Larry's 80th birthday celebration Sat. Sept 6, 2014


Larry celebrated his 80th birthday on Sept 3rd but we had his celebration on Sat. Sept 6th at St. Paul Parish Hall with about 40 friends and family.  His sister, Rowena and her husband from San Diego drove up, Mark & Dena were in Colorado helping her mother get her house ready to sell so couldn't come, and Philip is in Washington DC on his Internship but they all called to wish him well.  Gary smoked the tri tips, Thomas helped grill the chicken, Emily did all the flower arrangements with big yellow beautiful sunflowers, and I got red checkered tablecloths & red napkins so it was very colorful.  Julie made Aunt Gladys' potato casserole, a fresh fruit salad, and I made the four bean salad, a broccoli/kale salad, and a bing cherry and peach cobbler which we served with vanilla ice cream so we had quite a feast!  We invited people to take food home, and the rest was used for a 50th birthday celebration the next day for Pastor Kou so there was NO waste!  It all tasted very good!!  It was very special!

Larry's 80th birthday celebration


Forty people gathered at St Paul's Parish Hall to help Larry celebrate his 80th birthday on Saturday, Sept. 6th, his birthday was the 3rd but we celebrated on the 6th.  His sister & husband, Rowena & Bruce came from San Diego, and a multitude of local friends.  Gary smoked some tri tips, Thomas helped him grill some chicken, I had made three bean salad, and a cherry and peach cobbler, Julie made a huge fruit salad, and a bunch of Aunt Gladys' potato casserole, plus Larry made a big bunch of Aunt Elaine's Calico beans  so we had a feast!  Vanilla ice cream for the cobbler so lots of food, friends and fun!  The leftovers were kept for Pastor Kou's 50th birthday celebration the next evening so nothing was wasted and we invited people to take any leftovers home they wanted.  It was a fun weekend!!

September 29, 2014


Celebrated Gary's birthday Saturday in Modesto at Emily's house after we helped trim bushes, and get the yard ready to put in sprinklers.  Blake, her friend, did the roto tilling, then rolled it and we shoveled up the Bermuda and other weeds that surfaced.  We all got a workout!  Emily barbecued delicious hamburgers, Julie made macaroni & cheese, beans and a beautiful chocolate cake!  So we had a feast!  Then tonight Gary chose the IHOP for his birthday dinner and we each had omelettes, and came home to the warm cherry pie I had baked this afternoon with a dip of vanilla ice cream of course.  It was the quart of cherries we brought back this summer from Door County, those special cherries that are so very good - Montmorency or something like that.

Spring has sprung and the Flu Bug hit both of us!!!

WOW!  Spring has sprung with temps in the 70's and about 2:30 a.m. on Friday the flu bug hit me hard - stomach flu until 2:30 p.m. Friday afternoon - then very weak and tired.  Finally got up Saturday afternoon to do some bills, Larry fixed poached eggs & toast and along with the Gatorade I begin to feel much better.  Gary brought me some beautiful red/white parrot tulips - that cheered me up and even ate part of a sub sandwich last night.  Larry woke up this morning sick to his stomach so hopefully staying in all day, rest, and some homemade chicken soup I have cooking will get us both all well again!  What a bummer!  We had planned to go up to Emily's and help install all her baseboards on Friday, have lunch & dinner with her, I had baked a peach cobbler to take along - and all those plans changed!!  One never knows what the next day will bring so enjoy each day as it comes!!

Persimmons galore!!!

I pureed 6 quarts of persimmons this week - took them to church with a recipe for persimmon bread and they were promptly taken.  This afternoon I pureed the rest of the fresh ones I had that Emily brought me and got 6 more quarts.  So will share some more as I baked 8 dozen cookies this afternoon and must say I do like the persimmon bread much better than the cookies.  The cookies seem a little dry - remind me of Aunt Anna Barth - she always made persimmon cookies. A couple ladies at church love cookies so were happy to get the pulp so maybe they have a better recipe than I used. I'll freeze these and take them to church to have after church Fellowship hour.

The start of a New Year. . . . .

Amazing weather for the second day of January 2014!!  The temp was 65 and feels like February instead of the cold, rainy weather we should have this time of year!  We're hoping for some rain - some forecasters say it will happen next week - others are not so optimistic so we'll see what happens.

Now that we're enrolled in Medicare D, we were told we could go to our Pharmacy with our WellCare ID care and get prescriptions FREE.  NOT SO!!  The only ones that are free are the generic ones -  - what interesting things we learn as we get older!  So the prescriptions my OB/GYN Dr. wrote for me last week are not generic so since they would total over $100, I'll call her tomorrow to see if she can re-write them for a generic!  Now we have learned to always ASK our Dr. to write generic drugs for prescriptions. 

I did get a new battery in my watch today - the usual jewelry store just down the street from us no longer installs batteries in watches - so suggested Walmart and they still do while you wait!  What is our world coming to?  Is everyone sending people to Walmart instead of our hometown business owners? 

Well, I guess we can be thankful we have beautiful weather, a warm house, good health, good food and excellent coffee!  What more should we ask for?  Thank you God!