Is It Tuesday Already?

Monday Holidays always throw me for a loop.

We had a great Memorial Day and we pulled out all the red, white and blue we could find. Dear even made some red and blue drinks.

Dear’s father served in New Guinea during World War II. He was front and center at our Memorial Day observance.

There were 7 of us around the table enjoying our barbecued steak, corn on the cob, baked potatoes and salad. We had a lemon pound cake with strawberries and blueberries for dessert along with Nazook that my sister Lana had baked.

After nonstop rain and clouds for several days running we finally had a sun break in the afternoon the girls headed out to the deck to see if they could get their daily requirement of Vitamin D!!

It’s going to take me a while to catch up with all of you. First I have to get used to it being Tuesday already and being behind a day…

I’m going to link this to Ruby Tuesday…since it’s Tuesday already. Thanks to Mary at Work of the Poet for our Ruby fun…

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.

The Rains Came Down…

…and the puddles came up!

What a miserable day for a garage sale. Thankfully we live in the Northwest and weather does not deter people from heading to garage sales. People here are used to doing anything in the rain. Dear created a amazing tarp canopy for us so we were able to put some tables out on our trusty blue tarps for the sale. I’m sad I didn’t get a photo of the creation for you (bad blogger!!) We had made space inside the shop for the rest of the stuff and for a nice shelter for the workers from the rain and cold. Friends of ours came to contribute to the sale. Their young daughters wanted to raise money to buy Bibles for people without them. So sweet! We had a good steady stream of people with only a couple lulls. We didn’t sell anything over $5.00 but still made $173.50.

The Rolo yummies in the collage were a great treat for us workers and I found the recipe at Sandy’s Reluctant Entertainer blog. So easy to make. One of the garage sale shoppers looked at me sheepishly and asked if she could have one. She had been staring at them for a good long time.

The highlight of the day was when our son and DIL Laura came with the ingredients to make us all dinner! What thoughtful kids I have. Josh had the two young girls that helped with our garage sale in there helping him make biscuits and corn muffins for the dinner. They really enjoyed their baking lesson from Josh! Josh and Laura are good friends with this family and even flew all the way to China a few years ago to visit them when they were living there. This picture is of them all at the Great Wall. You can see how much younger the girls were in this photo.

I’ll be adding my link to Mary’s Little Red House for Mosaic Monday and to Smiling Sally’s for Blue Monday. Hope you are all having a nice relaxing weekend. Now that the garage sale is over I’m doing some relaxing and recuperating…

Memorial Day Tribute ~ Home on the Range ~ Dickenson

Memorial Day Greetings to you. God bless our Troops and Veterans!

For Memorial Day weekend I’m posting this quote from Home On the Range ~ A Century On The High Plains by James R. Dickenson.

Home on the Range chronicles the epic drama of the settling and development of the High Plains, as viewed through the saga of journalist James Dickenson’s family and the wheat-farming community of McDonald, Kansas.

He speaks of Dear’s mother, my MIL Verna who’s father and brothers served in civilian and military duties in World War II. Verna was a school teacher in a one room schoolhouse in Kansas before she married Rex (Dear’s father), who also served in World War II.

“The father of my fifth-grade teacher, Verna Moline, a pretty young woman whom I adored, was a civilian construction worker on Midway Island at the time. His family obviously had many anxious moments about him until the naval battle of Midway, a turning point in the war in the Pacific, ended the threat that Midway would suffer Wake Island’s fate of invasion and occupation by the Japanese. He returned safely shortly thereafter. On days when the news was particularly dire, we kids would crowd around her desk before class to ask anxiously about him and voice our sympathies – probably seeking reassurance ourselves in those dark early days of defeat at the hands of the Japanese. However, as my mother, who was teaching English in the high school at the time, finally pointed out, our constant solicitude was something Miss Moline probably could have done without, although she was too gracious to show it.”

Remember our troops and pray. If you know someone who served our country give them a hug and a thank you. Blessings on this Memorial Day Weekend!

http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/dichom.html

FFF ~ Memorial Day Weekend

Time to think about our favorites from this past week. Please visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in this great exercise.

Canada celebrated Queen Victoria Day last weekend and we in the U.S.A. are getting ready for our Memorial Day Weekend. This is a time to reflect and remember those who have served our country in the past and who are serving our country now. I’m an American who is proud of what our country stands for and proud of the men and women who have courageously fought to keep us safe and free. My parents are legal immigrants who have become citizens of the U.S.A. Dear’s father, uncles and grandfather served in the military. Now I’ll get on to my favorites from this past week.

1. Spending extended time with my children. Before the Sounders game on Saturday Dear, Katie, Josh, Laura and I had brunch together and then Josh, Laura and I headed to the game. It was great to be together.

2. On Tuesday Katie had a minor medical emergency which ended up being a time we were able to spend 6 hours together. We went to the doctor, had a nice lunch and shopped. Things worked out well for her and it was encouraging to her for me to be there to support her.

3. Dear and I met some good friends for a meal together and it was nice catching up on our lives.

4. Our middle son Dan called this week and he was ready to talk and it was comforting for me hearing about the details of his life right now.

5. We are plugging away with the details of our garage sale on Saturday. I’m thankful that things have come together and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. In the midst of all the sorting and planning I was able to get some red, white and blue decorations up for our house to get in the spirit of this long weekend.

