Number Your Days Hodgepodge

1. In a single sentence tell us something about your 40’s. If you haven’t reached that milestone yet tell us (in a single sentence) something about whatever decade you’re in now.

The decade in my 40’s (1991-2001) was the most tumultuous of my life.

(Photo above taken at 2nd rental home 1998ish)

2. Life begins at forty. Agree or disagree? Tell us why. And if not at forty, when?

I don’t agree. I’m too black and white. Life began for me in my mother’s womb. From birth on life has been shaping who I am now. I was born again in 1963 so I’ve been in the sanctification process for 57 years. I wish I had been more obedient in this process.

Sanctification: When you were justified, you were declared righteous by God. Now that you are justified, there is a process of growth and transformation in which you are enabled more and more to grasp the reality that you are dead to your old sinful life and that you actually become more and more like Christ. There are three aspects to our sanctification: definitive sanctification, progressive sanctification, and ultimate sanctification.

3. Share a favorite book, song, or quote with a number featured in it somewhere.

I didn’t remember this great song with a number in the title but Theresa posted it on her post and it really has meant a lot to me over the past several years so I’m adding it in here. Thank you, Theresa!

This quote from the Bible is one I wrote down after reading it.

Jeremiah 32:39 ~I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever for their own good and the good of their children after them.

And this quote that I forget who said it…maybe Steve Lawson: “Don’t let your feelings get captured. Your feelings can suffocate your understanding of God. Gaze on the Lord 10x more than you concentrate on your feelings.”

4. A picture’s worth a thousand words, a stitch in time saves nine, back to square one, catch-22, on cloud nine, my two cents…pick a number phrase and tell us how it applies to your life currently.

I will pick “A picture’s worth a thousand words” or 1,000 pieces and 500 pieces. One of our COVID-19 stay at home activities has been putting together jigsaw puzzles. Some of these puzzles we’ve had for years and others were acquired before COVID at garage sales. The Fireside Embroidery one was a purchase during COVID-19. I was happy to see our local grocery store had a rack of puzzles a couple weeks ago and I grabbed this one.

Buying a threefold poster board has really aided our puzzling endeavors. We can move it off the dining room table easily if we are having the kids over for a meal. It also gives a nice flat surface.

5. Last time you drove more than 40 miles from home? More than 400 miles from home? Where were you going? Was it before or after this current season of social distancing?

Today bright and early we are driving to Spokane for a follow-up eye appointment. My surgery was last August. This will be a 70 mile drive from home. This one is during social distancing and Dear will have to wait in the car when I go in for my appointment.

The last time we drove closer to 400 miles from home was December 2019 when we drove to the Seattle area to stay overnight with our “Coast Kids” and then continue on to Chilliwack, British Columbia for our annual MGCC Christmas Party. This was before we knew about this Pandemic.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I’m going to go deeper into that decade in my forties. Dear’s mother was living with us in a Mother-in-law apartment in our basement. In that decade Dear completed his Pharmacy degree at the University of Washington, had a year of residency, got a job at Immunex Corporation in Seattle Washington. While he was in school I started a house cleaning business and added a medical clinic and dental clinic at night as part of the job. Dear and I worked together in the evenings at those clinics. Because Dear’s mother was living with us we could leave at night after the kids were in bed. I was the skinniest I had ever been with all that aerobic scrubbing.

When Dear’s new career was going well I retired my cleaning business just in time to pull our daughter out of public school and home school her for 4th, 5th and 6th grade. She was experiencing heart wrenching persecution at school. During those homeschooling years with our sons in high school we had a major landslide on our back slope and long story short we walked away from our dream home and started the very new to us need to rent homes while still having all of Dear’s mother’s stuff in our possession. When the major slide forced us to walk away from our home, Dear’s mother moved out of our home to Yuba City, California to live close to her younger sister.

In May before our oldest son graduated from high school, Dear’s mother passed away and we were in Yuba City for the funeral and then having to divide up her stuff between Dear and his older brother and haul it back to our place. In August I drove Josh to Westmont College in Montecito , Califonia. (Santa Barbara), on my own. An emotional time for this mom. We were in our 2nd rental home at this time.

