Friday’s Fave Five ~ December 4th

Wowie Zowie!! So many favorites especially since I missed last week. Thank you Susanne for hosting this great weekly event. Visit Living to Tell the Story to join in.

1. Thanksgiving weekend is one of my favorite times of the year. We usually have my brother Tim and his wife Letty stay with us which adds to the fun. Our wonderful friends Dave and Jody invite my family and any extended family that happen to be in the Northwest to their house for a large Thanksgiving gathering. This has gone on for 20 years give or take a couple…

Tim & Letty ~ Judy (Dave’s mom) my BIL Steve and my sister Lana ~ Dear carving the turkey ~ Jamie, Bridget, Lucy (Dave and Jody’s daughters) Laura and Katie (our daughters)

2. The day after Thanksgiving the girls had a great time shopping at Goodwill and going to Tea. (I’ll be posting lots of photos from the Tea Room next week)

SIL Letty, Katie B.(daughter) , Katy K. (Good friend of Katie B’s), Ellen b., Lana G! (my sister), Wilma (my DIL’s grandmother), Pat (my DIL’s mother), Laura my DIL.

3. On Saturday my son Josh and I flew/drove to New Mexico via Arizona and Texas to see my son Dan and to attend his graduation. It was so good to be there and to spend time together. While we were there we visited the Carlsbad Caverns which are AHHH Mazing! Wouldn’t you know that we would bring some snow to Sun Country. Our route back to El Paso where we were due to fly out of on Tuesday was impassable because they shut down the pass that goes through the Guadalupe mountains. We had to do some fast talking and got a flight out of Albuquerque instead. Since all the graduation festivities were over we checked out of our hotel early and drove 4 hours to Albuquerque found a hotel room next to the airport. We were very thankful that the road north was clear. There was snow on the ground next to the highway but no snow on the road.

4. This photo of my grandniece in the hat I bought her is one of my favorites this week, too. She is so sweet…

5. Thursday was my Daughter in Love’s birthday. She is definitely one of my favorites.

6. Bonus Favorite! ~ “I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.”  Ps. 116:1-2

Over and over in my life God has shown His love to me in big and small ways. There are always things on the back burner that I’m “waiting” for Him to work out in my life. This past week He has shown me His mercy and grace again in my children’s lives and my life. I’m overwhelmed at times at His goodness to me and my family. Some of that goodness has come through very difficult times. On Sunday Dear and I celebrate 35 years of being married. It has not been difficult being married to Dear but we together have gone through difficult things. I thank God for the good the bad and the ugly! :0)

Looking forward to seeing what your favorites are this week. See you soon…

 

A Funny Thing Happened…

…on the way to Thanksgiving! I spent so much time enjoying real live people and real good food that I didn’t have time to upload photos and post about it. I’m re-winding now and getting caught up. Please bear with me.

Have you read or seen the T.V. shows about those great Food Trucks that move about the city offering good food at different locations each day? Dear and my brother and his wife had seen a segment about the Best Food Truck in the U.S.A. and a truck right here in Seattle won the distinction. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving we found out it’s location and headed out with our Thanksgiving company to have some good eats! Marination lived up to it’s honor and served us up some really good food. To thank the people of Seattle for nominating them it was Free Taco Day! Woohoo!

The food was delicious and the people who run the business were great! Find out where they are today by clicking on the Marination link above. You won’t be disappointed when you take your first bite!

We were hankering for something good to wash down this fabulous food and found out that Hale’s Ales another great Seattle establishment was just down the street.

I’ll be adding this link to Foodie Friday because it’s all about the Food! Thanks Gollum for hosting Foodie Friday.

Christmas Star Table ~

It’s been a while since I participated in Tablescape Thursday so I’m happy to join back in this week. Please visit our fabulous hostess Susan at Between Naps on the Porch to see lots of tables set for entertaining.

Today I pulled out some of my Christmas decor which included two Nativity sets I purchased at after Christmas sales last year. I thought about the Wisemen that followed the star and said to King Herod “For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him”.  My star table is in honor of those Wisemen who were looking for this sign for years and were blessed with the fulfillment of that search by seeing Jesus face to face.

My chair covers are Santa Hats. I purchased them at Target after Christmas clearance about 5 years ago…

 

I’m looking forward to seeing your tablescapes this week. Thanks for visiting here…

Back From Sun Country…

where it snowed on us and I didn’t use my sunglasses once until this morning at the Albuquerque Sunport!

It was good to be with my sons and see them enjoy each other! Hey, Willow, if you look closely you’ll see I’m wearing the scarf you knitted for me. Josh and I stood out like foreigners in New Mexico with our scarves on!

Josh and Dan at the Carlsbad Caverns

On our way up to the caverns Dan spotted a herd of these great looking Big Horn Critters. I’m going to be looking them up to see what they are.

I have so much to post but will need some time recuperating from my travels…Hope to see you all soon.

Thou Virgin-Born Incarnate Word ~ Hymn

Thou Virgin-Born Incarnate Word

Thou virgin-born incarnate Word,
Begotten of the Father,
Blest Son of Mary, David’s Lord,
In Thy dear Name we gather.
As Thou hast promised, be Thou nigh,
And hear us as we testify,
“Thou art the Christ, our Savior.”

