Sunlit and InSPIREd Sunday…

On our sister weekend as we were leaving Coupeville on Whidbey Island we stopped so I could take photos of this church.

A well kept church with a great belfry!

And my shot to welcome Spring and the beginning of Holy Week taken at Stanley Park in Vancouver B.C. yesterday.

Linking up to InSPIREd Sunday and I believe the last week of Sunlit Sunday.

This coming week will be a busy one as our household prepares for our Easter observances. Cleaning, decorating, getting the guest room ready for our son and daughter in love from Eastern Washington, baking our traditional Easter bread Kulich/Paska, our sweet cheese topping, Seernaya Paska and decorating eggs. Haven’t decided on the main course for our Easter meal but it will most likely be rack of lamb. Are you getting ready?

Birthday Five!

Monday the 14th was my medicare and concessions birthday! When you reach my age you should celebrate for more than a day and as I write this post I’m on my 5th day of celebrating! Today I’m sharing 5 wonderful birthday encouragements I received.

(1) Dear and I were able to celebrate with the B.C. Mennonite Girls and their husbands on Sunday in Bellingham, Washington for brunch/lunch. The British Columbia girls came across the line. It was enough for me to celebrate over a meal but they showered me with gifts, too. These girls have been such a blessing in my life and I thank God regularly for each of them. I received many wonderful encouragements in the cards they gave me.

(2) On my actual birthday we met our kids on the western side of the Cascades for dinner. Our middle son and his bride live 5-1/2 hours away so they couldn’t join us. Dan called me before dinner to wish me a happy birthday. I love the cards I got from my kids with a good page full of words that always mean so much to me.

Josh and Laura gifted me Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life and a Peter Rabbit bunting kit. They know I love all things Beatrix Potter. Katie made that card and wrote a page full of thoughts that blessed me dearly.

This same six were together last year for my birthday. I forgot to take a photo this year.

(3) These two are my youngest brother’s kiddos and they are my youngest niece and nephew. They called and sang happy birthday to me. They live in Texas.

(4) My dear old pop called to wish me a happy birthday. He lives with my oldest sister in Southern California. We talked about the jigsaw puzzles I sent him and I thanked him for the cold hard cash he sent me. This black and white photo is taken in the 50’s during a camping trip probably at Big Bear in the San Bernardino mountains in Southern California. I’m the one with the buster brown hairdo and my oldest sister Kathy is standing. Jigsaw puzzles have become my pop’s favorite thing to do again at 92 soon to be 93 to pass the hours away. He reminded me again that he prays for me every day.

(5) I received many birthday wishes on Facebook and one of my dear old friends from junior high/high school messaged me and her sentiments made me cry. Another dear friend called on my birthday morning and expressed her wishes and love for me and I cried again. Good tears…

I’m writing this post from our hotel room in Vancouver B.C. where Dear and I continue to celebrate my birthday with an overnight trip. Vancouver is about a 2-1/2 to 3 hour trip from our home in Washington State. It’s always fun to cross the border into another country where English is spoken! Tomorrow we will take a ride on the hop on hop off trolley to take in much of what this grand city has to offer before we head home. I’ll come around to visit you all when we get home…

Linking up with Amy for Five on Friday at Love Made My Home and with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for Friday’s Fave Five.

Susanne’s daughter is getting married next weekend so I’m wondering if she’ll even have time to post for Friday’s Fave Five…

Thank you ladies for hosting!

St. Patrick’s Day Table

Kathleen at Kathleen Cuisine is hosting her 8th annual St. Patrick’s Day Blog Crawl today starting this evening and I didn’t want to miss it so I found some green to share.

It was hard to get the kitchen colors to show right in these photos. We have no yellow on the cabinets. The kitchen and eating area are three shades of green.

Pewter seemed like a good choice to add to the table so my chargers, flatware, and tankards are pewter. Maybe those tankards will hold some Guinness tonight. The flowers at the center of the table were a birthday gift for me from the Mennonite Girls Can Cook delivered to my birthday brunch by Anneliese. My milestone medicare birthday was on Monday of this week. I’ll share about my birthday on Friday.