In Dan’s senior year we moved to our third rental home in October of 1998. In November of 1998 just one month after moving all our stuff to this third rental home the owner of the home told us he had to sell the home. We were devastated with this news not knowing where we could move next. We decided to try to buy this rental and were amazed to find out that there was nothing on our record showing we had defaulted on our landslide house loan! We bought our home in Kenmore not because we chose it but because we couldn’t face moving again. We enjoyed 20 years in that home and made some amazing upgrades to the property. Dan graduated from high school in 1999. We had Josh and Laura’s rehearsal dinner at this home in August of 2001 and then in September of 200l life changed for all of us because of 9-11. And that my friends was my decade in my forties.

That’s just a little of the story of my 40’s! I’m happy to say my fifties and sixties have been less tumultuous and filled with some wonderful adventures and travel. In my late fifties I was connected to the Mennonite Girls. In my sixties we enjoyed the weddings of our daughter Katie and our son Dan. We made a major move again this time to the country from the city. Blessed with two grandchildren in our sixties. And now Dear is officially retired.

But…we press on to the upward call…

Philippians 3:13-14 (ESV)

¹³Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Thank you to Joyce for coming up with the questions for Hodgepodge!

Rotary Trail Walk ~ The People

On Mother’s Day weekend we met up at the Rotary Trail at the Golf course in Colville for a morning walk. Josh and Laura were part of the Virtual World Concern 5K to raise money to fight human trafficking, Free Them 5K.

It was a beautiful morning for a walk.

Addy walked most of the trail but she also was able to climb into “Bob” when she got a little weary.

Laura and Joshua’s Company were able to raise a good chunk of money for the cause.

Addy is telling Uncle Josh that this sign says, “no dog pooping here”.

Back to the car and it was time for a nap for this little guy. So nice to get snuggles! We all headed back to our house for Swedish Pancakes and Little Smokies, thanks Dear!

In future posts I’ll share the birds and other things we saw from the trail. We will definitely take advantage of this nice trail in the future.

Pandemic Journal ~ My Memories Part 1

My friend Judy at My Front Porch wrote a post about her story during this Pandemic to document this time in history and it inspired me to do the same.

The first note in my journal is a prayer request on Wednesday March 11th during our weekly Prayer meeting at church. Item #9 ~ Corona virus. It wasn’t at the top of the list…yet.

On February 27th I flew to Southern California for our sister’s Leap Year birthday and there was no one on the flights with masks on. I had my disinfecting wipes with me because even prior to the COVID-19 scare I always wipe off the fold down tray and arm rests. The gal next to me asked to use one of my wipes and I gladly obliged.

While in Southern California there still were no restrictions in place so we enjoyed eating out and my sister’s birthday party with about 30 or so guests. The first out of the ordinary thing we saw were hoards of people at Costco over stocking. On my flight home on March 3rd the conversation stemmed around people not being able to find toilet paper. More people around me asked to use a wipe.

Now we are back to the week of March 8th. We went to church without suspecting it would be our last time in the congregation for many weeks. On Thursday March 12th we heard that President Trump halted all travel to and from Europe excluding the UK as of Friday the 13th of March. We were heading to Spokane Valley on this day to use reservations at the Hampton Inn that friends could not cancel. Little did we know when we said we’d use the 2 rooms that were paid for already that we would be there with just a handful of other people.

Our kids were out of toilet paper and we got to the Costco on Sprague in Spokane a little before they opened. We noticed right away that the parking lot was full already and it was 30 minutes before opening. Yikes. There was a line up and we got in line with less than 6 feet between us. When the doors opened everyone made a beeline to the paper goods section. Costco figured out some ways to alleviate bottle necks in the paper section and they stacked the TP in the frozen aisle with an attendant that handed each member their package. Our kids wanted baby wipes, which was another premium item and we were able to put two boxes in our cart. Two boxes of diapers added to the cart and we were home free. We made it into a line and out the door before the lines were reported to be to the middle of the store. Yikes.

Costco was so strapped that they couldn’t cash our Executive earnings check so they had to write us a check that we could cash at our bank. On the way to the hotel we stopped at a branch of our bank and cashed the check. The folks at the hotel were very welcoming and we were able to check in early. I had brought my own jug of Clorox disinfecting wipes and I set about to disinfect both of our adjoining rooms to our satisfaction.

After lunch at a Mexican Restaurant close to the hotel, we spent the rest of the afternoon doing some shopping at the Cabella’s in Idaho (Spokane Valley is just a few miles from the Washington/Idaho border) and then TJMaxx, Nordstrom Rack, Barnes and Noble and last a stop at Krispy Kreme for a little snack to take back to the hotel.

