right he speaks up. His one liners really make us laugh.

This was taken on Dan’s birthday in 1989. He’s the one in the green, yellow and blue t-shirt with the big smile. He loved choo choo train cakes. My photo skills were questionable with good old fashioned film.

This last photo was from our journey moving from California to Washington back in July of 1988. We stopped at Aunt Carol’s house in Yuba City and our kids got to ride one of their horses. I think it’s great that Dan gets to ride horses regularly all these years later in his new environment in Eastern Washington.

Left to right: Aunt Carol, Dan, Josh, and Katie

Gone are the days that being all together on each of our birthdays is a reality or expected. Separated by distance we take full advantage of the times we are all together and try to celebrate to the full.

We’ve been happy to have some dry days here in the Seattle area. The sun has even managed to shine through here and there. How are things in your neck of the woods?

Early Celebrations…

Both of our sons were born in January. We celebrated our oldest son Josh’s birthday early this past Friday. After our trip with Josh and Laura to England in September we’ve been carrying a British theme through our celebrations. We met for dinner at The Three Lions Pub and then came home for cake and presents.

We had a good time celebrating Josh. He has added so much joy to our lives and we thank God for him.

Joshua’s actual birthday is on the 19th. He will be at Lakeside Bible Camp directing Junior High Winter camp.

Today we are sending off packages and cards across the world and country. Our Dan’s birthday is on the 16th and we won’t be able to celebrate face to face this year. We’re sending another care package to Afghanistan. We are so thankful for the U.S.A.’s APO/FPO post office service that allows us to ship packages for such a reasonable rate. We pay a little over $14.00 for a Large Flate Rate Box! Our favorite little almost 6 year old in Texas will be getting a package in the mail soon, too.

We have been promised some dry days…maybe we’ll even have some sun breaks! I’m excited. What are you looking forward to this week?

Birthday Finale…

From the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit we drove to Kirkland, Washington for our massage which was very nice and then we picked up food for our dinner that we brought in to enjoy at home.

I took the time the night before to set the table for nine since we’d be gone all day right up until our dinner company would arrive.

I did not make dinner or the cake. Since we were going to be busy all day on our birthday adventures I knew it would be best to bring everything in.

Our nephew Caleb and his new wife Marie were able to join us since they were visiting with Marie’s family in Washington. Caleb and Marie live in Santa Barbara, California. It’s always a treat to be able to include cousins from California for our celebrations. After dinner there was a rip roaring game of Mexican Train before everyone headed home.

Do you have birthdays in your families close to Christmas? What have you done to make sure your loved ones aren’t overlooked because of the busyness of Christmas and the New Year? Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve? We are going to lay low and enjoy a quiet evening at home.

For those of you who won’t be online on New Year’s Day I wish you a very Happy 2014!

Our Second Adventure…

…on Katie’s birthday was a trip to the Seattle Center where the Space Needle happens to be and other attractions as well.

Our reason for braving the holiday crowds was to see Chihuly Garden and Glass. It was worth weaving about “all the humanity” to enjoy this extraordinary exhibit.

We first saw this wall of blankets that gave Chihuly inspiration for some of his creations.

This amazing piece was in the Sea inspired room.

It was impossible for me to get the full ceiling but I enjoyed capturing some sections of the ceiling.

This was a great room. “Chihuly has said that memories of his mother’s garden serve as inspiration for these “gardens of glass.” Of course I thought of our bloggy friend Pat at Mille Fiori.

I would like to come back on a day when it’s not raining to get some clearer shots of the needle above this beautiful glass flower conservatory.

We decided to go out to the glass outdoor garden in the rain. I was happy to get several shots without getting my lens wet.

We enjoyed our time here and we hurried in the rain to the parking garage to drive to our third adventure which was a stop at Massage Envy to get our hour relaxation massage along with a sugar foot scrub. Bliss!

I’m joining in with Mary for her Mosaic Monday Meme. If you click over you will see some beautiful images in Mosaic form.