My house smells delicious right now as my corned beef and cabbage meal has been cooking in the slow cooker all day today. Since Dear and I are headed for a little getaway on St. Patrick’s day tomorrow I decided to make our Irish meal tonight. It will be fun for the four of us to sit at the table all decked out for Kathleen’s St. Patty’s Day Blog Crawl.

Here’s a link to a recipe for these light green cookies that would be fun to serve on St. Patrick’s day that I posted this week on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook Blog.

pistachio cookies 005.JPG

Pistachio-Coconut Cookies.

I’ll leave you with this old Celtic blessing and a Celtic Cross from Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.

An Old Celtic Blessing

May the blessing of light be on you –
light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine on you
and warm your heart
till it glows like a great peat fire.

Island Signs and Fences…

My favorite on this group of signs, “Falling Can Be Deadly”, so don’t fall people! This series of signs were taken at the Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island in Washington State.

This next sign is on a building on Front Street in Coupeville on Whidbey Island.

I’ll be linking up to signs, signs with Lesley and Good Fences #104 with TexWisGirl.

Dear and I are considering a little getaway to Vancouver B.C. since the U.S. dollar is strong for a change. I hope to take lots of photos of what we see and experience. So excited that Spring is coming! How about you?

Our Jaunt…

…a short excursion or journey for pleasure.

Last Saturday the Bagdanov sisters had a jaunt in Washington state that took in Mt. Vernon, La Conner, Deception Pass, Coupeville, and Langley leaving the island by ferry back to the mainland in Mukilteo. Here are some photos of what we saw.

Daffodil Fields in Mount Vernon, Washington. Soon these fields will be full of tulips!

The Swinomish channel in La Conner.

Deception Pass Bridge between Fidalgo Island and Whidbey Island.

Deception Pass State park on Whidbey Island.

Saratoga Passage and Penn Cove in Coupeville on Whidbey Island where Penn Cove Mussels are famous.

Saratoga Passage in Langley on Whidbey Island.

Ready for our trip from Clinton on Whidbey Island to Mukilteo on the mainland.

On the mainland we stopped for dinner in Millcreek before we headed home to put our feet up!

Lots of posts about our sister weekend but they don’t happen very often and I have the need to document our time together. Treasured times at treasured locations in the state of Washington.

Linking up to Tuesday’s Treasures with Tom at The Backroads Traveler and J is for Jaunt with ABC Wednesday with Mrs. Nesbitt and Roger with the ABC Team.

La Conner

In 1869 John S. Conner purchased the trading post on the Swinomish Channel and named the area in honor of his wife Louisa Ann Conner and that’s how La Conner got its name.

After we mucked about in the fields of daffodils my sisters and I drove a few minutes away to La Conner for lunch and a little shopping.

We chose Nell Thorn on the channel with good food and nice views.

Lana, Kathy the youngest and oldest and me and Vera in the middle.

We each chose something different for our lunch and everyone enjoyed their choices.

Whew! Happy my sisters were here last weekend instead of this weekend as we had quite a wild Sunday. Our power was out for 13 hours and we were happy to wake up to electricity again. Schools in our area are cancelled today as 85,000 are still without power. Trees were down and some of the trees brought down power lines, too. Here’s our light sources from last evening…

Hope you all have power today and are enjoying the light!

Crown Him With Many Crowns ~ Hymn

Crown Him With Many Crowns

Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.

Crown Him the virgin’s Son, the God incarnate born,
Whose arm those crimson trophies won which now His brow adorn;
Fruit of the mystic rose, as of that rose the stem;
The root whence mercy ever flows, the Babe of Bethlehem.

Crown Him the Son of God, before the worlds began,
And ye who tread where He hath trod, crown Him the Son of Man;
Who every grief hath known that wrings the human breast,
And takes and bears them for His own, that all in Him may rest.

Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed over the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.
His glories now we sing, who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of peace, whose power a scepter sways
From pole to pole, that wars may cease, and all be prayer and praise.
His reign shall know no end, and round His piercèd feet
Fair flowers of paradise extend their fragrance ever sweet.

Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye at mysteries so bright.

Crown Him the Lord of Heaven, enthroned in worlds above,
Crown Him the King to Whom is given the wondrous name of Love.
Crown Him with many crowns, as thrones before Him fall;
Crown Him, ye kings, with many crowns, for He is King of all.

Crown Him the Lord of lords, who over all doth reign,
Who once on earth, the incarnate Word, for ransomed sinners slain,
Now lives in realms of light, where saints with angels sing
Their songs before Him day and night, their God, Redeemer, King.

Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity.

Words: Verses 1, 4, 5, 6 & 9: Matthew Bridges, 1852. Verses 2, 3: Godfrey Thring, 1874.

InSPIREd and Sunlit…

On our way to the daffodil fields during our sister weekend my sister Lana said I should turn around and go back to this church that I zoomed by. I have posted photos from this church on my blog but my sister Lana hadn’t seen it before and wanted to get a closer look and take some photos. She pointed out something that I had totally missed on my previous visits.

Fir-Conway Lutheran Church. You can read it’s history here.

She said, “did you notice the crown on the cross on top of the spire? I said “no I didn’t” and I hopped out of the car to zoom in.

How very cool is that. Jesus is my King.

The moral of the story is to keep looking up and take your sisters on more road trips!

I’m linking up to InSPIREd Sunday and Sunlit Sunday.

Five Sister Selfies!

For Amy’s Five on Friday and Susanne’s Friday’s Fave Five I’m sharing 5 sister selfies from our Sister’s Weekend and a bonus selfie with my daughter and daughter in love.

We tried to take one at each stop we made. This first one is in Mount Vernon at Roozengaarde.

This one was taken at Deception Pass and I’m glad none of us fell off the ledge.

This one was taken in Langley above Saratoga Pass on Whidbey Island. I finally took my sunglasses off for this one.

This one is taken in my family room while we were watching episodes of Rosemary and Thyme after our long day away from home.

On Tuesday our sisters Kathy and Lana were gone back to Southern California so Vera and I had a little outing of our own. This selfie was taken in Kirkland at the waterfront on Lake Washington.

This bonus selfie was taken by my daughter in love Laura with my daughter Katie and me at the Seattle Sounders Soccer opener game on Sunday afternoon. My sister Vera was suppose to go with us (she loves sports of all kinds) but she woke up with her back out and couldn’t move. We pumped her with pain relievers and she was better by dinner time and she watched the game on T.V. We started the game out in wonderful sunshine and then a Spring downpour rolled through the stadium that had everyone ducking for cover. Thankfully our season ticket seats are mostly undercover…

My sisters and me and my girls were so thankful to God for how He smiled on us and our adventures this past weekend. Thank you Lord for your love and care over us.

I’ll be coming around to see your five. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

A Host of Golden Daffodils!

Oh what a glorious Saturday my sisters and I enjoyed on a 10 hour outing north to Mount Vernon and La Conner and then beyond to Whidbey Island over Deception Pass and south the whole length of the island. In this post I’m showing the fields of daffodils we enjoyed. But…first things first, when visiting tulip or daffodils fields it is good to don your mud boots!

I was happy to be able to come up with 3 pairs of good mucking boots/shoes and borrowed the fourth pair from our DIL.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

William Wordsworth

From Mt. Vernon we traveled a short distance to La Conner for lunch and shopping. I’ll share some photos of our time there next. It was great to have leisurely time together to share about the challenges my oldest sister faces in caring for our dear old pop and the life changes my sister Vera faces in widowhood and moving out of the home she shared with her husband Nick. It’s good to let the tears roll freely and also to be able to laugh heartily with each other. Just for the record…we sisters have four brothers, too.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage