Category Archives: Fun

Singing Apples and Leaves Hodgepodge

Wednesday Hodgepodge has rolled around again, thank you, Joyce!

1. ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ How does this saying ring true in your own family, either the one you grew up in or the one you made? 

In the family I grew up in, singing was something my parents enjoyed and that has been passed down to me and most of my siblings. Singing at church and singing when we had company over was a regular thing. Singing in choirs, singing in quartets, trios, duets, singing in Russian and in English, singing for recordings, and for me, singing in a Christian ‘rock’ band. Greg and I met because of that group.

The Russian Sacred Singers of Los Angeles are a group of California young people of Russian background. They sing in English and Russian under the inspiring leadership of director Leonard Wozniuk. The unique bi-lingual choir responded to our challenge to record their selections for radio use. Today, their joyful singing is heard world-wide over several short-wave radio stations and over local broadcasts in North and South America.

I’m on the bottom right, my sister, my cousins, and best friend complete the row.  Second row on the left are two more cousins. The director is my brother-in-law. The Russian Choir and the Rock band were active in the 70’s!

Greg and I are on the right end of this photo. The photo was from somewhere in England, possibly Liverpool.

2. Something you’re nuts about these days?

Time spent with family.

How about something that’s driving you nuts? 

Stink bugs are in abundance this year! This is a male stink bug. The females are rounder in the body.

Stink bugs, especially brown marmorated stink bugs or BMSB, are notorious for invading homes when the weather starts to cool. And while they aren’t interested in stealing your food or sucking your blood, their offensive odor is just as annoying to homeowners.

3. What does abundance mean to you? 

These words from Jesus from the Amplified Bible:

The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].

Jesus is my abundance and I thank God for his plan of salvation through Jesus and for the Holy Spirit who helps me have faith and belief in the triune God.

4. Caramel apple-caramel cake-caramel corn-caramel sundae-caramel macchiatto…what’s your caramel treat of choice? 

5. What’s a childhood memory that always comes to mind as the leaves start to fall? 

Growing up in southern California did not afford me many memories of fall, at all. We moved to Washington state in 1988 and that is when I became more familiar with fall color and having to rake leaves! Our children were young enough that they are now the ones with childhood memories of leaves!

6. Insert. your own random thought here. 

Our Grands are growing up with four seasons and lots of leaves! These photos were from a few years back while helping their Granny blow the leaves into a pile for the city to pick up.

‘

I’ll (leaf) leave you here. 🙂

Cousins Weekend 2024

The annual Memorial Day Cousin’s weekend in Arizona was another special time together. Half of our kids and several of my nieces and nephews were able to gather again in Surprise, Arizona. My sisters and I love to peek in and see the fun our kids have together. We praise God, from whom all blessings flow, that these relationships are strong and helpful and encouraging.

Table Set for Nine

It was fun to plan for seven guests, two families, from our church on Tuesday evening.

Since the nine of us were together around the table for the first time we had name cards with a conversation question written in each place card.

I should have done the age math better because one of the questions was, “Where were you when John F. Kennedy was shot?” None of our guests were alive when Kennedy was shot!!

Thankfully the other questions were appropriate for the audience!

The dessert photo is the only photo that captured our guests at the table, sort of. Just as well since I didn’t ask permission to plaster their faces on my blog.

We had tri-tip, rice with raisins and almonds, pea salad (brought by a guest), southwest beans, and Strawberry Ice Cream cake for dessert.

Are you curious about the other questions besides the John F. Kennedy one?

  1. What high school did you graduate from and tell us about the city it is in?
  2. Do you have siblings? Tell us about them and where they live.
  3. Which foreign countries have you visited? If you haven’t which one would you like to visit?
  4. What city and state were you born in? What is it’s claim to fame?
  5. Where were you when you became a follower of Jesus?
  6. What is your favorite season and why?
  7. Tell us your: Favorite Book. Book of the Bible. Bible Verse.
  8. As a couple how many churches have you attended and tell us about them.

We had a lively discussion even without the questions but it was nice to have a concentrated ‘listen’ to each of our guests voices while they answered their question.

Welcome to March!

Finished!

It took longer than some and it was fun and satisfying to put in the last piece of this puzzle. Two more puzzles are on their way from my puzzle club present.

Another below freezing day here in the northeast corner of Washington State. Morning devotions, catching up on blogs (I always get behind from Friday through Sunday), washed bed linens, finished the puzzle, made a meal using up some stuff in the freezer (thankfully it was good), braved the freezing temps to throw out some food for the birds and that was about it. We didn’t have to trek out to the mailbox since it was Martin Luther King Jr. day here in USA and no mail was delivered.

That was yesterday. Today is our son Dan’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Dan!

Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

Fair Days

On Friday we attended the NE Washington State Fair here in our town.

 

Before we left the fair we enjoyed some ice cream cones.

On Saturday we met up on Main Street for the NE Washington Fair Parade.

The fire department starts the fair off and it is really loud. Our Grands have the best mom and she plans so well and remembered their ear muffs!

