Tag Archives: Family

Today We Celebrate…

…the Mother of the Bride.

It’s my birthday and I’m being taken out to brunch and dinner today. My sister, niece, my grand nephew, and my grand niece are still here from California so my Daughter in law is bringing them to join in for brunch together before she takes them to the airport. Tonight Josh, Laura, Dear and I are going out to dinner.

Meanwhile back to the wedding. My friend and hairdresser Sherri came to the venue on Sunday to attend to our hair. What a treat that was. She does a beautiful job on Katie’s hair and always makes my hair behave.

Since all the sisters were together we had to make sure and get plenty of photos. This one is from oldest to youngest starting from the left. Kathy, Vera, Ellen and Lana.

Right to left oldest to youngest.

Me and my sister Lana. Partners in crime and tablescaping…

Love this photo of the Father of the Bride walking our daughter down the aisle. Thanks to Harv and Bev for this one and the next few photos.

The wedding party walked in to the theme from Anne of Green Gables and I really had a hard time keeping it together.

Dear and I really were blessed with our daughter and son-in-laws day and we were filled with joy for them and us.

We were surprised when the guests applauded as we walked out after the ceremony.

Dear thanked all our friends and family for coming to the wedding and prayed a prayer of blessing over our food and time together.

I had to add this photo my niece posted on Facebook today. Me and my brother Leonard cutting the rug!

There are plenty more posts coming with all the Bride and Groom’s special moments and more family shots, too.

Thank you to all of you who have held us up with your prayers over these last few weeks as we prepared for this day. Those prayers were answered and we felt the peace and joy we prayed for. Truly a day that love was poured down on. Katie and Andrew traveled back to North Carolina last night and should be home by now.

Blessings…

Moving Ever Forward…

The Lenten Season is one of my favorite times of the year. Looking forward to celebrating Easter, contemplating all that Jesus has done for us and seeing everything new. I showed you my Lenten Rose buds a while back and wanted to make sure not to forget to show you the blooms.

My girlfriend Beth gave me this plant for my birthday a few years ago and I’m so glad it has survived despite my brown thumb. It really is a wonderful sight for sore Winter eyes! Thanks Beth!

My Ladies Bible Study group has been praying for me during this “Wedding Season Countdown Crunch” to be able to have some “Mary” moments instead of all “Martha” moments. You can read that story in the Bible in Luke and a longer version in John.

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:38-42).

Today we are headed to the Venue to drop off items for the day of the wedding like cake toppers, guest book, menu cards, a Celtic Cross, some Marine insignia chargers for the head table, etc. We are also making 4 other stops on the way home. Tomorrow the flower girl arrives from Texas. She’s bringing her parents, too. We are excited to see them all. Another brother and his wife arrive tomorrow. My ring leader sister comes back to her home here in Washington. Our son from Eastern Washington will be traveling over the Cascades to join in all the hoopla. Things are going to get noisy around here! This is only the first small wave…

4 Days till the wedding, 3 days till our all day Clubhouse event on Saturday for friends and family that have traveled from hither and yon.

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods and that you can have some “Mary” moments during this Lenten Season…

Sweet Sixteen

Our second celebration in Southern California on Saturday was a Sweet Sixteen party for my older sister Vera. Are you wondering why we had a Sweet Sixteen Party for a 64 year old? Our sister Vera was born on Leap Year so she’s only had a birthday that landed on her actual birth day 16 times now.

Happy Birthday Vera!

Vera’s kids decided to throw this party for their mom and the creative wheels started turning. They did a wonderful job.

My nieces on the right put together the decorations. Melissa is my sister Kathy’s daughter. Kristin is my sister Vera’s DIL and Debbee is her daughter. Kristin is married to my nephew David and they hosted the party at their beautiful home. There were about 50 guests.

They had each guests name written on the cups which was a great idea. Everyone was able to keep track of their cup throughout the evening.

As each guest arrived they were guided into the photo room with this prompt…I Love Vera because…

There were blank white boards for us to write our reason for loving Vera. Such an affirming act to encourage her with!

My parents lasted a long time at the party. It was great to see them. There were lots of friends from our former churches at the party and we were able to get caught up a bit on our lives.

We took advantage of the photo room for a cousin photo.

Katie and I had a quick sleep at my nieces house and headed back to the Bob Hope Airport at 6:00 A.M. Sunday morning. We were pretty useless the rest of Sunday but after a good nights rest on Sunday night we were good to go and got back to finalizing all the wedding details.

11 days to go!

Celebrating Little Miss…

Katie and I flew into Bob Hope Airport in Burbank on Saturday morning. We hopped into our crumby little rental car and headed to Orange County for a Baby Shower Brunch. The newest addition to our family was showered with gifts and we finally got to see her in person and give her some squeezes and kisses. Her mommy is our oldest niece on Dear’s side of the family. Here’s little Miss…

These are Dear’s 3 nieces. Little Miss’s mommy is in the middle. Aren’t they beautiful?! Youngest niece on the left is a model.

Here’s little Miss with Auntie Annie

This is Little Miss with her older sister.

Our Katie with each of her cousins.

The 4 of us sisters with our dear friend Heidi in the top photo. On the bottom the sisters, Lana, me, Kathy, and Vera.

Some of the shower goodies!

The new mom with our Katie.

We had a wonderful time celebrating little Miss and seeing all the fun little girl gifts she was showered with. It was easier to say goodbye knowing we’d see Dear’s family again at the wedding in less than two weeks. I failed to get a single photo of my sister-in-law who is Little Miss’s grandmother and the mother of my 3 beautiful nieces! OYE!

