Category Archives: History

TT #15 ~ Ben Franklin Resolutions

I nabbed this from my brother Steve’s blog The Temple…

Ben Franklin Resolutions – The Virtue Chart.  Ben Franklin regularly followed a plan to develop his character. Based on Philippians 4, Ben used the chart below as a tool to improve himself. Check out the site Flamebright for a brief explanation and DIY Planner for templates you can print out. His “Plan” was made up of 13 virtues, each with short descriptions:

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.

2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.

6. Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice: Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.

11. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; Never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

12. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

For more TT click here.

HT: The Temple

Happy New Year!

A very Happy New Year to all!

We’re headed to the airport to fly back to Southern California from Washington early on New Year’s Day. We’ll be in the air and on the road for a large portion of the day. Today I have to totally de-Christmas my house and try to pack everything I want to take back to Cali with me. I won’t be back in Washington till Easter. The last few days of 2007 were spent with family and friends celebrating our daughter’s 22nd birthday and then just celebrating our friendships. It’s been an eventful busy year. Looking forward to what 2008 holds. Blessings…

The Birthday Party

The Cake

The Soup Party the next night…

 

It’s always good to have a tupperware drawer way down low…

Photobucket has blacked out all my photos and is holding them hostage. I’m slowly cleaning up my posts to remove the ugly black and grey blocks that photobucket has inserted instead of my photos.

1947 in Iran ~ the Shvetzov and Katkov Families

For my Show and Tell Friday I’d like to share this old family photo. We do not have many photographs with my maternal Grandfather. I love the photos that we do have of him. God blessed these families with a way out of Iran to the United States and blessed them with faith in Him that has sustained them over the years. My little babushka (grandma) as we lovingly called her was a prayer warrior for our family and her friends. I look forward to being reunited with her and meeting my maternal grandfather for the first time in heaven…

 

My mother was a Shvetzov before she married my father. Her brother Paul married Nina Katkov. This is part of the Katkov family and part of the Shvetzov family after my parents had already immigrated to the U.S.A. The Katkov’s and Shvetzov’s spent much time together at many meaningful events through the years in Iran and in the Los Angeles Area in the U.S.

In the front row you have Vera (Katkov), Nicolai Katkov the Patriarch, Manya Katkov the Matriarch, My maternal grandmother Vera (Shergaev) Shvetzov and my Grandfather Feodor Shvetzov, Zena (Katkov). My cousin Alex Shvetzov at my grandparents side.

Top Row: Vasilli Katkov married Zena, she’s holding their oldest daughter Tamara, Nicolai Katkov, Lida (Katkov) Titov, Alexsei Katkov, my Aunt Nina (Katkov) Shvetzov and my Uncle Paul Shvetzov.

Everyone in this photo eventually immigrated to the U.S. from Iran except for my grandfather who was stabbed and killed in Iran. He was a Baptist minister in Iran. My Babushka immigrated as a widow and lived with my aunt and uncle for many years until she got her own apartment a couple buildings away from the Russian Baptist Church in L.A. A few of the other widowed Babushka’s also lived in this same apartment building including Manya Katkov who lived right next door to my Babushka. My family started attending this church when we left the Russian Molokan Church. Only 4 of the people photographed here are still alive. My Babushka’s last days were spent in my parent’s home.

For more Show and Tell head over to Kelli’s.

Our Little Girl is 22 today!

Happy 22nd Birthday Katie!

Photos from Katie’s 1st ~ 21st Birthdays
1st in Ventura with family & friends
2nd in Ventura, California
3rd in Downey, California. She’s pretty happy even with that tiny cake!

 

4th  in Bothell, Washington.

5th in Bothell

 

6th at Baba and Deda’s sharing the day with Aunt Nina and cousin Stephen both born on the 27th too.

