Category Archives: Family

Disneyland 2023

DisneyCaliFam Vacation day at Disneyland, Tuesday January 17th, 2023!

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This post is going to be a photo dump of the photos Auntie LoLo and I took during our day at Disneyland. Fair warning: It’s a long post!

We decided to order matching shirts for our day so it would be easier to spot each other. At Christmas we had Katie draw out a design we wanted for the shirts. We have a company in town called ‘Your Design Here’ that ordered the shirts and printed our design on the shirts. There were twelve of us at Disneyland on Tuesday January 17th. We had sunshine with cool temperatures for our day.

These days you have to reserve your spot and purchase your tickets ahead of time for Disneyland in Anaheim. You also have to reserve parking in their structure at the park. Because we had an oversized van we were directed to park on the main level which worked great for us.

From the structure to the Tram. They have a wheelchair car that worked our nicely for Granny Great.

Jamie made special ears for Addy and JJ. Dan ended up wearing JJ’s because JJ’s Dinosaur ears didn’t cooperate with his three year old self.

Pins are a big deal at Disneyland and Auntie LoLo surprised us all with a special pin for the day. I wish I would have thought to get a photograph of each special pin. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, LoLo! Update: After reading this post dear Auntie Lolo sent me a collage of all the pins! Thank you, LoLo!

It was Addy and JJ’s first time at Disneyland so they picked up their First Visit Buttons. Josh, Dan and Jamie picked up their birthday buttons. The Disney workers and cast members (or are they all called cast members?) noticed the badges throughout the day and acknowledged them. That was fun.

Badges all set and ready to go. Strollers are a must for littles, in my opinion.

You can see Andrew and Katie’s pins here on our first ride of the day.

Dan decided to wear JJ’s dinosaur ears.

 

The Disney characters rotate out during the day getting breaks. Before we made it to the characters Minnie Mouse rotated out much to Addy’s dismay. We assured her we’d do all we could to meet up with Minnie sometime during the day. Every character that walked off the job for their break stopped to greet Granny Great waiting out of the line in her wheel chair.

 

 

The Star Wars Ride, Rise to the Resistance, was the longest wait we had for a ride. Addy and JJ did so well in the waiting. Addy was not pleased with the ride, though. She did not like the drops and wanted calmer rides after this one. JJ had no problem with the fast more roller coaster type rides.

It was my favorite ride. It is one of the ‘newer’ rides and they have done an exceptional job making you feel like you are soaring through space.

 

Chewbacca and Rey greeted our family and we had a great interaction with them.

Time for a turkey leg break.

I had cheetos and a banana for over $6. Yikes! I needed something on my stomach as I was taking Ibuprofen to try to keep my back and legs going!

On the wishing well bridge we were able to witness a proposal of marriage. Fun! She said yes.

Promises kept, Auntie Lolo asked a employee where we could find Minnie and she made a special effort to call and find out for us!

 

JJ was content with Mickey.

After the castle photos Josh took myself, Dear, and Granny Great back to our home away from home. Granny Great was a trooper but it was time to get out of the cold and put our feet up. Josh drove us home and we all enjoyed leftover soup. He went back to the park to join the rest of the family for the next couple hours until the park closed at 8pm.

This crew enjoyed dinner from Galactic Grill before Josh made it back and they finally got to step into the boat at Pirates of the Caribbean. Earlier in the day when we tried to get on that ride the whole French quarter of Disneyland shut down just as our crew’s boat arrived for some reason that we are not privy to. They had to turn around and exit the ride and the French quarter. This was a ride that the whole crew enjoyed!

Addy and JJ saw so many kids in the park with these Micky bubble machines and their mom and dad surprised them with their own at the end of the evening. I think they were delighted!

Goodnight to Disneyland. A very good day at the Happiest Place on Earth.

As I promised this was a very long and photo intense post. It will be something to look back on over the years and a benchmark for Addy and JJ’s future trips to Disneyland, Lord Willing. Thank you to Auntie LoLo for all the photos added to some of mine.

 

Sand and Water

After we walked the pier on Monday the 16th we headed down the steps to the sand and on to the shoreline.

Brothers born while we lived in Huntington Beach over 40 years ago in January.

And yes, JJ ended up falling in the water and getting soaked so we stripped him of his wet clothes and wrapped him in some dry coats before hypothermia set in.

Monday afternoon Josh, our trusty 15 passenger Van driver made a trip to the airport to pick up Jamie’s mom and her granny who would spend the next few nights with all of us. We enjoyed soup for dinner. We made a special trip to Rockwell’s Bakery to pick out a cake for Dan’s birthday.

Addy chose the cake. Her daddy bakes the best macarons and Addy spotted this cake and decided it was the one.

Good choice Addy! Happy Birthday Dan. The birthday celebrations keep coming.

