Unveiling of the Mystery Tree

Some of you are new to my blog and aren’t familiar with a Christmas tradition we started several years back to take the stress out of finding the perfect Christmas tree. Our “Mystery” tree tradition goes like this…

We go to the nearest big box store and look for a tree in a certain height with a straight trunk and grab it with it’s string or netting in tack. This year the 6-7ft. trees in the Douglas Fir variety were about $25.00. We throw the tree in the back of the truck and head home wondering what it might look like once we cut away all the string.

This year it took most of the afternoon for the branches to relax as we had freezing temperatures here in the Seattle area and the tree was frozen. As it thawed we could see that it was another fine Mystery Tree choice. We’ve resigned ourselves to be happy with however it might look. Once the lights and decorations are added I’ll show more photos.

Slowly but surely it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at this old house.

I was so excited to see that WordPress is continuing their tradition of adding snow to my blog for the month of December!

Have you gotten your tree or started your decorating for Christmas?

I’ll be linking up to ABC Wednesday for the letter U soon. Thank you ABC Team and Denise Nesbitt!

O Son of God, We Wait for Thee ~ Hymn Advent

Bourton-Gloucester 068

O Son of God, We Wait for Thee

O Son of God, we wait for Thee,
In love for Thine appearing;
We know Thou sittest on the throne,
And we Thy name are bearing,
Who trusts in Thee, may joyful be,
And see Thee, Lord, descending,
To bring us bliss unending.

We wait for Thee ’mid toil and pain,
In weariness and sighing;
But glad that Thou our guilt hast borne,
And canceled it by dying;
Hence cheerfully may we with Thee
Take up our cross and bear it,
Till we relief inherit.

We wait for Thee; here Thou hast won
Our hearts to hope and duty;
But while our spirits feel Thee near,
Our eyes would see Thy beauty;
We fain would be at rest with Thee
In peace and joy supernal,
In glorious life eternal.

We wait for Thee; sure Thou wilt come;
The time is swiftly nearing;
In this we also now rejoice,
And long for Thine appearing.
Oh, bliss ’twill be when Thee we see,
Homeward Thy people bringing,
With transport and with singing!

Words: Philipp F. Hiller, (1699-1799)

InSPIREd Sunday

A simple offering this week during this very busy extended weekend. This church is in Camarillo, California where Dear and I lived for a short 4 year stint while he worked in Thousand Oaks. St. Mary Magdalen Church was kiddy corner to a restaurant that we enjoyed frequenting. In the future I will show you the stained glass windows that have a wonderful story behind them.

For those of you in the good ole U.S.A. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was fabulous and then we started our Christmas decorating. While in the thick of that I managed to break one of my little toes on my left foot and I’ve been moving very slowly around this old house. I’ve been able to keep doing a little here and there between keeping my foot elevated and rested. We got our first dusting of snow on Saturday!! This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. After church we are going to go purchase our Christmas mystery tree.

Enough of me…you can visit InSPIREd Sunday hosted by Beth and Sally and join in some sacred viewings around the world.

November Photo Challenge

Photo*A*Day Challenge ~ Days 24-30

Apple * Shine * Food * Thankful * Makes Me Smile * Home * Scarf

P1050573Apple on our apple tree in late August.

Oxford Day 6 136Shine – taken in a chapel at one of the Oxford colleges in England.

Sat. July 5-Chipping Campden 016Food – yummy and comforting pub food in England.

our wedding1-001Thankful for 4 marriages that have lasted 40 years in our family, my sisters, ours, and two cousins. Dear and I will celebrate 40 years next Saturday!

early September 011Makes Me Smile ~ Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle

before and afters 004Home ~ Where you can put your feet up and relax.

P1040224Scarf ~ My favorite scarves are my soccer scarves. This is me and my son Josh enjoying a U.S.A. National Team game at Century Link field in Seattle. Sunday night we’ll be wearing our Rave Green Sounders Soccer team scarves and hope that we can pull ahead of L.A. Galaxy to advance to the M.L.S. finals.

 Soccer scarf in Milan, Italy

Man U 034Old Trafford in Manchester, England. Manchester United vs. Sounders FC friendly scarf!

Our favorite scarves…The Seattle Sounders Season Ticket holders scarves!

Thank you to Kati for her Photo*A*Day Challenge for November.

We have put away Fall decor and we have brought down all our Christmas boxes from the attic. I started full speed ahead on decorating and then I walked into a chair full speed ahead and I think one of my toes is now broken. Oye and bother! Hopefully I’ll be able to walk about better tomorrow. We have a promise of a dry day and we need to go and buy our mystery tree. Have you started your Christmas decorating?

 

Our 2nd Thanksgiving…

We are so thankful to be able to celebrate two Thanksgiving meals with two different groups of people. Our first Thanksgiving was not on the actual day set aside for Thanksgiving and it was small and sweet with just eight of us around the table.

For our second Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day we traveled to Edmonds to our friends beautiful home on Puget Sound to enjoy turkey with all the trimmings with 46 of us all sitting at a table. Ha! The kids table, the young people table, and the old and wise people table!

It was a very windy day but the temperature was mild.

We were happy that Andrew and Katie could be with us on Thanksgiving since they missed our “first” Thanksgiving. Here’s Andrew, Katie and Bridget who used to live at this beautiful home before she got married.  If you are on instagram you should check out Bridget’s creative creations at http://instagram.com/flora.forager/?modal=true

This dear lady on the right is the Matriarch of the family and is an amazing lady. This photo is of Mary and her daughter in law Brenda.

