USS Midway!

Midway Magic…

When we were in San Diego in January we got to tour this amazing ship. My brother Tim, his wife Letty, my sister Vera and I were allowed on board after laying down some cold hard cash.

It was difficult to capture the enormity of this ship with my camera.

No other aircraft carrier served the U.S.A. in the 20th century as long as the USS Midway. Its track record of humanitarian missions, establishment of new naval aviation standards, and marathon deployments made it one of the most noteworthy aircraft carriers in the history of the U.S. Navy.

The Midway was commissioned in 1945 as the largest ship in the world for a decade, the first too large for the Panama Canal

The flight deck is 4.02 acres!

Friendly Docents are located all over the ship to give informative tours and answer any questions you might have.

For our tour of the Bridge we were happy to be assigned to Captain Bruce W. Churchhill. He served for 25 years in the Navy and even had his aircraft featured on the deck of the Midway.

Views from the Bridge…

The Midway was decommissioned in San Diego, California in 1992. In 2004 it opened as the USS Midway Museum in San Diego.

As of 2010 the Midway Museum has surpassed 5 millions visitors since opening.

We were all given permission to go ashore except for my feisty Sister-in-law Letty…

They threw her in the Brig. If San Diego is in your travel plans make sure to put a tour of the Midway on your itinerary. If you do visit would you please say hi to Letty for us…

I’m linking up with Miss Jenny for Alphab-Thursday since we are on the letter M!

25 days to the wedding!!

Gabriel’s Fire, Restaurant, Grill and Barbecue!

We finally found a good spot for barbecue in the Puget Sound area. Josh and Laura met us there after church on Sunday.

Monty Slimp and his brother are the cooks and waiters. Monty helped us around the sauces. They’ve got several to choose from depending on your taste buds. The meat has a real good smoke taste. I ordered the Deelux, brisket tossed in your choice of sauce and layered with cheese, beans, and topped with coleslaw. Dear ordered the Pulled Pork. Laura ordered the pulled pork tacos. I forgot what Josh ordered. It was all real good.  They serve brews from a local brewery.

They say “we only use whole logs to smoke our meat; because the flavor is in the smoke!”  Our taste buds agree with that statement. We highly recommend Gabriel’s Fire for great tasting barbecue in a casual setting.

And for all my Canadian friends, on your next trip South, this spot is just off the I-5 .

Mosaic Monday ~ Signs of Spring…

Oh how I love my Lenten Rose (thank you Beth). Look at those buds springing up!

I’m having to re-fill the bird feeder a lot these days because of all my little and sometimes big visitors!

We’ve had a nice relaxing weekend just messing about the house. We washed some screens. Dear did some patching and some painting. We moved some wall art around. I finished a project I started a while back which involved re-purposing and organizing.

Today we met up with Josh and Laura and had lunch at a new spot which I’ll blog about later. Good times just being together. Hope you had a nice weekend.

Linking up for Mosaic Monday with Mary at Little Red House. If you haven’t visited her you are missing out on some very nice photography…

Give Me, O Lord, a Heart of Grace ~ Hymn

Give Me, O Lord, a Heart of Grace

Give me, O Lord, a heart of grace,
A voice of joy, a shining face,
That I may show, where’er I turn,
Thy love within my soul doth burn.

Though life be sweet and joy be dear,
Be in my mind a quiet fear,
A patient strength in pain and care,
An enmity to dark despair.

A tenderness for all that stray,
With strength to help them on the way,
A cheerfulness, a heav’nly mirth
Brightening my steps along the earth.

Words: Rosa Mulholland, 1886.

Before They Sail Away…

…from my memory. I’ll share some fun sailing vessels.

Today is another walking day for me. I walked on Friday with some new friends on the trail. Today I meet up with another of my former walking buddies and my sister to continue the quest of walking and keeping our joints from freezing up on us. Do you walk? It’s one of my favorite forms of exercise when I have a friend to walk with…

FFF ~ Food, Friends, Fun

Friday is here and it’s time to join Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to share our favorites from this past week.

