Today I supervise the movers loading the moving van. I’ll be meeting up with Willow for lunch and then I’m off to Orange County to spend the rest of the weekend with my family. I’ll be picking up my daughter Katie tonight from the airport so she can join in the family fun. We’ll have breakfast with my mom and dad on Saturday and then head to Descanso Gardens with some of my extended family. Fun times. We fly home Sunday night.
Have a great weekend everyone!
We’re both a lot older now! My mom turns 86 today and my dad will be 87 in May. My mother is truly the Proverbs 31 woman. She has always put her children and husband as a top priority in her life. Her first child died at 2 years old and she has raised 8 others sewing clothes for the girls and making 3 meals a day most of our lives except for Sunday mornings. On Sunday mornings because we’d all be in a hurry to get ready for church she’d get a break and we’d have store bought coffee cake for breakfast. Usually it was a frozen Sara Lee variety. Of course there would be preparations under way already for Sunday lunch. Usually we’d bring someone extra home for that lunch, too. Once in the while in the middle of the week my father would pick up a pizza from Johnny’s and we’d even get soda to have with it. (Did I get that right siblings? Was it Johnny’s pizza?)
So today I am thanking our God Almighty for giving us a mother who loves us, sacrifices for us, and loves her husband. It’s a wonderful heritage and we have benefited in many ways from it.
Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.
What a lovely Easter Day we had here in the Northwest. We started out the day by going to a baptism of two little girls we know. Sisters getting baptized on Easter morning. It was a great event to witness. After that celebration we came home to prepare for our Easter lunch with our DIL’s family and my sister Lana and Steve.
Sorry I caught some of you in mid-chew! I realize that when we host an event like this my photo skills go out the window. Too busy with other details. Everyone is busy eating Rack of Lamb, rice with raisins and almonds, and salad with Persian dressing. For dessert we had a Russian Strawberry shortcake made with the Kulich, Seerney Paska and strawberries.
Our centerpiece was the Russian Easter Bread with hollow chocolate Matryoshka dolls for each of the ladies to take home and colored Easter eggs. We call our Easter bread Kulich but another popular name for it is Paska.
Our other traditional Easter treat is this sweet cheese spread that we make from eggs, butter, Farmer’s Cheese, whipping cream and sugar. After you mix it all up you put it in a mold lined with cheese cloth and weight it down and leave it in the refrigerator for a day or two to drain as much liquid as you can out of it. The X and B are for Christ is Risen which looks like this in Russian, Христос Воскрес!
I was able to use my individual place card vases for each guest which was fun.
Katie, Lana, and Laura
Sisters flanked by my daughters :0)
The cross was one of my hostess gifts from my DIL’s mother. Thank you Pat! I love it along with my other goodies.
All the dishes are washed and put away but I’m still enjoying the vases filled with the tulips. My brain is in slow motion today but I’m sure to perk up here sometime soon so I can visit everyone’s Easter greeting posts that I missed yesterday.
Looking forward to another great celebration tomorrow. I’ll tell you about it soon.
Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.
…that didn’t end!
Visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in the fun!
My five favorites for this Friday are all about Family, Food, Fun, Flowers, and Flying Geese!
Our weekend and week was filled with so much flavor and wonderful experiences. So here are some stand outs.
1. Our weekend away in La Conner, Washington where we saw so much beauty. I was blown away with the experience of seeing thousands of Snow Geese in flight.
2. All of our indoor experiences from the lovely Inn we stayed in with a tasty 2 course breakfast and the restaurants we ate at for lunch and dinner. We were not disappointed in anything we ordered and ate.
3. The birthday dinner my son and his wife prepared for us on Sunday night and our meal together on St. Patrick’s Day.
4. Cleaning and organizing the basement. I feel so good about that task being complete that I’ve been offering tours of the basement! :0)
5. Going to our favorite Mexican restaurant and being greeted by the owner. He asked us if we were just visiting from California. When we told him we were back in Washington state to stay he brought us a round of drinks on the house to celebrate!
And now that my birthday week is drawing to a close it’s time for E.L.E.M. (Eat Less, Exercise More!) That’s my plan and I hope to stick to it. Hope to get around to see all the FFF’s this week. As soon as the frost burns off I’ll be mowing the lawn…
Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.
It’s time to visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch to see some wonderful tables set for you. This is the first table I’ve set since returning to my home in the Northwest. It was my birthday this past Sunday and my son and his wife came over and made us all dinner.