Monday Birthday Beach Day

During our ‘DisneyCaliFam’ vacation we spent a few hours at Huntington Beach on Monday January 16th. Some of our Cali family met up with the 10 of us at Fred’s Cantina on Main street for a bite to eat before we braved the high winds on the pier and at the seashore. Two of my sisters and seven nieces and nephews joined our ten for a lively few hours. The Swordfish tacos were delicious!

This guy saves me a seat next to him 90% of the time.

Happy Birthday churros for these two who share their birthday.

Off to the pier with Main Street behind us and Fred’s Cantina on the corner upper floor on the right.

Leaving the pier and heading to the sand and shoreline. That is another photo intensive post that will be coming soon.

The Celebrations Begin…

These five represent 233 years of life and we enjoyed celebrating them on Saturday night the 14th of January.

Crumble Cookies for the win!

 

The siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews and grands were a fun, noisy crowd. We enjoyed build your own tacos before the crumble cookies.

The girl cousins.

My siblings in order of birth.

Sisters

Cousin once removed love!

Thank you to Debbee and Lenny for hosting all of us!

Airport to Our Vacation Rental

This year we are celebrating all the January birthdays in Southern California…in the rain!

On Friday the thirteenth all ten of our family traveled from Everett Paine Field to John Wayne in Santa Ana, California.

Andrew and Katie brought their special carry-ons, Unicorn and Dinosaurs! wink, wink

Our boys…

At John Wayne airport our 15 passenger van was delivered and we loaded all our bags in and hopped in for our short drive to Orange, California. Sadly Addy is behind my big head so we’ll have to try the van selfie again on one of our many rides in it.

We made it to our home away from home after a very long day of traveling with delays and the grands had a few minutes of calming viewing before they were tucked in for the night.

We checked out the supplies at the VRBO and were reassured we’d have enough peelers!

Saturday morning we enjoyed the spa in the rain.

The spa will definitely be a highlight for the grands. We’ll see if Disneyland can surpass it!

Apologies for not visiting. It’s been nonstop fun and busyness living with ten people including our two grands!

Another Year Older

A week ago we celebrated our daughter, Katie’s, birthday. It’s been sweet being able to celebrate her birthday at our place even though she lives over 300 miles from us. Since we typically all gather for Christmas in Colville we can add another celebration together to honor her day.

We used to have our traditional Swedish pancake breakfast on Christmas but lately it’s been happening 2 days later on Katie’s birthday. Dear managed the two pan feat with his damaged left hand and was humbled with thoughts of my dear maternal grandmother who went through most of her life with just one hand.

The photo above is of Father and daughter in a morning conversation.

The grands arrived later in the morning and helped me mix up Katie’s birthday cake, Applesauce Spice Cake. Into the oven and time for some piano interludes with Auntie Katie.

We had a taco lunch prepared by our Colville kids and then it was time for a trip home for naps before our dinner together.

During the quiet of the afternoon Katie and I started this puzzle and when everyone arrived again for dinner it was finished off with the help of Dan and Addy.

The Happy Birthday to you singing this year was epic sending us all into belly laughs!

After cake JJ and I had some fun times together while the rest of the crowd played Mexican Train.

This photo was a leftover from Boxing day night when we all had leftovers for dinner.

Here are the Birthday thoughts and prayer for our dear Katie that I posted on Facebook…

It’s our little girls birthday today. She was our little surprise years ago and we thank God that He gave her to us. She has enriched our family with her wonderful talents and wit. She’s a sweet Daughter, Sister and Auntie.
Dear Lord God Almighty,
“As she traces out the trails you put before her; may she pray and strive to follow straight and strong,”
“Give her wisdom at each turning, Lord we pray”
Give her grace and understanding and more love for You in this coming year!
We love you dear Katie!

Boxing Day 2022

On Monday, Boxing Day, the travelers loaded up and braved our Colville kids mile long snowy driveway for some fun in the snow. It was above freezing and they wanted to get some sledding in before things got too mushy. Baba and Gramps stayed home and had a quiet recuperating day until dinner time.

Uncle Andrew and Uncle Josh used their muscle power to speed up the fun. Daddy was at work this day but he groomed the trails anticipating this fun day.

Addy wanted the snowman to be super big! Olaf the snowman is super big. Great job everyone!

When the fun was over they had a wild ride back to our Country bungalow through all the slush and ice. We enjoyed leftovers for our meal.

These are all Auntie Lolo’s photos and I love this shot of Main Street Colville that she got looking North towards Colville Mountain. The shot of the beautiful sunset is from her phone, too.

One more post coming of our time together celebrating Auntie Katie’s birthday.