The herald in the wilderness
Prepares the way before Thee;
With him let us Thy Name confess,
With him let us adore Thee.
Grant that we hearken to his cry,
“Repent, the kingdom draweth nigh,”
And seek Thee, Christ our Savior.

Thou art indeed God’s holy Son,
Beloved of Him so dearly,
The mighty works that Thou hast done
Reveal Thy Godhead clearly:
The blind can see, the sick are healed,
The lips once dumb are now unsealed,
All power is Thine, dear Jesus!

Thou art our Peace, our Righteousness,
The Rock of our salvation.
Clothed in Thy garb of holiness,
We fear no condemnation.
Thy blood has cleansed away our sin,
Through Thee eternal life we win,
O crucified Redeemer!

Words: Anna B. Hoppe, 1920.

Katie on the Hobbit…

  • The Hobbit brings me back

A little girl, tucked into bed, Daddy reading confidently from a book with a soft green cover, always knowing what all the words meant and how to say them and how to shift his tone as he read for the dwarves, that mysterious wizard, and poor poor Mr. Baggins who was so imposed upon when they scratched his pretty green door, tramped into his house, and dragged him on an adventure. It was years before I would pick up “the sequel” Lord of the Rings that my Daddy said I needed to be older to read, in the three pretty red-bound volumes on that high shelf. I loved Tolkien’s world and I loved the bedtime ritual, stories from Daddy and songs from Mommy and all my stuffed animals tucked around me sleepy-eyed and relaxed as we dreamed of dragons and magic rings and floating down a river in barrels. Hmmm maybe I need to pick this one up again. 🙂

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Psalm 28:7 ~

The LORD is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
My heart leaps for joy
and I will give thanks to him in song.

Господь–крепость моя и щит мой; на Него уповало сердце мое, и Он помог мне, и возрадовалось сердце мое; и я прославлю Его песнью моею.

The Turkey is Out of the Oven…

Over the years we have learned to adapt to whatever comes our way during the major holidays. Sometimes I make a turkey on Thanksgiving sometimes not. This year I made my turkey today, Tuesday with all the trimmings. My daughter and I very unceremoniously had a plate full of comfort at about 5 pm. After 9pm I’m headed to the airport to pick up Dear and my brother and his wife for the extended weekend. If they are hungry they’ll have a turkey snack before we retire.

On Thursday we are invited to friends for our Thanksgiving Day meal. I’ll bring my yams and an appetizer. Every other year all the married kids have their meal with the in-laws. This is the year that all the married kids will be together with the rest of us so we’re expecting 39 for dinner. My family contributes 9 bodies to the table this year.

On Saturday our oldest son and I will fly to New Mexico to attend our middle son’s graduation from Academy. We will be gone till Tuesday.

So all this to say ellen b. won’t be doing her usual visiting and posting. I do have a couple auto-posts ready but my fingers won’t be hitting the keyboards until next Wednesday.

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving extended weekend or regular weekend if you live outside the U.S.  May God richly bless all your comings and goings…

 

MLS Cup Final 2009 ~ Qwest Field Seattle

 

On Sunday afternoon my son drove us downtown to attend the Major League Soccer Cup Final being held at Qwest Field. It was a beautiful night for soccer. Very cold but not a drop of rain fell on us during the pre-game festivities and the game.

Seattle was putting on a good show with just enough sunshine to make it glow.

It’s time for Major League Soccer in Seattle!

Josh, Beau, Jan and I were the happy ticket holders for the evening. The Seattle Sounders Season tickets included a ticket for this game.

I was able to get some photos of Josh with a couple Sounders. This is Roger Levesque, one of our favorite players!

It’s always fun to participate in the “march to the match” where hundreds of people carrying their flags and scarves walk together to Qwest field from Occidental Park with the Sounders band leading the way.

Josh with Leo Gonzalez a great defender for the Sounders.

After the march we headed straight to our favorite taco truck to get some yummy street tacos. You just can’t beat 3 asada tacos with onion and cilantro for $5.

Even though the Sounders were not in the final the stadium was filled with green. There was a good section of Real Salt Lake supporters in red, blue and gold and a section of L.A. Galaxy supporters wearing the blue, white and gold. I have to say that it was nice just cheering on good soccer and not being all worked up over a certain team winning…

I love Seattle at night!

 

There were 46,011 people in attendance for this game. I’m sure we set a MLS Cup record for attendance with that number!

If it’s confetti…it must be game time!

Just in case you don’t recognize him this is David Beckham. There are people who bad mouth him but you cannot argue the fact that he has a beautiful touch on the ball! He really is a talented soccer player and he looks pretty good, too.

Landon Donovan is another great soccer player. He was the Honda Player of the Year. He also plays for the U.S. Soccer team so you’ll see him at World Cup in Africa 2010. He didn’t have a great night in the finals and he missed his penalty shot in the shoot-out. I’m sure he was very disappointed. I hate to see games go to Penalty kicks!!! Drives me nuts.

Galaxy did get to celebrate after this goal before Real Salt Lake tied it up.

I don’t have a photo of Real Salt Lake celebrating their victory but they did win after 2 overtime periods and then a penalty shot shoot-0ut. Congratulations to Real Salt Lake, their fans who came out in number, and their great goal keeper, Nick Rimando!

Nick Rimando

Sheesh! That was a lot of photos. If you made it all the way to the end, Congratulations!