Category Archives: Count Your Blessings

Gathering the Long Weekend

The Long Memorial Day weekend gathered many of our family together in different environments in person and with the help of media. We enjoyed seeing loved ones near and far enjoying each other and growing together. Relationships grow intentionally with the help of God. We love each other, correct each other, sharpen each other, forgive each other and encourage each other. God builds these relationships on the foundation of His saving grace and His forgiveness. Because He has forgiven us much we can forgive and love others.

Some snapshots from Arizona where cousins got together for their annual Memorial Day Weekend in Surprise.

Our son Dan gifted Jamie with the weekend away while he stayed home and was Mister Mom. Our DIL’s enjoyed lots of ‘girl’ time with our nieces from California and Arizona.

Our oldest son and some of our nephews from California and Arizona had their annual golf tournament and for the first time it ended in a tie!

The cousins, original and by marriage! These are our kids, my sister Vera’s and my sister Kathy’s.

On Saturday our son Dan came over with Addy and JJ for fun and dinner with Baba and Gramps.

There was an inspection of the hole dug for the new hydrant.

A vehicle got washed and a couple kids got soaked.

Big Wheels were brought out of storage.

This year all the effort to get those wheels moving were up to Addy and JJ. We did not have to give them a push or carry the Big Wheels up to the top of the walkway.

There was a lot of exploring on our acreage.

Some searching of unsuspecting bugs commenced.

They know to not disturb the Bumble Bees.

After all this outside fun we all came in and enjoyed a crock pot roast beef dinner with mashed potatoes, carrots and broccoli, more conversation, reading a story book and time to head home for bed. We are proud of our son for giving his dear wife the gift of a much deserved break from her constant excellent mothering.  He is a great hands on dad to Addy and JJ.

Our daughter and her hubby enjoyed some outside time on the weekend, too. We love seeing their smiling faces and that beautiful rhododendron in their front yard.

We were blessed with amazing weather over the Memorial Day Weekend. That is something we do not take for granted here in the Pacific Northwest!

On Sunday after church we took an hour long drive to Curlew Lake State Park to enjoy some time with several families from our church who were camping together. We had some long conversations, enjoyed dinner together and then headed back home. We crossed the beautiful Columbia River at Lake Roosevelt going and coming back home.

On Monday, Memorial Day we had some rain and thunder in the morning and I thought I’d have to move my mowing to Tuesday but the sun broke through and dried things up enough for my weekly mow. I’m happy for God to water my Spring planters! Our deep red peonies are the first to pop here so I’ll show them sometime soon.

Six!

For JJ’s sixth birthday party the theme of Batman was chosen.

Today is his actual birthday but the family celebration was on this past Saturday, the 12th of April.

Thank you, Lord, for our grandson, JJ. He is such a delight. We love how you created him and how his mind works. He has a kind heart towards his sister. He is observant and curious. We pray that you will save him and lead and direct his life to always follow You. Thank you for all the loving and caring people he is surrounded by! 

The pizza party lunch was at noon and all the festivities began with a prayer.

Besides pizza, we had veggies and Super Batman Fruit!

We had some indoor games and outdoor games along with some Batman rescues!

Batman to the rescue! He rescued Aunt Katie and had to turn around and rescue Addy, too!

After all the rescuing it was time for presents and cake!

The Six and Thirty-Six year old birthday boys!

The Batman party came to a happy conclusion.

We changed venues and enjoyed a steak dinner and birthday pie in honor of Andrew!

Our long weekend family time was bookended with playing SkyJoe at both homes!

On Sunday we met at church for our Palm Sunday service before our ‘Westside’ crew drove home.

Thank you, Lord, for all your goodness to our family, for safe travels, joy in being together, loving support of one another and continued growth in You. We love you, Lord.

A Grand Birthday

Both Addy and JJ created happy birthday greetings for me with a candy cane treat attached. JJ also included a finger knitting bracelet and necklace. Addy got creative with a musical greeting, ‘It is well with my soul’.

A very lovely birthday celebration with our Colville Kids and Grands. Addy nailed it, It is well with my soul. Thank you, LORD!