BTTP (Back to the Present) It’s snowing again this morning. Our road has been cleared nicely of the snow and ice from the previous storms but the city side streets are still a mess with bumps and ruts and sheets of ice. It made for a very interesting ride to get Dear to Occupational Therapy yesterday. Our Westside kids all are home safe and sound and their snow is not an issue anymore. We had a couple of days of rain and above freezing temperatures that left us with a clear deck but today it is white again. Temps in the 20’s are predicted again for the first week of 2023 so our views will continue to be white for a while longer…

How are things in your corner?

Piano Recital

There were 9 of us at church on Tuesday night to listen to Addy’s two pieces on the piano at her recital. Many others were in the audience to listen to their kids or grands.

Addy is Miss Darcy’s youngest student at present.

Music set and she’s ready to go.

Her feet barely reach the floor. She was not distracted by the crowd.

She shyly/humbly accepted the applause.

On to the treats which Addy and JJ enjoyed.

Well done Miss Addy!

Good job in the audience, JJ!

 

Cousins Christmas California

Because we have 3ish more inches of snow on the ground and we are below freezing (high of 16 degrees) and the next few days are going to be cold and brutal in our area and many other areas, I’m stealing all the joy from photos that our Laura and our nieces Debbee and Kristin shared on Facebook from their cousin time in California Sunday and Monday, where the sun is shining and there is no snow. (That is one long sentence and this is one photo logged post)

Our Josh and Laura are intentional in their relationship building and keeping. God has blessed them with the means to follow-through with the desire to use their discretional time wisely in the love and care of others. Here it worked out for them to fly to Southern California to be at the annual cousin Christmas time with some of our nieces, nephews, and grand nieces and nephew and spouses.

They bumped into Santa at the airport.

The party this year was at our nephew’s home on the beach where the cousins were treated to the extra bonus of the Christmas boat parade that they could watch from the deck. Dave and Kristin hosted our kids overnight, too.

Our kids, Josh and Laura. My sister Kathy’s daughters, Melissa and Michelle with Michelle’s husband and Jack and Avery (our grandnephew and niece). My sister Vera’s son and daughter with their spouses.

Our beautiful girls…we claim them all.

My brother Steve’s son, Tim, and his family arrived so they had a re-do of the deck photo.

Some of the crew gathered at Disneyland on Monday and had a magical time together.

All day and into the night at the Big D.

Josh and Laura made the most of their 2 day stay in Sunny Southern California. They are coming home to snow today on their side of the mountains.

These cousins have had so much fun over the years together. Now they are enjoying the added fun of the spouses that their cousins married. We are so thankful the love continues. My mom and pop would love seeing these times continue.

“Stay together, Love each other” Their Dzeda (grandfather) left them with that encouragement and they are doing a good job listening.

The photos above are from the 80’s in California.

And speaking of World Cup Soccer (Futbol), (That is a weird segue!), here we are arriving at LAX from Seattle in 1994 to attend some of the World Cup Games when Los Angeles hosted the games. My sister Kathy and her girls picked us up from the airport. Our sons were able to get tickets for some of the games in Los Angeles and San Jose. Brazil beat out Italy to win in 1994.

World Cup 2022 just ended this past Sunday and what a championship game it was. Argentina came out ahead of France in the end and are the World Cup Champions for 2022.  It was fun to see Lionel Messi finally add a World Cup Championship to his soccer accomplishments.

Congratulations on making it through this post. I like to document these special times to look back on as a kind of journal of life as it happened. Sometimes they flow well and sometimes they have diversions…

 

Rounding Out November

Our Thanksgiving weekend was completed Monday morning when we said our goodbyes to Uncle Joshie and Auntie Lolo praying for a good drive home especially over the passes. Auntie Lolo shared more of her photos with us on their drive and I’m using them to round out November here on my blog. Thank you Lolo!

Our November has been a wintry one with temperatures in the teens and below freezing for a lot of the month.

Addy has a recital coming up in December. She’s the youngest in the bunch so she’ll start the evening off with this song she is practicing.

Addy is practicing her selfie skills in this one.

Me and my guy.

Uncle Joshie captured this shot.

Thank you for making the snowy drive to Colville and home again Uncle and Auntie. We miss you already!

Monday night I had a Women’s Ministry meeting at church with a light meal of appetizers shared. The meeting was short and then the fun task for the evening was decorating the church for Christmas. Our head of services gal was in charge of that and had already gotten a good start so the task was lighter than usual. I opted out of the decorating and headed home on the snowpacked/icy roads.

Today is a quiet day here at our Country Bungalow. We started the morning off at 10 degrees. Brrr. I’ll be watching World Cup Soccer today as the USA plays Iran. My parents were married in Iran and our oldest 2 sisters were born in Iran. We’ve mostly called that country Persia. So thankful God led our people out of that country back in the late 40’s and early 50’s. Our parents were the first of their family to immigrate to the USA in 1947.

Thankful for this quiet day and hope the predictions of up to 14 inches of snow into tomorrow morning is an exaggeration!