We're all packed up for our flight across the country today, and I have a bit of extra time here.
On Tuesday evening I was over at Destiny and Alex's place and took Elizer for a walk on the lovely trail behind their community. It actually goes through the woods to another community owned by the same company. Elizer loved listening to the birds. They were so noisy, but a beautiful noisy.
This week our son Ray started a new amazing job at McCormick. How cool is that? Each time I use their seasonings, which is every time I cook, I will think of him and pray for him!
I had been lamenting the fact that although Dick planted tulip bulbs last fall that were to be a variety of colors, it seemed we still had nothing but red. But look what bloomed in the flower bed at the edge of our property!!! Pink and yellow! I am so delighted!
On Thursday evening I sat here at the computer and watched the Districts Track and Field competition in Florida. Sophie was doing the 100, the 400, and the 200.
She came in first in the !00. I loved hearing George's "Go Sophie!"
In the 400 she came in second, but was SO CLOSE.
In the 200 she came in first again. Watching her run pretty much gives me tears every time. She is so amazing!!
Friday was a sunny morning and I once again thanked the Lord for my kitchen. I know I have not redecorated since we moved here in 2010, but so far it's not on my list of important things to do or spend money on.
Each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I cook dinner for Anthony and Lori's family, then I pick Austin up from school and take him and the food to their place. I had to stop and take pictures as we drove up their long driveway on Friday. I LOVE Spring!!!
On Friday evening I went over to Destiny and Alex's place to spend time with them before our trip. As usual, Elizer and I sat on the couch, covered with a blanket, and read books. I love him so much and will miss him while we're away! I'm sure we will FaceTime.
And now I gotta run!! I'll hopefully be able to post from my phone while we're at Jeremy and Mike's.
I'm so thrilled to be posting pictures of flowers again! And this is only the beginning!!
The tulips at the front of our house outdid themselves last week!! Then we had extremely hot weather on Sunday, and they started to shrivel up. I'm not sure they'll totally recover from such a shock. They handled freezing temps and snow like champs, but 83 degrees? Not so much!
Last year I decided that I'd like to have more colors of tulips besides red, so Dick bought a bag of bulbs that were various colors and planted them last fall. But when those tulips in front of the house bloomed, we could find only a few that were not red. Dick said he thinks he planted more of them in the flowerbed at the edge of our property. But the stalks were very slow in growing over there, and I didn't have too much hope. Then this morning I walked out to the car and couldn't believe my eyes! Pink and yellow tulips!! I'll get a closer pic when it's not raining.
On Friday afternoon I decided to walk through the arboretum for the first time this season. I really did expect to see tulips, but was disappointed that there were none. However, the hyacinths were gorgeous!
On Saturday Dick and I drove to our hometown, Manheim for Björn and Jess's baby shower. We visited Grandma Arlene first. We had a great time catching up. I forgot to take a picture of her this time, but I did take a picture of her beautiful orchid on the window sill. We of course were reminiscing about Dad Stauffer. Last week it was two years since the sad day he passed away. As Dick and I drove, I had been reading old blog posts to him of previous Aprils. In one post I had a sweet picture of Dad and Arlene. I saved it so I could show it to her. She looked at it and said, "Why I have those same clothes on today!" And sure enough, she did! We got a good laugh over that. That happens to Dick and me so often, and we joke that now we know how long we've been wearing the same clothes!
Then we left to go to the baby shower which was being held at a place called "Supply." We had never heard of it, but recognized the address in a more forsaken part of our home town. Were we in for a surprise!! It was a gorgeous, very modern office and event venue.
The baby shower was fun, especially because I sat at a table with sister-in-law Deb Stauffer and her daughter Laura and her little girls. They have been family to Björn ever since he came to the States from Sweden for his senior year of high school and lived with Deb and Fred.
What fun to watch them open their gifts! Their little boy will be so blessed with them for parents!
While I was at the shower Dick had been visiting with an old friend and really enjoyed catching up with him. He picked me up around 7 pm and we left for home.
As I mentioned before, Sunday was suddenly a hot summer day! Remember we had just had snow the previous Monday??
In the afternoon we went to Spring Creek Park. It is close to where Anthony and Lori used to live when we first moved to State College, and Destiny has fond memories of going there often when she was younger. It has a creek and a covered bridge to walk through.
It was so hot that people were wading in the creek! We were HOT because there were no leaves on the trees for shade!! How crazy is that?
Elizer could have climbed those steps and gone down the slide all day!
