Tag Archives: Family

Tour of Seattle…

…on a blustery day!

The wind and rain limited my camera from clicking much outdoors. We were again blessed with a parking spot right at the Market! Amazing! My cousin and his wife who happens to be my best friend from college are in Seattle and I tried to give them my hallmark tour but we just had to go with the flow. While at the Market we went down the steps to the famous “Gum Wall”.

It can be a little overwhelming for newcomers! Jim and Jeanie were good sports.

Jim wanted to enjoy the abundance of our seafood choices and ordered a crab cocktail to enjoy while we walked around the stalls in the Market.

When in Seattle it’s a good idea to enjoy our bounty!

Katie joined us on our tour, too. Our last stop downtown would be Boka for Happy Hour where we would meet Dear when he was done with work.

I’m grateful that Dear is willing to work hard while I gallivant about the town. We love to meet up after work for him to enjoy a good ending to the day.

Father and daughter time is always good along with some good food!

We have lots of good history with Jim and Jeanie. Jim, Jeanie and I all graduated together from Cal State Los Angeles in 1972. Jeanie and I both graduated with a Bachelors of Arts Degree in Home Economics. We both completed a 5th year to receive our Teaching Credential. Jim and Jeanie were married the same year Dear and I were married. We’ve had lots of celebrations together. We lived in Huntington Beach together as newlyweds and attended the same church. Their 3 kids were born in the same years our kids were born at different ends of the year.

Our Seattle tour was on Friday afternoon. I’ll be sharing our Saturday tour on Whidbey Island soon. Today we attended church together with a great celebration of Missions around the world and in our neighborhoods. Good times and good memories continue. A great afternoon of re-kindling our memories of fun playing Rook together so many years ago…

Hope you had a good weekend!

Wrapped in Love…

It’s that time of year when the signs are all around us. This week for Susanne’s Friday’s Fave Five I’m concentrating on love. Some deep thoughts and some not so deep.

1. I love Jesus who gives me hope for today and my future.

2. I love fresh flowers and how they brighten up a room.

3. I love my family and friends.

4. My palate loves chocolate, especially mixed with nuts!

5. I love to watch for birds flying to the feeder. This is especially enjoyable in the sunshine!

And for the record I don’t think that “love is all you need”.

Hope you have opportunities to show love to those around you this week.

Sunlit Sunday?

The fog has blocked out the sun in our part of the world for several days now so I decided to go to my photos from a year ago to show some sunlit offerings! We have also had a good stretch of days that start in the 20’s and just inch their way up, trying to reach the 40’s.

It’s hard to believe that just a year ago our daughter Katie and I were at a wedding show at the Seattle Center. Her and Andrew’s wedding ceremony was in March of last year. I decided to pick this photo for Sunlit Sunday because she just called yesterday letting us know she will be arriving in Seattle for a month long stay while our son-in-law Andrew has some cold weather training in Northern California. They currently live at Camp Lejeune Marine Base in North Carolina. There is always a bedroom ready for visits from our kids!

To cheer myself up and to remind myself that the sun is shining but I just can’t see it’s glory right now I searched for more January shots of sunshine from last year…

Not real bright but the sun is breaking through. These are floating houses on North Lake Union in Seattle. If you look closely you can see the Space Needle in the background.

A lovely shaft of sunshine lighting up my bouquet of tulips from January of last year, too.

Hope the sun is lighting up your part of the world today!

I’m joining My Little Home and Garden for her Sunlit Sunday Meme.

Yesterday was our firstborn’s birthday so we’ll be enjoying a meal together for him and our dear daughter in love this evening. We love to celebrate our family. Speaking of celebrating, it  looks like my blog will be having a big celebration real soon as my total blog visits are inching to 1,000,000 viewers!! I never imagined when I started blogging in March of 2007 that my blog would be visited by so many. I’m working on a giveaway for this landmark event to be announced this week!

Encouraging Words…

For Vee’s January Notecard Party I decided to go with a theme and find illustrated verses that I’ve posted in the past.

It’s been a while since I’ve put together photos with verses from the Bible. I hope to do some new ones soon.

Thank you Vee, for hosting this meme!

I’m adding this photo of our 2 sons to say Happy Birthday to them. Today is Dan’s birthday and Saturday is Joshua’s birthday. They are sons that make us proud to be their parents. May God continue to bless their lives on this earth!

Your dad and I love the two of you and we are so grateful for your love and care for each other, too!

In the Blink of An Eye…

…it will disappear. Snow is not guaranteed in the Seattle area. Sometimes if it comes it hangs around for a little while but usually it’s gone before you can get your camera out. The freeze at our house is working on it’s 4th day now and before it leaves us I’ll post some more of my frosty photos. Many areas in the Seattle area didn’t get any snow.

This is a special week in our family. Both of our sons have birthdays this week on Wednesday and on Saturday.

Dear and I were working in the garage this past weekend. We were cleaning out the loft. We had lots of leftover debris from having our new roof put on. Dear did the brunt of the work. Clearing out, throwing out, vacuuming, re-packing, and making piles of what to shred and what to share. There were some fun discoveries (not rat related). Our kids now have their piles of memorabilia to sort through and decide what they want to keep. It was fun to see things from our sons and daughter’s growing up years. Baseball, Soccer, Star Wars, G.I. Joe and Mother Goose, Barbie, Beanie Babies and more!

It’s time to send the stash along to their grown-up homes or get rid of it. I sound real tough about the getting rid of the stuff but some things will be hard to part with…

Leftovers!

I like leftovers, do you?

Speaking of leftovers here are the rest of the photos from our Elliott Bay Marina brunch at Palisade Restaurant.

Palisade is on the second level of this building with great views of Elliott Bay and part of downtown Seattle in the distance.

