Easter Meal

I didn't post any blogs for awhile towards the end of April and end of May, so you may have noticed that I am backtracking for a bit of catching up.  We had almost all of our family here for Easter this year.  Missing were daughter Bethany Jean and grandson Zach.  We had a great time with those present, including an egg hunt for a few of us who wished to search (I was among those this time....... it's been over 40 years since I hunted eggs).  Easter was a warm, bright and sunny day for once, and with little Emerson's arrival this year, we all had a grand time!

For a salad we had a Wilted Spinach and Apple Salad from the Celebrate the Rain cookbook. Please notice the beautiful colored eggs adorning it, compliments of DIL Nancy.

Besides roasted asparagus, the main course was Rosemary Walnut Chicken, from the Simply Classic cookbook.   Really, quite delicious!

Also from Simply Classics I made this Sparkling Pineapple Sangria.  Yum!

I did not snap any pictures of the wonderful  Orange and Lemon Sour Cream Cake!  Can you believe it?!?!  It hailed from the Celebrate the Rain cookbook, and was one of the most moist cakes I have every had, as well as scrumptious all the way around!

El Dia de Madre

For Mother's Day this year Darrell, Bethany and I cooked up some of the dishes that we made at cooking school in Mexico this year. I forgot to take a picture of everything, so for the soup and dessert I used our photos from the class.

Lots of tomatillos, onions, corn, tomatoes, hot peppers and avocados.....

Putting together the Tamales de Frijoles 

Sopa de Poblano 

Roasted Chicken in a Chipotle-Piloncillo-Tomatillo Salsa and the Tamales 

Salsas (top to bottom): Salsa de Pepitas, Guacamole, Salsa Frita and Salsa de Habenero 

Tarte de Chocolate

It was all very tasty and great to have the 'kids' over to enjoy it!

Cousins

 Grandchildren Olivia, Micaela (holding Emerson) and Owen. 

 Zach was not here.

Emerson in her Easter outfit

Uncle Cecil's Family

In mid February Darrell and I flew back to Missouri to visit his Uncle Cecil and cousin Pat and family.  We had met up with Uncle Cecil and his wife Bunzie about 4 years ago when we were back there for a conference for Darrell's work.  At that time Pat was away on a cruise with her husband, John, so we did not meet them.  Uncle Cecil has lived with them for 7 years.  Darrell was just a wee lad when he last saw cousin Pat, so this may as well have been his first time to get to know her!  It was a wonderful time of getting acquainted with Darrell's extended family!  A real plus is that Pat has  family pictures of days long ago, so I was able to scan them in with my new portable scanner and dump on my computer for future usage!  Really exciting for me!

 This is Uncle Cecil (left) and Kenny (Darrell's father) as young boys.  Likely the only picture taken or at least that survived the family's roaming about the country!  I sure think that grandson Owen looks an awful lot like his great grandpa!

Uncle Cecil flew B24 bombers (part of the 449th BG), as well as the Scorpion Jet during WWII, 36 missions in all.  He was able to share a few stories with us, including the need to bail out of his plane over Southern Italy after bombing Regensburg, Germany.

 I thought that this was the original bomber for the crew that Uncle Cecil flew most of his missions with.  However, the original plane, The Wise Virgin, was the one that was crashed on Feb 22, 1944 near Bari, Italy on its return from the Regensburg bombing.  Engines #3 and #4 failed.  The Wise Virgin II was its replacement.  The entire crew survived the bail-out though the pilot, Cecil Kinerd, broke his left leg and was sent back to the States.  The replacement pilot, Richard Dacey (third from left, back row) is standing next to Uncle Cecil (middle back row).

 He married Helen directly before enlisting in the Army Air Corp.  They were very happy together, until her unfortunate passing in 1988.

 His two children Bruce and Patricia celebrating his 92nd birthday with him in 2011

This visit was to say good-bye to Uncle Cecil, as he was in his final days here on earth.  He passed into eternity 2 days after we left.  We had several days with him where he was lucid enough to relate more family stories and ask questions.

