Valentine's Past

Thirteen years ago today, I was on an airplane flying from Texas to California to visit Bob. He had planned the perfect evening with attention to detail not being forgotten. It was my first visit to Sacramento and I was so surprised to see all the almond trees in bloom. I had never even seen almond trees before and was surprised at how small the trees were. As the sun was going down Bob turned onto a dirt road and parked by a lake. It was beautiful. And that's when he asked me to marry him. I was taken by surprise, and although I wanted to say "Yes!" I needed some time to pray and think before giving my answer.

We had our first date in "Old Blue".

When we arrived at his home, I was greeted by his dog, Sugar Bear, a Rottweiler/Chow/SaintBernard mix who was not happy to see me and I held on tight to Bob's arm as we walked to the door with him telling Sugar Bear it was O.K. that I was there and to be a good dog. I wasn't sure Sugar Bear understood him, so I stuck close to Bob whenever I was outside in the yard. His home was in a beautiful setting with a year-round stream running in the front yard with park-like landscaping. As I entered the house I was surprised at what I saw! I guess I was expecting a bachelor look home, and it wasn't that at all. He had a linen tablecloth on the dining room table with a dozen red roses in a beautiful crystal vase in the center with a card laying next to the vase with my name written on it. He had made several pies and a pan of fruit rolls too !

Sugar Bear

Every year Bob makes Valentine's day special just for me and I have a whole collection of beautiful crystal vases that he has given me over the years.

The vase Bob gave me on our first Valentine's Day.

My collection of vases that Bob has given me over the years.

This Valentine's Day Bob gave me these two pieces of crystal.

Happy Birthday Adam

Happy Birthday to my newest son (in-law), Adam. I hope you had a great birthday with lots of presents, friends, and chocolate cake too!! You have brought a lot of adventure into the family with your love for outdoor activities. I'm quite sure that you have contributed to my gray-hair count with your fearless love of motorcycles, surfing, and skiing. I pray that God will bless you with many more happy birthdays with many special memories.

Love,

Mom

Promises Promises

Bob and I are so disappointed because the weather men keep promising snow, but we still don't have any new snow. On Sunday we were to get a foot to 20 inches. No snow! Today we were to receive a foot. Six miles down the road from us they received four feet! Us? No snow. Do you think that our buying snow shoes in the fall has anything to do with no snow this winter?

Canceled

At the Roosevelt Church, Bob and I help with a cooking class the second Sunday evening of each month. I did the shopping for the ingredients on Friday and we were both up "bright and early" today to start cooking and preparing the demo ingredients. I was excited about today's class because I had asked my bosses' wife to help with some of the recipes for the class and she had accepted the invitation. We were featuring Mexican food at the class and my bosses' wife is a great cook and shared four of her favorite recipes. We had also scheduled a guest speaker to come and speak about the heart.

The morning started out quite well with Bob making our breakfast of pancakes and thickened blueberries and our own maple syrup.

After our breakfast we got busy working on the cooking class recipes. Bob made eight loaves of bread for the give-away-drawing. I made the Five Can Casserole recipe and prepared the demo ingredients and then I prepared the Fajita recipe cutting onions and yellow, green, and red peppers and making the seasoning. I was in the process of putting everything into boxes and remembered that I needed index cards and small envelopes for the class so I ran upstairs to my office to get them. Then the telephone rang. The guest speaker was canceling. The weather was white-out conditions where she lived and she wasn't going to venture out in it. I called a doctor that is a member in one of our other churches asking if he could do a talk tonight. He said he would try to put something together. He wouldn't make it for the dinner but would be there in time for the lecture. Whew! I continued my packing of stuff to take to the class. Then, the telephone rang again. My bosses' wife wasn't going to be able to come because of the white-out conditions where she lived. That meant half of the food wouldn't be there. After checking on the computer for the weather conditions this evening, Bob decided that the class should be canceled. So I quickly called the "last minute" doctor that was working on a presentation to let him know of the cancelation. Then registered guests were called to let them know also. Now what to do with all this food? Bob and I had fajitas for lunch, but there is enough for the rest of the week not to mention the five can casserole. We decided that we could freeze the casserole, but I think I'm going to be tired of eating fajitas when Friday comes.

This is picture of what we have at our house and we live in the snow belt! While the others seem to be having blizzard conditions we have sunshine and blue skies. We are suppose to get one to two feet of snow between 2:00 p.m. today and 5:00 p.m. tomorrow. I hope it snows a lot!!! We haven't had much snow all winter. Last year at this time, we had several feet of snow.

Bob and I decided to make a couple of apple pies this afternoon. So I cut the apples and Bob made the crust. White he seasoned and cooked the apples, I used the left-over pie crust and made cinnamon twirl cookies.

Two pie pans ready for the filling.

Filling almost ready.

Cinnamon twirls rolled and ready to be cut.

Cinnamon twirls ready to go into the oven.

Two apple pies and cinnamon twirl cookies just waiting . . .

We have friends coming this evening to spend a couple of days with us. I hope they like fajitas and apple pie. If not, we can always pull out the five can casserole and the homemade bread.

We Made Pizza

This afternoon Ryan and Lisa and the children came over to visit and have supper with us. It was so much fun watching the kids play. Gracie prefers me over her mom or dad and that just makes my day. The kids were so sweet. When I re-organized the blue room, I weeded out five boxes of books and videos which Lisa and the boys enjoyed going through and picking out a few that they wanted. While Bob, Lisa, and Ryan were visiting in the parlor, the four kids and I went to the kitchen and made homemade pizza. The boys set the table and Gracie and Hannah helped make the pizza. They wanted mushroom, cheese, and black olive pizza. We had a hard time having enough black olives for the pizza, because all the kids kept snacking on them. I think we opened four cans of olives.

Gracie and Hannah did a good job of putting the cheese on the pizza.

After dinner, the kids went upstairs to watch a nature video. Little Ryan came down and whispered in his mom's ear and then chuckled a little and went back upstairs. Lisa told us that he said, "Mom, I think their TV came over on the ark." Bob's comment was, "I should tell him I put it on the ark."

I think Little Ryan is right. This TV is so old it might have come over on the ark. But it still works and has good color.

Valentine's Gift Early

Bob gave me my Valentine's gift today and I just love it. Over the past six or seven years, I have really enjoyed having orchids in my home. The flowers last for months and then they bloom again every year. When we moved to New York, I had to ask friends to adopt my house plants. So starting with zero plants in New York, I'm excited when I receive a new plant to use in my house (I'm not a fan of artifical plants or flowers).

This is the new orchid Bob surprised me with today. I've never had one this color. It's just beautiful and it has several buds that will be opening over the next few weeks.

This is the first orchid Bob bought for me after we moved to New York three years ago. It blooms every year at this time. (2005)

This is the orchid I received in 2006. It has six little buds and will be blooming soon.

In 2007 Bob gave me another orchid which is about to bloom again this year. Bob says he likes giving me orchids because he gets a lot of mileage out of them.

Bob made these eight loaves of multi-grain bread today. It smells so good. I think I'll go have a slice with some peach jelly that our friends Bud and Pat gave us last night. Bud enjoys making jelly and jam and we enjoy receiving and eating it.

How Much Water Should You Drink?

I'm helping with a ten week weight loss and life style change program at our church. There was a good attendance last night for the first meeting. I knew that exercise and diet go hand in hand in losing weight and that water is an important element too, but I didn't know that you are suppose to drink 1/2 ounce of water for every pound you weigh. I drank a lot of water today. It certainly curbed my appetite. I wonder what I will learn at the next meeting?