Tag Archives: Family

What A Day…

Last Thursday I left our home at 4 AM to get to SeaTac Airport in time for my early 6:15 AM flight to John Wayne Airport in Orange County. The initial purpose of my trip was to meet my new nephew who was adopted from the Ukraine. My brother’s family was traveling from Dallas to Southern California to celebrate their daughter Hope’s 7th birthday at Disneyland and to have their new son Andrew meet his grandfather and aunts, uncles, cousins and our family friends. It’s easier to fly to Southern California then to fly to Dallas so I took this opportunity. It was wonderful to spend some time with some of our family and friends who live in Southern California, too.

My first stop from the airport was in the city of Orange to meet up with my good friend Heidi and my Sister-in-law Christina for breakfast and a little catch up on what is going on in our lives. The top left photo is of Heidi’s view from her back yard. Everything was so clear and it was great to see the green hills. We ate at the Pancake House.

I said goodbye to Christina and Heidi and headed to my Pop’s apartment to wait on Leonard, Mandy, Hope and Andrew who were arriving from Dallas a couple hours after my flight. Even though Andrew had talked with our pop using facetime he was shy at first but soon warmed up to all of us.

Miss Hope with her cousin Melissa.

My brother with Andrew and our Pop.

We had a nice lunch together at the apartment that my sister Kathy prepared and then we decided to go to Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor and believe it or not after ice cream some of us went out to dinner to celebrate my brother Tim’s birthday.

We all were in the mood for something savory after the ice cream from Farrell’s. From dinner I drove my brother to my sister’s in Huntington Beach where his family was staying and I headed to my niece’s in Huntington Beach where I was staying. We are fortunate to have hospitable family for our trips to Southern California. A plan to go to the beach on Friday was already in the works.

I am quite tired from all the sea air and fun family times we enjoyed. Looking forward to getting caught up now that I’m home again.

Here we go into the last week of January. What’s going on in your world?

Signs of My Life – #2

This was taken a few years ago when I re-united with a good friend of mine from high school. I graduated from this high school in Southern California in 1968.

I’m flying out on the O-dark-thirty flight to John Wayne Airport in Southern California for a few days with my pop, siblings and nieces and nephews. My family is Russian and this sign that says no to Vodka is part of my upbringing, too. Russian yes, but Vodka no, growing up. Some things stay the same and some things change.

These were all places that were part of my life growing up in Pico Rivera and Montebello.

On Sundays coming home from church we sometimes stopped at 31 Flavors Ice Cream and we were able to choose 3 scoops! That’s was quite a treat for us. In junior high school Currie Ice Cream was across the street and we were able to go off campus and get lunch there if we had 35 cents for a hot dog and chips. The Garmar theater is the first walk in theater that I saw a movie in. Garduno’s was a fast food stand that was a favorite in high school where we had open campus, too, for our lunch time. Good Mexican food and pastrami.

I’ll have lots to share from my family time when I get back home. Hope everyone is doing well.

You can see more signs by clicking over to Signs Signs by Lesley!

 

Pigeons!

I’m starting off 2015 with a very random post! Sort of how our days have been between and after Christmas and New Year’s Day!

Dear and I took a little trip up to Snohomish, Washington to look at some furniture pieces we are contemplating to add to our living room. We are thinking of changing out our Billy bookcases that we’ve had for ages from Ikea and adding a large open bookcase that is more of a piece of furniture. We arrived to the furniture store before it opened so we took a little drive around the block. We passed this house that seemed to be feeding every pigeon in the county in their front yard. So glad they are not my neighbor…

How do you feel about pigeons? When I was little my father decided to build a pigeon coupe in our back yard and he acquired several pigeons. Back then there were only four of us siblings and we each chose a pigeon for our pet. My pigeon was Green Neck because it had a lovely iridescent green neck. Creative name…not so much. Well we frequently fell on hard times back in the 50’s and during an exceptionally hard time my mother and father killed some of the pigeons to make soup. Oh the trauma the four of us siblings felt when we realized our pets were the base of the soup we were suppose to eat for dinner. We rebelled and would not eat that soup! My poor parents, it must have been hard for them to be forced to submit to such drastic measures to feed us. I’m not fond of pigeons anymore. We now call them rats with wings.