In the next day or two I’ll share the photos from our second big event in Orange County on this same Saturday in the evening. Here’s a sneak peek.

You will need to give me an extra measure of understanding if you do not see me or hear comments from me on your blogs in the next 13 days. We are busy around here getting all the last minute details taken care of for the wedding. We met with the wedding planner today and wrote out the big checks for the event with our final numbers handed in. Hope all is well with you all. We are being threatened again with some snow in the lowlands. Blessings…

In Just 24 Hours…

Katie and I flew South at 8:00 A.M. on Saturday and flew back North at 8:00 A.M. Sunday. We were able to attend 2 very special events within a 12 hour stretch of Saturday. We are back home recuperating from this Jet setter schedule. I’m not too proud to say that I am wiped out! I’ll share more details during the week. In the meantime here is a mosaic of many of the loved ones we were able to see and to hug. Good hugs, not polite hugs!

If I have the energy I’ll link up with Mosaic Monday with Mary at Little Red House.

The countdown continues….14 days till the wedding!

FFF ~ Mucho Gusto!

A week filled with much pleasure.

It’s time to link up with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and share your favorites from this past week!

Just so y’all know there were things that happened this week that did not bring pleasure at all but the good far outweighed the bad.

1. I walked twice last week. On Friday with two gals from my Bible Study group and on Saturday with my great walking buddy Jan and my sister Lana. When I got home from my Saturday walk Dear was ready with his level and hammer to put the artwork on the wall of our new guestroom (formerly Katie’s room) We accomplished a lot of little things that made a big difference.

2. While we were working I emptied out some things in the freezer and added them to chicken broth to make a “what’s in your freezer soup”. It was tasty and used up things that needed to be used before they got freezer burn. It was a great no fuss meal for the two of us while we were working on the house projects.

3. After church on Sunday (which was fabulous) we met Josh and Laura at a new BBQ restaurant. The food was really good and we really enjoyed the owners of the restaurant. We took our time eating and getting caught up with Josh and Laura. You don’t have to take our word for it…anyone that knows Josh and Laura would tell you that they are a gift from God to their friends and family.

4. After Valentine’s Day sales of candy and other goodies! How great is it that I could buy a dozen roses for $5.00 instead of $24.99. I bought those sweet little cupcakes for $1.49 and they were fresh and yummy. We served them to our small group that meets at our house on Thursday nights.

5. Small Group: A group of people who get together regularly to encourage each other and grow and learn with each other. Our small group is composed of 10 very different individuals. A group of people we would never have hand picked to be in a group with but a group that surprises us in how much we have come together in a short amount of time. It really can only be explained by the fact that God brought us together and we see how God is working in each life and how he has drawn us together with care and love for each other. God is good.

Just had to share the yucky thing that happened this past week, too. On Monday night I was running around all afternoon so I decided to bring Chinese take out home for dinner. Unfortunately I got food poisoning and had a really rough time for part of the night. What a relief when the pain stopped and I could go to sleep again. I was thankful it wasn’t the stomach flu and when the poisoned food left me so did all the symptoms.

Hope you all had a good week.

23 Days till the Wedding!!

Mosaic Monday ~ Signs of Spring…

Oh how I love my Lenten Rose (thank you Beth). Look at those buds springing up!

I’m having to re-fill the bird feeder a lot these days because of all my little and sometimes big visitors!

We’ve had a nice relaxing weekend just messing about the house. We washed some screens. Dear did some patching and some painting. We moved some wall art around. I finished a project I started a while back which involved re-purposing and organizing.

Today we met up with Josh and Laura and had lunch at a new spot which I’ll blog about later. Good times just being together. Hope you had a nice weekend.

Linking up for Mosaic Monday with Mary at Little Red House. If you haven’t visited her you are missing out on some very nice photography…

She Walks…

…she meets and eats! A beautiful full day in San Diego.

After Dear left for his meetings of the day I got my walking shoes on and headed out to the Harbor. I walked east first and then I turned around and walked west. I thought of you Sara! More walk photos to follow.

Later in the morning Tim and Letty picked me up at the hotel and we met my sister Vera at The Mission Soma for brunch.

Willow! The rosemary potatoes were really good and we all enjoyed our breakfast choices at your favorite breakfast spot in San Diego!

I’m totally skipping our experience on the Midway for now and going straight to finally meeting up with Dear for a few hours before his next business obligations.

It was good to be together with some of my family and get caught up on what’s going on in our lives.

See that drink…it did have a flashing light in it. It was the signature drink at the Lighthouse Restaurant. After the Lighthouse we had some dinner and shared a dessert at Island Prime C Level restaurant.

Flying South With the Birds…

Hoping to see and hear the sights and sounds that come with the Pacific Ocean. That shouldn’t be a problem since we are staying here. My sister Lana flies so much with Alaska Airlines that they let her nominate someone to get automatic MVP status. Bless her heart, she nominated me. When I went to check in I had been upgraded to First Class! Woohoo.  It has already been such a blessing to have this status in having 2 free bag allowance especially for Katie and my trip to North Carolina when we had 7 bags to check. Katie’s military dependent status gives her 5 free bags, but I digress, back to San Diego.  The weather reports say that it will be sunny and 70ish.

On Thursday my brother and his wife are driving down to San Diego to meet us for the day and dinner. Dear has obligations of course with his company but he’ll also get free hours here and there and is free for sure for dinner on Thursday.

Time will tell what you will see from me and our trip. Now I better get packing…

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.