If you are enjoying Thanksgiving in the Seattle area today you might have scheduled your meal to be done in time to watch the game!

This is my Dear and my dear friend Jody. She is the hostess with the mostess! Dear is always called in to be the master carver of the turkeys (3 turkeys for 46 people).

Did I mention it was windy. My hair is flip flopping with the wind. But…what a view behind my hair!

Thanking God today (and everyday) for dear friends, good food, family, beautiful views, and new friends, too.

The “First” Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the Good ole U.S.A.! Gobble Gobble!

When your family grows and then grows up getting together for Thanksgiving can get complicated. We choose to be flexible and we’ll cook a turkey whenever the time is right for our loved ones to get together. We had our first Thanksgiving gathering with the traditional turkey meal on Saturday the 22nd of November. There were eight of us for our meal.

My sister Lana made these delicious individual pecan pies for our gathering.

Katie and Andrew were not able to celebrate with us on this day but we’ll celebrate with them at our “second” Thanksgiving.

My sister Lana and her husband Steve.

In between our meal and dessert we got into two cars and headed to Everett, Washington to see Katie at her first craft show selling her Chainmaille Jewelery handmade in the Pacific Northwest. She sells from her Simple Complication Etsy shop, too. It was a unique show called OddMall. It was fun to see Katie in action and to find out she was making lots of sales.

We came back home and enjoyed the individual pecan pies that Lana made and then there was a fun game of Sequence.

We will be celebrating our “second” Thanksgiving at the home of some dear friends on Thursday. I will be contributing the Yams. Are you cooking a turkey this Thursday?

Since this Timely Post has Tons of T’s in it like Thanks, Thanksgiving, Turkey, Thursday, Trade Shows, and Tradtional, I’ll be linking up with ABC Wednesday on Tuesday for T is for…Thanksgiving! Thanks to the awesome TEAM for hosting!

November Photo-A-Day (17-23)

P1050599Day 19 ~Family

I had to resort to two photos to get a photo with all our family in it. It’s hard to get all of us together these days with work schedules and proximity to each other in the state of Washington. The first photo of family was taken in Western Washington and the next photo of family was taken in Eastern Washington.

This challenge post is out of order since I started with day 19 and moved backwards and forwards and all about the town for days 17 thru day 23.

November Photo*A*Day challenge from Kati.

2014-09-14 Open house4Days 17, 18, 20, 21, and 22. Hot Drink (17) Hands/Feet (18), Wood (20), Candlelight (21), Orange (22).

Walk About the Fox 022Day 23 ~ Path

Our house is quiet again as our First Thanksgiving Celebration has come and gone. I will post the photos of our celebration soon. We had a great full day of food and fun. This morning Dan and Jamie headed out early to face the treacherous road conditions over Snoqualmie Pass on to Eastern Washington. I woke up this morning came down the stairs to see that Dear had washed all the dishes that didn’t fit in the dishwasher. He also emptied the clean dishes from the dishwasher. What a sweet treat that was to me.

Hope you are finishing your weekend well.

Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It! ~ Hymn

Broadway Day 7 038-001

Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It!

Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it!
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb;
Redeemed through His infinite mercy,
His child and forever I am.

Refrain

Redeemed, redeemed,
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb;
Redeemed, redeemed,
His child and forever I am.

Redeemed, and so happy in Jesus,
No language my rapture can tell;
I know that the light of His presence
With me doth continually dwell.

Refrain

I think of my blessèd Redeemer,
I think of Him all the day long:
I sing, for I cannot be silent;
His love is the theme of my song.

Refrain

I know there’s a crown that is waiting,
In yonder bright mansion for me,
And soon, with the spirits made perfect,
At home with the Lord I shall be.

Refrain

Words: Fanny Crosby, 1882.

Good Fences circa 1957

Some time in the 1950’s in Pico Rivera, California.

This is ellen b. in all her glory with a good fence behind her!

In my early years my family lived in a little area of Montebello, California called Montebello Gardens. Later this area was known as Pico Rivera.

I see some similarities at this age with my sister Lana and my niece Hope.

Feeling nostalgic and linking up with Tex*Wis*Girl for Good Fences #35.

Signs, Signs…

A few years ago my first born son and I traveled to New Mexico to spend some time with my second born son. It was fun to see these great signs around the little town.

Three of these signs were taken at the Chaos Cafe in Artesia, New Mexico. If you are ever driving through town we recommend breakfast here. (I hope it is still in business!)

On the window of a coffee/espresso shop in downtown Artesia.

On our way North out of Artesia we drove through Roswell and these were the street lamps that lined the main thoroughfare!

Are you familiar with Roswell?

The Roswell UFO Incident was the alleged recovery of extra-terrestrial debris, including alien corpses, from an object which crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, USA, on or about July 8, 1947. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and the subject of conspiracy theories as to the true nature of the object which crashed. The United States military maintains that what was actually recovered was debris from an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon belonging to a classified program named “Mogul”; however, many UFO proponents maintain that in fact a crashed alien craft and bodies were recovered, and that the military then engaged in a cover-up.

The incident has turned into a widely known pop culture phenomenon, making the name Roswell synonymous with UFOs. It ranks as one of the most publicized and controversial UFO incidents ever.

I’m linking up with Lesley for Signs, signs.