Tag Archives: Birthdays

Happy to Say…

…our power never went out and is still on during this latest tree limb snapping storm! I’m linking up with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story with my favorite blessings of the week!

1. Having all our kids together under our roof for a few days celebrating birthdays and just being together.

2. Dan getting back over Snoqualmie Pass safe and sound before the storms hit. We really have been socked with some snow and ice!

3. Katie and Andrew making it from Seattle to Salt Lake City safely on snowy and icy roads. It took them 2 days to get there. They were so happy whenever they hit some dry miles on the highway.

4. The fact that Dear was able to work from home this week instead of driving the treacherous roads off our hill to the park and ride.

5. So thankful to God for all our kids and kids in law who get along so well and love each other. Priceless!

We are pretty sure we have officially hit the foot mark for our snow levels. This is the most snow we’ve ever experienced at this old house!

I’ll post the rest of my snow shots tomorrow.

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

Surprises!

There have been so many surprises this weekend but the best surprise of all was all my kids together at our house for the first time in over 7 months.

Katie and Andrew flew in from North Carolina arriving just before 11 a.m. today and no one knew they were coming but Dear and I. Dan arrived from Eastern Washington at 4 a.m. driving for 6 hours after his work shift and went straight to bed. When Dan woke up he was very surprised to see his sister and Andrew. He had no idea they were traveling to Washington. When Josh and Laura arrived to have lunch with us and to see their brother Dan they were surprised to see Katie and Andrew! The last surprise was when Aunt Lana and Uncle Steve came for lunch and were surprised to see Katie and Andrew, too. Dan’s birthday is tomorrow and Joshua’s birthday is on Thursday so we going out to dinner tomorrow night. Table for 7 please! I’ll take some photos of all of us when we are a little more dolled up for our dinner out…

We’ve had a very lovely day enjoying food together and hearing about Andrew’s experience in Afghanistan and just being able to see each other face to face.

We’ve also enjoyed looking out on our new white world.

Last but not least…the votes are in. I tried on the two dresses and the shoes to go with them and the unanimous vote from the bride, my DIL and my sister Lana is the dress that goes with the silver shoes! I’ll show the full look when I post photos from the wedding day…

Hope you all have a wonderful week and to those of you in the U.S. hope your Martin Luther King day is a good one.

A Table for Miss W…

Some of my family was visiting and my niece had a birthday coming up so we decided to celebrate in the Northwest before she celebrated in the Southwest!

 

There were 10 of us for dinner. We had roasted leg of lamb, potatoes & carrots, and salad. For dessert we had a Creamy frozen Raspberry pie. I forgot to take pictures of the main course but did take a photo of the dessert.

 

 

My sister Kathy and I picked these wild Sweet Peas on the river trail earlier in the day on a walk.

 

Here’s the dessert we enjoyed.

I’ve been away from Tablescape Thursday for a while. Hope you all are doing well. Please visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch to see more Tables from around the blog world.

TRUE CONFESSION # 9 or 10, I’ve lost count. I had to be very particular where I aimed my camera for these photos. This was the last day of two weeks of overnight company and we were busy everyday so….my kitchen/dining area was a mess wasn’t very tidy. I usually clear the decks when I do a tablescape but I just didn’t have time between playing with company and cooking so that is why you see very focused photos that show only the table. I also need to say that my brother totally cleaned up the space they used for the two weeks. He vacuumed their room, washed the bedding, put the bedding back on the bed, cleaned the bathroom, and washed my family room rug while he was here. AND he made breakfasts, too. He can come back anytime he wants!

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.

Looking Back at 2009…

Ellen b.’s highlights for the year 2009! It’s all about Family, Friends, Food, and Walking! God has blessed us richly!

This will be my First Fave Five post for 2010. I apologize up front for the way over 5 photo overload!! Please visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in with Friday’s Fave Five…

 

Weekend getaway to the Central Coast in California over Martin Luther King weekend.

 

Walking throughout the year is always a highlight! Early Saturday morning walks with Dear at Emma Wood. Walks in Willow’s neighborhood or an occasional beach walk or a walk at the Blueberry Farm with Joy always provides good fellowship and encouragement. Walks in the Seattle area on the Burke Gilman trail with my Saturday morning walking buddies Jan and Jody (we have been doing this for 10 years now). An occasional walk on the Burke Gilman during the week with my friend Beth. I love to walk with people not alone…and if there’s a donut shop at the end of the walk that’s icing on the cake! :0)

 

My birthday celebration in March at the Tam O’ Shanter.

 

The tragic tea in April where my mother fell and had to spend her tea time at the hospital.