Our family all together. I’m going to have to get more creative in 2013 with group shots. I’ve seen a couple good ideas on Facebook.

See what I mean. I think the only thing that changed in this shot is the position of my hands. I do weird things with my hands in photos.

By now you are tired of us so look behind us and check out the Space Needle and downtown Seattle.

We positioned my nephew Caleb in this shot to make sure he didn’t block the view of the Space Needle!

My nephew Caleb and his girlfriend Marie. They both graduated from Westmont College in the Santa Barbara area this past May. She’s working on her teaching credential and he’s working at a church in Santa Barbara with the youth. It was fun to have them with us for brunch before they headed back to Santa Barbara. On the day Caleb was born our son Joshua hit a homerun in his honor at a little league game. Joshua and Caleb…that rings a bell. They have been strong and courageous!

Had to include a shot with the new shoes. Andrew and Katie still behave like newlyweds…

On the way home we got closer to the needle but we were driving fast so it’s a bit blurry.

Tonight our Newlyweds fly back to the east coast. My little nest will be empty again. I took down Christmas on New Year’s Day. I had to make room in the living room once again since our small group meetings start back up on Thursday. We had a real laid back New Year’s Day and ordered pizza in for dinner. The night ended with 4 of the kids playing Settlers of Catan. Dear and I hit the sack early as usual.

Hope 2013 is starting well for all of you!

Semper Fi!

On Sunday after a great church service (the goat is gone!), we headed to Palisade Restaurant in Seattle to celebrate Andrew’s promotion to Corporal.

You might think that coming off our second Christmas on Friday and Saturday with great food and fun we’d take a day off from eating. Silly thoughts those would be. We enjoyed another great get-together around food with all our kids and my nephew Caleb (from California) with his girlfriend Marie (from Washington).

Katie and Andrew…our new Marine Corp. Corporal!

Our son Dan with daughter Katie and Son-in-law Andrew.

Dan

Our nephew Caleb with his girlfriend Marie and our son Josh and daughter-in-law, Laura.

We have 3 more days with Katie and Andrew visiting with us. Our son Dan will be heading back over the mountains tomorrow. We’ve had a wonderful time together despite some sicknesses going around. I have more shots to share from Palisade after our meal at the Marina with the Space Needle in the background. Tomorrow is another day. I’m so thankful that Dear has the next two days off so he can recuperate from a head cold that was shared at work. I’m hoping that it stops with Dear and isn’t shared with me…

Hope you are all well and ready to usher in the New Year!

The Last Friday…

…of 2012!

I decided I better join in for Friday’s Fave Fives with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story since this will be the last faves this year. Oye, where did the year go?

1. We had one of the most wonderful Christmas Eve Service I’ve ever been to. From a stomp band to the candle light Silent Night it was a night of worshiping Jesus.

2. Josh and Laura came to spend the night on Christmas Eve after celebrating the evening with Laura’s family. It was so nice to spend Christmas day with them. We will be together with Josh, Laura, Dan, Katie and Andrew on Friday night and Saturday for Second Christmas.

3. Having Katie and Andrew arrive the day after Christmas. The last time we had the two of them together here was for their wedding in March.

4. Celebrating Katie’s 27th birthday on the 27th. We gave gifts and then shopped to exchange some of the gifts, :). We met Dear for lunch and then Josh and Laura joined us and brought Chinese in for dinner. We put 27 candles on the cake I baked and watched it glow as we wished Katie God’s continued blessings for her golden year.

Watch the powdered sugar fly!

Laura brought golden roses for Katie’s golden birthday!

5. When Dear and I were at the MGCC Christmas party at Judy (My Front Porch) and Elmer’s a couple Sunday’s ago we were introduced to the game of Crokinole. We had never heard of it before. We ordered a game after the party and the family has been enjoying learning how to play it. Josh, Laura, Dear and I played it on Christmas day and last night after cake and ice cream Katie and Andrew were introduced to the game.

After Josh and Laura left we waited up for Dan who drove across the mountains to join us for 2nd Christmas (his first). He arrived at 10 PM safe and sound and then I went to bed sleeping well knowing that. Fun times….

I’m hoping to get around to a few Fave Five participants but it might take a while since tonight we are 9 for dinner here and I’ll be busy making preparations for our 2nd Christmas dinner. Tomorrow morning we will open stockings, have Dear’s Swedish pancakes and Judy’s bacon wrapped smokies again. Then we will open presents and relax together and probably play some more Crokinole. Saturday night we are having a relaxed soup meal together.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Golden Birthday Girl!

27 photos of memorable events in Katie’s life! Happy Birthday to our Golden Girl who turns 27 on the 27th! We thank God for the joy she’s been in our lives. Happy Birthday Katie!

Katie and Andrew arrived safely yesterday afternoon and we are enjoying time together.

Beginning to End…

…It was a wonderful day!

Josh and Laura arrived just after midnight and tucked themselves in for the night. We woke up on Christmas morning to familiar Christmas music. Dear mixed up his Swedish pancakes and we had Judy’s famous bacon wrapped smokies along side. Yum.

We opened up our gifts to each other saving the rest for our 2nd Christmas on Saturday. We will have the whole crew here on Friday night and Saturday to enjoy all our Christmas traditions once more.

Dinner was the usual prime rib and Yorkshire pudding with added roasted root vegetables and Brussels sprouts. We had Betty’s Cinnamon Bun Cake for dessert.

Thankfully before the kids loaded up their car for home we remembered to take a photo by the tree.

Today I’m preparing for Katie and Andrew’s arrival this evening. The fun will continue all week long. Tomorrow is our Katie’s 27th birthday…27 on the 27th. I guess I better bake a cake.

Happy Boxing Day to all our friends in Canada and the U.K.!