Here’s a photo of my dapper pop that my niece took last week. He’ll be 92 in May. He’s been through a lot and been blessed a lot in his 92 years.

For this very random post I’ll add this photo collage, too.

This is a photo of Dear’s only brother and him taken at my mom’s funeral split with a photo of Dear’s parents. Dear’s father passed away in 1985 and his mom in 1997. I was struck with how each of the brother’s resemble one of their parents more than the other.

So hope the New Year is starting out well in your neck of the woods. We are going slow here. I’ll be putting away Christmas decor in the next few days. I’m really looking forward to starting up my exercise classes with the Seniors on Monday again after six weeks off because of my broken toe. Maybe I’ll lose a few pounds in January…

Three Full Days…

Before we are swept into 2015 I’ll share our full three days of celebrating…

We had a very quiet Christmas Eve. Early in the morning we braved the parking lots at Costco and Safeway and bought the last minute items we needed for Christmas day. We bought a Costco rotisserie chicken and macaroni & cheese for any hunger pangs we might have as we got ready for Christmas day.

Our Christmas Eve service followed the theme of peace in the midst of pain and chaos. We enjoyed singing traditional Christmas carols with a few modern twists and we even had snow fall during the service inside church! After work on Christmas Eve Andrew and Katie arrived for the night enjoying our treats from Costco and after Dear and I went to sleep I heard Josh and Laura arrive for the night after they celebrated with Laura’s family.

Early on Christmas morning Dear and I heard some ducks quacking and it took us a while to spot them on the neighbor’s roof. A quacky good morning made us smile.

More presents were added next to the tree as Dear and I slept.

We woke the kids up to a favorite Christmas CD by Twila Paris to see what gifts Santa delivered to our stockings.

Our breakfast table was all ready to go for our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of Swedish Pancakes that Dear makes for us.

After breakfast I changed out the table for our Christmas Dinner with two places added for Dan and his fiance Jamie who were on the road from Eastern Washington to join us for dinner and the rest of the weekend.

Christmas Day 008Our meal on Christmas day was our traditional Prime Rib Roast and Yorkshire pudding with roasted root vegetables and creamed corn.

Our kids with their loves!

The original family with our three children.

Our oldest, Josh, married Laura in 2001.

Our youngest, Katie, married Andrew in 2011.

Our middle son Dan who will be married to Jamie in 2015.

All of us together.

The day after Christmas we had another fun evening celebrating Dan and Jamie’s engagement and Katie’s birthday with family and friends. We had appetizers and Dear’s Tomato Rice Soup for our gathering.

Katie, Andrew, Steve (BIL), Lana (My sister), Beth (mother of Dan’s best friend growing up), Dan, Jamie

Laura, Dave (Father of Dan’s best friend growing up), Dear, Ellen b., Josh and Katie. Unfortunately Dan’s best friend growing up was home sick along with his little daughter so his family wasn’t able to join us.

We toasted Dan and Jamie and then we sang to Katie before she blew out the candles on her Applesauce Spice Birthday Cake.

Our hearts are full and flowing over.

Dan and Jamie left our home on Sunday morning headed across the mountains again to Eastern Washington. We got the text that they arrived safely and that is always a good text to receive.

How are things at your place?

Here and There…

Here on Friday night we had our nephew Caleb with his wife Marie with us for dinner and dessert and a little catch-up on what’s going on in our lives. Caleb and Marie live in Santa Barbara so we don’t get to see them often. It was fun to have these cousins together in Washington. This might have been the first time that Andrew met them in person.

On Sunday we went “there” to Tacoma to spend a few hours celebrating with our beautiful friends that include our family in many special occasions.

Wonderful food, drink and conversations with these treasured friends celebrating our Savior.

Lucy * Katie * Jamie * Bridget

It was great to see these four beauties together. It’s been a long time. Jamie has just gotten back from a two year trip around the world on her own. Lucy, Jamie and Bridget are sisters and Katie has pretty much grown up with them as her friends. Jamie was Katie’s maid of honor.

