Announcements, Announcements, Annou-ounce-ments!

The Mennonite Girls Can Cook are happy to announce that our second cookbook will be released Spring of 2013! Click over to the MGCC site to read all about it and to leave a comment for a chance to win our 2nd cookbook.

AND…while I’m making announcements, don’t be surprised if the look of my blog changes this week.

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

Fall, Fun, Food, and the Future of Flight!

We had a very peaceful Fall day on Saturday here in the Pacific Northwest. We are still dry…breaking records with our dryness. Everyone here is trying to get out and enjoy this unseasonable weather because we know that soon enough our rain will return.

Saturday morning my sister and I headed to Country Village in Bothell to check out a Fall Craft sale and our 3 favorite shops at the village.

Fall decorations and wares were everywhere to see in the very bright sunshine.

At the craft fair our favorites were the letter blocks and we each purchased 3 sets of them. I chose Thankful, Gobble and Joy.

Joy is still packaged in the cellophane because it will probably be a gift for Christmas.

Santa was happy to see we were already thinking about Christmas.

This was another purchase at the fair at the right price.

On Saturday evening we joined Josh and Laura along with Laura’s parents for an evening at a dinner fundraiser for the Future of Flight at the Boeing campus in Everett, Washington. The event was to raise funds for the education programs that partner with local schools to promote math and science. Josh’s company Axia Home Loans in Lynwood, Washington sponsored our table.

Father and son checking out the silent auction. Josh ended up winning 3 or 4 of the items he bid on at the silent auction.

The theme of the event was “The Adventures of Amelia”. We found Amelia and took a photo with her.

We sat amongst the aircraft and engines for our dinner and live auction.

The food was surprisingly good for a big event like this one. They had the tables silent bid for our desserts. The higher bidders took all the chocolate choices early! It was another creative way to raise more money for a good cause.

I took this centerpiece lantern home with me after placing the only bid for it at our table.

On our way out there were gift bags to take home with the Airfield Bombshell Wine from the evening along with a wine opener, cork, and a signature rub from the caterer. That was a fun surprise.

Tonight I’m headed to a rivalry game between the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers. There have been over 66,000 tickets sold for this game so the atmosphere will be electric! The fans longtime favorite player, Roger Levesque, who retired earlier this season will be honored with the “Golden Scarf” tonight, too. I’m wondering if this will be our last game of the season in the sunshine and no rain.

Hope your weekend has gone well.

I Stand Amazed in the Presence ~ Hymn

Rosemary reminded me of this old favorite of mine and I wanted to share it today…

I Stand Amazed in the Presence

I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner, condemned, unclean.

Refrain

O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

For me it was in the garden
He prayed: “Not My will, but Thine.”
He had no tears for His own griefs,
But sweat drops of blood for mine.

O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

In pity angels beheld Him,
And came from the world of light
To comfort Him in the sorrows
He bore for my soul that night.

O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calvary,
And suffered and died alone.

O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

When with the ransomed in glory
His face I at last shall see,
’Twill be my joy through the ages
To sing of His love for me.

O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

Words: Charles H. Gabriel, 1905.

Across the Line…

…our Canadian friends are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend.

They have a long weekend lasting into Monday.

A question for my Canadian friends. Do you wait till Monday to celebrate or do you choose a different day on the weekend?

I know for us with married children and children scattered here and there we go with the flow and share with our kids’ in laws on which day we claim for the turkey.

It was so nice having Dear home all day today. He doesn’t like to just sit around so we moved some furniture around which then meant he had to raise some art work. We are making the living room roomier because our small group has grown to 12 people and we need to fit everyone in there.
Hope you all have a very nice weekend.

A Little Glimpse…

…of Vienna. Or…what happens when the photographer doesn’t go on the trip!

I am thrilled to have my Dear back home with me. I uploaded his photos from Vienna. He had a total of 18 photos with 11 of them being of his hotel room. It was a very nice room, lots of space and filled with nice amenities. I’m chuckling because I loaded my camera for him to take with an 8GB memory card.