On Friday, my actual birthday, I received these greetings from near and far.

Thank you to all my friends and family for your sweet birthday greetings, yesterday.

A Love-ly Recap

On Valentine’s day we had a surprise delivery of flowers from Josh and Laura. It was unexpected. We were thankful for the thoughtful gift. Addy and JJ came over in the afternoon for a movie and dinner while their folks enjoyed some time on their own. We watched Milo and Otis and then enjoyed tacos for dinner. JJ made guacamole out of the one avocado we had on hand. Ice Cream Cones for dessert and then we had some story time and just got started watching Davy Crockett and their folks came to pick them up.

Earlier in the day these photos were texted to the family.

Sending love across the miles!

Before Valentine’s day Katie and Laura met up for nail day getting ready with just the right color for Valentine’s day.

We are grateful for technology that allows us to see and enjoy what our loved ones are doing miles away and closer to home!

We had a nice dump of snow on Sunday. We couldn’t see our mountains and hills on the way to church.

After church the Grands had fun in the snow.

Don’t shake those limbs!

A targeted snow shower.

My Monday and Tuesday will be full of activity from morning to night as our church is having a Going Away plus 10 Year celebration for our Youth Pastor’s Family. I’m overseeing the food preparations for that event. My computer/blog time will be scarce over the next couple of days.

Happy President’s Day if you live in the states and if you live in Canada, Happy Family Day.

Black Friday

JJ took our group selfie with a little help from his mom.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal together with most of our family and Jamie’s family.

Andrew and Katie drove over the mountains and through the woods on Thanksgiving day and Josh and Laura are doing the same today.

I’m adding some great Thanksgiving quotes from Spurgeon’s Thanksgiving Gems.

“Our thanksgiving is measured by the depth of our awareness of what we’ve been delivered from, and of the glorious blessings which we shall soon partake of.”

“We are debtors to God’s saving grace, and the very least we can do is to give Him endless thanks.”

“He who has been forgiven much–loves much and thanks much. True gratitude springs from a deep sense of what God has done for us in Christ.”

So grateful for God’s love, mercy and saving grace.  Thankful for all of our loved ones!

Are any of you shopping today? I’m waiting till tomorrow to shop small local businesses. Have a great weekend!

On the Water

On Saturday the 17th of August an afternoon boat adventure became reality. The younger set filled up all the seats on the boat for a cruise and landing on a beach. Gramps and Baba relaxed and recuperated at home.

Enjoying the best that summer offers in our own backyard! The weekend and Uncle Joshie and Auntie Lolo’s visit was coming to an end.

We all gathered at church on Sunday morning and Josh and Laura hit the road for home right after the service ended. Till next time, adieu!

April Birthday Weekend

We all gathered on Friday afternoon and evening when all our family arrived from Colville and across the mountains for the beginning of a big weekend to celebrate JJ’s 5th birthday and Addy’s first Irish dance recital. We were able to celebrate Andrew’s birthday, too!

I will post the photos from JJ”s Bowling party tomorrow. Addy’s recital photos will come later in the week. A full happy weekend.

On Friday evening we enjoyed Thai food and desserts which included Andrew’s favorite Pecan birthday pie!

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

The rest of these photos are from Saturday and Sunday between the other major happenings. Thank you so much to Laura for all these wonderful captures!

Addy was very excited to show Auntie Lolo the frog or whatever they are called when they are this small. They may be small but they fill the night air with their songs in Spring. It can be deafening.

Addy and JJ are also excited to show us all their small chicks that they hatched from an incubator.

The weather was amazing with sunshine and temps up into the 70’s.

What is that and where are you going with it?

All too soon the weekend was over and our ‘coast’ kids headed home.

We again have happy thoughts and full hearts as we recuperate from all the fun!

Happy U.S. tax day to all of my friends in the USA. Happy Monday to my friends from other parts of the world!

Early Spring at Our Country Bungalow

We are seeing more green around our country bungalow and the first pop of color are the Daffodils and the sweet Johnny Jump Ups.

I brought a bouquet in for the table and will be bringing in a second bouquet today for our weekend festivities.