On Friday the thirteenth we started hearing about more closures due to the Virus threat. The hoarding of disinfectant, hand sanitizer, TP and other paper products was at a fever pitch. We shopped at Fred Meyer, Hobby Lobby, Total Wine, and Party City. We were still hoping Addy’s Daniel the Tiger 3rd birthday party would happen.

For my early birthday meal out we chose The Clover in Spokane near Gonzaga University. What a gem of a restaurant it is and we hope to return when things get back to semi-normal.

The Dungeness Crab and Artichoke Dip was so delicious! Because it was my birthday they added this dessert for free. Yum! The biscotti was made in their own bakery.

While at the restaurant we heard that all schools in Washington State would be closed through April.

Saturday the fourteenth of March (my 69th birthday) our kids made the journey from Colville to Spokane Valley to join us at the hotel. We got had some lunch and then got them settled into their room.

We had the hotel pool all to ourselves and it was a fun time with Jaymison and Addy. We all got cleaned up and headed to a couple shops (still no restrictions) and then out to dinner for my birthday. This was a snow blowing freezing day.

On this day we heard about the Disneyland closure, all hotels around Disneyland closed. All public gatherings over 250 people prohibited. No flights to and from Europe.

Sunday was a leisurely morning before we checked out to go home. We stopped at Costco on our way home for gasoline and to pick up a few more things. (Gluttons for Punishment) We stopped at Super 1 once we were in Colville to get what we’d need for our Corned Beef and Cabbage meal on Tuesday the 17th of March, St. Patrick’s day. Hints of what was to come…no carrots or potatoes.

Now we were hearing no meetings over 50 people, no sports, no restaurants except take out, and then no meetings over 10 people.

Everyone was scrambling to put plans in place on how to proceed with church services. Non-essential services were shut down. Interesting what the powers that be deem essential. Non essential included hair salons, many retail shops, golf courses, bowling alleys, gyms, elective surgeries, dental services except for emergencies, optometrist, etc. My eye surgery 6 month follow-up was cancelled.

The kids came over for St. Patrick’s Day meal and we talked about Addy’s birthday having to be cancelled. Our kids from the Coast would not be coming over for the weekend. This is the point where the Pandemic really hit home.

The Pandemic Part 2 coming in the future.

Will it be Merry?

Here’s hoping it will be the Merry Month of May. Here’s a real oldie but goodie.

We are still waiting to see when our stay home orders will be lifted. In the meantime we have simple pleasures to enjoy. This new addition in our home makes me smile every time I walk by it.

I’ve always wanted a cabinet similar to a Welsh Cabinet that I could display my plates on.

This pine cabinet has some fun accents. We bought the cabinet at a second hand shop in the city of Colville called The Red Barn.

When we brought it home we applied a lot of elbow grease to clean it up. Trust me when I say a lot of elbow grease.

Pure enjoyment to pick some of my favorites to display. To make it even more busy I’ve added about 28 of my Beatrix Potter Figurines on the plate rack, too. Future photo coming.

On these days where we are stuck at home I’m so thankful and happy to get little sneak peeks on what’s going on with our kids during their isolation time and I copy their photos to enjoy.

Our youngest “Coast Kids” working from home. Thankful that they both still have jobs. In her current job Katie has always worked from home so this is nothing new for her. The new thing is having Andrew work from home for some of the time. He has been going into the office to do things he can’t from home. He works at a company that is deemed essential.

Our oldest “Coast Kids” are enjoying walks most days and they send us photos which we are so thankful for. A friend knowing their love for our Sounders Soccer team sewed Sounders Face masks for them! Josh owns a business with partners and they have been able to keep all their employees and even hired new ones. He is still working hard and Laura works as a support for her family.

Our middle kids who live 8 miles from us are enjoying driveway walks and any time they can work in the garden. Jamie is coming up with lots of creative activities for our dear grands to enjoy. Our son Dan still works as he is considered an essential worker.

It’s easy to social distance in the country as it’s hard to see the other properties close to them.

On Thursday Addy decided a foot soak would be nice. Her mom set her up nicely with a potty chair just the right height.

Making the most of our isolation days!

Dear continues working on his shop when the weather is dry and above freezing!

I’m back to mowing and weeding and getting a good dose of vitamin D!

What are you doing at home to keep your sanity? I know a lot of friends who are baking bread and several who are keeping sourdough starts alive and baking sourdough bread items including pancakes and bagels!

