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!
…to laugh and talk with these girls!
6 of the 10 contributors on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog.
Julie, Bev K. , Betty R., and Charlotte were unable to join us.
It was my first face to face with all these ladies. You know these girls are even thinner in person. I forgot to ask them their secret on how they stay so slim while cooking all that great food!! And for the record…Kathy, I think you are great!! I feel so blessed to have been adopted into the fold even though I’m not Mennonite. Many of our Russian recipes are similar to the Mennonite favorites.
Before eating we got a little shopping in. After lunch we parted ways. I headed South and they headed North with a stop at the Tulip Fields.
I brought home a food gift and the prize I won on Judy’s blog giveaway a while back.
My own Vancouver Olympic Mittens and a Canada Pin! Thank you MGCC for a wonderful day and thank you Judy for my prize. I love the mittens and the pin.
Before I met up with the girls I had a quick stop at the tulip fields and I’ll show more of those photos later. Blessings!
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.
Today I’m heading North to La Conner and I’m meeting up with 5 of the Mennonite Girls from Mennonite Girls Can Cook! We’re going to have lunch together at Seeds. I am so looking forward to meeting these blogging friends in person. My camera is all packed and ready to go!
I planted some seeds of friendship
All nice and neatly in a row
I tended to them with love and care
Then watched them sprout and grow
I’ll be sharing more about our meeting later in the week. Happy Tuesday to you all!
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.
Hope you have time for some tea and
knitting!
Willow is the only person I know who has a birthday on St. Patrick’s Day (I think). May God bless you richly my friend.
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.
In February of 2008 Willow and I met face to face for the first time and here’s what I wrote about that day…
God is so good to me. He gave me two desires of my heart today! I’ve said over and over again how sweet it would be to meet one of my bloggy friends and how I’d love to have a walking buddy in Southern California after I left my walking buddies in Seattle, Washington. Today Willow and I met and had a walk and plan to walk on a regular basis, keeping each other accountable. How sweet it is! We found each other through other blogs and realized we both live in the same city. We’re in the same stage of life and have a lot in common. Willow shared how she had been praying for someone to walk with. Check out her blog, she has very exciting news today! She became a grandmother!
That was 2 years ago and so that grandson just celebrated his 2nd birthday.
We’ve had lots of fun walking adventures and a some great tea adventures. I’m going to miss my walking, blogging, drinking tea, knitting friend!
I’m also going to miss Dear and my Saturday morning walks at Emma Wood. On many of those Saturdays we’d have breakfast at Allison’s in Ventura and I’m going to miss that place, too.
Another Saturday morning favorite with Dear is this hike off Sycamore Canyon up the Scenic Trail.
I’ll miss the great cooking days with my family here in Southern California and
our fun tea times…and
our breakfast rendezvous at Julienne in San Marino.
I’ll miss our bloggy adventures with Willow and Sara at the Getty Properties and…
I’m going to miss our Saturdays with Tim and Letty…
I’ll miss being close to my parents…
I’ve been blessed both in Southern California and the Seattle area with good friends, loving family, great churches and wonderful adventures.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away…Blessed be the Name of the Lord!
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 this great weekly carnival that encourages us to look back over the last week and list our 5 favorites.
There was lots of good news coming to us this week via the telephone and email.
1. Our dear little niece, Miss Hope, turned 2 on Monday. She called me (well her dad actually called me) on Monday to thank me for our present and card and to fill me in on the highlights of her party. She said “Expedition”, “cake”, “thank you” , “love you”. She and all her little guests got to go on an expedition to search for stickers with little flashlights. She had a Winnie the Pooh/Heffalump Party.
2. We heard of the engagement of my cousin Jim’s son Ben to Kristin. The photo of Jim and Jeanie was taken at their son Jeff’s wedding this last June. Hopefully we’ll be able to attend Ben’s wedding, too.
3. We got a phone call from our son Dan with the good news that he passed his Spanish course and will be headed to Seattle to spend a week at home in Washington before he’s gone for 10 months. Dear and I are flying home next Wednesday so we can spend some time with him. We are so looking forward to having the whole family all together for a meal or two.
4. We also got the news on Thursday that Dan’s best friend Jamie and his wife Sarly had a sweet baby girl at 8:00 P.M. Jamie is in the picture with Laura, Josh, and Dan. It is really great that Dan will be home at just the right time to be able to see her. We have so appreciated God bringing Jamie’s family and our family together when Dan and Jamie became friends in 2nd grade. Congratulations to Jamie and Sarly and to the grandparents Beth and Dave!! We love you guys!
5. Dear and I had lunch at my mom and dad’s last Sunday along with my brother Tim and his wife Letty. We are so blessed to have parents that are faithful to God, to each other, and to all their children. My parents are 86 and 85. My father said that he has no regrets and is ready to die whenever God chooses to take them. Every time we talked about their funeral that afternoon my Father made it singular. I know this is probably weird for some of you to read but we’ve always been able to talk about death and funerals, etc. in my family. Anyway, I’ve always pictured my parents “going home” together. I think my Father does, too. They have been married for 66 years. He and my mother took care of their parents before they died and have cared for many widows and spinsters over the years who had no one to care for them. They have extended hospitality far and wide. They were missionaries to Russia in their old age. They have “run the race well”.