Uno ~ Oh my what is it about clean windows that make me happy. Makes me want to stop and sing “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone…” Dear washed the windows in our new spare room (formerly Katie’s room). I want to sing every time I walk in there. Since it is the new office, too, and I was going to see the Tax man this week, I had a lot of time in there enjoying the clear views.

Dos ~ A good long walk with one of my walking buddies. We had a stretch of beautiful dry days up here in the Pacific Northwest and that made the walk even more pleasant.

Tres ~ Experimenting with foccacia bread to make a pizza sandwich. It was interesting flipping it to get both sides of the bread nicely baked. Even though the experiment isn’t something I’d be too keen on trying again it was real tasty and satisfying as a meal! The thing we didn’t like was how hard it was to eat without all the innerds squirting out.

Cuatro ~ On Sunday and the reason for all my Spanish numbering this week we were invited to a party by our favorite waitress at the Mexican restaurant we frequent. We were honored that she’d even think to invite us and more honored when we got to the party and we were the only fluent English speaking people there except for her 20 year old son. Everyone made sure we were comfortable and had enough to eat and drink. Her son kept us in the loop explaining who everyone was. Her parents are visiting from Mexico for 2 months and one of her nieces was being baptized that day so this was a party in honor of that occasion. A Mariachi band came later and that’s when all the dancing and singing started. Such suave dancing with twirls and steps and turns with smooth transitions. It was kind of like watching dancing with the stars.

Cinco ~ Decorating a little for Valentine’s Day and  Chocolate Fondue! If you’d like to see the recipe hop over to Mennontie Girls Can Cook! It’s a good treat to serve for Valentine’s Day!

Our weekend looks pretty free and laid back. Hope your weekend is relaxing and rejuvenating!

L is for Love!

It’s time for Teacher Jenny’s Alphabe-Thursday. I’ve been delinquent the last couple of weeks and was really trying hard to come up with something for the letter L and there it was staring me in the face. L-O-V-E….Love. Love is in the kitchen and I can see it from different angles…

Matthew 22:37-39 

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Ephesians 2:4-7 ~But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,  in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 4:8 ~ Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

1 John 4:8 ~ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Jude 1:2 ~ Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.

Valentine’s Day in Elementary School  is a fun memory for me. I so looked forward to exchanging Valentine’s Day cards at school and getting special treats on this day. These days I don’t put pressure on Dear to make Valentine’s day special. I want to find joy in our everyday…

Sailing Ships in San Diego

Star of India is the world’s oldest active sailing ship. She began her life on the stocks at Ramsey Shipyard in the Isle of Man in 1863. Iron ships were experiments of sorts then, with most vessels still being built of wood. Within five months of laying her keel, the ship was launched into her element. She bore the name Euterpe, after the Greek muse of music and poetry.

The ship now known as HMS Surprise began life in 1970 as a replica of the 18th century Royal Navy frigate Rose. During the next 30 years Rose sailed thousands of miles as an attraction vessel and sail training ship prior to her conversion to HMS Surprise. For the academy award winning film, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the filmmakers made a painstaking effort to recreate a 24 gun frigate specific to Great Britain’s Nelson era Royal Navy. The result is a replica vessel unmatched in its authenticity and attention to detail.

Surprise found a new home at the Maritime Museum of San Diego in 2004. A popular shore side attraction, the ship now joins our collection of ships along with the Star of India and Californian.

I saw these beautiful ships on our last morning in San Diego while walking along Harbor Drive.

Hope your February is going well. Life has been good and challenging amongst our family and friends. Joy and Sorrow going hand in hand. This week I’m trying to memorize this part of scripture from Job.

Job 19:25-27

New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

25 I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!

Finally I Walked…

…and I need to walk more.

I met my former walking buddy and we walked 6.7 miles on the river trail on Saturday morning at a 3.5 mile an hour clip. I know all that because she has a new fangled program on her phone that tells you things like that…

The weather was sunny and dry and perfect for walking in the Great Northwest. The ducks were in abundance and were really making a racket!

I’m looking to be able to walk a least 3 more times during the week. One more day of dryness has been promised to us. We’ll take it and enjoy it to the fullest. Next Saturday we hope to walk again with our third former walking buddy along as well. Time will tell. You just have to be flexible these days.