Fave Five on Friday!

 

1. Well it will be no surprise that at the top of my favorites for this past week is spending extra time with all my children. (And it hasn’t been a soap opera). On Saturday we did our belated family Christmas with stockings and Dear’s Swedish pancakes for breakfast. Later on that same day we had a birthday dinner for our daughter Katie. Since we will be in California for both Josh and Dan’s January birthdays we are celebrating tonight with a dinner for them.

2. It’s always great to see all the guys working together. Here they are shoveling snow off the drive to our house and two of our neighbor’s houses. We are really pleased the snow has almost disappeared.

3. I’ve been talking about wanting some more substantial nativities and Dear bought me both these sets for Christmas. They are both very different and I like them very much.

 

4. We revived a favorite dessert from days gone by this week that has always been enjoyed. You cook up vanilla pudding and while it is still hot you pour it over a generous scoop of good chocolate ice cream. Yum you get some great hot and cold and added creamy goodness in every bite!  Having Dear’s wonderful Tomato Rice Peasant Soup was so good, too!

 

5. On New Year’s Day we met our dear friends Dave, Jody, Bob and Jan at McCormick and Shmicks Restaurant in Downtown Seattle for Happy Hour. It was wonderful sitting and talking for a couple hours over great Happy Hour Menu food. We had Salmon burgers, Black Bean Chicken Quesadillas and Oysters for $1.95 each! We also tried the Cod sandwich which was $3.95 and delicious! Sheesh, can’t beat that with a stick! We love these friends who we’ve gone through thick and thin with…

 

To see more Fave Fives or to join on in visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

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.

Will They Make It?

 

These were some of the skies about and above the Santa Monica Mountains today in Camarillo, California.

 

This is what the neighborhoods look like in the Seattle area right now.

Our 4 kids have airline tickets to fly from the Seatac Airport to the Long Beach Airport Tuesday evening. We are hoping and praying that their flight will not be cancelled and that they will make it here. This is the first time in 16 years we are all gathering with the Bagdanov extended family for Christmas Eve. The last time ellen b’s immediate family attended the celebration was in 1992! We felt it was high time for us all to attend this annual event. My parents, our kid’s grandparents, are 85 now and we wanted our kids to experience this event with them again now that they are all adults. If our kids make it down and if Lana G. and her husband make it down there will be 35 of us celebrating in Huntington Beach at my sister Vera and her husband Nick’s house.

So all of this to just get personal and let you know that I will keep busy tomorrow so I don’t fall into worry mode over whether Seatac gets it’s act and de-icer together to get those planes in the air again!

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.

Blue Monday ~ Seattle to San Francisco

Welcome to Blue Monday hosted by Smiling Sally. My photos this week are from the Seattle area and from San Francisco.

 

Over Thanksgiving we made at trip to Ste Michelle Winery and enjoyed their fabulous Peacock tree and Tree Topper and wreath. Then we went outside and met their inspiration, this wonderful peacock!

 

From Seattle I flew to San Francisco to meet up with Dear who was attending the American Society of Hematology conference and here is some blue from this very interesting city.

 

Hope you enjoyed my Blue this week. Enjoy your Monday and new week!

Visit Sally at Smiling Sally to see more Blue Monday Posts.

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.

Thankful in Washington…

 

What fun we had waiting together at the Long Beach Airport for our flight to Seattle. My brother Tim and his wife Letty, my sister Lana, and Dear. We were all set and ready to go in total vacation attitude. Seattle here we come.

 

Got home to a very clean house with fresh linens on Dear and my bed and in the Guest room for our Thanksgiving company, Tim and Letty. Thank you Katie! The maple tree has lost all it’s leaves and our son Dan had them all raked up and the yard looked nice. The pot belly stove is warming up the house and we are settling in for a wonderful holiday with family and friends. The view from my bedroom window couldn’t be better!

I hope you all have a wonderful extended weekend here in the U.S.A. and enjoy your turkey and all the trimmings with joy and thanksgiving. Blessings…

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!

Fridays Fave 5

This hasn’t been one of my favorite weeks for sure because of Dear and I getting sick and being “In” all weekend and Monday. But that won’t stop me from finding 5 things that made my week, anyway!

1. Seeing this photo of all my kids together having fun with two of their cousins at the Japanese Gardens in Seattle.

 

Niece-Michelle, Daughter-Katie, Niece-Melissa, DIL-Laura, Son-Dan, Son-Josh

2. Cracking myself up creating these Turkey Cookies!

 

3. Meeting my niece Michelle and my Grand Nephew Jackson at the Pumpkin Patch!

4. Hearing that our 911 neighbor is moving out soon. Hopefully peace will be restored around here…

5. My last Fave is having a little Attitude Adjustment at the Beach on Thursday morning this week.

 

I’m throwing in a few more photos of my kids from the Japanese Gardens as a bonus for ME! :0)

My Boys (Men)

Josh and Laura!