There were only 4 of us since our daughter was in Florida and our middle son is in Arizona.
The chargers were a Christmas gift from Josh and Laura. The blue goblets are from Goodwill.
I bought the Johnson Bros. Chippendale dishes back in the 80’s at a model home sale in our neighborhood in Ventura, California. Service for 4 for $25.00. The silverplate was another Goodwill purchase for $29.00. The plate is even engraved with the letter B!
The coffee/tea pot and platter are both from the thrift store also. My sweet daffodils were purchased in Skagit county on my birthday weekend away and didn’t open up till the day after my wonderful birthday dinner.
I’ve had a busy week doing some Spring cleaning around the homestead. Hope you’re week is going well. Thank you for stopping by…
Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.
of my last year being 50 something. Next year on March 14th, Lord willing, I’ll be alive and in my sixties!
Dear has an overnight planned, out of town, with a 90 minute massage included and lots of good food! No computer is being packed. Boy am I looking forward to that massage. Today I organized our hall closet. I sorted all my tablecloths into lengths and rolled them together and safety pinned their size on the roll. I hope this makes getting to the right tablecloth for the right table size more efficient for me. Have I mentioned I have a lot of tablecloths?
Have a nice weekend everyone. I’m looking forward to my last year being in my fifties.
Time for Friday’s Fave 5 hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story. So what are your favorites from the past 7 days?
1. Being back in my home and going to sleep here and waking up here and walking in my yard have been great. I love the quiet of our house and not having someone living above me. The only things that makes noise above me are the rain or the crows on the roof. The street noise is different here. I love all the windows I have to look out of and seeing trees and greenery instead of cars parked. I’m a happy camper! That yellow bush is in my yard and the name escapes me but it is so bright!
2. Last Saturday Dear and I went to Mt. Vernon to see the daffodils. In a couple weeks I’ll try to go back to see the tulips. It was a fun morning trip with breakfast in town. We also saw trumpeter swans which I had never seen before.
3. Later in the day I went to the Japanese Gardens with my sister Lana G! We had a fun time. It’s great to be so close to each other when we are both in Washington. I’ll share more photos from the Gardens next week.
4. Yakima Fruit Market and Nursery! This market is closed in the winter so we always know Spring is around the corner when it opens. It opened the first week of March and I had to make a quick stop because I thought they’d have fresh brussel sprouts and they didn’t disappoint. Dear and I really enjoy them!
5. Thursday afternoon my son Josh picked me up and then we picked Dear up downtown to have a bite to eat together before the Sounders Soccer game against the Portland Timbers that evening. This was a friendly game and not a league game. Unfortunately we lost the game 1-0. Even though it was raining we managed to stay dry. I really enjoy Soccer and I have a season ticket for the Sounders.
So what were your favorites this week?
Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.
We arrived home to find our Kitchen/Dining Room all decorated with balloons, streamers and flowers. Josh, Laura, and Katie collaborated in the choosing and decorating. We walked in and were pleasantly surprised and then I cried!
They even included some “Retirement” balloons!
This helium balloon says Chateau Celebration ~ For Vintage Good Times! Love it…
We’re so happy to be home safe and sound. After we rest up tonight we’ll have to unpack and clean up!
Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.
So I called to schedule our triple phone/T.V./Internet service to be disconnected on March 1st. Wouldn’t you know while I was on the phone with the first technician, she inadvertently cancelled my service immediately which also cut my phone call off to her. She never called back to explain or apologize or anything. When I called back the 2nd technician I got was really efficient and worked through all the red tape to get my service reconnected until March 1st. All that to say I was without internet service most of the day and I haven’t been able to get around to your blogs… Sheesh! But here’s something to make me smile…
Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.
Susanne at Living to Tell the Story is the hostess of Friday’s Fave Five and Claudia at Dippity Road is the hostess of Finding Beauty.
Looking back over this last week and finding favorites and beauty.
Enjoying getting together with friends and family has been the theme of my last days in Southern California.
This is one of my family’s favorite spots for breakfast. My sisters and some of my nieces and great niece and nephew were there.
My grand niece with her Auntie.
So for the 5 Favorites…
Dinner with Dear on Valentine’s Day
A walk with Willow
Dinner with Family at my mom and dad’s
A Pot of Earl Grey with Willow
Breakfast with Family
and
Bonus #6 starting a 40 day devotional for Lent on Wisdom
My oldest sister Kathy’s family
The sisters minus Lana…poor Lana had to be in Hawaii instead of with us :0)
Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.
The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b. 