You have multiplied, O LORD my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
yet they are more than can be told.
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.
Click on over to the Hot Tea Month Blog to join in. The answer to this weeks question could take a few posts but I’m going to keep it short and sweet…
Week 4: January 24-30
Whom have you met because of something related to tea? Share something about this person and how your relationship began and blossomed.
Tea has brought Ruth at Scrabblequeen into my cyber world. It’s been fun to get to know about her through some of her interesting outings and travels. It’s fun to see how knitting and tea are paired in her life and my friend Willow’s life. I love to see more of the world through my bloggy friends experiences…
I met Willow through blogging and we have shared many a cup of tea together. It’s been good to be friends in person with a fellow blogger. Our friendship has blossomed through our walks, our chats over cups of tea , praying for each other, and sharing the blogging experience together. We met the lovely lady that owns Tranquility Tea Room on one of our tea outings…
I was introduced to Cori G’s blog Brambleberry Cottage (although her blog used to be called Gingerbread Crumbs & Co.) during LaTeaDah’s Tea blogathon. Cori and I were able to meet over a cup of tea at the Corner Bakery in Brea. I have enjoyed Cori’s sweet spirit through her blog. Here’s a post about our meeting. Cori’s graphics are very impressive!
My sister and I really enjoyed getting to know the owner of Madame Fifi’s Tea Room in Bothell ,Christine, just a little bit. She really was a gracious hostess. Unfortunately she had to leave this business behind… We were able to enjoy a few tea outings there before she closed shop…
I mentioned LaTeaDah from Gracious Hospitality and I’ve enjoyed reading her blog over the last couple of years. She has been to some fun tea rooms that she shares about on her blog along with hosting some great tea experiences.
Tea alone is good therapy but tea with someone else is wonderful therapy and I’m old enough and honest enough to admit I need therapy~
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.
Ellen b.’s highlights for the year 2009! It’s all about Family, Friends, Food, and Walking! God has blessed us richly!
This will be my First Fave Five post for 2010. I apologize up front for the way over 5 photo overload!! Please visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in with Friday’s Fave Five…
Weekend getaway to the Central Coast in California over Martin Luther King weekend.
Walking throughout the year is always a highlight! Early Saturday morning walks with Dear at Emma Wood. Walks in Willow’s neighborhood or an occasional beach walk or a walk at the Blueberry Farm with Joy always provides good fellowship and encouragement. Walks in the Seattle area on the Burke Gilman trail with my Saturday morning walking buddies Jan and Jody (we have been doing this for 10 years now). An occasional walk on the Burke Gilman during the week with my friend Beth. I love to walk with people not alone…and if there’s a donut shop at the end of the walk that’s icing on the cake! :0)
My birthday celebration in March at the Tam O’ Shanter.
The tragic tea in April where my mother fell and had to spend her tea time at the hospital.
Easter is my favorite holiday of the year because of what Christ accomplished for us. This was the first year we made Kulich (Russian Easter Bread) on our own, too!
In May my brother’s family arrived just in time for Mother’s Day, a couple birthday parties and then we had a family outing at Disneyland!
Memorial Weekend in Seattle.
June ~ The Sounders were in L.A. and we had a quick visit with Josh…
End of June my cousin’s son got married and we stopped in for the fabulous event on our roadtrip to Seattle.
Fourth of July in Seattle…
Later in July my niece visited and we did some fun touristy things including a Mariner’s game.
August we made a quick ferry trip to Vancouver Island to see Butchart Gardens and Victoria!
Later in August brought another visit from Brother and his family to Southern California. We again enjoyed meals, a baby shower, and Disneyland!
September we celebrated Dear’s birthday at Five Crowns in Corona Del Mar.
On Labor Day our son headed out for his new vocation and Dear and I made another trip to the Central Coast.
September 29th Katie and I made a day trip to Vancouver, B.C. and visited Stanley Park and the Aquarium.
In October we re-did the tragic tea but this time there were no tragedies. The newest member of the family was in attendance.
November was filled with great family events. New Mexico to attend Daniel’s graduation.
Our Annual Black Friday Tea after shopping at Goodwill.
Fun times with our Thanksgiving Company.
Thanksgiving Day…
December brought a fun celebration of Katie’s completion of her degree.
Christmas 2009!
Our last big celebration of the year is Katie’s birthday which falls on December 27th!
If you managed to make it through all of this, congratulations! Hoping for a year of acknowledging daily God’s blessings in our lives…
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.
Katie surprised us with an early entry into this world…
Dear and I were so surprised to get our little girl after our two boys. Katie has added a wonderful dimension to our family and we thank God for her.
For her birthday bash this year some long time friends and family went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie and then came back to our house for a meal and evening of fun.
I do believe the festivities have come to an end around our house for a few days. Today I put away most of the Christmas decorations and got rid of our very dry tree. It feels good. Enjoy the last week of 2009 everyone!!
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. 