We came home to have our first hot dog roast of the season. The temp cooled off as the evening progressed. Anthony and Lori and the boys came too, and we had a wonderful evening together around the fire. Hunter and Elizer were having so much fun together with a ball and running around. In fact, I was having such a good time I forgot to take any pictures after this first one before everyone got here. I was so mad at myself. I said, "How will I ever remember that we did this???"
I'm not sure if I have mentioned here before that we are planning to leave for Portland on Saturday! Jeremy and Mike's good friends, Megan and Jordan, are getting married. Jeremy and Mike are both involved in the wedding, so we will be spending time with Brennan doing other fun things. We'll be coming home Monday, May 9. We always have a great time out there, so we're really looking forward to it.
Not sure if I'll post here before we go or not. Lots to do between now and then!
It's been a cool, dreary Thursday, so I'll start with a cheerful collage of flower pics I took last week. The daffodils and hyacinths are pretty much finished now and the tulips are bravely trying to bloom in spite of our ridiculous weather. Better days are coming! We may hit summer-like temps on Sunday, which sounds too good to be true!
And another cheerful picture taken last week! Is that not the most kissable face ever!
Last Thursday I did something I had not had the chance to do since last summer. I soaked in my big tub, complete with the jets running, lavender epsom salts, lavender bubble bath, and a candle. It was glorious!
Also on Thursday we received a very special piece of mail - a handmade card from our daughter Miki in Sweden! It really needs to be demonstrated to be believed, so here's my video.
On Friday, when I took food over to Anthony and Lori's place, the sun was shining and I took this picture of their pond. Leaves are on their way!
Sunday morning started early for us with a 6:30 am Easter sunrise service. It was 34 degrees!! It was followed by a continental breakfast and then our regular 9:00 service. What a joyous occasion! The absolute foundation of our faith in Jesus Christ!
Our wonderful flute player comes once a month, and Easter Sunday was her day for April. Here are videos of our prelude and offertory.
Dick loved playing bass with us in the prelude, Praise Is Rising. We would love to add guitar and drums!
Brenna and I played Because He Lives for offertory. I ain't what I used to be! In songs that change keys two or thee times, I occasionally forget in what key I'm playing. And I struggle more with eyesight and arthritis in my fingers. But I'm not giving up!
Dick gave me a beautiful bouquet and card for Easter.
After church I started on food prep. Ham, sweet potato pudding, and roasted green beans. I never did the green beans like that before, and we loved them! I used raw green beans, onions slices, and bacon cut into very small pieces, then roasted them in a very hot oven with seasonings and olive oil. I had also made a strawberry poke cake, which also was a hit.
Destiny, Alex, and Elizer joined us for our Easter dinner. Anthony and Lori and the boys were going to be coming, but Austin had had a pretty bad cough the few days prior, and they wanted to be cautious about bringing it indoors to us.
When Destiny and Alex arrived they gave Elizer his Easter basket to empty out. He looked so handsome in his yellow dress shirt!
After our meal I started boiling three dozen eggs and Destiny and I had fun painting them. She and Alex stuffed money and candy into a bunch of plastic eggs too. Then they hid the eggs outside.
Anthony and Lori and the boys came over around 5:30 for the Easter egg hunt. There were eggs lying right on top of the grass for Elizer to pick up, but he was not even very interested in the eggs. He was just so excited that the boys were here! Look at his face!
The boys had fun. As you can see, coats were necessary, but it really was the warmest part of the day - 56 degrees instead of 46!
Look at that cool Hunter in his shades! And how about Austin's long legs!!
I had picked up a dozen confetti eggs, and turns out, they were a real hit! It was a fun day!
If we thought Sunday was cold, then we had Monday, complete with snow! That's April in this neck of the woods!
The snow did not lay on the roads, thankfully. Destiny and Alex had planned a date afternoon and evening, so Elizer was my boy for about five hours. Because I had sent Easter dinner home with Anthony and Lori on Sunday, I did not cook for them as I usually do on Mondays. So it worked out great. I had so much fun with Elizer, and I might have gotten a little camera crazy, haha!!
He was delighted when Paw Paw came home from work, but somehow I did not get any pictures of them before we took him home around 8.
Tuesday was cold and so windy. But at least the sun melted the snow. I sincerely hope that's the last for this year, but you never know around here!
Tuesday was a special day - Dick turned 72! In the evening we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner - his favorite restaurant. The food was scrumptious as always, and too much! We each needed a take-home box. We had fun reminiscing about our teen years in Manheim Area Chorus where we met.
This is one thing I love about Spring, even when it's cold. We had this view on the way home, AFTER dinner! Oh how I love daylight evenings!
I just went outside to take a picture of my tulips in front of the house. They're popping!
