60 in 2011!

 

This won’t be the last time you hear about this but I’m turning 60 this year. 60! I saw this great idea when I was visiting Pink Purl, Tracy’s Blog in Norway. She had a list of 40 things she was going to do before her 40th birthday in 2 years. I really liked the idea but I don’t have 2 years until I’m 60 so I’m trying to come up with 60 things to do this year. If you have any suggestions leave me a comment. Some good ideas I’ve gotten so far are:

~ Take $60 in dollar bills and hand them out randomly.

~ Send your parents 60 cards thanking them for having you and the way they raised you.

~Take a cross country road trip with your daughter.

~Do a book signing in a local book store and invite some friends to join you!

~Each month drive 60 miles on a different route……

~ Do 60 posts about one memory for each of your years – granted you may need some help for the earlier years!!

I’ll be coming up with some of my own and then honing the list down to 60 things soon. Or maybe I should start on some and keep adding others till I get to 60. Time will tell.

This weather we’ve been having has given us some real nice sunrises. I took this one at the top of the post on New Year’s Eve morning.

Hope your week is going well. I’m getting back in the regular groove around here.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

A Quarter of a Century Celebrated…

Poof went the Powdered Sugar when the 25 candles were blown…

 

We’re moving backwards here today…

 

We started with tacos…

 

 

Katy K. brought Katie some roses and she brought me these tulips. It was a nice reminder that Spring is around the corner. Thank you Katy K.!

 

The morning of this party we had snow so I decided the theme for the table would be snowflakes. Here’s the snow covered spice cake I made with a new wonderful ingredient that I’ll tell you all about later along with the recipe. I’ll also show the snowscape later.

 

Earlier in the day I was at the grocery store picking up ingredients for the party. I rounded a corner and stopped in my tracks when there it was… a full display of Valentine Day goodies. Yikes!

 

After the food was eaten, the birthday song sung, and the cake eaten my sister and her husband arrived from the airport with goodies from my mom and dad in California. This next treat is one of my very favorite that my mom makes and I’m hoping to get the recipe soon. Rulyet is what it is called in Russian.

 

We are all done with our Birthday Celebrations of 2010. We won’t be getting a big break though because both of our sons have birthdays in January. I guess we just were bent on having winter babies.

Hope your last days of 2010 are going well. I’m hoping to have some time to reflect on the coming year and contemplate things I won’t want to accomplish in 2011!

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Katie Strikes Again!

 

The Birthday Girl is a good bowler. She even has her own ball and shoes. The Fiance beat her in one game by 3 points.

 

 

It was a fun birthday celebration and everyone improved on their scores here and there and everyone managed a strike or two. Katie had several strikes. Andrew had several, too.

 

The bowling alley was really hopping with almost every lane filled.

 

Two hours of bowling fun at Tech City Bowl.

Today I’m enjoying an off day with nothing planned. You need those every once in a while. The tree is headed outside today!

Tomorrow Katie is having her bridesmaids over to celebrate her birthday with dinner and a movie.

Thursday is another off day! Whoohoo!

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Happy Birthday to My Mom!

We’re both a lot older now! My mom turns 86 today and my dad will be 87 in May. My mother is truly the Proverbs 31 woman. She has always put her children and husband as a top priority in her life. Her first child died at 2 years old and she has raised 8 others sewing clothes for the girls and making 3 meals a day most of our lives except for Sunday mornings. On Sunday mornings because we’d all be in a hurry to get ready for church she’d get a break and we’d have store bought coffee cake for breakfast. Usually it was a frozen Sara Lee variety. Of course there would be preparations under way already for Sunday lunch. Usually we’d bring someone extra home for that lunch, too. Once in the while in the middle of the week my father would pick up a pizza from Johnny’s and we’d even get soda to have with it. (Did I get that right siblings? Was it Johnny’s pizza?)

So today I am thanking our God Almighty for giving us a mother who loves us, sacrifices for us, and loves her husband. It’s a wonderful heritage and we have benefited in many ways from it.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

A St. Patrick’s Day Birthday!

Happy Birthday Willow!