Happy May day!
“Come, my soul, put on your springtime clothes and gather garlands of heavenly thoughts.”
~Spurgeon

Superhero Husband Hodgepodge

This photo of our daughter Katie was taken at a rest stop somewhere between Seattle and Jacksonville, North Carolina on a cross country trip to get Katie situated in an apartment before our Marine Son-in-law returned from his tour of duty in Afghanistan. It was an epic trip for the two of us and we both could have been awarded a superhero title!

*************************************************************

1. Expect the unexpected on From This Side of the Pond. Here’s my x-ray question…when was the last time you felt like Superman? What’s your superpower? Explain.

There are a few things that make me feel super satisfied. One of the things is to be able to recreate something special that our dear mom would make. One of her specialties is this nut roll we call Roolyet. My sister and I went about perfecting a recipe for it and we were very happy that it came out looking and tasting like our mom’s. We took it over to my sister’s house to share with her family and our dear old pop a few years back and he raved about it tasting like Mom’s.

Getting things checked off of my to-do list makes me feel like superwoman, too. It’s the little things…

2. Are you a fan of the ‘superhero’ type movies? If so what’s your favorite?

Not a fan generally of superhero movies. If I had to pick a favorite superhero of the fiction variety it would be Superman. I am a fan of these three in the photo above! Our grands with their uncle Joshie!

3. Have you postponed or cancelled a trip to the dentist in recent weeks, and if so when do you think you’ll feel comfortable going back? How about other routine medical procedures?

No, because I haven’t made an appointment to see a dentist. Oops. I have gotten an alert this week that I can make an appointment for my yearly medical.

4. What’s something that makes you feel youthful? Something that makes you feel ‘not so youthful’? Tell us why.

Singing and dancing makes me feel youthful and not looking in a mirror. Trying to get up off the floor when I play with the grands lets me know I’m not a youth anymore. There’s no hopping up anymore.

5. I feel compelled to include some sort of corona related question in the HP these days. What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen in relation to the virus? Something that really struck you as odd, made you stop and think, ‘Dorothy we’re not in Kansas anymore?’

This photo of a few of us adults watching Jaymison Joshua from a distance while he opened birthday gifts and ate his first birthday cupcake. Definitely not in Kansas anymore!

6. Insert your own random thought here.

This man, my Dear, is my real life superhero. He has been by my side for over 45 years. He was our main provider for most of our married life and our very efficient handy man. There have only been a handful of home improvement jobs that we hired someone for. He’s painted, replaced siding, built fences, installed back splash, remodeled a bathroom, added on a room, replaced windows, put in walkways, installed flooring, just to name a few. He also has helped all our kids with home projects, too. He’s my personal bartender. Did I mention that he’s a good cook, too? We love him for his smarts, too. He’s not a fool, he loves God and believes in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and that’s the main reason why I married him. Everything else has been a bonus. We’ve had bumps along the road because we are two human beings living life together and that is bound to have it’s challenges. Nevertheless, I’m thankful for this man and for how God is working in our lives individually and together.

The latest greatest is that he located the hot water leak and repaired it having to crawl under the house and do the repairs in a crouched position. We have hot water again and we didn’t have to call a plumber! We used walkie talkies to communicate while he was under the house. There was less accumulated water than we had expected. We didn’t have to pump out any water. Now we will have to assess how much of the insulation got soggy and needs to be replaced. It was great to take a nice long hot shower after our work today. Thank you, Dear!!

Thank you to Joyce for asking the questions and for any of you who take the time to read my post. Click here to see more.

Labors of Love

L is the letter for the day and my bandwith is low, low, low so I can’t upload any new photos right now. I’ll have to look to my archives and decide on a subject for the letter L. I chose my Labors of Love post from 2016.

I love Easter and all that it holds and all that it means. I like the idea of new Life, a resurrected Life. The greatest Love that was demonstrated on Good Friday and the Life that was resurrected on Easter Sunday.

Here are photos of our Easter weekend labors of love and celebrations 2016.

This was the end result of our labors on Easter Saturday 2016. Top left an Russian Easter sweet cheese spread called Seernaya Paska. The X and the B stand for Christ is Risen. On the right is the finished and frosted Russian Easter Bread called Kulich or Paska surrounded by Russian shrink wrapped eggs. The sign in Russian on the bottom left says Christ is Risen so you see where the X and B comes from. Now I’ll show you some of the process of getting here.

