Hit the Road Hodgepodge

Speaking of travel the photo above is of me behind the waterfall in the pool at our son’s Airbnb in Arizona a week ago, sigh.

Jo From This Side of the Pond has come up with the weekly questions for Wednesday Hodgepodge. Thank you, Jo! Click on over to join in on the fun.

1. Have you done more binge watching this past year than in ‘normal’ years? Any plans to break that habit in 2021? Tell us one or two shows you binged last year that you really liked. 

Our satellite connection for tv and the internet is temperamental and works better some parts of the month over other times. When it is working well we’ll binge some of our favorite shows on Acorn or BritBox. Since many of the British seasons are 4 to 8 episodes it’s not tough to binge. We’ve enjoyed Murder in Paradise, and we always enjoy going back to Midsomer Murders and the Great British Baking Show. Murder in Paradise had a new season in 2020 and we binge watched it. We enjoy other shows like Endeavor and Vera, too. If in 2021 there are any new seasons of these shows we’ll watch them when the internet is working well.

2. January 26th is Australia Day. Have you ever visited or lived in Australia?

No.

Have you ever tasted Vegemite, and if so what did you think? 

No thank you.

Is a trip down under on your bucket list?

No and I’ll tell you why…it would take far too long on an airplane to get there. If I could afford business or first class with the opportunity to lie down flat for much of the trip I might consider it.

We answered a question about travel three months ago (the October 21st Hodgepodge), but let’s revisit now…where are you when it comes to planning or even imagining travel this year? 

Our youngest niece on Dear’s side of the family is getting married on October 1st of this year in North Carolina. We are planning and imagining what a road trip from Washington State to North Carolina would look like with possible stops at some National Parks on the way. On the way back we are considering a route that would take us through Dallas to visit my youngest brother’s family then home via Colorado with a detour to some National Parks in Utah, Lord willing.

3. Something that zaps your energy?

Unconfessed sin, misunderstandings and confrontations.

Something that energizes you? 

Planning a trip, Spring, having company.

4. On a scale of 1-10 what are your eating habits like these days? (1=all junk food all the time and 10= juicing every green thing in the frig)

Dear says, “we’ve been juicing all the junk food in the fridge”. Haha.

I’m gonna say we are a 5 in eating habits these days.

Healthiest meal you’ve eaten in the last week or so? 

White meat chicken tacos with corn tortillas that weren’t fried with cabbage.

5. What’s your most often ‘Back in my day….’ thing to say? 

Back in my day we did not have cell phones to call anyone.

This phrase comes up a lot, “well we didn’t have cell phones then”.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Psalm 39:1 (ESV)

Consider joining in for Truth from A to Z, a Bible verse challenge for Thursdays on my blog. Tomorrow we are on the letter R. You don’t need a blog for this challenge.

Wildlife

I wanted to add the rest of the animals we enjoyed during our zoo and aquarium experience while we were in Arizona in the middle of January.

We did see a very majestic Lion but it’s hard to get a good photo through a fence.

We all had a good time at the zoo. The fact that it was a short ten minute ride from the house we were staying in was a plus. This was our first full day in Arizona and while the kids napped some of us made a trip to Costco to buy food for dinner and to stock up the fridge. We enjoyed Costco Rotisserie Chickens, their macaroni and cheese, Caesar saIads and fresh bread. We had enough chicken leftover to enjoy chicken Caesar salads for lunch the next day. I still have some catch-up posts from Arizona that I’ll add soon.

A Pokemon Party

We had so much fun and laughter at the birthday party for our two sons celebrating 40 and 42!

The Pokemon Choo Choo Train Cake. Our son Dan has had choo choo train cakes starting at his 3rd birthday. He didn’t get one every year but was always happy when they appeared on his day.

Our daughter-in-law put together an epic Pokemon themed party for the brothers while we were in Arizona.

These oreos decorated like Poke Balls were used for one of our games.

Poke Ball themed veggie and fruit trays.

We all got to choose the ears we wanted to adorn our heads with. Jamie made all of them. The different ears have names but I’m clueless.

We were all good sports and entered into all the party games! Not to brag but I won two of the games, move the oreo from your forehead to your mouth without dropping it or using your hands and a poke launch game.

Granny Great and Jim traveled from their snowbird location in Arizona (close to the border with California) to join in on the fun. They live in Colville from March through most of November and then travel down to Arizona for the late fall and winter months.

We tried to reenact this photo from Dan’s 10th birthday party.  Once I get my hands on the original photo from 1991, I’ll add it here.

It was an epic day celebrating our sons and hats off to our daughter-in-law who planned and stealthily managed to create and transport all the goodies to Arizona from Washington.

Birthday brothers…

We ended the party with a swim and some of us kept our ears on.

For my records we enjoyed this birthday celebration on Saturday January 16th, 2021.

Back to the present, we are looking at getting some good snow this week starting on Sunday evening. Time will tell if the predictions are correct. They are talking about an accumulation of 13 inches this week.

Behold, He Comes, The Glorious King ~ Hymn

Behold, He Comes, The Glorious King

Behold He comes! the glorious King
Whom once a cross upbore;
Let saints redeemed His praises sing,
And angels hosts adore.

The reed, the purple, and the thorn,
Are lost in triumph now;
His person robes of light adorn,
And crowns of gold His brow.

Dear Lord, no more despised, disowned,
A victim bound and slain;
But in the power of God enthroned,
Thou dost return to reign.