Hope you have time for some tea and

knitting!

Willow is the only person I know who has a birthday on St. Patrick’s Day (I think). May God bless you richly my friend.

Willow’s Cottage

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

How Can I Share…

what an incredible experience this was with only photographs…

 

Bear with me because this post is going to have lots of photos! We found out that Snow Geese like to congregate at Snowgoose Produce in Conway, Washington. We were in La Conner and Conway was on our way back home. We decided to try to find this spot. As we drove on Fir Island Road I spotted a sea of white to our right. Dear turned down the country lane and stopped in front of these Snow Geese grazing in this field.

 

I watched them hoping maybe some would get tired of sitting and would fly. I had been told it’s amazing to see large groups of them in flight.

 

A few of them got excited and started to fly…

 

Then I heard a loud indistinct noise coming from the distance. I looked to my right and exclaimed “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, Dear here they come, they’re coming” He jumped out of the car to stand with me as we observed this amazing sight!

 

Geese that at first appeared like locusts were swarming to this little spot where we were standing.

 

We started to hear the distinct honking fill the air. Very loud coming from the thousands of birds approaching.

 

Our excitement mounted as they got closer and closer.

 

 

 

 

They were flying over our heads and I was praising the Lord for this special birthday gift to me! Thank you Lord!

 

I wish I could share the audio of what this sounded like. It was so much more amazing in person.

 

This truly was one of the coolest outdoor experiences I’ve had!

 

Snow geese are harbingers of the changing seasons. They fly south for the winter in huge, honking flocks that may appear as a “U” formation or simply as a large “snowstorm” of white birds. They spend the colder seasons in southern coastal marshes, bays, wet grasslands, and fields. Their diet is entirely vegetarian, consisting of grasses and grains, grazed from damp soils or even shallow water

You can hear what we heard here http://vimeo.com/3856735

I’ll be linking up with Outdoor Wednesday. So visit Susan at A Southern Daydreamer on Wednesday to join in…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Celebrating the Beginning…

of my last year being 50 something. Next year on March 14th, Lord willing, I’ll be alive and in my sixties!

 

Dear has an overnight planned, out of town, with a 90 minute massage included and lots of good food! No computer is being packed. Boy am I looking forward to that massage. Today I organized our hall closet. I sorted all my tablecloths into lengths and rolled them together and safety pinned their size on the roll. I hope this makes getting to the right tablecloth for the right table size more efficient for me. Have I mentioned I have a lot of tablecloths?

Have a nice weekend everyone. I’m looking forward to my last year being in my fifties.

January is Very Significant…

…in our family! Both of our sons were born in January. Katie’s due date was in January, too, but she decided to come at the end of December. All three of our kids were born on a Friday.

 

Josh was born on January 19, 1979 at 7:34 a.m. weighing in at a solid 10 pounds!

 

Daniel was born on January 16, 1981 at 12:30 P.M. weighing in at 8 pounds 1-1/2 ounces.

 

Daniel loved to have a Choo Choo Train cake. I even made him one for an adult birthday of his. :0)

 

Our boys have always been good friends to each other and I thank God for that. Happy Birthday Josh and Dan. We’ll celebrate when we can all be together!

Other family birthdays in January include my brother Tim on the 22nd and our sweet niece Hope on the 25th!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

24 Years Ago Today…

Katie surprised us with an early entry into this world…

 

Dear and I were so surprised to get our little girl after our two boys. Katie has added a wonderful dimension to our family and we thank God for her.

 

For her birthday bash this year some long time friends and family went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie and then came back to our house for a meal and evening of fun.

 

I do believe the festivities have come to an end around our house for a few days. Today I put away most of the Christmas decorations and got rid of our very dry tree. It feels good. Enjoy the last week of 2009 everyone!!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

09-09-09!

A once in a lifetime day for Dear’s birthday. It’s also the 252nd day of the year 2 + 5 +2 = 9

And it’s the day that the Beatles Rock Band goes on sale!

Happy Birthday Dear!

So glad God brought us together and has kept us together all these years. It’s been good to be married to you!