We woke up to lightning flashes and thunder and the sound of rain in the wee hours of the morning.
A very welcomed event with hopes that the lightning doesn’t spark more fires in our area.
Love seeing the raindrops! No manual watering today!
The blue skies showing through the clouds have me smiling. Smoke is so oppressive.
Thank you for all who have visited here and commented. I’m off my game with visits but hope to see what’s going on with you all soon.
Today we had the privilege to gather together as a church family and celebrate the fact that our mortgage is paid in full. We had two large re-modeling projects the last 5 years and the loans are paid in full as of a few weeks ago. At the end of our service our two pastors enjoyed the task of burning the mortgage.
Backyard BBQ from Kettle Falls provided a delicious lunch for our church after the service to continue the celebration. Brisket, beans and rolls…delicious. It was a great day for our church.
1 Chronicles 29: 9 & 10-13:
Then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart they had offered freely to the Lord.
Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.
For a historical picture of what this day was like outside I’ll add this photo of our skies on the way to church. We usually can see mountains, hills and blue skies around here but the smoke has poured in from the south to us from many major fires burning in Washington, Oregon and California.
Praying for rain and fire containment!
Happy to show the progress of the shop with the roof now being half done. Not an easy job.
Here’s the hard worker who is happy with the progress and happy to get help from our son Dan in getting those 50# steel panels positioned on the purlins to fasten. Fifty Six screws per panel and 13 panels on each half (26 total). Thankful for my hard working husband.
I’m so happy to confirm that British Airways has given us a full refund yesterday. When I dialed my call went straight through and I was helped quickly and efficiently. Thank you Lord for answering our prayer.
On the letter O today and I’m using an old saying to show our tree service chopping or felling two trees we were concerned about on our property. Two Douglas Fir trees came down in a jiffy with the right equipment. The grinding of the stumps took a bit longer.
We didn’t like how this tree was leaning towards our bungalow.
Timber!
Our experienced tree service guy said it was a really good choice to take this tree out as the base of the tree was rotting on the side of the trunk towards our house. We were thankful for that decision. We were only going to have the one in the back taken down until the tree people offered to do this one for half the price since they were on our property with all of their equipment already. They got in a full day of work with good pay and we got two down for the price of one and a half! We are counting our blessings!
There are more photos I’d like to share from the grinding and the chipping but my country broadband is acting up again. I’ll have to also show the wide open spaces we now have with these two trees gone. Dear and our son chain sawed the logs into manageable rounds that have been hauled up to our sons place to be stacked to dry. Our son will have enough wood to keep his place warm next winter from these two trees and then some. We haven’t had to burn wood to keep warm at our country bungalow.
Today is Friday y’all. I know some of us need to remind ourselves each day about what day of the week it is!
This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24 (ESV)
Our daughter in law posted this great selfie of her and our little grand. Mommy and daughter, love it.
Our other daughter in law posted this photo to facebook on Mother’s day with a lovely tribute. This was taken before Addy was born. Our girls with me.
These are two of our rhododendrons that are in their glory. I took this photo on Mother’s day. They are generally in their fullness for Mother’s day each year.
Hope you had a good weekend. We enjoyed a meal downtown with our western Washington kids on Saturday evening. On Mother’s day we worked hard with temps reaching 85 in Seattle. Mowed the lawn and finished an addition to our landscape with one more section of privacy fence and a new arborvitae.
Here’s the sad long story of my arborvitae purchase at the Home Depot. While Dear was finishing the staining of our new fence section, I took the truck to the HD to purchase the Arborvitae. It was close to noon and the HD was hopping with people buying plants with or without their mothers in tow. With difficulty I pushed and shoved the heavy potted plant onto one of those rolling carts to take it into the store for purchase. The line to the cash registers was circling around the indoor plant section and it was a nice breather after my muscle man effort getting the plant on the cart. When I reached the register the employee said she’d call for someone to help me load the plant into the bed of the truck. With high expectations of help I walked quickly to the truck which was a fair distance in the parking lot and drove without running over the groups of humanity walking down the center of the parking lot and reached the designated loading area. A young man was waiting by my cart to “help” me. He was 25ish, I’m 67ish. I had to help him get that heavy plant into the truck. Poor young man was weaker than me. I still said thank you but truth be told he should have thanked me.
Katie and Andrew arrived shortly after me getting the plant home to borrow the truck to move some of their stuff to their new apartment which is a lot closer to us. Andrew single handed picked up that Arborvitae and set it on the ground. That was the kind of help I was expecting at the Home Depot. Sigh…
How was your weekend?
These new areas in our stairwell that head up to our Master Suite warm my mom heart and I can focus on them as I walk up or down the stairs.
I’ll be counting my blessings throughout the weekend and into next week.
We are going to be spending lots of time with all our kids and our extended family over the next several days so I’ll be far off my normal grid.
Hope you all have a good Friday and weekend. Here in the U.S.A. we have an extended weekend since Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Our banks, post offices and schools will have Monday off. I hope to catch up with you all next week.
January: Dear started a consulting job from home. We celebrated January birthdays. A business trip to San Francisco with reunions with old friends from my college days.
