March in Vancouver B.C.

vancouver 003

On March 17th (St. Patrick’s Day) we headed North for the border between the U.S.A. and Canada. We are fortunate to be a few hours from our friendly neighbors to the north.

vancouver 006

On this trip we were headed to North Vancouver and had to cross some bridges to get there. We found our hotel and after a wait in line to get into the parking structure of the hotel we checked in and looked at our room.

van 2 004

The room had a nice view of downtown Vancouver across Vancouver Harbor. We were ready for our first adventure on the SeaBus that would take us across the harbor to the downtown area of Vancouver. We were ready for a meal.

vancouver 009

We disembarked close to Canada Place and walked along the harbor to find a restaurant recommended by Lovella of the Mennonite Girls.

vancouver 010

2016-03-018

We found the restaurant and later when we shared our view Lovella realized we had sat in almost the same spot a week after them and we definitely had the same view. See the boats I marked with an X? Thanks for the recommendation Lovella. We enjoyed our meal at Cardero’s.

We walked after our meal and saw some interesting things and then headed back across the harbor to our hotel where later in the evening we enjoyed a light meal in our room that we purchased at the Quay Market that was located under our hotel.

vancouver 023

vancouver 024We didn’t make reservations in Vancouver until we saw that the weather would be good for walking and exploring. Having Dear working from home gives us that flexibility to decide on last minute trips with the weather in mind. Being so close to Canada is another win win for traveling and seeing new things. On Friday the 18th we checked out of the hotel and drove to Stanley Park. On the way we stopped for breakfast at De Dutch…

van 2 005

I’ll share what we saw at Stanley Park in another post.

Dear and I are having a hard time standing up and sitting down today after several hours working outside yesterday. I’m glad we still can manage to do what we did. Cleaning gutters, pulling some weeds and cleaning out some planters, pressure washing the deck and cement areas, and then washing the car! Sheesh, this weather brings out the work in us! Thankfully I had a leg of lamb marinating in the fridge that I could throw in the oven for our meal of the day with potatoes and carrots that cooked underneath the roast in my handy Jamie Oliver pan. Today after church we had lamb sandwiches with our leftovers. So happy not to have to do anything today. A good day of rest.

Hope your Sunday is going well.

Since this post is filled with blue skies and blue water I’m linking up with Jeanne at Backyard Neighbor for Blue Monday! Thanks Jeanne!

Lo, the Earth is Risen Again ~ Hymn

2016-03-29 Spring blossoms3

Lo, the Earth is Risen Again

Lo, the earth is risen again
From the winter’s bond and pain!
Bring we leaf and flower and spray
To adorn our holiday!

Once again the word comes true,
Lo, He maketh all things new!
Now the dark, cold days are o’er,
Light and gladness are before.

How our hearts leap with the spring!
How our spirits soar and sing!
Light is victor over gloom,
Life triumphant o’er the tomb.

Change, then, mourning into praise,
And, for dirges, anthems raise!
All our fears and griefs shall be
Lost in immortality.

Words: Samuel Longfellow, 1876.

I Hold You in my Heart…

2016-03-29 Spring blossoms4

Philippians 1:3-11 (ESV)

Thanksgiving and Prayer

3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

HT: Bible Gateway

I love this prayer of Paul’s and wanted to pair it with the collage of my bleeding hearts.

We are enjoying a fine stretch of dry sunshiny days here in the Seattle area. I’m getting ready to head outdoors to work alongside Dear who is cleaning out the rain gutters. I’ll be doing some weeding and maybe even wash my car! Hope you have a nice first weekend of April!

The Peeps and Daffodils…

This Easter we were blessed to have a table of ten. Five couples including Dear and me. It was good to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ together at an Easter service and around our celebration table. On Saturday before Easter Sunday we had a baking and creating day that you can see here. And if you are interested in seeing the table we sat at you can see it here.

easter 2016 067

Jamie and Dan traveled over 5 hours to be with us for the weekend. They were married last summer. Dan is our second son.

easter 2016 066

Dan with his dad.

easter 2016 061

Steve and Lana with a stand up daffodil photo and a silly one, too. Lana is my youngest sister and the only sibling of mine that lives in Washington State.

easter 2016 060 easter 2016 058

Laura and Josh are the longest married of our children. Josh is our firstborn.

easter 2016 057

Dear and me.

bellingham 004

Katie and Andrew were under the weather on Easter day and we didn’t find a time to get them to stand behind the daffodils so I pulled up this great photo of them as they were on their way out to celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary a couple weeks ago. Katie is our youngest.