It's a beautiful Wednesday morning here. Sunny and going up to 75 degrees this afternoon! We take it and appreciate it when we can, because it's never here for very long. In the past week we wondered if there were any days without rain or snowflakes. And apparently this coming Easter weekend we will go back to cold again. The "S" word is in our Monday forecast. But that's actually pretty typical of our Spring in this area. Eventually warm weather does come to stay for a few months.
Dick even mowed last evening! I had windows open and loved the fragrance of freshly mown grass wafting through the windows.
My big project last week was getting my house, especially the guest room, organized again. We had stored a lot of things from the guest room drawers and closets in Destiny's storage unit while they lived here. After their move we brought all that stuff back home. Some of it went back into the closet and drawers, some of it hit the dumpster.
Here's a view of the guest room - a collection of old furniture.
And a picture of Christ at Gethsemene hanging above the bed. I think that came from one of our parents' stuff.
One evening last week I went to Walmart with Destiny and Elizer - always a fun time. He is so pleasant and funny riding around in the cart.
Another evening he stayed here for a little while. I took this selfie while we were intently watching his favorite YouTube video of The Three Little Pigs and the BIG BAD WOLF.
My efforts to get the guest room ready was because Sammy and Bianca were coming for the weekend!! On Friday evening we met Sam and the kids at an Arby's. We had so much fun!!
After hanging out for about an hour we headed back to State College. This was a beautiful view on the way home.
The kids wanted to play LIFE with me. Amazingly I won the game!
Later Bianca sat with some of her little friends looking at a big coffee table book with them.
Sammy is learning to play xylophone at school and was playing some of his songs on the piano. I added chords and we had the greatest time playing duets!
On Saturday morning it was cold with the potential of rain, and our church was hosting an Easter egg hunt at the local township building, which had indoor possibilities. We picked up Elizer and had a really fun morning!!
At the indoor hunt they called out ages, hair color, eye color, etc to give kids turns to gather a few eggs each time.
There was also a story time and a craft. Elizer just walked around smiling at everyone. He LOVES being around other kids so much! Actually he loves people and interacting with them. It was so adorable! Eventually he sat on Sammy's lap for a while.
The weather was good enough later for outdoor games. They had a lot of fun. Elizer was the cheerleader on the side!
But really he wanted to be running around in the games.
He played with a little girl from our church who is about six months older than he. How cute are they?
Dick took him to the swings. Then it started to rain and everyone went inside. Guess who did not want to go inside even though it was raining???
We took Elizer back home to Alex when the event was finished at noon. On our way home we passed a little Pizza Hut that had take-out. So we stopped and picked up an order of personal pans for each of us and some bread sticks.
The sun was shining at that moment as we waited for our order! But a few minutes later on our way home we drove through wind and snow flurries and sleet!
We got out the Monopoly game when we got home. Sammy won because Bianca and I both went bankrupt. That's what happens when you buy too many houses and are short on cash when you land on someone's property that has a bunch of houses on it and the rent is ridiculous!!
I got busy making fried chicken in the air fryer and the kids had fun with our United States floor puzzle and playing Connect Four with Grandpa.
We took dinner over to Destiny and Alex's house. The kids had so much fun playing with Elizer in his room. They decided that the way he throws his basket ball he is the next J'von!
When we came home the kids took turns taking bubble baths in our big jetted tub. I still had a lot of music prep and practicing to do for Sunday morning, so it was a very late night for me.
Sunday morning at church Bianca took a picture of Sammy and me so I could actually see that he is now taller than me! What???? He's only ten years old! What is going on here??
After church Sammy taught Bianca how to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the piano.
The kids could hardly wait to go to Discovery Space after church. Destiny and Elizer met us there.
One more song that Sammy had just learned.
Then it was time to hit the road to meet Jenn with the kids. Sammy had a soccer practice to attend. Elizer went along with us.
After a while both boys were sleeping but not Bianca!
We took Elizer home after we got back to State College and then came home with very tired bodies and very full hearts!
On Monday morning Destiny came to do some laundry. While they were here she made breakfast for all of us. It was a cold morning, but Alex and Elizer enjoyed the sun on the porch for a while. Elizer is getting more precious all the time. It's so fun to see how excited he is to see us. He's learning so many new things and new words. He's an absolute delight.
Destiny also brought me a purple hyacinth. She said she picked that because I always paint them on my Easter eggs. I DO! Here are a few examples from years past. She's the best gift giver! It is definitely her love language.
Also on Monday was Björn's 26th birthday. I found a precious picture Miki had sent me taken when he was just a few minutes old, already nursing, and sister Katrina looking on.
In June Björn will be a dad!! What a blessed child that little boy will be!