The participants in the parade are always stocked up with lots of candy to throw to the children along the parade route.

 

 

The short parade was over in no time and our Grands had a bag full of candy. We walked over to the Saturday Farmer’s market and bought veggies and fruit before heading home for the rest of the day!

 

60th Birthday Part 1

This will be the 2nd of a few posts covering our time in Texas the last weekend of July.

We started with photos at the hotel before our drive to the party at Circle R Ranch in Flower Mound.

Josh and Laura above.

My sister Kathy with her daughters and granddaughter.

 

The twins with their nieces (and my niece’s, too). One of Lana’s nieces is twin Leonard’s daughter. She’s in the white boots. For the record the twins had many nieces and nephews from their other sides of the family at the party, too, along with brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law and Lana’s Mother-in-law. Friends of Steve and Lana’s from Washington and friends from Leonard and Mandy’s church were also in attendance.

Our son, Josh, with his cousin Andrew. Andrew is Leonard and Mandy’s son, one of our nephews.

More niece photos!

Moisi and Nadia would be thrilled to see so many of their people together.

The siblings in order of birth starting with Kathy on the left and ending with twin Leonard who is the youngest by a few minutes. Two of our brothers were not at the party. Our brother Steve planned on being there but got sick at the last minute. Steve would have stood between our brother Tim and our sister Lana. Our other brother would be between me and Vera.

All the sisters with our dear friend Heidi. We all grew up in the same Russian Baptist church. Heidi has been a dear friend for years! She was also the twins Sunday School teacher about 55 years ago!!

My younger brothers, so dear to me.

The youngest and the oldest!

Nephew David and our son Josh, friends since they were toddlers!

Josh, nephews Lenny and David.

Our son with Nikki who is the daughter of Ken and Heidi. Our kids have been friends from birth! Nikki and her brother lived across the street from us in Huntington Beach back in the 80’s.

Our brother Tim and his dear wife Letty.

Dear and me with our forever friends, Ken and Heidi.

A huge thanks to Josh for being our ride the whole weekend and to Laura for so many great photos.

Next post will be as full of more photos including line dancing.

Open House in April

We had a very busy weekend and full to the brim Sunday.

Back in the end of 2021 we invited several folk from our church to come over for a Happy New Year get together on January 3rd of 2022. We had to cancel that event because of snow and icy conditions with a promise to reschedule when our front area would be safe for walking without anyone breaking a hip on the ice! Well that day finally arrived and we rescheduled the event for April 3rd!

Twenty Five folk from our church stopped by after church for food and fellowship. It was a houseful with all possible seats filled in three different rooms. The food was enjoyed and I forgot to take one photo of the spread! We had pulled pork sliders, coleslaw (Kathy’s recipe without mayo that you should try, delicious), Vinegret (Russian Beet Salad), baked beans, and Applesauce Spice cupcakes for dessert. Some folk went back through the buffet line for thirds so we knew the food tasted just fine.

Everyone left by 3pm and then our kids and grands came over for leftovers at 5:30. We prayed that our food would be enough to feed all and it did with lots to spare. Thank you Lord.

Not expected at all but fun to receive these hostess/host gifts from some of the folk who came.

From sweet Diana, my trusty helper in the church kitchen.

From Gene and Marilyn, a newer couple who moved to Colville from Southern California.

Soup cozies for Dear and me.

From Gordon and Christine long time residents of Colville who host our Monday evening Bible Study.

A good day with a promise kept.

Happy first full week in April everyone!

Stepping Back 100 Years!

We have some very talented people at our church who can transform a gym into a great themed venue. Others come up with a menu and cook and serve a nice dinner with dessert to 90 of us. The cast of the murder mystery did a great job, too. We had to find out who killed Chuckles and how they did it. There were several puzzles to solve to get more clues. One table of 8 got all the answers correct and won gift cards to small businesses in our town.

At ‘Carossino’s’ in ‘Chicago’ we enjoyed Cherry Spritzers, a plated salad, cheesy bread, stuffed shells, meatballs with sauce and a lovely triple dessert.

To get into Carossino’s for the evening we walked through a back alley (a transformed hallway in our church) through a phone booth with a false door. We knocked on the false door and were ready with our password to gain entrance.

Photo fail…I forgot to get a photo of the back alley and phone booth!! If photos from our church get posted I’ll ‘borrow’ some to add to this post. Many of the 90 of us were dressed for the 1920’s era.

By the way, it was Blondie who killed Chuckles.

Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone!

Water Fun

We bought this inflatable pool from Wal-Mart during our one hundred degree + temps and last week when the Colville kids came for dinner we had the Grands try it out.

The air was hot the well water was cold.

It took awhile for sister to make the commitment to step all the way in. They came out to warm up wrapped in a towel and then they would head back in for more cold fun.

The next day at the river they had more water fun.

We kept the pool up and inflated with water in it just in case the deer could use a drink and today we spied one drinking for a long while. I’ll share some deer photos on another day.

Addy and JJ started swimming lessons on Monday at the city pool.