Tag Archives: Hot Water Tank

July Wrap-Up #1

Looking back…

This will be the first of three July Wrap-ups. The first one will be close to home and the second and third will be at a distance. We started the month in Walla Walla celebrating with our family and those posts have been shared.

Travels interrupted the documentation of the end of the school year but finally it happened in July!

Looks like they both decided Top Ramen was their favorite food. Hilarious, as their mom feeds them 3 well balanced meals a day!!

While watching them in early July they decided to give me a makeover.

It was hot but they managed to go cherry picking at a nearby orchard.

Dinner on the Columbia with fishing was refreshing on a hot night.

JJ caught his first stick!

Addy caught her very first fish!

Addy wasn’t interested in holding the fish so JJ took over the job for the fish photo!

Our hot water tank needed to be replaced and while the guys worked on hooking up the new tank we set up this water splash pool for the grands to keep cool while waiting.

Hooray the new hot tank is working and the guys are pleased with themselves! I’m pleased, too.

When the job was completed, we enjoyed a Creamy chicken noodle dish for dinner with a fresh produce salad from the kids garden to go along with it.

The kids brought over raspberries from their garden which inspired the baking of this Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake.

I’ve already shared the other July happenings close to home like soccer camp, walks on the trail, summer blooms, summer critter visitors, Canadian visitors. I’ll save more blooming plants from our back acres for another day.

Happy August everyone!

Sweet ‘Little’ Memories Hodgepodge

Our first Wednesday Hodgepodge in February is bringing back special memories of our dear Babushka Vera. We also called her our ‘little babushka’. The photo above was taken at Greg and my wedding in December of 1974.

Thank you to Jo From This Side of the Pond for her questions this week.

1. Something you’ve waited for recently? 

Dependable hot water.

2. What’s something you loved to do as a child? 

So many things: Hide n Seek, Jacks, Tetherball

One of the best family memories is stopping at 31 Flavors (Ice Cream shop) on Beverly Blvd. after a church event for our two or three scoops! I chose orange sherbet and chocolate chip. One of my brothers always chose vanilla.

3. Something you learned from a grandparent? 

From our little babushka Vera we learned you could still do amazing things with only one hand. Her left arm was amputated at the elbow when she was very young. With one arm and hand, she managed raising children, cooking blintzes, baking piroshky and creating beautiful embroidery just to name a few. The photo of her above was taken at Greg and my wedding shower at Bethany Baptist Church in Los Angeles.

She made all those goodies on her kitchen table for Christmas breakfast before we walked a few doors down for church. All her ‘people’ would stop into her apartment before church for a treat and the most Merry Christmas start to the day.

This embroidered tablecloth and napkins was my little babushka’s wedding gift to us.

4. The most visited cities in the world last year (according to this site) were-Bangkok, Paris, London, Dubai, and Singapore. Have you been to any of the cities mentioned? Which would you most like to see? How do you feel about international travel in general these days? 

Of these cities, I’ve only been to London and would choose London to see again from this list of cities. Still hopeful for travel to the United Kingdom. I’m a comfort traveler so I’d avoid any country where I wouldn’t feel comfortable about language barriers, etc. There are enough wonderful International adventures for me in the UK.

5. February is the perfect month to ______________________.

February is the perfect month to be loving and kind to one another.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Our Babushka Vera was promoted to heaven to be with her Savior in March of 1980. She was a Godly woman who prayed for all her grandchildren and for all her grandchildren’s future spouses. She prayed for our Pop’s salvation and for the salvation of her own husband. After they were married and he became a follower of Christ, our Dzedushka Fedot became a Baptist Minister. He was killed in Iran just after our parents immigrated to the USA after World War II. Our little Babushka immigrated to the USA with my Uncle and his family without her husband. I am so looking forward to seeing Babushka in heaven and seeing Dzedushka for the first time in heaven.

A long post about our Little Babushka is here.

I’m way behind this week after a busy full and wonderful weekend and then our Hot Water Tank repair job that took our son Dan and Greg all morning into the afternoon on Monday to fix. Hey…but we have some hot reliable water now and it will hopefully last a while.