7th in Bothell, Washington
7th with family, Titov’s and Spiro’s
8th at Discovery Zone
9th with fam and Spiro’s

 

10th at the Skating rink where your dad broke his wrist…

11th in Bothell (1st rental) with Jamie, Christie, and Johanna

 

12th bowling with fam and Hiller’s

 

13th with Jamie, Kristen, Heidi, and Christie (sorry Christie this was the only photo I had)

 

14th with Jamie, Heidi, Kristen, and Christie (very nice photo this time Christie!)

15th with Kristen, Heidi, Christie, and Katie K.

16th Ice Skating with fam, Katie K, Christie, Heidi, Jamie, Kristen, Brad and Joe
17th ~ fam, TCL crowd, school crowd
18th smaller TCL and School crowd

 

19th ~ the year of the ice cream cake…

 

20th ~ The year of the maple bar cake!

 

21st the Spice Bundt cake and another small crowd with Kristen, Christie, Jamie, Heidi, Ben and fam.

22nd will be another wonderful celebration with Bowling, Tacos and another Spice Cake!

We love you dear Katie and are so happy that God brought you into our lives 22 years ago. May your birthday and everyday be filled with an awareness of who created you and who you are in Him.

Photobucket has blacked out all my photos and is holding them hostage. I’m slowly cleaning up my posts to remove the ugly black and grey blocks that photobucket has inserted instead of my photos.

Antique Postcards ~ 1908-1912

 These Postcards that I am sharing for Show and Tell Friday are all from Dear’s ~ Great, Great Aunt Emma Daniels. Great, Great Aunt Emma was Swedish and she never married. The Postmarks are mostly from 1908 through 1912. Some of them are made in Germany and others are Tuck’s Post Card, Raphael Tuck & Sons, Art Publishers to their Majesties the King & Queen. These are from our collection of Christmas and New Year’s Postcards. I’ll share more at Valentine’s Day and Easter.

PM1910

PM1908

PM1912

PM1909

PM1909

These are all close enough to being 100 years old that I took the liberty to call them Antiques. To all my Show and Tell friends may your Christmas be filled with love and joy!
For more Show and Tell Friday head on over to Kelli’s.

WFMW ~ Hands On Wooden Nativity

When my kids were little we bought this small wooden nativity set at Disneyland one year. We wanted something that the kids would be able to touch and move around all they wanted without the danger of breaking. It was always fun to see how they would rearrange it after I set it up! We’ve been enjoying it for at least 22 years. The shepherd has lost his staff, one of the lambs only has 3 legs, and the stable frame has cracked and been re-glued. This hands on wooden Nativity still works for us!

To see more WFMW click here.

Fun Monday ~ The Story of Your Home and Road…

We live in a neighborhood in Washington State northeast of the city of Seattle. We are surrounded by new homes. Our home is the original home that was here by itself surrounded by trees and fields. It was part of  a nursery. The owners of this home finally sold all the property around it to a developer who built many homes on small parcels. There used to be a dirt road access to our home from the main busy road. New roads were built when the neighborhood was developed and access to our home is more convoluted. We moved into this house in 1998.

 

These 4 photos are the road that comes to the back side of our house and then the drive you have to come up to get to the front side of our home.  You could say we are the “sticks out like a sore thumb” house in the neighborhood. One of the major attractions we had to this old house was the detached garage/shop/barn. We have lots of  extra junk and cars (projects and hobbies) that fit in this extra space nicely. Our chain link fence is another thing that is different than all the new wooden fences in the neighborhood!

 

We’ve made several improvements to this old house but are now reconsidering what we want to do. We have put new siding on 1/3 of the home so the front and one side of the home are different than the back of the house.

 

This is the front of our house that you can’t see from the street. You can see the new siding we’ve added here. We are now seriously considering the idea of demolishing the house and rebuilding on this property. We have some heating challenges because of how old the house is and the way things were added on over the years. We also have very uneven floors and some flooding issues when we get big storms. We can only make a wild guess as to when the original part of the house was built. We tend to think it was in the ’60’s. But it wouldn’t surprise us if the original little section of the house that’s been added on to over the years is a lot older than that. The last addition that there are county records on shows the ’70’s.