February: Our Lenten Rose bloomed early. We had a Superbowl party with a Chinese New Year theme with souvenirs I bought at San Francisco’s Chinatown. We also enjoyed a Valentines day lunch with a view in Bellevue.
March: We had a sister’s weekend. We celebrated my Medicare birthday in Bellingham with the Mennonite Girls and our hubbies. Dear and I had an overnight in Vancouver, B.C. to continue celebrating my birthday. Katie and Andrew celebrated their 5th anniversary!
Easter landed at the end of March and deserved it’s own mosaic. Our family was all together. Kulich baking, Seerney Paska, Easter egg hunts and Raclette all happened during Easter weekend.
April: We took a quick trip to Eastern Washington to work on some projects at Dan and Jamie’s. Late in the month I went along with Dear on a business trip to San Antonio, Texas. While there I drove to Austin to meet up with my brother’s family for a few hours.
May: Mother’s day with the kids on this side of the mountains. Dear and I took a road trip to Whatcom Falls and on the way home enjoyed stopping at a restaurant on Chuckanut Drive for lunch.
May: Two trips across the line to Canada to meet our play writer and later to meet a favorite blogger who gives so much encouragement to us Mennonite Girls, Rosella.
June: I flew down to be with family and enjoy my sister’s open house in her new digs.
June: A trip to Leavenworth where our family and our new daughter in law’s family enjoyed a weekend together eating and river rafting.
June: Father’s day brunch downtown Seattle with a photo op on Queen Anne Hill overlooking downtown Seattle.
June: We finished off June with a road trip to Yellowstone National Park and Cody Wyoming with stays in Montana coming and going. June really was packed full!
Six full months of blessings with people we love and trips to places we had never seen before. I’ll share July to December later. Dear’s consulting job ended in June and we began our time of wondering if we were unemployed or if we were retired.
How are you spending the last days of 2016? We are planning a little get together on New Year’s Eve after the Peach Bowl between our Washington Huskies and Alabama. We are the underdogs and will be cheering our Dawgs on to victory. Time will tell. Win or lose we will ring in the New Year with gratefulness to God for all He has done this year in our lives and the lives of our friends and family.
…before Fall is fully upon us and counting my blessings.
We’ve had some lovely weather lately and when we travel to see our son and daughter in law in Eastern Washington we get some beautiful views of the Columbia River Gorge.
We will travel east again sometime in mid October to help with some projects. We are thankful we can travel and help where needed.
When all the kids are going to be together I make this treat that is enjoyed by all. If you haven’t made this simple Rice Krispie treat you should try it. I posted it again on MGCC this month and you can find the recipe by clicking here.
Anytime of year it’s fun to have an indoor picnic like the one above. Besides the pita crackers we always slice a nice baguette in thin rounds to enjoy the charcuterie and added cheeses, fruits and pickled vegetables. This is an enjoyable meal to have in a hotel room when you are traveling and tired of eating out, too.
We were at our state fair last week and we enjoyed this barbecued pulled pork sandwich. I posted about the fair yesterday. This weekend Dear will be smoking a pork shoulder roast to make our own sandwiches at home. My cousin and my college friend who married my cousin will be with us this weekend before they venture north and across the water to Vancouver Island. We will enjoy catching up and eating together, too.
Last week I also went on a shopping trip with our daughter Katie. After shopping at Nordstrom in Bellsquare we ended up at Crossroads in Bellevue where there is a food court that has a Russian stall. We shared some beet borscht (not the kind that we grew up with) and bought a variety of piroshky. Yum. We shopped some more after eating and it was a successful shopping day.
Counting my blessings:
I’m linking up to three Friday memes that I can relate to.
Foodie Friday and Everything Else at Rattlebridge Farm
Friday’s Fave Five with Susanne at Living to tell the Story
Five on Friday with Amy at Love Made My Home
Reflecting on my many blessings this past week and thanking God.
This was taken out one of the windows at the Bellevue Art Museum in Bellevue, Washington.
1. A super filled Saturday where I re-connected with dear friends from my church growing up, my high school, and with my family and dear old Pop. It was good to see so many people I love in only 12 hours!
2. Beautiful Spring blooms are everywhere here in the Pacific Northwest and it makes me smile to look out my own kitchen window and see these Dogwood blooms.
3. A successful shopping trip where our daughter found her dress for a wedding she is in and I found a comfortable pair of shoes for our son’s wedding. Little blessings that will make for a more comfortable day of celebrating!
4. A Low Key weekend ahead. The last three weekends have been filled to the brim and it’s nice to know this weekend we’ll be able to catch our breath.
At the Art Museum…
5. Besides shopping on Tuesday Katie and I hopped across the street from the mall to the Bellevue Art Museum and enjoyed Madeleine Albright’s collection of pins together. No photos allowed of the pins but we found some other things to photograph!
Katie took this one looking up. Always remember to look up!
Do you have some blessings to reflect on this week? Here’s something more to consider…
I’m linking up with the lovely Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for Friday’s Fave Five and with Weekend Reflections.
Have a wonderful last weekend of April everyone!