And here’s my new Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter) bunting that Katie put together for me including making what the kit called radishes that look like carrots and flowers. Josh and Laura gifted me the bunting kit on my birthday.

easter 2016 013

2016-03-29 Spring blossoms1

I’m linking up with Amy for Five on Friday and with Susanne for Friday’s Fave Five even though I added #6!

I’m happy to report that I’m feeling well again with enough energy that I conquered the lawn today with the lawnmower. No fooling! But because I was spent after doing that the king of this old house had to take his gardener out to dinner! It got up to the 70’s today and it is going to be up to 70 degrees on Friday, too, woohoo!

Hope no one tries to fool you on April Fools Day.

Foreign Fences…

Washington State borders Canada to the north (British Columbia) and it’s great to be able to visit a foreign country so easily that’s not really too foreign since for the most part they speak English and they accept our currency. Dear and I drove up to Vancouver B.C. to enjoy an overnight on St. Patrick’s day. Here are a couple of photos of a wooden fence next to the Totem Poles in Stanley park.

van 2 034

van 2 033

Next week I’ll be sharing a longer post about our adventures in Vancouver and Stanley Park.

I’m linking up to Good Fences #106 with TexWisGirl.

We’re having another great weather day in the Pacific Northwest so I’ll be going out to mow the lawn. I’ll visit later…

Easter Brunch…

…was a first for us. We always have had Easter lunch or dinner and served lamb. This year our kids from across the mountains joined us for the weekend and had to get on the road earlier on Easter day to head home. We went to an early service and came home and started on brunch. We decided on Biscuits and gravy which was easy to have ready for 10 in a short amount of time. We used our electric skillet to make side eggs for anyone who wanted one or two.

easter 2016 053

The tablecloth and runner were purchased at HomeGoods.

easter 2016 047

We used shrink wraps for the eggs that I purchased at a Ukrainian market.

easter 2016 044

I bought the glasses that are tinted on their base in green and blue from Dollar Tree.

easter 2016 038

This is Seernaya Paska which is a sweet cheese spread made with cooked egg yolks, butter, cream, and sugar mixed well and then put in a mold with weight on top to force all the extra liquid out of it. This happens overnight in the fridge.paska class 005

This is one from a couple of years ago that I made using a larger amount and larger mold.

easter 2016 042

The signs that the bunnies are holding are in Russian and they say Christ is Risen and He is risen indeed.

2016-03-27 easter 20163

I used little blue and green egg cups for place cards and let each person take theirs home so each household took home a green cup and an aqua cup. I bought the egg cups from World Market. The napkins were a thrift store purchase a few years back. The pearl napkin rings were a Target clearance purchase from several years ago.

easter 2016 064

The Russian Easter Bread ready to go with our favorite toppings…

12472444_10209176797485311_3069567692344832342_n

A nice layer of Seernaya Paska (Sweet Cheese Spread) on top of the Kulich/Paska (Russian Easter Bread) and then top it off with lightly sugared fresh strawberries. Delicious! And on the morning after this next picture shows my Easter Monday breakfast…

12923134_10209189122913439_6883008362400960578_nMy next post will be all about the people we enjoyed this meal with.

Here in the Pacific Northwest we are enjoying some glorious sunshiny days! I will have no excuse not to mow the grass. It’s getting a little wild out there with dandelions! I’m feeling better, too, and using less tissues everyday. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

I’m linking up with Laura at Decor to Adore for Thoughts of Home #8.

Signs, signs…

Sisters wknd 108

We saw this sign on a shop in La Conner during our sister weekend. That’s my sister Kathy who we made sit down under the sign. This sign is very accurate and true about our clever sister Kathy.

van 2 008

While Dear and I were driving about Stanley Park in Vancouver we came to this sign. This sign can be confusing. Should you stop or should you heed the NO STOPPING sign.

Linking up with Lesley for signs, signs.

Labor of Love…

I love Easter and all that it holds and all that it means. I like the idea of new Life, a resurrected Life. The greatest Love that was demonstrated on Good Friday and the Life that was resurrected on Easter Sunday.

Here are photos of our Easter weekend labors of love and celebrations.

