Make New Friends but Keep the Old…

…One is silver, the other gold.

I’m linking up to ABC Wednesday for O is for Old and for the fact that this post will go on and on! Thank you Denise Nesbitt, Roger, and the ABC team!

One day, four events! I flew from Seattle to Santa Ana (California) on Saturday and had a full day filled with time with old friends!

I arrived at John Wayne Airport at 8:30 A.M. and drove to La Habra, California. My pop and I went to his favorite breakfast spot and I treated him to breakfast. This is what he always orders, 2 sunny side up eggs, hash browns and sausage. He enjoyed every bite of food and each slurp of his coffee.

My pop is now living with my oldest sister and thriving. He lets me know frequently how much he loves the chair Dear and I bought him. Lately he’s occupied with jigsaw puzzles.

At 11:30 A.M. I drove down Whittier Blvd. to our dear friend Alice’s home for a Baby shower in her beautiful back yard!

This is Alice with her son who will be holding his new son soon and this will be Alice’s first grand baby! Alice has always had an open home and is the most hospitable lady. Many of us at the shower have been graced with hours of good times in her home with good food to eat.

The new dad and mom to be with our friend Natalie in the middle praying a blessing on them, the baby and the festivities.

My best friend from college days and beyond, Heidi, with her daughter Nikki.

My nieces Melissa, Michelle and my SIL Kelly.

Heidi, Alice and I had some fun adventures in our college days. Alice lived in San Francisco and we spent time with her there and she came down to L.A. to spend time with us. We hadn’t seen each other for over 35 years!

I caught my sister enjoying her food with my blast from the past friend, Alice.

I took off from the baby shower before gifts were opened to drive on 2 more freeways to get to my high school mini reunion.

We had a great turnout with close to 50 grads from Montebello High School showing up.

I was so happy to see my friend from elementary school days through high school at the reunion. I hadn’t seen her for over 46 years!

Lots of good memories came back to me and I have to admit some of the people that were there didn’t drum up any memories from my dear old brain.

These girls I’ll never forget. Nancy on the left was my good buddy and Anne her cousin is on my right.

I left the reunion after 4 hours and finally headed to my hotel to check in at 6:30.

My dear nephew David and niece Kristin picked me up at the hotel door to take me out to dinner at 7:00. They had been out on a boat with their friends for the afternoon. How sweet of them to take the time and treat me to dinner and catch up conversation.

My hotel experience was good to start with and I fell asleep exhausted since I had been up since 3:15 am. At 1:15 the room next door was visited by some very loud guests who were pounding on the door. I woke from such a deep sleep that I was disoriented and didn’t know where I was for a few moments. My heart was racing. I called the front desk and they said they’d come up and talk to them. It took me a long time to fall back to sleep and then they woke me up again at 5:30 a.m. oye and bother!! When I talked to the front desk in the morning the person behind the desk said they’d take a percentage off my room. When I got back to my room I got a phone call from another person on staff who told me how sorry he was for my experience and that they would comp my room and I didn’t have to pay anything.

One day filled with so many old memories and friends. I’ll put the hotel experience way behind me!

Shower of Blessings!

Our whole family was together in Eastern Washington this past weekend to celebrate our son and future DIL’s wedding shower and we worked in some other fun events together, too.

The Bridal shower for Jamie was hosted at her Granny’s home.

Granny has quite a view out her kitchen window.

It was fun to get to meet many of Jamie’s friends.

Tami and our daughter Katie are two of the bridesmaids. Tami on the left hosted the shower.

We enjoyed watching Jamie open her many gifts. Her matron of honor was by her side recording each item.

Jamie with her mom and granny.

Jamie with her mom, granny, and dear family friend Sylvia.

Mom and daughter.

Our girls, dil Laura, future dil Jamie and our daughter Katie.

When the shower was over and most of the guests were gone we helped get a couple things done for the wedding reception. Many hands make light work!

After the work was done we made a trip out to the venue so we could be able to visualize the route and site.

Beautiful views on the road to the venue.

It was good to make the trip out and to know what to expect. We then traveled back to Dan’s house to see what the guys had been up to while we were partying. I’ll share our evening together in my next post.

Mister B.

M is for Mister B., the marvelous man I’m married to.

Joining in with ABC Wednesday that was begun by Mrs. Nesbitt and is carried on by the ABC team!

My Dear is quite the man. Not only is he a professional in the workplace, giving out medical information but he’s the most handy of men in the home.

He’s outstanding in his field.

Dear with our oldest son.

