A Prairie Favorite…

…McNally Robinson Bookstore!

I was so impressed with this store and all they have to offer.

The store had our spot all ready for us and the staff was ready to take care of anything we needed during our 2 hour signing.

This was our first signing in Winnipeg and we were so happy to meet so many wonderful people. It was fun to be seated by the Canadian Biography section of the bookstore.

What fun to meet the Wreathmaker, Millie and her husband. I’ve visited Millie’s blog so it was great to meet her in person.

This is the young man, John Toews, who took such good care of us while we signed books at the store!

We had a little competition with the evening book talk on 300 Years of Beer. I got a kick out of our book sharing the feature case with the Beer book.

The big thrill of the evening is when we realized that Prairie Ink Restaurant located in the bookstore was serving 3 dishes from our cookbook for the evening that we were there! Lovella’s Maple Glazed Salmon and Prawns, Charlotte’s Vegetarian Black Bean Taco Salad, and Kathy’s Chicken sliders with Pineapple Salsa!

They gave us a taste of the pineapple salsa. Delicious!

They served Charlotte’s Vegetarian Black Bean Taco Salad in a tortilla bowl.

When we were done with our signings we sat down in the restaurant to have dinner. I ordered Kathy’s Chicken Sliders with Pineapple Salsa.

Oh my I was so excited I took a bite before I took a photo but Kathy was right next to me and she was staging her slider so nicely I took a photo of her’s!

A huge thank you to McNally Robinson and Prairie Ink Restaurant for giving a special welcome to our book and our recipes!

My Dear is coming home on Saturday and I’m excited. We are postponing Father’s Day celebrations to let him recuperate from his international travel. What are your plans for the weekend and Father’s Day?

Downtown Seattle

On Wednesday afternoon we met Terry and Lovella at Boka in downtown Seattle for Happy Hour.

The food was all delicious but the company was better.

If you find yourself in downtown Seattle to shop let us know and we’ll meet you for Happy Hour.

Today Dear and I are headed north across the line to meet up with 6 of the MGCC girls and their husbands for dinner at Bev and Harv’s. Looking forward to this get-together. We’ll head north after Dear gets home from work. We will spend Saturday to recoup! What are your plans this weekend before U.S. Thanksgiving?

Birthday Week Favorites!

What a week it’s been and there are so many favorites we’ll see if I can keep it to 5. Click on the pretty tulips to join in the fun with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

This week was my birthday week and I turned 60 on Monday March 14th. I was surprised, honored, and loved to overflowing and I’ll never forget the wonderful events of this past 7 days!

1. My husband and kids surprised me with a visit from our son Dan to help celebrate my birthday. We hadn’t seen Dan since Christmas and I had no idea he worked out some extra time off to be able to travel across the mountains to join in the fun. I was SHOCKED in a good way when he walked into the kitchen at Josh and Laura’s house on Sunday morning!

2. Dinner with the Mennonite Girls and their husbands at Chuckanut Manor in Bow, Washington. This was the first time all our husbands met and what a great time we all had!

3. A surprise limousine ride to dinner with Josh, Laura, Dan and Dear on my birthday!

4. The third surprise was our dinner menus personalized for my special day.

5. All the wonderful cards, gifts, phone calls, e-cards, and tributes on blogs that I read including my 3 year old niece singing Happy Birthday to me all the way through by herself over the phone. Some cards made me cry but this card just made me laugh! Thanks Leonard and Mandy and Hope.

All of you who ever have used your pedometers should be laughing right now!

6. Yes, I’m going over but this was also opening season week for Major League Soccer with the Seattle Sounders and L.A. Galaxy and we had our first game the day after my birthday and the day after my flagpole was installed and my flags were waving proudly!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who made this week so special for me. I am so grateful for new friends, old friends, family, bloggy friends I have never met in person. Thank you for your kindness and encouragement to me. God bless you all richly!

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

FFF ~ Five in One

It’s Friday and time for counting blessings one by one. Any day is a good day to do that but we have the privilege of joining in together with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and documenting them on Fridays.

All five of my favorites are from one day. There were lots of blessings on the other days of this past week but I’ll share 5 from yesterday.

1. The sun was shining and the time was right for an impromptu jaunt to the Seattle Center. Katie and I had tried to go to the Harry Potter Exhibit in January but it was sold out on the day we happened to be at the Seattle Center so we decided to give it a try yesterday. We decided at 10:30 a.m. that we’d go and by 11:20 we drove up to the Space Needle for valet parking and walked the short distance to the Science Center.

2. The exhibit was fun with lots of great props from the movies. There were very few people in the exhibit which made it easier to get around and see everything. No photography was allowed in the exhibit. One lady was caught taking a photo with her phone and they made her delete it!

