FFF ~ He’s Home!

 

My Friday Fave Five is a little slow in the making as I was busy just sitting around and looking at our 2nd born son yesterday. I’ve missed seeing his face for over 9 months. More about that later. In the meantime you can join Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and share your favorite things from the past week.

Here are my favorites~

1. Zumba! It’s physical torture for a solid hour that makes you sweat till you’re drenched but it’s fun! I signed up at the YMCA this month and I try to go to the Zumba classes 3 days a week. The other 2 days I do less torturous activity like the treadmill.

2. Molbak’s ~ We have a wonderful garden store in a neighboring city here that really decks the halls for Christmas. I’ve been looking for place card holders and had a Groupon coupon for $30.00 worth of merchandise for $15.00 so I went shopping there last week. I found some holders I really love and got to enjoy their displays of an amazing variety of poinsettias. I’ll share the holders next week after I set our Thanksgiving table. While there I saw this sign that made me chuckle. Just goes to show you how fickle happiness is :0). I much rather choose JOY!

 

3. I was praying all day long on Wednesday for safe travels for our son Dan and Dear. Dan drove 12 hours from Yuma, Az. to Sacramento, California. Dear flew to Sacramento to meet up with Dan and to drive the next 12 hours to Seattle together. Dan left Yuma at 3:00 A.M. and they pulled into our driveway at 2:30 A.M. I heard their voices and fell back to sleep thanking the Lord for their safety. When I woke up on Thursday and pulled out Daily Light (a Bible devotional) the heading for this day was “He led them on safely”. I smiled and thanked God again for leading them safely home.

4. When Dan finally woke up on Thursday it was so good to give him a big hug and then just sit and smile and talk to each other! He was so happy to be back in the state of Washington. Some of the things he enjoyed…

~cold water right out of the faucet. The water is warm coming out of the faucet in Yuma. Not surprising since it’s desert.

~A real nice mattress to sleep on. He’s been living in a hotel for 9 months.

~A house to move around in with more then 2 rooms.

5. TACO NIGHT! We had the whole family sitting around the table last night for Tacos. It was real good. We got to hear lots of stories from Dan and get caught up a bit.

Dan will be heading to Eastern Washington for his full-time job next week so we’ll enjoy a few more days with him before he heads out. It’s good to have him in the same state now with the opportunity to see him on some weekends in the future. We’re having our Thanksgiving meal early this year (on Sunday) so we can enjoy it all together.

I’ll hop around for some visits now before Dan wakes up and before ZUMBA!

6. I’m cheating with one more. Here’s a quote Dear sent me this week that I wanted to share.

“We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life.” – Speech to the Graduating Class of 1978 at Harvard by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Happy Veterans Day & Armistice Day!

 

They Did Their Share

On Veteran’s Day we honor
Soldiers who protect our nation.
For their service as our warriors,
They deserve our admiration.

Some of them were drafted;
Some were volunteers;
For some it was just yesterday;
For some it’s been many years;

In the jungle or the desert,
On land or on the sea,
They did whatever was assigned
To produce a victory.

Some came back; some didn’t.
They defended us everywhere.
Some saw combat; some rode a desk;
All of them did their share.

No matter what the duty,
For low pay and little glory,
These soldiers gave up normal lives,
For duties mundane and gory.

Let every veteran be honored;
Don’t let politics get in the way.
Without them, freedom would have died;
What they did, we can’t repay.

We owe so much to them,
Who kept us safe from terror,
So when we see a uniform,
Let’s say “thank you” to every wearer.

By Joanna Fuchs


What a Wonderful Sight!

 

Genesis 9: 12-16 (The Message) ~ God continued, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.” Genesis 9: 12-16 (The Message)

 

Ezekiel 1:28 (NIV)

Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, …

 

 

I’m always excited when I see a rainbow. And when I see double, that’s really special. How about you? We spotted this one late in the afternoon on Monday.

I’m linking up to Susan’s Outdoor Wednesday.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

A Day Like No Other ~

It seems that is a good description of every new day!

 

My day started early when Dear called at 5:30 A.M. to say his car had died just off his exit in downtown Seattle. Dear started to walk to his office while I called AAA-Washington and took off from home to meet the tow truck driver downtown. By the time I got there the car was all loaded up and ready to go. The driver followed me home and dropped the car off in the driveway. I was enjoying my morning coffee by 7 A.M. I was very happy with the great service we received from AAA.  Later in the day I had to travel back downtown to pick Dear up from work. Tomorrow I’ll show you the wonderful rainbow we had after dinner tonight.

