On Sunday we hit the back roads North to Clovis where my cousin Jim who married my college buddy Jeanie live (Jeanie and I met when we both were Home Economics majors at Cal-State, Los Angeles). Their youngest son Jeff asked Heather to marry him and she said YES! So because of the excitement of it all an engagement party was planned. Here’s the happy darling couple…

I told you they were darling. See that fabulous blouse she’s wearing? Jeff bought that for her while he was in Italy with his family a few weeks ago. Good taste and it looks smashing on Heather.

Clovis is about 4 hours away from us by car and we didn’t just get there by snapping our fingers so I’m going to show you some of the scenes from the route we chose to take this time. We went on a back road through Ojai on Highway 33. This route took us over and across the Los Padres National Forest.

It was very dry and hot (but 10 degrees cooler than Saturday). We saw lots of interesting landscape. Lots of huge bolders that looked like they could fall on us around several curves. The tunnels and canopy of eucalyptus trees were very cool. We finally made it over the winding roads through the forest to the flat lands of Central California. We went through an area of oil refineries and saw this great old oil Derick.

We arrived for the main event at Jim and Jeanies and the real fun began. Jim and Jeanie have a Spanish style home on a very large piece of property that is just perfect for large gatherings of people. They’ve done a beautiful job with landscaping and adding great features to make the house and yard invite you in.

There were lots of people and great food that Jeanie with my cousin Katrina’s help prepared themselves. Appetisers, Russian Chicken (MGCC recipe), Beef with aujus and salsa on the side, pasta salad, fruit salad, and rice pilaf. Yummy! One of Jeanie’s girlfriends from her Bible Study made all the cookies, heart shaped brownies and cookie bars. I love how she decorated the cookies. I asked her if she’d come to my next party with some of her fabulous cookies :0)

But the best part of the day was seeing old friends and relatives and getting re-acquainted and caught up a little with each other.

Jeanie and Ellen b. ~ Jeanie’s Swedish roots welcome sign ~ Jeanie with her sister Kathy B. ~ My cousin Katrina with her husband Andy and daughter Kristen ~ The engaged couple Heather and Jeff ~ Jeff’s older brother Ben ~ Ellen b. and Dear ~ My cousin Jim praying for the couple and meal ~ Cousins: Jim, Ellen b, and Katrina.

Hi Katrina…I know you are out there now :0)

The last time I saw Kathy B. (Jeanie’s sister) was in 2005 at a different celebration here in Clovis.

This face to face meeting was very special for me because since 2005 Kathy B. and I have both started blogging and I have gotten to know and love her more through our blogs. It’s just something special to meet with bloggy friends face to face. Kathy B. blogs over at Count it all Joy. She truly has chosen joy through her suffering and has a special place in my heart.

Thanks for the wonderful party Jim and Jeanie. Congratulations Jeff and Heather. It was fun celebrating with you! May God bless you and the uniting of your families with His love and joy!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!