To Thee the world its treasure brings;
To Thee its mighty bow;
To Thee the Church exulting springs;
Her Sovereign, Savior Thou!

Beneath Thy touch, beneath Thy smile,
New heavens and earth appear;
No sin their beauty to defile,
Nor dim them with a tear.

Thrice happy hour! and those thrice-blest
That gather round Thy throne!
They share the honors of Thy rest,
Who have Thy conflict known.

Words: Joseph Tritton

Round and Round We Go

The Wildlife Zoo called this ride their Carousel. Addy chose this horse to ride and JJ chose the dog.

Carousels and Merry-Go-Rounds, whatever you call them, kids of all ages enjoy them. I think this was JJ’s first ride on one.

Addy was cold and her coat was in the car so she borrowed Auntie Katie’s sweatshirt.

Our family of 10 were in Arizona from January 13th until January 19th. Our trip to the Wildlife park was on Thursday January 14th. I enjoy the desert in winter, how about you? Escaping a snowy winter with freezing temps to a desert winter in the 60’s and 70’s is a treat.

Back here in Colville we have had sunshine but our temps have been in the teens. We are promised some new snow showers on Sunday.

The Best of the Birds

When our family of ten were in Arizona we enjoyed our time at the Wildlife World Zoo and Aquarium.

Not a problem for our time at the park.

Addy did not appreciate some of the animal odors.

Posting all our Arizona adventures for our family archives.

On Thursday we drove south to Spokane to buy a new toilet for our Master Bath. Besides the Home Depot we shopped at Hobby Lobby, Total Wine and Costco. On our trip south we listened to a sermon from Grace Community Church by John MacArthur. 2020 Clarity. We found it encouraging. We returned home and our new toilet was installed before 6 PM! Thank you Dear!! Friday evening and Saturday morning Dear and I are attending a marriage seminar at our church here in Colville.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Truth from A to Z Bible Verse Challenge ~ Q

January is moving along and we have come to the letter Q. Choices might seem easier this week as the letter Q has a shorter quantity of words in our Concordances! Enjoy your search and thank you very much for sharing your verse or verses in the comments here and I’ll add them to this post as soon as I can.

Q is for Quarrelsome:

Proverbs 21:9 (ESV) 

It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. 

From Cheryl: Q is for Quicken:

“Quicken me after thy lovingkindness; so shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth” Psalms 119:88

From Vera:

Q is for QUALITIES:

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.”
‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭1:5-9‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Visit Bethany at her blog by clicking here https://raindropsrainbows.blogspot.com/

Her word is quieted with some inspirational thoughts, too.

From Maristella:

Q is for QUIET:
“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside *quiet* waters.”
Psalm 23:1-2
And
“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and *quiet* spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”
1 Peter 3:3-4

From Happyone:

Q is for Quench:

Ephesians 6:16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to QUENCH all the fiery darts of the wicked.

From Patsystitch:

Q is for Quarrelsome:

2 Timothy 2:24
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil,

Family Hodgepodge

Thank you to Jo for coming up with questions this week even though her daughter’s wedding was this past weekend!

For Hodgepodge Wednesday questions we were with all our kids and grands in Arizona, flying out later on Tuesday afternoon. I posed  some of these questions to them for fun.

1. What’s something we’d find you doing most afternoons?

Dear and I eat dinner most afternoons, not in the evening.

2. Who do you take after? In what way(s)?

I’m more like my mother, snarky but willing to feed a crowd.

Joshua takes more after me, more of a people person and more adventurous and willing to spend money. Dan is a mix of me and his dad, jumps in to get things done more introverted like his dad with the best one liners coming out of nowhere. Katie is mostly her dad, more introverted, the brightest in the bunch and smart cracking.

3. ‘After every storm comes a rainbow’ or ‘the calm before the storm’...which phrase do you relate to more right now? Tell us why?

Most of the group was ‘after every storm comes a rainbow’. I tend toward looking on the bright side and knowing things will turn out in the end. Because Jesus is our Savior and Lord we know who holds the future and that Hope brings us through the storms of life.

Our daughter says…”how about in the eye of the hurricane?”

4.What are your plans for the day after tomorrow?

We will be back home after a week in the sun trying to catch up with laundry and mail and bills, etc.

5. Complete this sentence-“After all is said and done_____________________.”

From Andrew: …naptime.

Laura: …it’s over.

Joshua: …atta boy.

Jamie: …,satisfied.

Ellen: …time to relax.

Greg: …I wouldn’t change a thing.

Katie: …the best is yet to come.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

The parties are over and it’s time to come back home to Winter…

Arizona Log Ride

We had planned on a family trip to Disneyland this year but plans changed and it worked out to have a family week in Arizona instead. This isn’t the log ride at Disneyland but it was just right for our almost 4 year old, Addy. This ride was at the Wildlife World Zoo and Aquarium.

 

It was a fun way to end our time at the Wildlife park…being a little wild!

Running Nonstop!

Busy, busy, chasing these two! I’ll be back to normal living on Wednesday. Hope y’all are doing well.

We’ve been enjoying lots of family time in the home our son is part owner of here in Arizona. A nice large space with a pool for us all to enjoy! Each couple has their own room, too, along with a room for Addy. An amazing property. Two birthday celebrations down with one more to go!

I’ll be visiting blogs again later this week!