Family Birthdays

As mentioned in yesterday's post, our youngest granddaughter, Ellie, turned 14 on July 4th.  Here's some pics from the birthday party.

Daughter-in-law, Samantha [who'll be celebrating a birthday on July 14th] and Ellie.

  

The birthday girl with her ice cream cake.

~ Blowing out the candles ~ 

~ Samantha, Ellie and Jeremy ~

Our oldest granddaughter, Tiffany, is back in Michigan for a brief visit and will celebrate her 35th birthday on Tuesday.  She, her husband, and their two little girls moved to Oceanside, CA three years ago and today is the first we've seen them since their move.  When they lived here, El Charro's Mexican restaurant was one of their favorites, so that's where we went today after church.

~ Tiffany, John, Juliette [Jules] and Evelyn [Evie] ~

Tiffany's complimentary birthday ice cream.

Salvation, Health, Family and Friends are my greatest blessings from God.  It's been a great weekend!

Happy Birthday America and Ellie!

Today's the day for celebrating our country's 250th Birthday.  The U.S.A. is my cup of tea!

I began my morning with a red, white and blue breakfast!  Blueberry green tea is in my cup.

Our youngest granddaughter, Ellie, turns 14 today also.  She just returned from a historic vacation with her dad and I'm anxious to hear all about it today.

Way back in 1963 [when I had just completed my sophomore year of high school] I went to Washington D.C. with my parents and have a photo of my Dad and me standing on the Capitol steps.  Jeremy replicated that photo with him and Ellie on his recent trip, saying the railing project in the background had been completed.  ;-)  Little did I realize that 63 years later I'd have a son and granddaughter standing on the same steps.  How quickly time passes and history repeats itself.

They covered a lot of historic territory [four states plus Washington D.C.] on their trip and sent a few pics along the way.  I'll hear more details and see more pics later today when we get together to celebrate Ellie's birthday.

~ Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. ~

~ Mt. Vernon in Virginia ~

 U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.  Ellie's standing by 'Navy Bill' the goat mascot.

 Where's a picture with a Naval Cadet?  ;-)

~ The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ~ 

~ Independence Hall ~

At one point in Jeremy's career he was a high school history teacher so I know he enjoyed every minute of this trip and I'm sure Ellie did too.

I'll share more pictures tomorrow of her birthday celebration.  We're hoping Mother Nature will be kind and hold off the predicted thunder storms because it's an outdoor party.  I'm all ready to go, wearing my patriotic 'Spilling the Tea' T-shirt.

How are you spending the holiday?

P.S.

Jeremy texted after I published this post asking if we wanted to see his recent trip pics on our TV screen before going to the gathering, and we said yes.  What great pics of a trip neither he nor Ellie will ever forget. Before leaving he wanted to take a picture of his dad and me standing behind the patriotic grouping on my dining room table. I had more fun changing and rearranging it before the 4th ever got here.  I put some things on a nearby cabinet too.

And Mother Nature didn't hold off the rain.  We had two downpours that sent everyone running for cover.  Many in our area are without power since Friday.  Fortunately, we still have power at our house.

 

A Wonderful Day at Church

I always enjoy going to church, but today was especially full of wonderful happenings.  New members were received into our fellowship, the sermon series in 1st Samuel continued, and just as Saul was anointed for his leadership role, the pastoral staff anointed all those who wanted God's guidance and blessings upon their individual ministries.  And not to be excluded, was the enjoyable short highlight by the children who had just completed four days of Vacation Bible School. 

It's heartwarming when children learn about Jesus at a young age and carry it with them into adulthood.  I remember going to VBS [Vacation Bible School] when I was a child.

My daughter-in-law, Sharon, is the Children's Director.

The setting was Ireland, and the children learned that Jesus is their Good Shepherd.

Two of the VBS volunteer teachers.

When church was over the kids and the 'young-at-heart' adults were greeted outside by a bagpiper...

a pen of live sheep...

and a Good Humor Ice Cream truck for everyone to select the ice cream treat they wanted.

I'm thankful I made the decision to allow Jesus to be my Good Shepherd.  I hope you have too.

More June Happenings

Yesterday was a great day as we honored our fathers - present and past.  Our daughter Lori coordinated a dinner at Ike's Lebanese restaurant for us after church to honor her dad [Jerry], her husband [Dave], her brother [Steve] and Sharon's dad [Larry].  I didn't think about taking pictures until we were all done eating and ready to leave.

Jeremy was honored by his family in Zeeland, but sent his greetings.

My wonderful father has been gone from this world since April 2011 but never from my heart.

In anticipation of the 4th of July and our nation's 250th birthday I ordered this T-shirt which recently arrived in the mail.

Below is my current dining room table decorations for July 4th.  I saw some cute patriotic nutcrackers at Hobby Lobby that I regret not purchasing and I'm sure they're sold out now. The last time I was there they were starting to display all their fall decor, and summer didn't officially begin until yesterday.

Update!!!

After I finished this post, I decided to make a quick trip to Hobby Lobby to see if per chance that had any patriotic nutcrackers left.  To my delight, there were three left on the shelf and two came home with me, as well as a cute little red, white and blue pick-up truck that lights up.  I love their addition to the vignette.