 

Easter is my favorite holiday of the year because of what Christ accomplished for us. This was the first year we made Kulich (Russian Easter Bread) on our own, too!

 

In May my brother’s family arrived just in time for Mother’s Day, a couple birthday parties and then we had a family outing at Disneyland!

 

Memorial Weekend in Seattle.

 

June ~ The Sounders were in L.A. and we had a quick visit with Josh…

 

End of June my cousin’s son got married and we stopped in for the fabulous event on our roadtrip to Seattle.

 

Fourth of July in Seattle…

 

Later in July my niece visited and we did some fun touristy things including a Mariner’s game.

 

August we made a quick ferry trip to Vancouver Island to see Butchart Gardens and Victoria!

 

 

Later in August brought another visit from Brother and his family to Southern California. We again enjoyed meals, a baby shower, and Disneyland!

 

 

September we celebrated Dear’s birthday at Five Crowns in Corona Del Mar.

 

On Labor Day our son headed out for his new vocation and Dear and I made another trip to the Central Coast.

 

September 29th Katie and I made a day trip to Vancouver, B.C. and visited Stanley Park and the Aquarium.

 

In October we re-did the tragic tea but this time there were no tragedies. The newest member of the family was in attendance.

 

November was filled with great family events. New Mexico to attend Daniel’s graduation.

 

Our Annual Black Friday Tea after shopping at Goodwill.

 

Fun times with our Thanksgiving Company.

 

Thanksgiving Day…

 

December brought a fun celebration of Katie’s completion of her degree.

 

Christmas 2009!

 

Our last big celebration of the year is Katie’s birthday which falls on December 27th!

If you managed to make it through all of this, congratulations! Hoping for a year of acknowledging daily God’s blessings in our lives…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Friday’s Fave Five ~

It’s time to visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to share your favorite moments from this past week. Thank you Susanne for being the hostess with the mostest!

 

This was an amazing week filled with lots of experiences that were out of the ordinary. Dear was born on September 9th a few years ago but his birthday this year was the fun 09-09-09! We also had a long weekend here in the U.S. with Labor day giving many of us an extra day off. Dear and I took advantage of the extra time and had some extra fun celebrating his birthday early. So…here’s my five or so favorites.

1. Driving up the coast to Morro Bay and Cambria on Saturday, two Central California Beach communities. It was cool. It was beautiful. It was good to get away from the ordinary.

2. Having a wonderful creamy birthday brunch at Five Crowns Restaurant in Corona Del Mar. Corona Del Mar is another beach community but it is in Southern California. Yes, we do not shy away from driving…

3. Having my dear DIL send me this photo of our boys. She took it on Sunday. I love seeing our boys together, enjoying each other and taking care of each other.

4. Having Monday off and enjoying a totally layed back day recovering from all our travel and creamy food!!

 

5. This is my BFF from high school. She was rudely taken out of my life and away from all her friends half way into our junior year of high school. We spent so many hours together in high school. We memorized Leslie Gore songs together, had slumber parties, went to the L.A. Garment district together, were part of  a Y.M.C.A. service club together, went out to dinner together…and then she was gone! I was thinking about her and wondering how I could track her down but it was hard because of her very common last name here in Southern California. We finally connected on Facebook through some mutual friends! Yesterday we met for lunch after 41 years. It was so good to re-connect and catch up on our lives after all these years!!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

 

Friday’s Fave Five ~

Time flies when you’re old having fun. Here it is Friday already and it’s time to list our favorites from this past week. Visit Susanne from Living to Tell the Story to join in on the fun.

 

1. We had two good walks on the weekend. Our first walk was to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning while it was drizzling. Then on Sunday we walked to our usual Mexican Restaurant for lunch. We were feeling oh so European.

2. On Saturday my brother Tim and his wife Letty came over for most of the day and we had a special birthday dinner for Tim. We served barbecued Rib Eye Steak, roasted fingerling potatoes, mushrooms sauteed with onions with a cream and white wine reduction, and a salad with persian dressing. For dessert we had a limoncello cream cake. From some of those descriptions can you tell I watch Top Chef? Anything is fancy if you put the right description with it :0)

3. We’ve experienced some “weather” here in Southern California and it was nice to have rain and big fluffy clouds around. Now we are in another Santana Wind pattern which warms things up considerably. Willow and I had quite a windy walk on Thursday.

4. Every couple of months my mom and dad have the “girls” over for dinner. This past Tuesday my sisters, my SIL’s, and my nieces along with grand nephew Jackson met at mom and pop’s for dinner. It’s always so much fun to get together. We laugh a lot.

5. One more of my favorites was to meet up with my bloggy friend Cori face to face for the first time this past Tuesday.

To read more Fave Fives visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.