Here is a photo series of one of his latest home projects. It’s taken months to get close to the end of this project but other projects and weather took precedence during this time period.

Before he started on the siding on this end of the house we decided to take down this tree that was serving as a ladder for varmints to get onto our roof.

He replaced the attic window.

With this old house there is always another project ready to start. The back side of the house will be the final side to get horizontal siding. We are hoping to get that done by July. The tar paper is up and ready for the first half of that project to start.

I will leave you with my Bible Verse Card for the letter M!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter and Passover. We had a marvelous celebration. Have a good week!

Joyful, Joyeux, Joy…

…can’t get enough of these great words beginning with J. My weekend was filled with many joyful moments. It was my birthday weekend and I celebrated with friends and family.

That one card I received pictured top left was hilarious. “It’s Birthday!, Blow out candles and make wish for good thing! Won’t get but is fun tradition anyway. Wishing you to have Happy Birthday”

Still going on the Russian theme I received this fabulous apron and kitchen towel from my daughter in law’s mother. Thank you Pat! So sweet that she thought of me when she saw these Matryoshka themed gifts. Things like this from my heritage give me joy.

I was overloaded with gifts including a tasty meal out from our dear friends, Dave and Beth. This Gusla with the beautiful painted Russian Fairy Tale scene was part of the things Beth brought for me or someone in my family to enjoy. It’s a great instrument that is simple to play with cards that slip under the strings showing you the strings to strum playing the tune. I played Happy Birthday to Me on my birthday morning feeling quite accomplished!

On Sunday afternoon we drove to downtown Seattle for dinner and live Irish music at Fado, an Irish pub with our oldest, youngest and their fabulous spouses. Our middle son lives 6 hours away so he couldn’t join us but he sent along a card. The company and music was fabulous. I received such wonderful written notes from each of our children that really brought me so much joy.

The food was good, too. A little Irish and a little Russian made for a nice meeting of two cultures!

And I’ll end this post with my ABC Bible Verse Card for the letter J!

Knowing I have a God who does not change and who is faithful brings me a lot of joy and peace.

Linking up with ABC Wednesday with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her ABC team who keep things going each week.

Week and Weekend Reflections

I’m doing a double themed post today,

Five Favorites of the week with Susanne and

Weekend Reflections with James.

This is from MOHAI, the museum of history and industry in Seattle, Washington. Dear’s Company Christmas party was held here. It was the last party the company had before they were sold to the highest bidder. The company will retain it’s name but it has a new owner and we hope that reflects in Dear still having a job in a months time. This exhibit is in the True Northwest: The Seattle Journey section.

Here are five favorites from this past week. My favorites are a reflection of another kind.

1. Weather cooperating so we could complete phase one of a yard project that you can see before and afters of here. It was helpful to have a Monday holiday for this project. Thank you to President Lincoln and Washington for that!

2. A nice meal out with Dear to celebrate Valentines Day.

3. A nice extended time over a meal with our first born and our lovely daughter in law.

4. The arrival of my season ticket for the 2015 Seattle Sounders Soccer season!

5. Having the visit to the tax accountant behind us which is a very relaxing feeling.

I’ll leave you with a few quotes from President Lincoln:

“When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

“When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, its best to let him run.”

What were your favorites or reflections from this past week?

Every Good Gift…

It’s Friday again and I’m joining Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for Friday’s Fave Five. So many good gifts come to us to enjoy and here are five from this past week that were perfect.

We had our second annual Super Sunday at church and it was so fabulous. Two of our pastors went head to head with short sermons on the great Comebacks in the Bible. In the end Jesus’ Comeback from Death had us all cheering. The perfect ending to the sermon. My church, pastors, and staff are a gift.

For our afternoon festivities after church Dear had ribs in the smoker that came out just right. A great meal is a gift I enjoy and enjoying it with our daughter Katie and son in law Andrew made it perfect.

Our two sons were able to spend the weekend together and I love the photos they send my way. They had a nice snowy hike out the door of our son Dan’s home in Eastern Washington. It’s a good gift to Dear and me that our sons love each other.

These girls (Mennonite Girls Can Cook) are a gift from the Lord to me and every week we share our joys, struggles, triumphs, and failures with each other holding each other up in prayer and giving each other encouragement. This gift of friendship is straight from the “Father of lights”.

Josh and Laura gifted me these cool ABC verse cards and I display one card each week so I can see it and work on learning the verse. I’m on the letter e. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17) Since I’m a visual learner this gift was perfect to help me learn and retain the 26 verses included.

What gifts did you receive this week that brought some joy and light into your world?

Miss Hope Turns 7!