Darrell and I with John and Pat

 Darrell's cousin Bruce and his wife Becky.  We did not get to meet them, as they live in Florida, so this is a picture of a photo :-)  We did, however do some Face Time on iPads with Bruce!

Pat's oldest, Matthew, with his wife, Stephanie, and their two children Madeleine and Elijah.  We did spend some time with this entire family!  Darrell and Madeleine did some baking together, and Elijah seemed to take a real liking to Darrell, cozying right up to him! 

 Pat's youngest, Melissa, and her husband, Matthew Mustain, and their children Thomas and Amelia.  Though we did get to spend time with Melissa and the kids, Matthew was not around, so again, I took a picture of a photo.  Sweet Amelia was 4 months old when we were there, and 'jumping bean' Thomas, two.

The entire family was so hospitable, friendly, sweet and fun!  We totally enjoyed ourselves and wish we'd made the effort to get to know them way sooner than this!

We were wondering what John and Pat's children would be called in relation to us, and I came upon this chart, which answers all sorts of those type questions, on FaceBook last week.  For those of you who always wondered...........  here it is!!!!  Enjoy!

Emerson Grace

Our oh-so-cute granddaughter Emerson was born early Monday morning to Scott and Bethany

Two sets of proud grandparents visited the little sweet pea soon thereafter :-}

For other pictures follow this link to Bethany's blog...

Family Christmas

This past Sunday brought us all together for a time of Christmas Cheer!

Love these times together :-}

Thanksgiving 2011

I am truly posting another SmileBox........ not a scam, though family may be the only ones interested in it :-}

This free photo slideshow created with Smilebox

The Other Side

The end of September saw us flying to Palms Springs to visit Darrell's family, as well as catch some intense sunrays:-}  A few brothers live in the Palm Springs surrounding cities, and his mom and a couple of other brothers live in the Loma Linda area.

It was good to see everyone, as it as been four years since we have been down south!

Family Gathering

This past weekend we drove down to Oregon the visit my brother and his wife who were at my sister's home visiting our father.  They are home on furlough from Africa.

Ginny, Shirley, Dad and Ken 

Ken and Julie 

Steve (Ginny's husband) 

Bethany drove up from her place to join in, so we celebrated her 25th birthday together!

Julie and Bethany

It was a great visit with family, as Jodi and Kari's families also joined in!

Summer III ~ Fort Stevens

In July our family met up with my sister's family for a camping trip at Fort Stevens on the coast of Oregon.

 Ian took Lela, Ryan and Ginny up for an aeriel tour in the plane they flew down in.

 The campground is right by this lake.

 20 years ago we camped together at Fort Stevens also, and snapped this picture of the cousins.  My sister had the photo put onto mugs at the time.  Good thing, because I cannot find any pictures in my albums from that trip!  Hard to believe a camera addict like myself did not take pictures of a fun time! We tried to duplicate it but could not remember the order they were all in!

 The Stanley Clan

Hope to do this camping trip again in the near future!

Murder Mystery Dinner Cruise !

We had a great time Friday night on the Murder Mystery Dinner Cruise celebrating Darrell's 60th birthday!

We caught the boat at pier 56 and toured around in the Puget Sound while the dinner and murder took place.

Unbeknownst to Darrell, we had set him up to be one of the 8 suspects!

Suspect information after interviewed by the detectives (based on the form Bethany J filled out beforehand)

The buffet dinner was delicious (seafood, beef tenderloins and pasta).  We were supposed to be figuring out the clues during this time.

As it turned out, both Darrell and another suspect, Joe, were arrested for the murders of Mike Steal and Captain Skippy! (the dinner/murder theme was loosely based on the old Gilligan's Island Show, so beach was the theme).

The Solution!

I believe a good time was had by all :o}