 

I decided to add this photo taken from the inside of my house looking out my stairwell window. A pretty view of my neighbor’s Maple tree in the late fall (all her leaves land in my yard!) 🙂

Head over to Kitten’s homeschool on Monday to see more Fun Monday participants.

Photobucket has blacked out all my photos I was storing on their site and they are holding them hostage. I am working on updating my more than 4000 posts.

Thursday Thirteen #13 ~ Handel’s Messiah

The Messiah, Handel’s most successful and best known oratorio, was composed in the 1741 in 24 days. It was first performed at a concert given at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, on April 13th, 1742, Handel conducting in person. For more history of this first performance click here.

Here are thirteen lines from this amazing work…

1. “And the Glory of the Lord shall be revealed”

2. “For He is like a refiner’s fire”

3. “and shall call his name Emmanuel: God with us”

4. “arise, shine, for thy light is come”

5. “For unto us a child is born unto us a son is given”

6. “and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

7.  “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

8. “He is the righteous Saviour and he shall speak peace unto the heathen”

9. “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd, and He shall gather the Lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom”

10. “Behold the Lamb of God, behold the lamb of God, That taketh away the sins of the world.”

11. “He was despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”

12. “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of glory.”

13. “Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”

I’ve only seen the Messiah performed twice in person. If you never have you should put it on your list of things to do. It was an amazing experience. I hope to be able to enjoy a live performance again…

For more TT click here.

December 6, 1974 ~ 33 Years later

Today is our 33rd Wedding Anniversary!

December – When December’s snows fall fast, marry and your love will last.

Here are 33 things about Dear and Myself since we’ve been married…

1. Dear was 21 and I was 23 when we got married.

2. My engagement ring was an opal ring. We had matching wedding bands. When I was pregnant with our third (Katie) Dear bought me my first diamond ring.

 

3. We honeymooned up the coast of California .

4. Our first home was a 1 bedroom apartment in West Los Angeles.

5. We bought our first house in Huntington Beach in 1975 for $45,000. We lived in Huntington Beach until 1984.

6. In 1977 we took a road-trip to visit extended family and to see some sights. We first stopped in Denver to see Dear’s mothers side of the family. Then we went to Peoria, Illinois to meet Dear’s fathers side of the family. We headed north to the Detroit area. We took a ferry to Canada and headed to Toronto where we found my china from England and added to my set so we would have 12 place settings. Then we headed to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Fun carefree times in a little yellow 1976 Honda Civic.

7. We have three children. Josh was born on Friday, January 19, 1979. Dan was born on Friday, January 16, 1981. Katie was born on Friday, December 27, 1985. (Katie came early she was due in January also!) “Friday’s child is loving and giving”

8. Dear’s professions while we’ve been married were, a Painting Contractor, a Conveyorman at Cal-Mat, A Loader/Operator at Cal-Mat, A hospital Pharmacist, Professional Services at a Biotech company, Medical Information at a Biotech Company.

9. My professions since we’ve been married were, a File Clerk, an Elementary School Teacher, a SAHM, a Playground Teacher, House Cleaning business, Substitute Teacher, SAHM, and now I’m a SAH wife…

10. Churches we attended the last 33 years earliest to present: Grace Community Church in Panorama City, Huntington Beach Evangelical Free Church, Bible Fellowship Church in Ventura, Sunrise Christian Fellowship in Seattle, and Evangelical Free Church Conejo Valley.

11. We took our first 2 camping trips with our boys and some of their cousins before Katie was born. We camped at Refugio State Beach, north of Santa Barbara. Fun times in a tent in 1983 and 1984!

12. While living in Ventura we met our good buddies the Spiros who are like family to us.  Dr. Spiro delivered our daughter Katie in Ventura while he was doing his residency. Their 3 daughters and our 3 kids got along well and are still great friends. After the residency they moved to Washington where Dave joined a family practice. When we moved to Washington for Pharmacy school they adopted us into their family since we were so far from ours. We share many holidays together.