You can see what I mean about stocking the shelves for fall merchandise in the photo below. These are just two photos I took while standing in the check-out line.  There were more aisles of merchandise that I didn't photograph.  I'm not even remotely ready to think about fall yet.

~ Happy summer even if the stores are trying to make us think fall!  ~

60th Anniversary

My hubby and I celebrated 60 years of marriage on Thursday, June 11th.  Our youngest son, Jeremy, made a quick trip from Zeeland to spend Wednesday night with us and take us to breakfast on Thursday morning before my hubby headed off to his summer G.M. Student Corps job. 

Sixty years have passed so quickly.  So thankful for God's blessings throughout our marriage and the wonderful children He has given us.

~ Then [1966]

~ Now ~

In the evening, after Jerry returned from work, we met Steve and his family for an Anniversary dinner at Da Francesco's Italian restaurant.

L-R: Dominic, Granddaughter Brooke, Sharon, Steve, Me & Jerry 

We had to wait until August to find a date that worked for everyone to celebrate with all the family on a Detroit Princess Riverboat Dinner Cruise.  We're all looking forward to that.

Praying that God grants us several more anniversaries to celebrate.  

New Dishes & National Iced Tea Day

My name is Phyllis Barkey and I'm a dishaholic!  [There should be a dishaholics annonymous for people like me!  ;-)]

I've been busy purging things at my house lately [so the task won't be so overwhelming for my kids someday], and I've had fairly good success selling things I was willing to part with on Facebook Marketplace.  

Yesterday, I took a break from my sorting to check emails.  In my inbox was the latest post from a blog I follow,  Home Is Where the Boat Is.  It's not a blog about boats [although Mary does live on a lake and has a nice pontoon].  Two of her passions are gardening and collecting dishes.  She shares photos of beautiful, creative tablescapes she puts together with her many sets of dishes and frequently provides recipes too.  Yesterday's post was titled 'Oh My Stars & Stripes:  Patriotic Summer Table for America's 250th Birthday.'

The dishes in her tablescape were so lovely.  At the end of her posts she shares where she obtained her dishware, cutlery and linens.  Many times they're from businesses that no longer have a brick and mortar store but sometimes they're recent purchases. The dishes in yesterday's post were recently purchased at Hobby Lobby, so I grabbed my purse and headed to the nearest Hobby Lobby quicker than the blink of an eye!   To my delight they were 40% off, but with a sale that good their inventory was low - so I only got service for three.   I'm a 'never say die' person [especially if it's something I want bad enough], so after visits to three other Hobby Lobby stores I finally got service for eight.   I'm a happy lady and my kids will have to deal with dispensing them when the time comes.  ;-)

I already had Melmac Patriotic Dishes that I purchased eons ago and will still keep them for outdoor eating and picnics, but these are so much nicer for an indoor tablescape.

Today is National Iced Tea Day and I've got a pitcher of tea cooling right now for dinner.   It's a steamy 89 degrees with 55% humidity in southeast Michigan as I type this post, and we have a heat advisory.  A glass of iced tea will taste very good.

Below are two pics I took on precious National Iced Tea days.   You will recognize the one from my header above.

A pic of my hubby and me enjoying a glass of iced tea in Charleston, South Carolina a few years back.

I hope you will enjoy a glass of iced tea today!

Memories

Today is daughter-in-law Sharon's birthday.  We took her out to lunch after church for her birthday, but I forgot to take any pictures.  The picture below was taken in 2013 at the Indianapolis Propylaeum tearoom.   It's a bittersweet birthday for her as her mother [who she was very close to] passed away the end of April.  Their birthdays are two days apart, so they always celebrated together.  Happy Birthday, Sharon.  You are loved!

I had just finished washing my hair this morning when our power went out and it wasn't expected to come back on until after 12:00 noon.  No blow dryer or curling iron to get ready for church! Ug! At first I was just going to stay home and watch the service online while hubby went without me, but then I realized I could take my curling iron to church and curl my hair in the ladies' restroom before church started.  I'm glad I didn't stay home because I would have missed seeing some very dear friends who visited today.

Wes & Marcia were the youth pastor and spouse at the church we attended [and where I was church secretary for 22 years] when our kids were growing up.  They had an incredible spiritual influence on them during their teen years and contributed greatly to who they are today.  Wes retired from active ministry last week.  He spanned youth ministry to senior adult ministry and everything in between.  Marcia said there's really not a lot of difference between the youth and seniors as long as there's pizza at the events.  ;-)  Today was their first free Sunday of retirement and Wes said they wanted to spend it visiting Steve's church.

Wes & Marcia are the couple on the left, and the rest of us attended church together when our kids were younger and now we're all at Steve's church.  Who would have imagined that the young questioning, energetic teenage boy would one day become a pastor!  

Wes commented on the above picture after one of the ladies posted it on Facebook that he could write a book about the memories from this group.  It was just like old times to be together for worship.   Friends [and great memories] are one of God's greatest blessings.

Steve probably contributed to a few of Wes' white hairs from when he was in the teen youth group!  ;-)

Our daughter, Lori, on the right with Wes & Marcia was in their teen youth group too.

Lori's husband, Dave, was also in Wes' youth group a few years ahead of Lori.

It's been a great day!  God is good!