It’s not every year that we get to celebrate a birthday with our Texas niece. This year Hope’s family decided to celebrate in California and add a trip to Disneyland for the cherry on top! I was so grateful I could travel down to California for the fun.

Hope’s new little brother Andrew got some gifts, too, since a lot of our family and friends were meeting him for the first time.

My niece Hope and my grand niece Avery.

My nephew Anthony with my grand nephew Thomas. He was the youngest guest on this day.

Hope’s birthday cake was 7 cupcakes with a candle in each.

I think she was pleased with the cupcakes her older cousins Debbee and Melissa made and decorated for her.

May God bless you and keep you dear Hope. May he make His face to shine upon you and give you peace!

Love you dearly…

A Thankful Rebel

It’s been ages since I joined in with Susanne’s Friday’s Fave Five but this morning I’m going to post some favorites from my time with family last Thursday thru Saturday in Southern California. And because I’m overwhelmingly blessed with a wonderful family there will be more than Five photos! I’m a rebel that way…

The reason for my trip down was to meet my new little nephew Andrew (he’s 5). My brother’s family lives in Texas and they were flying to California for Miss Hope’s 7th birthday and a trip to Disneyland and my extended family filled in all the edges of their trip with parties and fun. Andrew became a part of their forever family last August and is already a U.S. Citizen. He was adopted from the Ukraine. He now sings God bless America! So cute. I’ll share more photos from Miss Hope’s birthday party later.

Fresh off the plane last week I met up with Dear’s SIL, Christina, and my best friend from college days Heidi. Heidi, Christina, Dear, Dear’s brother and I were all in a Christian Rock Band in the seventies. Heidi and I attended the same Russian Baptist Church in Los Angeles and had lots of adventures together! We caught up as much as we could in our couple hours together.

What a blessing to spend some time with my soon to be 92 year old pop. He’s a sad guy without my mom by his side.

He was surrounded by some of his grandchildren at Hope’s birthday party.

Josh and Laura took the long way home to Seattle from their trip to Kaui through Southern California so they could meet Andrew, too, and visit with my pop and their cousins.

All my pop’s kids except for one were together in one spot so we took some photos.

Our youngest siblings, the twins, are flanking my father on the couch.

I love this photo of my older sisters and I love them, too.

Andrew is fitting right in and it’s so much fun to listen to his half Ukrainian and half English sentences!

When we all got together this time my Father prayed a blessing over his new grandson Andrew and over his great grandson Thomas. My brother thanked all his friends and family for praying them through the adoption process and helping financially to bring Andrew to the U.S.A. We all sang Great is Thy Faithfulness and another of our Russian favorites together acknowledging the fact that God is the faithful one in our lives. Of course we had lots of good food and good conversation and laughter.

So I’m thankful for my Faithful God, my faithful pop, my family, my friends, and all our fun times together! We’re not perfect, mind you, but we have practiced forgiving each other and keeping our relationships going. We try not to neglect each other. What are you thankful for?

Walking at the Beach

Last Friday I had a wonderful walk on the beach. My sister Vera lives a few blocks from Huntington Beach in Southern California and we always enjoy walking down and taking in the sea air. On this day we walked down with my brother Leonard, SIL Mandy, niece Hope, new nephew Andrew, and my sister Vera.

We were wondering how Andrew would react to the ocean waves.

Hope went in with no fear and Andrew watched from the sand.

We left my brother to enjoy watching the kids while the three of us walked along the tide line for an hour.

We walked up the beach and then down again to the pier.

Andrew kept quite busy building in the sand.

Do you live anywhere near an ocean shore? We live close to the shores of Lake Washington and a short drive to the Puget Sound but we have to travel a few hours to get to the Pacific Ocean.

California

California here I come, right back where I started from.

Where bowers of flowers bloom in the sun.

Each morning at dawning birdies sing and everything.

Sun kissed Miss says don’t be late.

That’s why I can hardly wait, Open up your golden gate, California here I come.

I was born in California so this is a song I easily claim. I’m happy for my growing up days and my early married days in California but I’m very content to be living in the Seattle area now. I do look forward to my trips back to visit. The top photo is from the plane on our descent into John Wayne Airport. We turned inland at Catalina Island and this is the first time I’ve seen it so clearly from a plane. The beach photos are all from Huntington Beach where one of my sister’s lives.

It’s time for ABC Wednesday and we are on the letter C so I’m sharing some photos from my trip to Southern California last week and a photo of the bougainvillea from my archives. Thank you to Denise Nesbitt and the ABC Wednesday team.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Tag Archives: Family