Mother’s Day Weekend

Dear and I drove over to the West side of our state to spend time with some of our family and friends who live there. We met up at two separate restaurants on Thursday afternoon and then Saturday morning with dear friends and spent a couple hours eating together and enjoying conversations and catching up. On Mother’s Day we attended our kids’ church for a great time of worship and preaching. I’ll share some quotes from the sermon at the end of this post. Words I want to remember.

At 1:00 on Sunday this group met up for a Mother’s Day Brunch. It was an honor to enjoy this meal with our westside kids and my sister and her husband. Thank you to Laura for making the reservations and getting everyone together.

Me and my baby sister.

Me and our firstborn son.

Josh and Laura on the waterfront in Kirkland, Washington. The sun finally crept out from behind the clouds for a glorious afternoon.

Josh and Laura created this embroidery together for me as part of my Mother’s day gift. They also treated me to an ornament and tea towel commemorating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. We enjoy so much about Great Britain and remember fondly traveling together in England back in 2013!

A meal out with our daughter and her hubby was another special treat and this lamb shank was a delicious surprise to see on the menu.

We drove back home on Monday morning and it was a rain free event until we entered Spokane, on our last stretch home. We stopped at our Eastside kids’ home to deliver gifts and greetings and were happy for sweet hugs and time with our grands. Home again we get busy with laundry and the need to mow the lawns!

Back to the Sunday service we attended at Canyon Hills Community Church in Bothell, Washington. Dr. Nicholas Ellen from Houston, Texas was the guest preacher for this Sunday. His sermon was titled The Premise and Process of Trusting God. I’m sharing the link.

Some quotes from the sermon that I wrote down…

“The God of reality is bigger than the God of your imagination.”

“Stand Under so one day you will Under Stand”

You Can Obey God ~ some hindrances…

  1. Lack of knowledge
  2. Lack of skill
  3. Lack of will

Don’t be strong and wrong!

God has called us to the process. We need to follow God’s direction. He gives promises and in those promises we need to follow the process He provides.

May is ticking away at full speed. We are enjoying all the color that Spring brings.

My Little Babushka

I received a couple old photos new to me of our little Babushka Vera and I wanted to put all the photos I have of her in the archives of this computer together in one post. She’s sitting on the bottom row of this photo taken in Iran in the late forties. My grandfather that I never met and who was killed in Iran shortly after this photo was taken is on the right. The gal above my grandfather is our aunt Nina. She was married to our uncle Paul, our mom’s only brother. He’s next to Aunt Nina on the end of the top row. The rest of the people in this photo are Aunt Nina’s people and her mother and father are sitting next to our maternal grandparents. The little girls in this photo are the only ones still alive. They all live in Southern California. The two girls flanking the bottom row are both suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.  The little girl in her mother’s arms is alive and well in Southern California. My cousin Alex who is standing next to our Babushka died in an automobile accident in Wheaton, Illinois in 1979. The two grandmothers sitting next to each other, Manya and Vera were close friends and at the end of their lives they lived next door to each other in an apartment building a couple doors down from our Russian Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Several of our Russian widows lived in that apartment building. Our mom and pop had already immigrated to the USA when this photo was taken.

These are our little babushka’s three children. Our mom, her sister who died and her brother Paul.

This photo is from 1951 with friends and family after they all immigrated to the USA. Our little babushka is above our mom who is holding me. Our Pop next to our mom. Uncle Paul is holding our cousin Valia and next to him our aunt Nina is holding our cousin Walter. Next to our little babushka is our Aunt Nina’s sister in law Zena. Next to our mom is Mrs. Hamzieff from San Francisco and I’m not sure who the lady next to her is. The little boy, I believe belongs to Mrs. Hamzieff. Babushka immigrated from Iran as a widow to the USA with our Uncle Paul’s family.

These are our Babushka Vera’s 7 grandchildren as of 1956 ish. Cousin Alex, Babushka, sister Kathy, brother Fred, cousin Valia, Me, cousin Walter and my sister Vera. One more cousin and four more siblings were added to these two families. We had a sister that died in Iran so Babushka had 13 grandchildren in total.

This is a new to me photo of our babushka at a beach in California.

This is Babushka Vera and Babushka Manya in Arrowhead in California.

The two of them again in this photo. Our little Babushka lost her left hand and arm up to her elbow when she was young. Her arm was injured and got infected and had to be cut off at the elbow to save the rest of her arm and her life. She always positioned herself so that her missing hand was not in view in a photo.

Not a well preserved photo but this was our growing family with our Babushka at our Uncle Paul and Aunt Nina’s home in Huntington Park in California.

Me and Babushka at my 9th grade graduation and my high school graduation. I remember shopping with her for a dress at Sear’s once and she wore a size 16-1/2. She always searched for a dress with 3/4 length sleeves.

Our parents and Babushka at our home in La Mirada in the 70’s.

Cousin Walter, cousin Tanya, Babushka, our Pop and Uncle Paul.

Babushka, mom and me at Laguna Beach in California.

Kathy, Babushka and our mom.

Christmas at Babushka’s with our sister Lana in the late 60’s.

Our Babushka at Nick and Vera’s wedding in 1969.

Our little Babushka enjoyed embroidery and made a special gift for each of her grandchildren for their weddings. The tablecloth above was given to our sister Vera for her marriage to Nick.

Babushka at our sister Kathy’s wedding with our sister Vera in August of 1974.

Babushka, me and our mom at Dear and my wedding in December of 1974.

The center front row with our pop, mom, Babushka Vera, Babushka Martha and Dzeduska Timofei.

Dear’s family and my family at our wedding.

For our wedding Babushka Vera embroidered this tablecloth along with 8 napkins. A treasured gift. It’s amazing to us that her embroidery was so beautiful even with the handicap of having only one  hand.

Christmas morning at Babushka Vera’s. See all those baked goodies that our Babushka baked with one hand! Grandkids with their spouses and our cousin Alex’s in laws. This was mid-1970’s.

Babushka would tell us to not stay out after dark. She said nothing good happens in the dark!

I think Debbee was Babushka’s first great grandchild. This was in 1976.

This last one is at our second home in Huntington Beach in early 1977.

I hope to add more photos to this post as I find them.

Our Babushka Vera died in March of 1980. She was a Godly woman who prayed for all her grandchildren and for all her grandchildren’s future spouses. She prayed for our Pop’s salvation and for the salvation of her own husband. Our Dzedushka Fedot became a Baptist Minister before he was killed in Iran. I am so looking forward to seeing Babushka in heaven and seeing Dzedushka for the first time in heaven.

Pink Saturday ~ My Babushka Vera

 

This is my Maternal Grandmother at my sister Vera’s wedding in 1969. She looks so sweet in pink! I really loved my grandmother. She only had one hand. One of her arms was amputated from her elbow down when she was young. She immigrated to the U.S.A. alone without my grandfather who was murdered in Iran in the late 40’s. She did more with her one hand than a lot of people do with two. Her embroidery was amazing. My Babushka Vera died in March of 1980. She was a Godly woman who prayed for all her grandchildren and for all her grandchildren’s future spouses. I am so looking forward to seeing her in heaven.

 

This is a tablecloth and napkins my babushka embroidered for us for a wedding gift. In keeping with the Pink Saturday theme here’s another tablecloth I have that she embroidered.

 

For more Pinkness visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!