Announcements, announcements, announcements!!

I now have a email subscription option in my sidebar. Some people have asked about this and my sister tutored me through adding it. Thank you sister!!

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Got Leaves?

 

It’s good to see that after some storms we had this weekend the maple tree is almost bare of it’s leaves. We only have one more huge leaf raking job till next fall. For the record, that maple tree isn’t on our property but I suppose since we enjoy it during the year we can suffer through the leaf waste during the fall. Do you have to rake leaves where you are? I’m glad our yard waste pick-up allows us to put out as many cans as we want.

Visit Mary at The Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Grander Than Ocean’s Story ~ Hymn

 

Grander Than Ocean’s Story

Grander than ocean’s story,
Or songs of forest trees;
Purer than breath of morning,
Or evening’s gentle breeze;
Clearer than mountain echoes
Ring out from peaks above,
Rolls on the glorious anthem
Of God’s eternal love.

Dearer than any friendship
Our truest comrades show;
Stronger than all the yearning
A mother’s heart may know;
Deeper than earth’s foundations,
And far above all thought;
Broader than Heav’n’s high arches—
The love that Christ has brought.

Richer than all earth’s treasures,
The wealth my soul receives;
Brighter than royal jewels,
The crown that Jesus gives;
Wondrous the condescension,
And grace beyond degree!
I would be ever singing
The love of Christ to me.

Words: William F. Sherman 1826-1888

Round Robin Photo Challenge ~ Outside the Window

 

It’s time for a new challenge. The idea for this one is to stand (or sit) outside a window, and photograph through it to whatever is inside.  Visit the Round Robin Photo Challenge Blog to see more entries for this challenge.

Here are a few photos I’ve taken that qualify for this challenge.

 

Looking in to a Tea Room in Santa Monica, California.

 

A fairy tale shop at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

 

A bridal gown shop in Laguna Beach, California. Generic with no sentiment or emotion attached when I took this. This next photo is another story…

 

This is our daughter in front of the Bridal shop in Bellevue, Washington where we just purchased her wedding dress. Very sentimental and personal with plenty of emotion attached!

A wedding is afoot at our house but because my daughter is marrying a Marine who will soon be in Active duty we do not know what date we can choose for the event yet. It will be sometime in the next year in the meantime we are preparing what we can because we might have very little notice for the actual event.

Have a great weekend Robins!

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

FFF ~ As November Begins…

 

It’s Friday again and time for Friday’s Fave Five. Look back over your week and choose some favorites you’d like to share. Join us at Susanne’s Living to Tell the Story to share your five.

 

This week is a week of looking forward for me. Looking forward to next week when our middle son is finally back in our home state of Washington. Looking forward to having an early Thanksgiving meal together.  But I’ll pause and think back and share my favorite quotes from this past week.

1. From Gumbo Lily’s blog ~

Earth is crammed with Heaven
and every bush aflame with God.
But only those who see
take off their shoes.

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

2. From my brother and SIL on Facebook ~

“How much greater is the God we have than the one we think we have” -Father Gregory Boyle

3. From Mighty Mom’s Blog ~

“You can get glad in the same shoes you got mad in.”

4. From our sermon on Sunday at Westminster Chapel in Bellevue, Washington.

“Your dreams should be bigger then your memories”

5. My fifth favorite is not a quote. Hip Hip Hooray the elections are over and my phone has stopped ringing off the hook looking for support of such and such candidate!!

I hope to come around soon and see what your favorites were this past week. Blessings…

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Better Late Then Never Tablescape…

Turns out we were going to have actual company over for a meal on Halloween so I finally got my Halloween and Thanksgiving bins down on Saturday the 30th of October. Not a day too soon. Here’s what I came up with for this year…

I was trying to make the napkins look like bats…

Here’s the proof that we actually sat down and had a meal at this table.

And here’s what we had to eat…

Pioneer Woman’s Pork with Applesauce and Sauerkraut on Mashed Potatoes.

I’m linking up to Tablescape Thursday with Susan at Between Naps on the Porch this week.

That Halloween Bin is all tucked back away in the attic and I’ll be working with the Thanksgiving/Fall bin next. Wednesday is starting out beautiful here in the Northwest. I’m going to get my roots looked after and then I have some physical therapy later in the day. Still wondering what to tuck in the middle of the day. Time will tell…

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Ruby Tuesday ~

…is it possible in my oh so blue state? Time will tell if the state of Washington turns a little Ruby today.

 

For more Ruby Tuesday visit Mary at Work of the Poet.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.