Tick, tick, tick …2013 is winding down. What are your New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day plans? I’ll admit we don’t have any. Maybe I’ll come up with some inspiration on Monday…

Queen Mary Tea Room

Our first stop for our Celebrating Katie day was at the Queen Mary Tea Room in Seattle which is located close to the University of Washington.

The waiter popped by our table and asked if we were celebrating anything special and we said, “Why yes, today is Katie’s birthday”. He asked if she’d like to wear a crown…

We said yes!

A long time friend of ours lives in the neighborhood and was able to join us for breakfast.

Queen Katie and Bridget

Bridget’s sister Jamie was Katie’s Maid of Honor. Jamie has been gone for over a year now on a trip around the world. We talked about Jamie and wondered if she’d be back home by next Christmas. Bridget is going to meet Jamie in New Zealand for several days in February before Jamie heads to South America.

Back to the Queen Mary…

The traditional tea sipping shot!

We said farewell to Santa and our breakfast buddy and headed to Destination #2. I’ll share that next week.

Hope everyone’s weekend is going well. So is your tree still up? Are you keeping the decorations up for a few more days or are you putting it all away this weekend?

Celebrating Katie!

Today is Katie’s birthday and we have a full day of festivities planned. Our day is starting with breakfast at the Queen Mary Tea Room in Seattle.

From the the Queen Mary Tea Room we plan on heading to Seattle Center to see the Chihuly Glass and Garden Exhibit. Sounds like we are getting a lot of rain for Katie’s birthday so time will tell if we will walk through the garden. We might just be able to take in the indoor exhibits. I hope to have photos to share next week. After the Chihuly Glass Museum we have a booking for massages and a sugar foot scrub. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Massage Envy happens to be in the same little center that Padria Mediterranean Cafe is in and we’ll pick up take away for dinner. Dear, Katie and I will be joined by Josh, Laura, my sister Lana and her husband Steve, our nephew Caleb with his new bride, Marie. I haven’t thought about a cake…too bad there isn’t a bakery in the same center. Maybe the Queen Mary will have something nice to take away that can stand in as a cake…thank you for listening while I think out loud!

Since we’ll be gone most of the day there really is no time to prepare for company. My house is still kind of messy from the Christmas festivities so it’s nice to be having family in who probably don’t care about the state of things. At least I’ve convinced myself no one will care…

This next photo was from Katie’s birthday just one year ago…

Happy Birthday Dear Katie!

Hope all is well these last few days of 2013 in your world. Hard to believe we’ll have to be training our fingers to grip that pen and write 2014 instead of 2013 so soon!

Birthday Celebrations!

Our DIL’s birthday is today and we got together this past Sunday to celebrate. We thought it would be fun to re-visit our most excellent England experience and headed to a British Restaurant in Redmond Washington for brunch/lunch. Neville’s is located in a trio of store fronts joined together in a strip mall in Redmond, Washington. There’s Nevile’s and then the British Pantry and the 3 Lions Pub. We had fun shopping in the British pantry after we had our meal.

We are so thankful to God for Laura and her all she adds to our family. Happy Birthday dear Laura. May God bless you dearly in your new year!

I’m happy to report on this Tuesday that our Christmas letter is done and copied off. I picked up our photo collage from Costco to pop in our Christmas cards along with the letter. That’s a load off. Now to address all the envelopes and stuff them. Tomorrow Katie and I head to Abbotsford, Canada to attend and participate in the Old Fashioned Cookie demonstration class that the Mennonite Girls are teaching at Lepp Farm Market. Fun times! Hope we don’t encounter snow. On Thursday Dear and I are headed to Semiahmoo Resort to celebrate for 2 nights. I’ll tell you what we are celebrating on Friday!

Celebrating 60!

We had a wonderful time in Downtown Seattle celebrating Dear on his 60th birthday. Josh, Laura and Katie brought the evening together and when we arrived home there was a card in the mail from Dan that topped the evening off with a good chuckle. Love our kids and their sense of humor and love for their dad!