Category Archives: Family

Leap Day Birthday

We started celebrating early and continued all day.

We had breakfast at Babette’s in Newport Beach just across the street from the Pacific ocean.

After breakfast Vera and I did some shopping while Debbee and Melissa and my sister Kathy made some preparations for the evening dinner party.

The quote of the day was, “you only turn 18 twice!”

The top photo in the collage is my sister Vera with her two kids, David and Debbee. David opened up the evening with a beautiful prayer for our gathering and his mom.

Top photo are the siblings who could make it to the party in birth order. Kathy, Vera, Ellen, Steve and Lana.

Mom’s and their daughters, Aunts with their nieces.

Love our little grand niece, Avery, photo bombing this photo of our nieces and sister, Lana.

I leave you with our pop’s hallmark ending to all our phone conversations and farewells when visiting.

Above all, Love each other dearly!

Braving Air Travel

The last big birthday party our sister Vera had was for her 16th birthday eight years ago. Vera is a leap year baby so her true birthdays only come along every four years. Her kids threw her a wonderful Sweet Sixteen party back then. Now they are having an 18th birthday party bash on Saturday. I’ll let you do the math to get to her actual age.

I’m hoping to remember to get all the sisters together for a more current photo. We all will be there, Lord willing.

In searching my archives for Vera’s Sweet Sixteen party I found this wonderful photo of Moisi (our pop) with great grandson Jack.

I’m leaving for Southern California on Friday and I bought a packet of disinfectant wipes for the plane. Don’t know if I’ll have time to check in with my bloggy friends during my travels.

Some quotes from readings of late;

“Wonders of grace to God belong” It is not a small gospel message for small sinners that he has sent us to preach, but ours is a great gospel message for great sinners.” ~Spurgeon

“God’s Word is the authority over religious tradition. Consequently, tradition must yield to Scripture, not the other way around.” ~Nathan Busenitz (We Must Obey God Rather Than Men: Scripture, Authority, and the Reformation)

Also, from the same source above:

“Post Tenebras Lux.” “After Darkness Light” The dark grip of religious tradition gave way to penetrating brilliance of biblical authority. (Mark 7:1-3) “We must obey God rather than man.”

More from Spurgeon:

“The Bible exposes our corruptions and lays bare our falseness, pride and unbelief. Do not quibble with God’s faithful Word.”

And the quote of the current week from Spurgeon;

“Leave distracting concerns to those who have no higher calling.”

Enjoy the last days of February!

Good News from North Carolina

We got some good news from North Carolina on Thursday. Dear’s niece got engaged. We are hoping to be able to travel to the wedding when we get the invite with time and place. We know the wedding will be in North Carolina. The collage above is from Katie and my trip across the U.S. to get her to North Carolina in time for her Marine husband to return from Afghanistan in 2014. We stopped in Asheville for a night and enjoyed a delicious meal on the Sunset Terrace at this hotel.

This is Dear’s older and only brother. I took this photo at our mom’s funeral in 2013. It’s his daughter Kacie who is now engaged to Chris. Terry is married to Christina and they have 3 daughters. Kacie is the youngest of the three.

Our kids just met up with Kacie and her sister Annie in California in January. These four happened to all be in California at the same time and carved out some time to meet up and get caught up. Kacie is standing between Josh and Laura. Our nieces are real beauties.

This is our daughter Katie, Christina (Dear’s SIL) and our oldest niece, Jenna. Jenna, Annie and Kacie are sisters. Christina is married to Dear’s brother, Terry.

Another post to keep me on track of what happened when.

Presidents Day Weekend

Addy was so excited to show everyone her “Big Girl” bed.

For my record of what went on this past President’s Weekend or the rest of the story.

Addy and Gramps enjoying cartilage. She likes the crunch!

Jaymison helping me clap. He loves to clap.

Walk on the kids’ driveway. I stayed in because I didn’t have mud shoes on.

Always thankful for Auntie Lolo’s photos she shares with all of us.

Back up the driveway.

Josh and Laura’s goodbye shot before heading back to the airport.

Lots of good times together in two and a half days.

This has been a busy busy week and we have one more event before the weekend. Last night we had friends over for Raclette and cards (Hand and Foot). It was a great late afternoon and evening. We’ve been eating in for several days now so Dear is taking me out for Mexican today. Yippee.

The walls in the laundry room are almost all painted. It will be such a nice change.

I’ll leave you with this sentence from  a prayer by Spurgeon:

“Give peace to those whose consciences are like the troubled sea that cannot rest”

Love Filled Weekend…

Our oldest and his dear bride flew out to visit us Eastsiders for the weekend.

Both Jaymison and Addyson enjoyed seeing and being with their Auntie and Uncle.

A walk was in order on Sunday since the sun broke through.

We took this photo to text along to our SIL/Aunt/Great Aunt Mandy in Texas who celebrated a birthday today.

Today was also the 10 month landmark for Jaymison. I will post some photos later this week since I left my camera at the kids’ house and won’t be able to upload the photos today.

Hope you all had a weekend filled with God’s love and brotherly love.

Tuesdays With Moisi

Today I’m posting photos from our Mom and Pop’s 60th Wedding Anniversary Celebration we held in our brother Leonard’s backyard in Downey, California. September 13th, 2003.

My parents had just returned from their last long term mission in Russia and moved in with our brother in Downey.