3. After we were done with the exhibit we walked across the way to the hands on section of the Science Center to see their butterfly exhibit. We went through double doors and into the 80 degree butterfly habitat. It was fun to have so many beautiful butterflies flying around us. You had to be very careful where you stepped and before they let you leave you had to be checked to make sure no butterflies decided to land on your clothing. I’ll be sharing more of my butterfly photos next week.

4. I mentioned what a wonderful clear sunny day it was right? Well this view was fun to see. Those are the Olympic mountains showing their glory across the Puget Sound.

5. We were treated to this view as we walked to our lunch destination and my last favorite, enjoying lunch at a new Thai Restaurant with my daughter.

All that fun and I still had time to prune a few branches off our apple tree when we got home from the Center.

What are some of your blessings from this past week?

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things…

I’m posting early this week so I hope I don’t confuse anyone into thinking it’s Friday already…

Time for Friday’s Fave Five again! Visit the lovely Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in with this fun exercise.

#1 & #2

~ Saturday was a double date day! In the morning Dear and I walked at our favorite beach at dawn and then in the early evening we went to one of our favorite restaurants to celebrate a belated 35th Anniversary dinner. Our Anniversary is December 6th but Dear and I were in different parts of the country on that day so we decided to celebrate this past Saturday.

#3

It’s no secret that the enjoyment of food is big in my life. My mother has never driven a car and she has never worked outside the home. She put her energy and time into her love language which was cooking food for us and others. We always had people over growing up to share meals with us. I never worried about bringing home an unexpected guest because there would always be enough food for all. Our family was in the lowest middle income class but my parents always found money to put food on the table and shoes on our feet. I’ve inherited the love of food and being around a table.

All of that to say that I experienced a wonderful Prime Rib dinner on Saturday with an amazing fig and orange souffle for dessert! Yum…

#4

What a fun sky we saw here on Tuesday night! Dear was out BBQ’ing and he called me outside and said “You’ve got to see these great clouds” I grabbed my camera and headed out and clicked away! The clouds were like little cotton balls.

#5

Oh dear me…I bought some more dishes. They were just so much fun and they met my criteria of being made in England. I’m thinking it will be fun coming up with a Valentine day dinner using these red checked dishes! Thrift store shopping and finding dishes at a bargain are always fun for me and a favorite!

#6

A Bonus Favorite: I love how people always come together after a disastor to help their fellow human beings. For all of us who feel so bad about what has happened in the Island Nation of Haiti don’t forget or hesitate to send some money their way using a reputable/tried and true organization like World Concern, or Samaritan’s Purse just to name a couple who have proven their integrity in getting relief where it’s needed. A little from all of us adds 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.

Debbee’s Birthday Dinner ~ Laguna Beach

On Tuesday 19 of us got together in Laguna Beach for our niece Debbee’s Birthday Dinner. Laguna Beach is a beautiful coastal city South of Newport Beach. I will be posting many of my beach photos from this beautiful area but for now I’ll pick this one…

I got to Laguna Beach earlier than everyone else and ended up taking a few hundred photos!!

Las Brisas is an upscale Mexican Restaurant without your typical combination platters or prices that you’d find at most other Mexican Restaurants. The view is gorgeous and the food was delicious.

Debbee, the guest of honor. Svetlana and Cvetlana (better known as Lana G!). The 4 sisters, Lana, Ellen, Kathy and Vera. The young people Michelle, Caleb, Levi, Jackson, Debbee, and Melissa. These are some of my nieces and nephews and my grand nephew.

The many faces of Miss Hope! She enjoyed the chips and some asparagus.

We left the restaurant making plans for some of us to meet up at Disneyland the following day. I’m getting that post ready and will hit publish soon!

Friday’s Fave Five ~ Food again???

Happy May Everyone!

Well I was going to be in Cancun today and not able to participate in our Fave Five but circumstances beyond anyone’s control changed our plans. So I’m still at my nice little condo in Southern California…blogging. Susanne at Living to Tell the Story is our hostess for this great weekly event. Visit her to join in or see other favorites.

So what is it about me and food? Food is topping much of my list this week but to cut me a break it’s not just the food but the other people around me while I’m eating good food that I enjoy.

1. I really like to eat breakfast out with Dear! Before we helped my niece and her husband move last Saturday we stopped at the Egg Plantation in Newbury Park. They have over a 100 Omelets on their menu including other things! I had Chiliquiles…yum. We really needed this great breakfast to keep us going while we packed up and unpacked the truck for the move.

2. After our trip to Cancun was cancelled I decided to “get away” to Main street in Ventura to do a little Thrift store shopping. Such a fun thing for me to do. While in Ventura I stopped at 71 Palm a French Country Restaurant for a little lunch. I had a wonderful soup with asparagus and spinach and a fresh beet, goat cheese and walnut salad.