On this past Tuesday we had our 2024 inaugural walk on the Rotary Trail. Speaking of inaugural, I mowed our acreage on Tuesday, also. This was an early start to mowing.

From a distance we thought this was a real heron but when I zoomed in it looks more like a statue.

There were lots of real birds chirping and singing as we walked.

This eagle was soaring.

This trail loop walk takes us just under an hour to complete.

Our glass fishing float was reflecting the clouds this past week and I zoomed in for a photo.

“This glass fishing float is one of the historical, handblown floats used for nautical buoyancy and fishing gear.”

We also have a basket full of smaller floats. This next photo of the floats was taken in the summer with our pest ‘Alvin’.

We have two car loads arriving at our Country Bungalow for the weekend and another Colville carload here for the late afternoon and evening. Today is Andrew’s birthday and we will celebrate him. Tomorrow we will celebrate JJ’s 5th birthday with a bowling party. His actual birthday is in the middle of this coming week. Tomorrow evening and Sunday afternoon Addy has a dance recital with her Irish dancing group. Fun times are afoot! I will be scarce here but busy in the kitchen and elsewhere.

Here’s todays birthday boy!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Full to the Brim

Our kids from the ‘Coast’ arrived this past Thursday and Friday for a weekend of celebrations. The title of this post is accurate and be forewarned that this is a loaded post, full of photos. These days I don’t put together photo albums anymore. I use my blog as my photo album. This is a special birthday album.

On Friday we worked on potato and beef filled piroshky using Jamie’s sour dough, delicious! Our Grands have a presentation coming up at their Homeschool Co-op on Russia and these goodies will be part of the International pot-luck. A labor of love.

We gathered on the mountain on Saturday morning to create a heart filled atmosphere for Addy’s 7th birthday celebration. She chose the theme of hearts.

Addy’s mommy baked and decorated the three tiered heart cake which was so good!

Addy’s daddy made these heart shaped macarons, delicious!

Chillin with uncle until the festivities begin.

Addy loves her Aunties!

 

Auntie Lolo and Uncle Joshie

Auntie Katie and Uncle Andrew

Granny

Granny Great

Four generations!

Great Uncle Scott and Aunt Rhonda

Lifetime friends

Baba and Gramps

Mommy, Daddy, Addy and JJ.

Gramps prayed over our meal and said a special prayer for the birthday girl.

Hooray for presents!

 

She received wonderful presents and was so excited when her special wish for a pair of roller skates came true!

Auntie Katie and Uncle Andrew were in on the surprise present from Addy’s mommy and daddy and bought her all the safety pads for her wrists elbows and knees!

Time for Cake!

 

Let the games begin. We had a quiz on Addy’s 10 favorites. Afterwards we had to create some critters with our eyes closed.

Addy got to choose the winners.

I’m sure by now I’ve lost several of you dear readers out there, but there is more! When all the guests departed we drove back to our country bungalow to chill a bit before all the family arrived at our place to make dinner and dessert to celebrate me. We had to take advantage of all of us being together.

The kids prepared a wonderful stir fry with chicken and veggies with a sauce from scratch. I sat in my recliner and listened and enjoyed the aromas coming from the kitchen. Strawberries were prepped for Strawberry Shortcake dessert. Happy Birthday to me! I received lovely gifts, too. My favorite gift is being together.

Our weekend was not over yet. We had one more surprise in store for us at our church service on Sunday.

Addy had been practicing a piece on the piano to play at church on this Sunday. Our church has a place for special numbers from the congregation from time to time.

Addy was announced and went up to the Baby Grand and played the piece she had prepared, O How I Love Jesus. She is so brave and confident and played sweetly in front of 300+. It brought tears to my eyes.

A perfect song to play on Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. It is all about Jesus and His love and sacrifice for us!

The sermon on this Sunday was a continuation of our series in Colossians. From Colossians 3:18-21 we heard about Home~Where we live like Jesus. Christ changes the home and how we live in it.