The photo above is of most of their children, grandchildren, and spouses. Some of the grandchildren aren’t in this photo and some aren’t born yet. No great grandchildren have been born as of 2003. Vera and Lana’s husbands aren’t in this photo. Our brother Leonard was not married at this time. Our daughter Katie, sitting on the far left, was the youngest granddaughter at this point. Sitting on the far right is grandson Joseph, who was the youngest grandson.

It was fun to capture the photographers, our cousins and their kids.

Our folks were worn out from their responsibilities in Russia and we were happy to have this time for them to relax and enjoy being served.

In this photo above Moisi is at the head of the table with his sister Anna next to him. Next to Aunt Anna is our Uncle Alex and his wife Aunt Ouiliana. Next to her is her brother Mikhail Samaduroff and then our cousin Alex. Next to Moisi is his oldest brother John and his wife Katie.

In this photo our cousin Alex’s wife Vera got in the shot with our sister Kathy’s Mother-in-law Sophie. Our mom is at the head of the table in this shot, too. Today in 2020 our cousin Alex is the only one who is alive in this row.

In this photo next to our Aunt Anna is Mr. Petakoff and his wife Genia, friends of the family.

Our Aunt Anna (and brother Leonard in the background) are the only ones alive today in this photo and Aunt Anna will be celebrating her 95th birthday in April.

Moisi’s sons (my brothers) not in order of birth, Fred, Steve, Leonard and Tim.

Once I scan more photos from this event I’ll add them to this post. Many grandchildren and nieces and nephews were at the party, too.

Grandsons and grand nephews.

Many of Moisi and Nadia’s grandchildren.

My parents lived in our brother’s home until he relocated full time to Dallas, Texas and sold his home in 1996. At that point we found our folks a senior apartment that they moved into in the town of Brea, California.

Sunday Snaphots

Our “Coast Kids” sent this photo on Sunday prompting the rest of us to share our photos.

Dear and I obliged with a selfie taken on our way home from an impromptu lunch out after church with friends.

Dan and Jamie sent this photo of Addy and Jaymison. Cracking up at Jaymison’s new obsession with his tongue as witnessed in this next photo of him we received this week, too.

It was nice to go out to lunch with new friends after church today. When you re-locate later in life and leave long time friends behind it’s a comfort to know you can establish new friendships. There were 7 of us at lunch today.

Our meal at the Chinese restaurant yesterday was decent but not noteworthy. The owners and staff were very pleasant. Thankfully the Thai to Go in town is really good to our palates!

Quote for the week from Spurgeon:

“A house without prayer is a house without a roof.”

Living Vicariously Disneyland

Tuesday January 21st was Disneyland day for Josh and Laura with the three cousins who took the day off.

Some of the cousins have year long passports to Disneyland.

What a beautiful day in Anaheim!

So thankful my nieces and Laura have such a special relationship.

One of the newest attractions at Disneyland is Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge with the Millennium Falcon.

Sisters!

Such a fun photo bomb by Chewbacca!

Josh and Laura ran into our favorite defender from the Seattle Sounders Soccer team who just retired this last year, Chad Marshall. They also met up with Laura’s best friend from college who was there with her family, too.

Dinner at the Blue Bayou with the crickets chirping from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Night time at Disneyland.

Oops! Captured!

An epic day of fun and laughter at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Thanks Kristin, Michelle and Laura for letting me copy and paste your photos from your day at Disneyland!

Living Vicariously Part 1

Our son Josh and our dear DIL, Laura, flew to Southern California for a few days to celebrate Joshua’s birthday. This photo is of our nephew David and his dear wife and our kids at Huntington Beach.

Our niece Melissa and niece Debbee with our kids at Huntington Beach. Debbee and David are siblings, my sister Vera’s kids. Melissa belongs to my sister Kathy. So grateful that many photos were taken and shared.

 

Newport Beach/Balboa where David and Kristin live.

The guys heading to the gun range. Nephew Tim and Dave. Nephews in law Ryan and Lenny. Our grandnephew, Jackson and our son Josh.

Seriously…

The girls making lotions and such while the guys were shooting. Niece Debbee, Melissa and Michelle. Niece in law, Kristin and grandniece Avery. Daughter in law, Laura. Melissa and Michelle are sisters.

After shooting and lotion making a dinner celebration with cake for Josh.

Breakfast at Juliene, a family favorite in San Marino, California.

And a rare treat to be able to get together with two of our nieces on Dear’s side of the family. Kacie was in Southern California visiting from North Carolina and our niece Annie is now living in Long Beach moving from North Carolina recently. Their sister Jenna lives in New York.

Our kids filled up their days in California enjoying their cousins. Their Dzeda, our pop, told them all before he died to “stay together, love each other.” It fills me with joy to see them doing just that.  I’m thankful for social media so I can see things like this and (steal) share the photos to memorialize them on my blog.

My next post will be all about cousin time at Disneyland with other encounters, too.

Frosty With the Hope of Spring

We had a good time celebrating Dan and Jamie’s birthdays on Friday night with dinner and cake.

Applesauce Spice Cake was the cake of choice for both our birthday celebrants. Addy helped blow out the candles. Smile. On hindsight we lit the candles a little early and they almost melted away before we sang Happy Birthday.

Jaymison was pretty mellow the whole evening and Addy was quite animated.

Today we sent out Happy Birthday wishes to our firstborn Josh. He’s celebrating with his dear Laura and some of our extended family in Southern California.

Happy Birthday dear Josh!