3. I made semi-homemade chili for dinner last night and baked some corn bread to go with it. Dear was in the mood for chili earlier in the week and I decided to make it for him! I love my chili with fresh tomato, cilantro, green onions and cheese thrown on top! Last night we added some avocado, too.

4. Willow and I have seen some fun sights this week on our walks. We are seeing some great colorful evidences of Spring.

5. Also from our walk we saw this Quail sitting on top of this flimsy tree. It was really kind of peculiar. He sat there long enough to take several shots…

For more Friday Faves click on over to Susanne’s!

Window Views ~

Well Mary the Professor has come up with another fun weekly photo challenge meme. Here’s what she says…

“I’ve always been fascinated by all kinds of windows. And photographing them from the outside or the inside has been fun for me. Will you join me?”

You can post:

house windows,
castle windows,
stained glass windows,
old windows,
new windows,
animals or people looking out of windows,
views through windows

Here are the rules:

Post your own photographs
Describe your photographs and the circumstances of taking your pictures if you want to
You may post as early as Wednesday at 4 o’clock EST (that’s when I will post)

Have fun!

This was taken at Cafe Noveau in Ventura, California a few weeks ago. Every now and then I head North to Ventura to shop their Main Street Thrift stores. I decided to stop here for a little breakfast before I hit the shops.

To see more Window Views please visit Mary at the new Window Views Blog…

Birthday Dinner at the Tam O’Shanter in Los Angeles

First off I’d like to thank you all for your sweet comments and prayers for me on my birthday. It really meant a lot for me to read them. God used them to encourage me and to bless me. I cherish my bloggy friends, those I’ve never met and those of you I have had the privilege of meeting and spending time with.

For dinner on my birthday we drove into Los Angeles just East of Griffith Park on Los Feliz to the Tam O’Shanter Restaurant, an Icon in Los Angeles. The Tam O’Shanter has been serving good food with great service since 1922. The restaurant has a Scottish influence with Robert Burns donning the walls and waitresses wearing plaid with a Tam O’Shanter on their heads.

This restaurant does traditional very well. Their quality and service have not degenerated over the years. We were very pleased with the food and service.

We both decided to go with the food that made the restaurant famous their prime rib, mashed potatoes, gravy, Yorkshire pudding, creamed corn and creamed spinach! We enjoyed the fresh and creamed horse radish, too.

We were treated to the Tam O’Shanter’s famous Chocolate Souffle for our dessert and the manager sent along a little pitcher of hot fudge sauce that was such a treat for us because it was from the famous C.C. Brown’s of Hollywood that Dear and I used to drive miles to just to enjoy their hot fudge sundaes. They were located on Hollywood Blvd. just down from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. What a fun memory. C.C. Brown’s has closed its doors but the Lawrey’s chain that owns the Tam O’Shanter bought the rights to the Hot Fudge. We split the lovely souffle in two and loaded it with the whip cream and hot fudge sauce! Oh my was that a lovely end to a wonderful meal.

C.C. Brown’s began in 1906 in downtown Los Angeles where Clarence Clifton Brown invented the Hot Fudge Sauce. In 1929 he moved the business to Hollywood, where it existed in its original form until the summer of 1996. C.C. Brown’s moved to its long-term location at 7007 Hollywood Boulevard at a time when two major landmarks –Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel — had not long been built.

Here we are at the restaurant ready to dig into our amazing souffle! See the lovely flowers? Willow dropped these off to my condo before we left for the restaurant. Clever girl she bought 5 deep pink and 8 light pink Gerbera Daisies to celebrate my 58 years. Thank you Willow.

On the way home from our wonderful time at the restaurant we talked about God’s love and how we, because of His love, offer our love to each other and to all the people God puts in our path. We are called to love. Can we really love too much??? I don’t think so. I pray that I’ll be able to increase in my love for others this new year…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

An Overnight Getaway!

Dear and my escape to Pismo Beach Sunday and Monday was wonderful. It’s going to take me a few days to get my act together and figure out what day of the week it is, though. Monday holidays always throw me off. I have a lot to share from this part of California and will be doing so over the next week or so. Here are some photos of where we stayed. This first photo is of the Sea Venture Resort.

Our room was nice with views of the beach and a private hot tub on the deck. We both had a massage in the late afternoon and then enjoyed dinner at the hotel restaurant.

The view from the restaurant was beautiful and we could hear the waves crashing. We ate well and really enjoyed the whole weekend.

It was amazing to sit in the hot tub and look up at the sky full of stars. What wonderful God we have that created such beauty for us to enjoy.

I hope to get around and see what’s been happening while I was gone. Hope your week is going well…

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother as I go through each post to delete the ugly boxes.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

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