Just in case you missed our great news that I posted on Saturday, I’ll repeat it here. Our son Dan asked his girlfriend Jamie to marry him and she said yes. We are looking forward to a wedding in 2015 over there in Dan and Jamie’s neck of the woods.

Palisade 003I’m happy to report I’m headed to the post office on Monday to finally mail off our Christmas cards. We have a few free days until Christmas. We’ll have a quiet Christmas Eve attending a service at church. On Christmas day we’ll have a full day of celebrating. Josh, Laura, Katie and Andrew will spend the night here on Christmas Eve and wake up for stockings and breakfast. Dan and Jamie will arrive from Eastern Washington in time for dinner so we’ll wait to open gifts till after dinner. We are looking forward to seeing the ring in person and hearing about details and plans.

I’ll probably be scarce for a while. How are things coming along at your house?

Celebrations…

Laura '14

We have lots of fun celebrations this month and we started last night going out to dinner for our DIL Laura’s birthday. After dinner at a new restaurant in our neighboring town we popped over to Katie and Andrew’s apartment for cake and presents. It was fun to see Katie’s creative tree on the wall since they won’t be buying a real one this year. On Monday we had a fun shopping day in Snohomish with Katie and that’s where the photo of her by the Snohomish River was taken.

Laura '141I’m still working on getting all the decorations up for Christmas. Thursday we have a dinner here with our small group.

I’m having a hard time keeping up with blogs right now so I won’t be joining memes until I am sure I can get around and comment.

Life is rich! Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

The “First” Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the Good ole U.S.A.! Gobble Gobble!

When your family grows and then grows up getting together for Thanksgiving can get complicated. We choose to be flexible and we’ll cook a turkey whenever the time is right for our loved ones to get together. We had our first Thanksgiving gathering with the traditional turkey meal on Saturday the 22nd of November. There were eight of us for our meal.

My sister Lana made these delicious individual pecan pies for our gathering.

Katie and Andrew were not able to celebrate with us on this day but we’ll celebrate with them at our “second” Thanksgiving.

My sister Lana and her husband Steve.

In between our meal and dessert we got into two cars and headed to Everett, Washington to see Katie at her first craft show selling her Chainmaille Jewelery handmade in the Pacific Northwest. She sells from her Simple Complication Etsy shop, too. It was a unique show called OddMall. It was fun to see Katie in action and to find out she was making lots of sales.

We came back home and enjoyed the individual pecan pies that Lana made and then there was a fun game of Sequence.

We will be celebrating our “second” Thanksgiving at the home of some dear friends on Thursday. I will be contributing the Yams. Are you cooking a turkey this Thursday?

Since this Timely Post has Tons of T’s in it like Thanks, Thanksgiving, Turkey, Thursday, Trade Shows, and Tradtional, I’ll be linking up with ABC Wednesday on Tuesday for T is for…Thanksgiving! Thanks to the awesome TEAM for hosting!

November Photo-A-Day (17-23)

P1050599Day 19 ~Family

I had to resort to two photos to get a photo with all our family in it. It’s hard to get all of us together these days with work schedules and proximity to each other in the state of Washington. The first photo of family was taken in Western Washington and the next photo of family was taken in Eastern Washington.

This challenge post is out of order since I started with day 19 and moved backwards and forwards and all about the town for days 17 thru day 23.

November Photo*A*Day challenge from Kati.

2014-09-14 Open house4Days 17, 18, 20, 21, and 22. Hot Drink (17) Hands/Feet (18), Wood (20), Candlelight (21), Orange (22).

Walk About the Fox 022Day 23 ~ Path

Our house is quiet again as our First Thanksgiving Celebration has come and gone. I will post the photos of our celebration soon. We had a great full day of food and fun. This morning Dan and Jamie headed out early to face the treacherous road conditions over Snoqualmie Pass on to Eastern Washington. I woke up this morning came down the stairs to see that Dear had washed all the dishes that didn’t fit in the dishwasher. He also emptied the clean dishes from the dishwasher. What a sweet treat that was to me.

Hope you are finishing your weekend well.