13. Dear’s Father Rex died in 1985 a couple months before our daughter Katie was born.

14. In 1986 we went on a bicycle touring trip in the Wine Country with our friends Dave and Jody and we met our dear friends Bob and Jan for the first time on this trip. (Geyserville to Mendocino, down the coast to Gualala and inland to Monte Rio then back to Geiserville) Oh the tales we can tell. We did not have a support vehicle.

15. We moved to the state of Washington in 1988 so that Dear could attend the University of Washington and then apply to Pharmacy School there.

16. While Dear attended the University of Washington the Husky football team had some glory years and we were able to get student season tickets along with tickets to a Rose Bowl game where the Huskies beat Michigan in 1992.

17. While in Washington Dear’s mother Verna lived with us for 9 years.

18. Our first home in Washington was a 4600 square foot home where we finished a 650 square foot self contained apartment in the daylight basement for Dear’s mother.

19. After moving to Washington in 1988 we made several road trips to California. I was tempted to write a book about driving I-5 from border to border.

20. I started a home cleaning business while Dear was in school full-time. I’ve cleaned a lot of toilets!

21. In 1994 we took the family to Los Angeles and San Jose to experience the World Cup. This was a wonderful experience especially for Josh and Dan (and ELLEN, too)

22. In 1996 we gave our home back to the bank when a serious landslide came right to our foundation and threatened the stability of the home. The costs for shoring up and saving the home ended up being more than we could ever afford. We lost all of our California equity and started over by first renting homes till we were able to purchase a home again. Moving yearly with all of our stuff and all of my MIL’s stuff was quite the challenge.

23. Dear’s Mother Verna died in 1997.

24. One of our memorable family trips was to Hawaii in 1997 after Josh graduated from high school.

25. We rented 3 different homes in 3 years after giving our house back to the bank. We bought our 3rd rental house when they tried to sell it out from under us after only being in the house for a month. We couldn’t face the trauma of moving all our stuff again in such a short time. We didn’t think a bank would give us a loan after we had given a house back to the bank. God intervened for us and the bank did not fault us in their records for defaulting on our loan.

26. Our son Josh was married to Laura on August 25, 2001. We had some wonderful days celebrating with family and friends.

27. Dear and I have had some great trips since our kids have become adults. Our favorites are our trips to London in 2003, Great Britain with our daughter in 2004 and a Walking tour of Great Britain with our best friends in 2006.

28. We took a few trips to Chicago area before and during our daughter Katie’s 3 semesters at Wheaton College.

29. Cars we’ve owned while married: ’71 Datsun, ’70 Volkswagon, ’75 Courier Pick up, ’76 Honda, Buick Station Wagon, ’81 Honda, ’84 Nissan Pick-up, ’86 Toyota van, ’92 Toyota Corolla Wagon, ’74 GMC pick-up, ’99 Camry, ’73 Chevy Pick-up. ’07 Camry.

30. I’m the sports fan in the family and Dear is gracious to put up with me since he is not a big fan of watching sports.

31. Dear is the handiest guy to have around. He has always tackled any hard job around the house and completed it well. He’s an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter, a mechanic, a painter. He’s helped other people out with their projects, too.

32. Dear is a learner and is blessed with lots of knowledge. He is a very wise man and he’s a great teacher.

33. We made a pact when we got married that whoever decided to make the stupid choice to leave, the other of us would shoot them in the back with our 357 Magnum as they walked out the door! We always said to each other and to others that death would be easier to deal with than divorce. Harsh, yes, but after 33 years neither of us has ever thought about walking away from this marriage.

Whew! That wasn’t easy. Thank you Lord for 33 years of mercy and grace in our marriage. And thank you for so many blessings we have received all from your hand. We are especially thankful for a family that loves you and loves us and for dear friends who do the same.

Photobucket has blacked out all my photos I was storing on their site and they are holding them hostage. I am working on updating my more than 4000 posts.