Katie and Andrew had to hit the road for home right from church. The rest of us enjoyed another meal on the mountain before Josh and Laura headed back home. Greg and I headed home to put our feet up. Our local kids had one more party to go to for Great Uncle Scott. Full to the brim is what this weekend was. I’ll save the Elk herd we saw on the way home for another day and post. I will post the words from the hymn Addy played a stanza from here for the sake of context.

O How I Love Jesus

There is a name I love to hear,
I love to speak its worth;
It sounds like mu­sic in mine ear,
The sweet­est name on earth.

Refrain

O how I love Je­sus,
O how I love Je­sus,
O how I love Je­sus,
Because He first loved me!

It tells me of a Sav­ior’s love,
Who died to set me free;
It tells me of His pre­cious blood,
The sin­ner’s per­fect plea.

Refrain

It tells me of a Fa­ther’s smile
Beaming up­on His child;
It cheers me through this lit­tle while,
Through de­sert, waste, and wild.

Refrain

It tells me what my Fa­ther hath
In store for ev­ery day,
And though I tread a dark­some path,
Yields sun­shine all the way.

Refrain

It tells of One whose lov­ing heart
Can feel my deep­est woe;
Who in my sor­row bears a part,
That none can bear be­low.

Refrain

It bids my tremb­ling heart re­joice;
It dries each ris­ing tear;
It tells me, in a still small voice,
To trust and ne­ver fear.

Refrain

Jesus, the name I love so well,
The name I love to hear!
No saint on earth its worth can tell,
No heart con­ceive how dear.

Refrain

This name shall shed its frag­rance still
Along this thor­ny road,
Shall sweet­ly smooth the rug­ged hill
That leads me up to God.

Refrain

And there, with all the blood-bought throng,
From sin and sor­row free,
I’ll sing the new eter­nal song
Of Je­sus’ love to me.

Refrain

God bless you with knowing and believing in what Jesus has done for you as we begin Holy Week 2024!

 

Doing the Math Hodgepodge

It’s time for Wednesday Hodgepodge. Thank you, Jo, for the questions!

1. Thursday is National Pi Day…are you good at math? What was the last thing you had to calculate? Did you use your head or technology? Last slice of pie you ate? 

I am good at basic math but not in the advanced stuff like algebra, trigonometry, calculus and such. My brain remembers numbers for some reason. I can still remember birthdays of some of my classmates in high school. On Monday I had to make a simple calculation of how long I’ve been blogging so I took 2024, minus 2007 to come up with 17. I used my desk calculator to come up with that. That comes out to Seventeen years of blogging. The last slice of pie was at Thanksgiving.

2. What makes a house a home? 

The easy answer is love. For me, a home is a comfortable peaceful place where I can be real and enjoy loving others and being loved. Cozy furniture helps. Too much formality in decor makes me stiff unless you throw in an overstuffed chair with an ottoman.

3. Your current favorite green thing? 

We bought some new wall art with blue flowers and mossy green leaves for our Master Bedroom and added some mossy green to the bed with pillows. It was nice to freshen up the Master Bedroom. Did you know that it’s not kosher to call a Master Bedroom a Master Bedroom anymore? Oye Vey! It is still the Master Bedroom at our house.

4. How do you define achievement? How does your personal definition look similar to, or different than, society’s definition? What’s something you think is worth achieving in life? 

Achievement is being able to accept who you are and what your talents are and using those talents everyday in big and small ways. Achievement can happen everyday without applause from the world. Society would add fame and money as the benchmark to achievement. If your talents and hard work reap a monetary gain, that is a bonus. As a mom, raising children is a worthwhile achievement.  Contentment is worth achieving in life.

5. What song is a good soundtrack for your life right now? 

This is hubby and my song for last year and pretty much always. I’ll share a stanza and the refrain…

My Worth is not in What I Own…

My worth is not in what I ownNot in the strength of flesh and boneBut in the costly wounds of loveAt the cross

And I rejoice in my RedeemerGreatest Treasure,Wellspring of my soulAnd I will trust in Him, no other.My soul is satisfied in Him alone.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Not only is tomorrow Pi day but it is my birthday. If I take the current year and subtract my birth year from it, I calculate that I will be 73 on Pi day! A blast from my past for your enjoyment. Sheriff John was a favorite!