12523956_10209342418103300_869908340961820747_n

This was the end result of our labors on Easter Saturday. Top left an Russian Easter sweet cheese spread called Seernaya Paska. The X and the B stand for Christ is Risen. On the right is the finished and frosted Russian Easter Bread called Kulich or Paska surrounded by Russian shrink wrapped eggs. The sign in Russian on the bottom left says Christ is Risen so you see where the X and B comes from.  Now I’ll show you some of the process of getting here.

944673_10209325700205363_8556436750134116980_n

First you gather your labor force. This is my sister Lana who arrived early so that we could get the Russian Easter Bread (Kulich/Paska) started.

12670500_10209025541021643_6688122367162299089_n

The rest of the laborers arrived and were donned with their aprons and head scarves.

kulich-16

At one point in the process of mixing the dough I thought I made a big boo boo so we prayed over the dough and Lana and I laid hands on the KitchenAid.  I didn’t want to start over again. All turned out well…

2016-03-27 easter 2016

Lana showing how her slippers match her apron. I am behind in giving a shout out to My Mother’s Apron Strings after I won this Christmas apron giveaway without knowing I even entered the contest. My sister is wearing it on the reverse side since this is Easter and not Christmas. Thank you Susan for sending the apron to me.

The other photos in the collage are of kneading the dough and shrink wrapping the boiled eggs. While the dough was rising we enjoyed lunch together. Home made tamales and beans with guacamole, chips, and Dan and Jamie’s home made salsa.

2016-03-27 easter 20161

After lunch it was time to prepare the cans and to punch down the dough after it’s first rise. The Peter Rabbit bunting was completed by Katie and hung by Laura and Katie. Josh and Laura gifted me the bunting kit for my birthday last week.

easter 2016 013

2016-03-27 easter 20162

After the second rise we punched again and prepared the dough by hand for the cans pinching off enough or almost enough for each can we picked for this time around. Short, medium and tall.

easter 2016 028

The guys were busy outside in the sunshine solving several world problems.

easter 2016 041

The finished eggs and kulich on Easter day. I’ll show more from our Easter table in another post.

When the baking was done and the cheese mold was in the refrigerator setting up for our Easter Sunday meal the kids went out to dinner with their aunt and uncle. Dear and I stayed at home and crashed…

1917966_10208999050115371_7055826096728142628_n

All of our kids together enjoying each other and extended family fills us with joy and not having to make dinner for them after a full day in the kitchen was a bonus!

We love and treasure these traditions and hope to carry them on through the years and pass them on to the next generation.

I’m linking up with Tuesday’s Treasures hosted by Tom the Backroads Traveler and ABC Wednesday started by Mrs. Nesbitt and carried on by Roger and the ABC team for L is for Labors of Love. I noticed several L’s in this post like Life, Love, Lana, Laura, Lunch, and Labor force.

Hope you all had a good Easter Weekend and some of you got the bonus of Easter Monday holiday which is brilliant!

I’m also linking up to Thoughts of Home #8 with Laura at Decor to Adore.

 

Easter Monday!

I like that Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand have Easter Monday. Here in the U.S.A. it’s not a holiday. I’m getting my Easter fun posts sorted and hope to have a cohesive way to store them here for my memories. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Hope all of you who have an extra holiday today will enjoy it to the full!

Here is how our festivities started on Friday…

easter 2016 002

We decided to hide eggs for our adult kids to find.

easter 2016 003

The hunt began…

easter 2016 005

It didn’t take long for them to find all the eggs. There were 6 large plastic eggs with each of their names on them and one large golden egg. Then there were several little plastic eggs filled with candy for them to find, too. The large eggs had cold hard cash in them. The golden egg had cash, too. Our new daughter in love found the golden egg straight away!

easter 2016 006

For dinner on Friday we enjoyed a Raclette meal together. Our whole little family all together. We don’t take these times for granted since Dan and Jamie live 6 hours away from us with a mountain range between us!

easter 2016 007

It was a wonderful start to a full and beautiful weekend despite some of us falling into tissue mode because of the head colds going around!

Hope the drip drip drip hasn’t caught up to you! Happy Monday everyone!

In Christ Alone

Happy Easter everyone!

Christ is Risen…He is Risen Indeed!

P1010179

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! – who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand:
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

Stuart Townend & Keith Getty Copyright © 2001 Thankyou Music (Adm. by CapitolCMGPublishing.com excl. UK & Europe, adm. by Integrity Music, part of the David C Cook family, songs@integritymusic.com)