To all of you in the U.S.A. a very Happy Memorial Day weekend to you. If you know a veteran or someone serving our country give them a hug from me…

FFF ~ A Few Of My Favorite Things…

A time to reflect on the past week and consider your favorites. Please visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story who is our hostess for Friday’s Fave Five.

1. We had a family taco night last Friday to celebrate my nephew Caleb visiting from California.

2. On Sunday before church Dear painted our guest room. He gets up real early. Then after church we re-decorated the room and we are thoroughly enjoying it! This is also the room where my computer lives most of the time. One of the great things about the changes in the room is the fact that the desk with my computer on it faces a window now and I get to see birds on the bushes outside the window.

3. These Irises have made me smile all week and they only cost $3.99.

4. Seeing the first ducklings of the season in our neighborhood. This mama duck and her little ones were crossing the street.

5. Last but not least, being a part of the Mennonite Girls Can Cook Blog. I’m enjoying getting to know my Canadian friends more and more. Head over to the blog on Friday and see the ingredients I put together for my Mexican Rice Bowl…

Tablescape Thursday ~ Taco Night!

It’s time to enjoy tables set for our viewing. Please visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch to be inspired !

I had so much fun mixing and matching last week for my Mother’s Day table that I decided to do it again for our Taco Night table. I wanted to choose colors that would represent the colorful Mexican culture.

I rolled my napkins like taquitos and used some made in Mexico napkin rings. I had 6 of the flowery ones and found two striped ones that completed the 8 place settings. The 4 red and white checked plates I found at Goodwill and the 4 red and white flowered plates I picked up at HomeGoods.

The center cake plate and candle holder were both Goodwill purchases, too.

Our daughter Katie, my sister Lana and her husband Steve…

Our son Josh, my nephew Caleb, his girlfriend Marie and our DIL Laura.

I bought 8 of these goblets at a thrift store on Main St. in Ventura, California for 49 cents each.

The tablecloth came from Goodwill also.

This was a fun table to enjoy with our company. We built our own tacos and had brownie sundaes for dessert with a fun game of Mexican Train after the meal…

Looking forward to getting around to see tables from around the blogisphere…

Mother’s Day 2010 ~

Mother’s Day was such a beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest! We took a drive to Camano Island in the morning to enjoy a Mother’s Day Brunch together. My daughter’s boyfriend was here from Florida and joined us. The views from the Inn where we had our Mother’s Day Buffet were spectacular!

We are looking across to Whidbey Island and the Olympics beyond.

Later in the day my son and DIL arrived and the kids and Dear each had a hand in preparing dinner for all of us. Don’t you just love to see men working in the kitchen! I was showered with gifts and thank God for His blessings of love and grace that He gives me through my family.

Thank you Dear, Josh, Laura, Katie and Dan for honoring me….

Free Them 5K!

World Concern in Seattle sponsored a 5K Walk/Run to help raise money to stop human trafficking. Our DIL Laura works for this organization. We got together for this worthwhile event. This is a photo of us at the finish line. Our son Josh and Scott (Laura’s brother) ran the 5K. Laura’s mother Pat, her SIL Lisa (with child), the doggie Mylie sp.? and I walked the 3.3 mile route. Laura worked the event and then cheered us across the finish line.

FFF ~ Family, Flowers, FDA, Funnies…

Time once again to consider the past week and choose 5 favorites. Visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in or see more Faves…

Here are my favorites and it was hard to narrow it down because of everything that happened last weekend…

1. Spending time with my family in Southern California. We packed so much into 2 days. Brunch at my mom and pops, Descanso Gardens with my sister and her family, Dinner at Tam O Shanter with the same crowd, rendezvous with my nieces and daughter at the hotel. That was Saturday! Sunday we met at Golden Skewer in Montebello for a wonderful Armenian lunch together.

2. Having my daughter Katie with me in Southern California for 2 days so she could spend time with her grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. She also got to meet little Avery for the first time.

3. Enjoying the Rhododendrons blooming in my yard and other blooms that are a mystery to me.

4. Hearing the announcement and the cheers and happiness over Dendreon’s drug Provenge being approved by the FDA. It’s a cellular immunotherapy for men with advanced Prostate Cancer. It uses their own immune system to fight the disease. This is the company Dear is working for here in Seattle. This approval means he will still have a job on Monday. :0)

5. This next photo is something that made me laugh. We saw these signs on every tree on a street in Whittier, California this past weekend

Makes me wonder if the city got sued for sap dripping on cars or what???

My morning will be very busy because the moving van with all our stuff from the condo is arriving Friday morning bright and early. Here’s what I’ll probably be saying…no put that over there, those go in the basement, that goes upstairs, put that in the kitchen please, that needs to go in the garage…the joys of having more crap stuff then you need!!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone…

22 Years Ago…

When we were at Descanso Gardens on Saturday I told Melissa, Michelle and Katie that I had a photo of them with their cousin Timothy at Descanso Gardens from 1988. I thought I kind of knew the backdrop of the photo. We found the spot and they posed for a photo 22 years later. We were with Timothy earlier that day and told him he was going to miss out on the new photo op! What a blessing that these cousins still enjoy being around each other!!

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Tag Archives: Family