Category Archives: Family

Dublin Day Two ~ Tour Part One

Up while it was still dark to get ready for our all day Paddywagon Tour to Dark Hedges, Dunluce Castle, Giant’s Causeway and Belfast. We were the second pick up spot at 7:20 am, Saturday the 16th of September. That meant we ended up in the back of the bus with 50 of our one day ‘friends’ in front of us. Looking a little blurry in that selfie I took.

This day will have to be split up according to our stops or else I’d have way too many photos. I’m sorry to have to mention that we were not enamored by our bus driver and the information he chose to dwell on and drone on during our trip. We did choose joy at each of our stops! We were last off at each stop which meant we had a few less minutes at each of our stops. We were last back to the bus on most of our stops because of that…

There was a stop about an hour into our trip at a motorway stop with many choices for food, drinks and other conveniences.

A while after our convenience stop, we pulled into a parking lot for cars and buses and were directed to the path to Dark Hedges. There were minimal services here. We were beginning to see the chance for some blue skies ahead.

Stop #1 ~ The Dark Hedges

None of the four of us are fans of Game of Thrones but we were happy to see this row of beech trees.

The Dark Hedges is an avenue of beech trees along Bregagh Road between Armoy and Stranocum in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

 

 

Our daughter-in-love has an eye for photography and putting it all together in a collage. I’ll be sharing many of her photos and collages, too.

We were only at this stop for 20 minutes. We beelined it to the restrooms first and onward to the Hedges. The lines for the conveniences could take a while so we tried to be quick on the draw when we could.

Our next stop would be Dunluce Castle and it was my favorite of the stops on this day.

Thank you for following along.

Back to the present…

We are already enjoying Fall colors out our windows here at our country bungalow. How about you?

Postcards Day 1

We arrived in Dublin and were welcomed with some typical rainy weather. We are hoping to have some sunbreaks here and there during our time in Ireland and England.

I don’t have much time on the computer so any posts before I return home will be postcards with few words. I’ll create my travel diary here on my blog when I return home. Slainte.

Common Book of Prayer

“God,
you see your children growing up
in an unsteady and confusing world;
Show them that your ways
give more life than the ways of the world,
and that following you is better
than chasing after selfish goals.
Help them to take failure,
not as a measure of their worth,
but as a chance for a new start.
Give them strength to hold their faith in you,
and to keep alive their joy in your creation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.”
(from the Common Book of Prayer)

Father and Children

This is another tribute to Dear/Greg upon his 70th birthday. Some photos with our children in their growing up years. Some are out of order and I haven’t transferred all the photos from when our kids were young onto the computer so these are limited but more than you might be interested in. 🙂

Joshua’s baby dedication at Huntington Beach E.V. Free church with pastor Bob Thune.

Daniel’s baby dedication at Huntington Beach E.V. Free church with Pastor Bob Thune.

For those who don’t miss a trick there isn’t a photo from Katie’s dedication but it did happen.

Our kids appreciate their dad and his wisdom, integrity and faithfulness.

Celebration #1

We gathered in Colville with our local family and friends to celebrate Greg on his actual birthday.

Our kids made fish tacos and delicious salsas and guacamole to enjoy. We had bread pudding for dessert.

The ‘Grands’ enjoyed watching Gramps open his gifts.

Requests were sent out to friends and family to send a greeting to Greg and to send those greetings to our kids’ home so they could surprise him with a stack on his birthday. It worked and what a great stack of cards he received from siblings, nieces, nephews, friends and his own kids and grands.

A very special surprise gift from Canada arrived, too.

So thoughtful and generous. Thank you Terry and Lovella!

After we got home and were able to read each card I decided to display them so we could enjoy them all.

We loved the special artwork created by Addy and JJ.

Our sister-in-law, Kelly, is becoming quite the artist, too.

Several verses from the Bible were shared in the cards that Greg received from friends and family near and far.

Romans 15:13

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 41:10

fear not, for I am with you;
    be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Funny cards and serious cards were all appreciated!

Isaiah 40:31

but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
 He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

This next card made both of us laugh out loud!

It was quite a wonderful gift to receive all of these cards and to read the special greetings and memories in each of them. If any of you who sent cards are reading this post, thank you so much for taking time to write and send Greg these encouraging greetings!

We will celebrate with our ‘Coast Kids’ in Ireland!

70 Strong!

A very Happy Birthday to my dear husband. He finally has entered my decade. Since this is his big 7-0, there will be lots of photos and memories of many of the seven decades of his life so far. He started out his life in the fifties. His only brother is four years older than him. He was raised in a Christian home in Southern California. His father was called up to heaven in 1985 and his mother joined his father in 1997.

Early years living on Cattaraugus in Culver City.

The bottom left photo has a description written on the back of the photo by his mom.

His maternal relatives lived in Colorado and came for visits.

Great Aunt Matilda from Kansas. She never forgot the birthdays of her nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews and sent a card on time. She even sent birthday greetings to the spouses of all. I was the recipient of many birthday greetings from her.

‘

Uncle from Denver and Greg’s dad in the background.

Maternal grandparents and an uncle from Denver.

They moved to a house on Centinela and this was the house they lived in until after we were married.

When this photo was taken, he had no idea he’d end up marrying a Russian girl from the eastside of Los Angeles.

G-enerous with his time and talents and tools

R-eliable

E-xcellent work ethic

G-rounded in God’s Word

O-perating Engineer

R-esourceful

Y-ounger than me. 🙂

There will be much more to share in celebration posts to follow this one.

Happy Birthday, Greg. I’m so glad God created you and brought the two of us together to celebrate many birthdays together.

Time for School!

The 2023-24 school year begins! So grateful for this Mom and our Grands.

And she will start the school year with one less tooth. The first tooth to come out! A second one will probably be ready to pull soon. Praying for God to bless them with knowledge and love of learning and that the learning will draw them closer to God and all He has done for them. Also praying that they will be obedient for their teacher!!

No Wednesday Hodgepodge this week.

Keepers of the Kingdom ~ VBS

Our annual Vacation Bible School was in the evenings the week of August 7th-11th. All the kids were divided into age groups with lessons appropriate to their age group.

The whole church was decorated to look like a medieval castle.

The lessons were all on The Armor of God from Ephesians 6.

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

Our daughter-in-law was a helper each night along with over 125 other volunteers and 218 children throughout the 5 evenings. I was the t-shirt sales lady.

Everyone was exhausted after the five night 6:00 – 8:30 fun and games centered around the Word of God. We attended the closing program on Friday night and volunteers stuck around to take down all the VBS decorations. Hats off to all the volunteers! It was an amazing time for our church family to love and serve our community.

Then on Saturday night the 12th of August we met downtown at the Spaghetti factory for a birthday party for our Grands’ Granny.

It was a milestone birthday and we all enjoyed celebrating Linda.

JJ and Addy didn’t last long on the way home from Spokane and had a nice sleep as they were both exhausted from a busy week!

This week has been slow and quiet and uneventful which is a blessing.

Happy Friday everyone. The last couple days we have been socked in with smoke here in our area from fires mostly in Canada. Ash is even settling here. The air quality is not healthy and we have been staying in. Our Grands soccer and other outdoor activities were cancelled this week. We are hoping for improvement soon. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.