Category Archives: Celebrations

Afternoon and Evening…

…on Saturday in Chilliwack and Abbotsford.

Wendy at Winks along with her staff welcomed us with a most beautiful setting for our 2nd book signing of our weekend.

If you haven’t visited her store yet you really need to put it on your list and you won’t be disappointed.

Many books had been pre-sold and were waiting for us to sign so we got busy.

Anneliese’s daughters both played a part in our day here with one sharing cupcakes from her own cupcake business and the other blessing us with her lovely violin serenade.

It was so much fun to meet the “girls” families. Judy’s DIL brought her children to see their grammy. Anneliese’s granddaughter is sitting on the chair watching with interest. I’ll share more in another post of one of my sweetest moments at Winks.

The patio was filled with beautiful flowers.

How Great Thou Art was on my heart and mind all weekend.

Some of us stole away to do a little shopping.

As Anneliese’s daughter played her finale we packed up and headed to our next event.

This is the peaceful drive up to Sweet Dreams Luxury Inn in Abbotsford.

This is where we would wrap up our evening signing books for each other and for our publisher and then having a lovely dinner served to us.

We took some time to take a few more photos donning our new aprons that Julie sewed from material chosen by Lovella and Kathy.

On our way out we noticed that our Betty matched the beautiful flowers that were centerpieces on our tables at dinner.

Another full day complete we headed to our homes and hotels full of good memories of our day. On Sunday we had one more full day starting with a church service.

Today is Tuesday and I’m still trying to get back in my normal groove. Seeing how it’s noon already that groove seems to be escaping me. We started out today in a cloudy pattern instead of our several bright sunny days. The sun is breaking through as I finish this post.  Dear has one more full day in San Diego at a conference and I’m looking forward to him coming home tomorrow. Are you looking forward to anything?

A Year of Preparations…

…calls for more than one post!

Hope you will bear with me as I chronicle the events of this past weekend.

On Friday I packed up my car trying to choose the right clothes for 4 main events that were scheduled for the weekend. Of course there was a little gift for each of the other girls that had to be packed, too. I always wonder if my car will be randomly chosen at the border to be searched. I think the agents would get a kick out of the things I pile into my trunk. When I approached the window and handed off my passport I again had a nice smile and was waved on with no problems.

I arrived to Judy’s Front Porch a little after four in the afternoon. She had planned a nice meal for us before we set off to our first signing of the weekend.

She made her delicious Santa Fe Chicken salad on page 60 of our first cookbook. If you haven’t prepared this dish yet I would highly recommend that you do. I’m sorry to say I didn’t take a photo of Judy’s lovely rustic rhubarb tart that she made for dessert.

Judy and I changed into our dresses and headed to Abbotsford for our first book launch event at House of James bookstore.

Everything was all prepared for us and they even had baked treats from our book that everyone who came was able to enjoy. The ten of us were happy to finally be together again and we took our seats ready to sign our books.  House of James has been on board with us since our first book and we appreciate their promotion of our book and support. They had drawings throughout the evening and we also had opportunities to speak about the mission work our Celebrations’ author royalties will be donated to. This next photo is of the Menno Media staff that has been part of our support team, Russ Eanes the director of Menno Media is in the center flanked by Ben Penner our marketing manager and Amy Gingerich our Editor. We were happy that they could travel to be a part of the weekend.

We left with thankful hearts to rest up for our next full day of activities.

Bright and early Saturday morning Judy and I headed out for a little walk on her country road before the rest of our nonstop day. Elmer, Judy’s husband was concerned that because I was a city girl I might not be able to stand the eau de perfum wafting off the freshly manured fields. I managed just fine by concentrating on the beauty that goes along with it. When in the country it’s good to just enjoy all you get!

After our walk we got cleaned up, donned our next outfit and headed off for the rest of the day starting with an early lunch at Planet Earth in Chilliwack just down the street from Winks where we would have our next signing. I’ll share more about that on another day.

I made it home from Canada later last night and am still just sitting around taking it all in. The lawn is several inches high and asking to be mowed but it will have to wait for another day yet. I wish high school kids were still of the mind to work hard for some pay. I would hire one today! I’m slowly making the rounds on what I missed while in Canada without my usual internet connections. Hope all is well where you are…

It Arrived!

The real exciting thing that happened this weekend is that my copy of our new Celebrations Cookbook arrived on Saturday!! Oh how wonderful to hold the final product in my hands after the months and months of planning, cooking, perfecting, cooking again, photographing, photographing and more photographing. Then there was the initial editing before it went to the Editors. Maybe now you get the picture as to how wonderful it is to hold the book in my hands finished and ready to share.