I will give him a lot of slack because he was working during the day and the one half day he had off it was raining heavily so there wasn’t a good opportunity to take photos! The photos he did take were a good representation of the city. He’s got a good eye!

My Pharmacist spotted the Apotheke. Doesn’t the city look clean?

Dear’s company booked rooms at this nice hotel, the Radisson Blu Palais.  I was really impressed with the size of the room and all the great features. Dear said that they stocked the refrigerator with beer, water, apple juice, orange juice and a sparkling drink. If you used anything from the refrigerator you weren’t charged and it was replenished the next day. I like that concept.

Did I mention how happy I am to have Dear back home? His next trip I’ll be tagging along. I’ll tell you more soon.

Homecoming…

This mama duck is really excited that papa duck flies over the skies of Washington today on his way to SeaTac airport. Because he was in Europe we didn’t have the daily phone call opportunities that make being apart from each other easier. So much news to share, mostly good but some sad news, too. He gets home a little before noon on Wednesday.

Maybe he’ll have a window seat and get to see our dramatic Washington volcanoes from the plane…

I mowed the weeds yesterday and used the mower as a vacuum for the leaves that have fallen. Maybe I’ll put something in the crockpot so things smell good when Dear arrives. It’s good that he’ll have Thursday off so he can work on that jet lag that always accompanies such a long trip through several time zones. What does your Wednesday hold?

Uninvited…

…but welcomed!

This little visitor arrived in my yard and I had never seen it before. I let it know that it could come over any time if it just promised to take home the unwelcome rats that enjoy my yard, too. I hope this pretty black and white creature understood my request…

Speaking of black creatures, on Monday morning the crows were making a constant high pitched cawing noise with no stop in their intensity. I went outside to see what was up and there was a murder of crows and it looked like they were trying to commit murder on one of their own. I got a broom from the garage and walked out to the fence where one of the crows had gotten one of it’s wings stuck in the chain link. I talked nicely and took the broom and gently pushed the wing out from the link. It immediately flew away and the rest of the crows all took off and haven’t returned yet. I hope they have me on their favorites list now and go cawing somewhere else…

I looked up murder of crows and came up with some interesting information. This is pretty gruesome so you might want to stop reading here but I think this was exactly what was happening in my backyard Monday morning…

“…I do know, however, that the behaviour of ganging up on one crow (which does not necessarily have to be the weakest) is real. In Swedish, it’s called “kråkriksdag”, roughly translated as “crow parliament”. I’ve seen it happen, and it is a brutal event. There is some general squaking, but there is no clear target. Suddenly it starts and all of them jump on one crow, picking at it until it is dead, literally tearing it to pieces. They are so focused on this that you have to run straight in among them to scatter them.”

I guess I really did save the life of this crow that was stuck and defenseless.

Glimpses…

…of Fall in my world.

I couldn’t walk away from this mum for $9.99 to add some late color to the deck.

Love these cascading vines on the neighbors fence.

I made a quick stop at Ste Michelle Winery and one of the resident peacocks was out but camouflaged…

Some dahlias were still showing beautifully at the winery but there wasn’t much fall color showing yet in the trees.

We are headed into another busy week at this old house. I’m looking forward to Dear coming home from Austria on Wednesday. What’s happening in your world?

Great God, as Seasons Disappear ~ Hymn

Great God, as Seasons Disappear

Great God, as seasons disappear,
And changes mark the rolling year,
Thy favor still has crowned our days,
And we would celebrate Thy praise.

The harvest song would we repeat,
Thou givest us the finest wheat;
The joys of harvest we have known;
The praise, O Lord is all Thine own.

Our tables spread, our garners stored,
O give us hearts to bless Thee, Lord:
Forbid it, Source of light and love,
That hearts and lives should barren prove.

Another harvest comes apace:
Ripen our spirits by Thy grace,
That we may calmly meet the blow
The sickle gives to lay us low.

That so, when angel reapers come
To gather sheaves to Thy blest home,
Our spirits may be borne on high
To Thy safe garner in the sky.

Words: Edmund Butcher, 1798.