To Canada!

On Friday the 29th of August we left early for a little road trip to Canada to meet up with a couple of the Mennonite Girls and their husbands who were camping close to the border in Midway, B.C. We traveled new roads to us.

Instead of deer, we were on the lookout for cattle along Boulder Creek Road.

Today I’ll share the destination and the time with our friends and tomorrow I’ll show more of the sites along the way.

Our route was well marked. In the near future, I’ll share what we learned about Ranald MacDonald, too.

We knew this small border crossing closed at 5pm but we didn’t realize it didn’t even open until 9am. We were early so we tracked back to the little town of Curlew and we were pleased to see this sani-can!

Thank you, Beal Park, for your facilities.

We were back at the border crossing at 9am and were welcomed into Canada with a tip that we should be back to the crossing at 4:45pm to insure that the border wouldn’t be closed.

We found Lovella and Judy’s campsite which was about 3 minutes from the border and it was so good to see our friends face to face.

The table was set for our breakfast together.

Judy and Lovella served us a feast!

After our delicious breakfast we played a few rounds of Skyjo!

We had a good catch up time and we might have solved some world problems.

We had another fabulous meal together that we called linner before we said our goodbyes and headed for the border!

Our Linner even came with dessert, fruit filled perishky!

It was such a nice time together but it was time to wave goodbye and head to the border.

Thank you, friends, for your hospitality at your home away from home.

We crossed the border after a nice chat with the border agent and made it home by 6pm.

Saturday was a stay at home and relax day. Sunday we were in church and afterwards stayed inside because of smoke from a few fires burning in our area.

We can’t see our beautiful mountains.

These fires are about 12 miles north of us.

This photo above is from our county fire agency. The fire is in rugged areas that are hard to get to. We are hoping all the agencies and volunteers fighting these fires make progress today. Such hard intense work.

Another photo from Northeast Washington Fire Information Group. This was the caption for this mornings briefing;

Crown Creek – Blackhawk Mtn Fires
Good morning from Fire Camp in Colville and 0600 morning briefing. About 550 crews have arrived to help engage and manage the fire, with more crews arriving throughout the day. 550? That is about 10% growth for the city of Colville.
What an amazing turnout!

Today is Labor Day here in the USA and Canada and we also welcome September! School in our area will start tomorrow and Awana starts on Wednesday.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

Hello Summer Hodgepodge

1. Summer is upon us this week in the Northern hemisphere. Tell us three things on your summer bucket list.

No real bucket list type items but things that we need to have happen this summer…

1. Sell our house. 2. Buy a new house. 3. Complete our move to the new house. In the midst of all of that, spend time with our growing granddaughter, family and friends.

2. Something fun you used to do as a kid in the summertime?

In the 50’s we would go camping in the mountains close to Los Angeles. Big Bear was one of our favorites. As a child this was a fun experience. I’m the one with the buster brown haircut. The other thing we would do was spend time at the beach with our cousins and usually we’d choose Newport Beach in Southern California. Besides dodging waves and digging for sand crabs, the kids would walk around and collect empty soda bottles to take into the little convenience store to redeem the deposits. With the money we’d get by doing this we’d buy a popsicle or candy bar. So thrilling for us young ones! What wasn’t fun about the beach was coming home with horrible sunburns and having to have cold rags dipped in vinegar put on our backs to ease the pain and heat. Ouch. My dear mom was the one who would minister to us.

3. Rooftop or backyard? Why?

I’ve never really lived in an environment where I have to rely on a rooftop to be outside. A yard is still important to me. More importantly a covered deck is my preference with a view of greenery all around and some privacy. If you have a rooftop space you could invite me over to experience something different!

4. Do you read food labels? Place importance on them? Make an effort to find out/care about where your food comes from?

My label reading life has evolved over the years. Growing up we were part of a religion/cult where pork products were taboo so we made sure the salami and hot dogs we bought were an “all beef” product. My family left this group in my later teens and I am free to enjoy bacon and other pork products. MSG was the next item in an ingredients list that we avoided and still do. We avoid anything with aspartame and saccharin or any fake sugar. No diet soft drinks at my house. I can only hope the food I buy at the local grocer is okay…another good reason to pray over the meal you are about to consume.

5. A song you’ll have on repeat this summer?Philip Philip

Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring the songs I mostly have on repeat are Christian worship songs and hymns but here’s one that is somewhat appropriate for our move…

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Our son is threatening to get our little grand girlie a huge hamster ball so they don’t have to deal with this scenario. Yikes, she climbed up on that bar stool and hoisted herself up on the counter. She’s a strong daredevil.

Here she is with her Uncle. This looks a lot safer!

Linking up with Jo From This Side of the Pond for Wednesday Hodgepodge. She asks the questions and we answer…

Summertime…

Happy Summer to You!

We have sunshine, woohoo!

 

 

This is from the 50’s at Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains,  Southern California. The three families represented here are all Russian immigrants who arrived in the U.S.A. in the late 40’s.  I’m the one with the buster brown haircut sitting on the table. At this point I was the youngest in our family. Our next 4 siblings were born in 1958, 1959 and twins in 1963.

To celebrate the first day of summer I’ll be out in the yard mowing and pulling weeds…not camping.

What are you doing?

Photobucket replaced all my photos with blurred out versions 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.

Fun Monday ~ Happy Childhood Memory

Molly is hosting Fun Monday this week. She says…

I have the great honor of hosting Fun Monday this coming Monday, June 9th. For your assignment tell us about a happy memory from your childhood. If you have pictures, please show us your pictures.

 

When I was little the cousins would all pile into one car and head up to Big Bear, California or another mountain destination and camp. I’m the one sitting on the table. These were happy childhood memories.

On the bench in front: Valia my cousin, my sister Vera, my cousin Walter, my cousin Alex, me on the table, across the table on the bench- my Uncle Paul, my Father, my brother Fred, my sister Kathy standing on the bench. Behind the bench – Mrs. Dorofeiv, Mike Dorofeiv and their child.

 

Here I am with my father who loved to put jigsaw puzzles together. My sister Kathy is standing behind my dad and me. These days my favorite kind of camping is at the Hilton but I know that the best memories for our kids are the real camping experiences out in the great outdoors. I wish I would have taken my kids on more camping excursions…

 

This is my cousin Valia and me. We spent lots of time with each other while I was growing up. My maternal grandmother lived with them so we were over there a lot. This photo was taken at Easter.

Here’s that same cousin with her daughter and granddaughter. I got to see her this last Saturday at a baby shower for her DIL. One of our projects while at the shower was to create something on a onesie for the baby that’s due in July. Yikes I’m not really artistic or crafty but here is what I came up with. Good thing babies wear onesies under their regular outer wear!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

For more Fun Monday Happy Memories visit Molly.