My Niece Michelle (Jackson’s mom) and daughter Katie.

 

Thanks Michelle for letting me steal these photos of you all at the Garden!

For more Fave 5 visit Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage demanding a ransom that I can’t afford. So frustrating as I try to clean up my posts and delete their ugly squares of black and grey off my blog posts!

Cousins in Seattle

 

Two of our 3 nieces on Dear’s side of the family travelled to Seattle from New York and Los Angeles last weekend for a cousin reunion. Our third niece Kacie is still in highschool and didn’t make the trip. The great thing about this reunion is that it was all initiated on the cousins’ part not the Aunts’ and Uncles’. The Aunts and Uncles were in Southern California and all the cousins but one were in Seattle. What a blessing for our family that we all love each other.

Top left photo our son Dan, niece Annie, niece Jenna, our son Josh. Top right in the back our DIL Laura, Jenna, Dan, Annie and Josh. Our daughter Katie with her boyfriend Ben. Bottom Dan, Annie, Jenna. Bottom right our son Josh and Dil Laura. Is it just me or do these cousins resemble eachother?

Bear with me as I experiment with these collages. I stole all these photos from my DIL Laura and just love seeing my kids and nieces so it’s been fun creating these with their faces that I don’t see as often as I would like to…

 

Hey Josh! Look what I saw at Trader Joe’s today. If you were a wine lover I would have bought you a case!

Photobucket is holding my photos hostage from 2007-2015 and replacing them with an ugly black and grey squares demanding money to release them, so frustrating.

Fun in Seattle!

Our short time in Seattle has been filled to the brim with activity, work, and just plain fun. On Friday night after a day of working in the basement and around the house we went out to our favorite Mexican Restaurant with all of our kids except for Dan. (He was in Colorado Elk hunting). It’s fun to go to a restaurant where the staff knows us and comes over and wants to know how long we’ll be in town this time. :0)

 

On Saturday Lana G. and I went to our favorite shopping place…the Goodwill! We have a tradition that whoever spends the most on these shopping trips has to treat for lunch. We had some very good finds at Goodwill and Lana managed to spend the most so lunch was on her. (Oh I’ll be showing my goodies later this week) We have always been intrigued with Burgermaster but never stopped in before. Saturday was the day and it was a load of fun. It’s a drive in and dine in your car place. The staff comes up to your car window to take the order and they deliver it there, too. Lana and I had a great time. Our server was very happy to have his photo taken! After dropping our goodies off at home we zipped over to Ste Michelle and Columbia wineries to pick up some wine and to take some photos of fall color.

 

We came home and our kids made dinner for us to celebrate Dear’s belated birthday. Dan made it home from Colorado just in time for dinner and it was so nice to all be together for this meal. In the collage Columbia Winery is in the top right photo and Ste Michelle Winery is in the bottom left. They are across the road from each other. Lana G., her husband Steve, and Katie’s boyfriend Ben joined us for dinner. Oh and that is Lana donning the pirate garb!

Yikes we fly back to L.A. on Monday evening and we still have a mile long list of things we want to do before we leave. I’ll be back to visiting my bloggy friends on Tuesday. Have a great week everyone…

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage on their site. All my photos that I stored and uploaded from that site are now big ugly black and grey boxes with a message to pay big bucks to get them restored to my blog. It will take me a long time to restore thousands of posts.

Fridays Fave Five

First off I’m so excited about everyone’s suggestions for San Francisco. Thank you so much for taking the time to tell me about your favorite experiences there!

This week I’m going to share my 1 favorite thing from this week and 4 of my many favorite things about Fall.

1. Top of my list this week is flying on Thursday to our Home outside Seattle, Washington to do a little work around the house and get it ready for the fall months ahead. Of course the best part of the long weekend will be spending some time with our kids.

Now for 4 Favorites about Fall I’m looking forward to.

2. Enjoying the Fall colors!

 

3. I’m a Christian who happens to love Halloween. I don’t worship evil on this day, I get to see many children and adults from my neighborhood that I don’t normally see and give out candy which makes my heart glad! It’s a form of hospitality on a large scale in my mind…

 

4. Lots of good hot soup and bread never tastes as good as it does in the Fall!

 

5. Thanksgiving has to be at the very top of the Favorite Fall Celebration. This photo was taken way back in 2004 before I was blogging and before I thought to take a photo before we ate instead of after. :0)

 

For more Fave Five on Friday visit our hostess Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!