First you gather your labor force. This is my sister Lana who arrived early so that we could get the Russian Easter Bread (Kulich/Paska) started.

The rest of the laborers arrived and donned their aprons and head scarves.

At one point in the process of mixing the dough I thought I made a big boo boo so we prayed over the dough and Lana and I laid hands on the KitchenAid. I didn’t want to start over again. All turned out well…

Lana showing how her slippers match her apron.

The other photos in the collage are of kneading the dough and shrink wrapping the boiled eggs. While the dough was rising we enjoyed lunch together. Home made tamales and beans with guacamole, chips, and Dan and Jamie’s home made salsa.

After lunch it was time to prepare the cans and to punch down the dough after it’s first rise. The Peter Rabbit bunting was completed by Katie and hung by Laura and Katie. Josh and Laura gifted me the bunting kit for my birthday last week.

After the second rise we punched again and prepared the dough by hand for the cans pinching off enough or almost enough for each can we picked for this time around. Short, medium and tall.

The guys were busy outside in the sunshine solving several world problems.

The finished eggs and kulich on Easter day. I’ll show more from our Easter table in another post.

When the baking was done and the cheese mold was in the refrigerator setting up for our Easter Sunday meal the kids went out to dinner with their aunt and uncle. Dear and I stayed at home and crashed…

All of our kids together enjoying each other and extended family fills us with joy and not having to make dinner for them after a full day in the kitchen was a bonus!

We love and treasure these traditions and hope to carry them on through the years and pass them on to the next generation. I’m happy to report three of our nephews wives took on this labor of love alone in their homes and had very successful outcomes!

Keepsake Quilt

We are on the letter K and I’m choosing Keepsake for my post.

This is a quilt my mother in law made before Alaska and Hawaii were part of the United States. It was in 1959 that Alaska and Hawaii became states so Verna made this quilt well before 1959. Rex and Verna got married in 1945. Verna was a one room school teacher in Kansas during World War II.

Each of the 48 states were represented with the state bird and state flower.

Verna’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren live in the states of Washington, New York, California and North Carolina as of this date.

Verna with my hubby long before we met. This is probably 1966 or 1967.

Dear’s Parents, Rex and Verna with their 4 grandchildren in 1982. Two more granddaughters were born in 1985 and 1991. Rex passed away in 1985 before they were born.

Rex, Verna, Dear, Josh me and Dan in 1982.

This photo was taken in 1988 or 1989 at our first home in Washington State. Verna was living with us at this time. My folks, sister and her girls were visiting from California.

This collage is of Dear’s only brother and him and Rex and Verna. I put this collage together to show the similarities the two sons have with their parents. Terry with Verna and Dear with Rex.

We had an unusual social distancing gathering on Easter at our kids home to exchange Easter meal goodies and to see JJ and Addy at their Easter egg hunt. It was a different but good Easter celebrating our Risen Savior! Later in the afternoon we had an extended family Zoom meeting sharing our highs, lows and buffaloes with each other. It was so good to see many of the family units from Texas, Indiana, California and Washington and sharing some prayer requests. I trust you all had a good day.

As soon as my broad band lets me upload my photos from yesterday I’ll share them.

Home and Teaching

We are on the letter H for the A to Z Challenge and I have a resource to share with any of you who are finding yourselves teaching your kids at home during this COVID-19 stay at home period.

https://kellybagdanov.com/

This is a photo of my brother Steve’s family with a link to my sister-in-law Kelly’s website that is a amazing resource for teaching art and homeschooling in general. Kelly home schooled all the young men in the photo above up to when they went to college. They all completed their college degrees and they are all married now and the young ladies are their wives. (There are now two more little grands added to the family). Kelly also was a homeschooling resource for others in her community that were homeschooling offering classes in Science and other subjects. We’ve all probably enjoyed gifted teachers in our lifetime, Kelly is one of the gifted.

Kelly has put together some encouraging videos for those of you who are now trying to teach your children at home.

Don’t miss her YouTube page. You will find her videos on works of art enlightening for yourselves and your students. Hop over and then click on her blog button and enjoy some great lessons to enrich you and your kids.

Tuesdays With Moisi ~ Moisi and Me

A look back at some photos with my Pop (Moisi).