Our author royalties from our new book will all be going to a Clean Water WASH Program in Africa. Our author royalties from our first book will continue to go to the Good Shepherd Shelter in the Ukraine funding the new greenhouse. Make sure and check our MGCC blog as there are some giveaways in the works. We are looking forward to several book launch events in British Columbia in early May and more events in Winnipeg in early June.

Now more everyday news back in our humble dwelling in the Pacific Northwest. We actually saw blue skies around fluffy white clouds today and we had to pull out our sunglasses! We don’t count on this lasting so we headed out to finish up the mowing I started on Friday. Don’t you just love a freshly mowed lawn? I know there are a lot of you out there that are still looking at snow and I hope that changes soon. Some of you had ice storms and were without power, like Rosella and other weather blasts like Vee. I’m sorry I use my fellow bloggers to be thankful for our clouds and rain when I hear about what’s going on in your neck of the woods. I’m sure like us the excitement of the beauty in our world and good weather days are that much more appreciated!

One more thing before I go scrounge something to eat…

We (Dear and I) were on the speaker phone with 2 of our kids (Josh and Laura) and we made some initial plans for a trip together. When we hit the purchase button together it was exciting and scary all wrapped up in one click. Now to decide on all the other details. I’ll share more later!

Have a wonderful week and oh my don’t forget to file your tax returns if you haven’t already!!

Both Old But Very Different…

The finale to my Monumentale Cemetery photos are all from a indoor portion called the Hall of Fame. I’m also sharing a link to a post Lovella shared on her blog yesterday about her visit to my old house.

You can see Lovella’s behind the scenes shots of my old house by clicking here.

Yes…the ceiling was that blue!

This was one of the very few images we saw of the risen Christ.

Another week is flying by at this old house.  A free calendar has been a blessing. It has been interesting making plans for a 90th birthday party for my folks from 1200 miles away. Our 70 or so guests will just have to be flexible along with the party planner! Since most of those 70 are related to the guests of honor the pressure is minimal. How’s your week going?

Celebrations Giveaway!

We are celebrating today because it is only one month until our book is published. We are offering you a chance to win a copy of our Celebrations book.
If you haven’t had a chance yet to take a peek inside the book…
Amazon is offering you a chance to see inside here.
Contest rules: Share this post on at least one of the following … Facebook, Twitter, or on your own blog. If you are not able to share on any of those options, share it with your family and friends!
Leave a comment on the post at the Mennonite Girls Can Cook Blog (not here on my blog) and in your comment, tell us how you shared.
Contest closes April 4 at 6 pm PST.
We’ll draw one random winner and announce that winner on April 5 at 4 am PST!

1,000,000 Celebrations!

In Celebration of over 1,000,000 hits on my blog I’m giving away our new Celebrations Cookbook to one of you who leave a comment on this post. Oops!! I forgot to mention that the giveaway will close Saturday night and I’ll announce the winner on Monday!

In March of 2007 my brother Steve sat me down and told me he was going to help me start my own blog since I was enjoying visiting so many. Since that time I have learned so much and I understand a few more things about my computer. One of the best things that has happened from my blogging experience are the new friendships I’ve enjoyed. Meeting some of these friends in person has been such a special blessing. One of my meetings resulted in a walking buddy for the years that Dear and I were living in Camarillo, California. Now that we are back in Washington, I miss my walking buddy, Willow.

During my blogging I stumbled upon Lovella’s blog and noticed that she baked Paska at Easter time. I was curious because being from a Russian Immigrant family we always had this same Easter treat year after year. I started following her blog and soon realized a lot of her recipes were similar to the Russian recipes my mom made in our kitchen. Soon Lovella decided to start a cooking blog where recipes were posted every day. She asked if I’d like to contribute. I started slow but then became more regular when I embraced this fun concept and my responsibility of being a contributor. Over the course of time the  Mennonite Girls Can Cook Blog was cemented with 10 contributors and I was one of the 10. After this point Lovella was contacted by Menno Media with the idea of a Mennonite Girls Can Cook cookbook. The ten of us met for the first time all together in Canada and signed a contract and got to work. Even though I’m the one contributor of the 10 that is not Mennonite or Canadian, I’ve been embraced and accepted as their “Russian American Cousin”.

Our first cookbook has been a fun venture and has afforded the 10 of us the opportunity to share all of our royalties to build a greenhouse at the Good Shepherd Shelter in the Ukraine. From the beginning we as the authors agreed that we have all we need and we wanted to help those less fortunate with our portion of profits from our book. The whole story of the Mennonite/Ukranian/ Canadian connection is explained in the book and on our blog. Our first book is still available and you can click over to the Mennonite Girls Can Cook Blog to see where the book can be purchased. It is also available at Amazon.