I’m having a birthday later this week so I decided to find some photos with me and our Pop in them for my Tuesdays with Moisi post. Our mom is holding brand new me and it looks as if I’ve upset my brother Fred with my crying and my sister Vera is shushing me. Our Pop looks a bit strained in this photo. I wonder who is taking the photo. This was while we were still living in East Los Angeles, 1951. This was about 3-1/2 years after they arrived in the United States.

So my little babushka was here in the USA when I was born judging from this photo. My mother’s only brother, Paul, is standing with my cousin Valia and my aunt Nina is holding my cousin Walter. My cousin Alex must be the one standing in the front. I’m crying again but I think I have a good excuse since that sunshine is blinding my poor infant eyes! Zena Katkov is standing next to my little Babushka.

I started out as a towhead. Is the pole in the center of this photo the focus or am I?

Someone needed to hone their photo taking skills. Stories are told about how I’d take off away from home and give my parents a scare.

We moved from East Los Angeles to Pico Rivera (Montebello Gardens). This Easter photo was taken in the front yard of our home.

Don’t know where we traveled to for these photos but we end up amongst tall trees so I’ll guess we were in the Angeles National Forest.

Looks like I got to hold the thermos while our mom took this photo or maybe she let Kathy take the photo.

Wherever we traveled it was hot since the girls are all sleeveless.

Camping at Big Bear?

I’m on the happy side of this photo unlike the three on my left.

Berry picking somewhere in California.

A pigeon on my head. I’m not a fan of pigeons these days. All dressed up for church with our patent leather shoes. Why do I have a pigeon on my head when I’m in my Sunday clothes?

In 2011 I received a card with a check from my parents for my birthday. I copied what my mom wrote and am adding it to this post for my memory:

From my parents…лена моисееьна Gods blessings on you for your 60 birthday. We hope you have a wonderful birthday We love you very much папа мама Bagdanov and they enclosed a check for $60 My parents are so adorable.

I love that she added Bagdanov. 🙂

Me and my Pop in 1973 and 2016.

I’m thankful for the good relationship I had with my Pop. I’m sure I drove my parents to their knees many times but God was faithful in bringing me back in good relationship with Him and them.

Tuesdays With Moisi ~ Siblings

On Sunday the first of March my two older sisters and I went to visit our Aunt Anna who lives with her granddaughter close to our sister Kathy. Aunt Anna or Nura will be 95 on April 25th. She was thankful for our time with her and we decided to take this selfie. While there I also took a couple photos with my phone of her framed photos. The quality of the photos is not great since there is glare from the glass in the frames.

This is our Aunt Anna from many years ago with her husband Pete. Uncle Pete died in the late 70’s.

The photo above was taken when Moisi’s brother Mike was able to get a Visa to finally visit in the USA. This was in 1982ish. Uncle Mike is in the center of the photo with the dark jacket on. Uncle Mike spent several years in Siberia after he decided it was safe to return from Iran to Russia in the early 40’s. He was arrested upon entering Russia and sent to Siberia. His sentence was supposed to be for 2 years and ended up being several years. Our Pop and the rest of his family had not seen Uncle Mike for 40 years and this visit was a grand reunion of siblings and our babushka. She is seated with the head covering on. Aunt Anna is above her in the turquoise. Uncle Mike’s wife is seated next to babushka. The rest in the photo are all of Moisi and Nadia’s children and grandchildren as of 1982.

The photo above are siblings and sister-in-laws and a nephew and his wife in the 1990’s. This was a dinner my parents had at their home in Yorba Linda before they sold that home and left for Russia to do missionary work. Going around from left to right. Nura who was married to Uncle Vasilli, our cousin Vera and Alex, Moisi, Uncle John and his wife Kati, our mom, Uncle Alex and his wife Ouliana, and barely visible Aunt Anna. Aunt Anna and nephew Alex are the only ones who are still alive from this photo.

Moisi and his siblings at our Mom and Pop’s 60th wedding anniversary celebration in 2003. John, Anna, Moisi, and Alex. Anna is the only family member still alive. Of these four siblings John is the oldest, then Alex, our Pop and Anna the youngest.

Aunt Anna has survived all three of her children and one of her granddaughters, too. She talked about the fact that she’s the last one left of her generation of friends and family. She is still as sharp as a tack! My sister Kathy reminded Aunt Anna that her mother (our babushka) lived to be 98 so Aunt Anna might live that long, too.

I’ll be on my way back home this morning. When I get back I’ll post the photos from Vera and my beach walk on Monday. A beautiful day.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Category Archives: Family