This is the greenhouse at the Good Shepherd Shelter in the Ukraine. They are already growing food year round in the greenhouse!

Our 2nd cookbook will be published May 1st of this year. For our 2nd book our author royalties will again go to a mission project that we are deciding on together. The photo above was taken during our time together to sign the contract for our 2nd book. These 9 wonderful women of faith have become my partners and dear friends all because of my little blog. Who could have ever dreamed this? It is amazing what God has given to me through “The Happy Wonderer” I wonder who I’ll meet in the future?

We are excited about our new book and the themes and recipes included this time around. I really love the cover and am looking forward to seeing all the recipes and photos put together and having the hard copy in my hands!

If you leave a comment and are chosen for my giveaway please understand that I won’t be sending you our new cookbook till May of this year. Besides your comment you will need to leave a reliable email address so I can contact you to get an address to mail the book. Your email address won’t be visible to anyone but me. Thank you to all my regular readers and bloggy friends for supporting me with your kind thoughts and comments. I appreciate all of you!

Leftovers!

I like leftovers, do you?

Speaking of leftovers here are the rest of the photos from our Elliott Bay Marina brunch at Palisade Restaurant.

Palisade is on the second level of this building with great views of Elliott Bay and part of downtown Seattle in the distance.

Our family all together. I’m going to have to get more creative in 2013 with group shots. I’ve seen a couple good ideas on Facebook.

See what I mean. I think the only thing that changed in this shot is the position of my hands. I do weird things with my hands in photos.

By now you are tired of us so look behind us and check out the Space Needle and downtown Seattle.

We positioned my nephew Caleb in this shot to make sure he didn’t block the view of the Space Needle!

My nephew Caleb and his girlfriend Marie. They both graduated from Westmont College in the Santa Barbara area this past May. She’s working on her teaching credential and he’s working at a church in Santa Barbara with the youth. It was fun to have them with us for brunch before they headed back to Santa Barbara. On the day Caleb was born our son Joshua hit a homerun in his honor at a little league game. Joshua and Caleb…that rings a bell. They have been strong and courageous!

Had to include a shot with the new shoes. Andrew and Katie still behave like newlyweds…

On the way home we got closer to the needle but we were driving fast so it’s a bit blurry.

Tonight our Newlyweds fly back to the east coast. My little nest will be empty again. I took down Christmas on New Year’s Day. I had to make room in the living room once again since our small group meetings start back up on Thursday. We had a real laid back New Year’s Day and ordered pizza in for dinner. The night ended with 4 of the kids playing Settlers of Catan. Dear and I hit the sack early as usual.

Hope 2013 is starting well for all of you!

Over the River…

…and across the line, to a Mennonite Girls Can Cook Christmas party we go!

We crossed the U.S./Canadian border at Sumas and the border agents didn’t confiscate my Smirntopf or my Antispasto platter so all was good. We arrived to Judy and Elmer’s home all decked out beautifully for Christmas.

Not all the girls could be there that night. Our eastern Canadian girls, Betty and Charlotte, got together in Manitoba for their own party this night.

We took care of some serious business first before we set out all the dishes of food. Judy put together a fun getting to know you game where we had to connect each of the guests to an obscure fact or experience that guest had in their life. It was not easy but before too very long Kathy was the first to  figure it all out. Having a sea lion visit visit him in his backyard, falling into a manure pit, kayaking the Cayes and jungles of Belize, assisting drunken hitchhikers, were just a few of the interesting experiences. We were sworn to secrecy for one of the experiences we heard about! Next was the White Elephant exchange where we behaved quite civilly except when it came to the basket of fresh eggs!

The guys headed upstairs to play the popular Canadian game called Crokinole while we girls warmed up and set out the dishes we brought to share.

Oh My!…

I wonder if there will be enough food!? We were chuckling about the fact that food abundance is never an issue when you invite the girls to bring a dish!

Judy created that cute Christmas tree cheese platter. I’m sure a duplicate will appear somewhere at another blogdom Christmas party!

So…do you think we’ll have enough? Don’t forget we still haven’t put out the desserts!!

We let our husbands go first and they enjoyed what they saw and dug in heartily.

The “Girls” got to sit around the table set perfectly for the 8 of us.

After our fill of the savories it was on to dessert, oh my!

Judy made this beautiful punch for us to enjoy and Lovella made some homemade Egg Nog.

Her recipe was on the MGCC blog yesterday if you’d like to try making your own nog!

We ended our time around the table exchanging gifts to one another. Such generous and sweet reminders of our love and friendship.

Another wonderful Celebration to tuck away in our hearts. Thank you Judy and Elmer for a beautiful evening and thank you girls for all your love and prayers and friendship and celebrations!!