In Waikiki

When we were in Waikiki in 1987 I was convinced that the best place to stay there was the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, although that was not where we stayed. I was wrong. This is the best place to stay -- Moana Surfrider Resort. It is right on the ocean almost right next to the Royal Hawaiian. The header picture was taken from their website. All the rest of the pictures are ones we took.

We were on the 16th floor. There were two balconies off our room. One overlooked the ocean and one overlooked the city. Here are shots from those two balconies.

If you look very closely you can see surfers out in the water. The waves weren't coming in very good so they were mostly floating around out there.

Here's a "zoomed" picture of the surfers.

There is our daughter (in the white top) and son (in the blue shirt). We shot this (zoomed) picture from our balcony looking down on them. I thought that was very interesting. We knew they were out walking and would be coming along that way. I called them on the cell phone and told them we would be taking their picture. They stopped there and were looking up at us.

Here's that same area as it was getting dark and the lights were coming on. Sooo pretty.


This picture was taken on the beach side of our hotel.

Mahalo for looking at our pictures. Mahalo means "thank you". The only word we heard more there was Aloha. I'm not sure. Maybe we heard mahalo more.

ALOHA! ! ! I've been gone for over a week but now I'm back home. The header picture was our "home away from home" for a few days.

Our wonderful children took us on a trip to Oahu and Kauai for our 50th wedding anniversary celebration. Our actual anniversary is not until in July, but this was a better time for us to go. I took over 300 pictures on the trip and our daughter took almost that many so I'll be posting pictures the next few days. I haven't downloaded them to the computer yet.

Thanks to the new schedule ahead posting that just became available, I was able to go ahead and post stuff while we were gone.

I've missed visiting other blogs and it will take some time to get caught up. I'm really going to be busy for a long time. Besides all the blogging I'm planning to make a DVD of our trip. So much to do -- so little time.

ALOHA! ! !

Doll Room Things

Thought today I would share a few more things in my doll room. Now that I think about it, I may have already shared the first picture. But, hey, if I can't remember if I did, you're not likely to remember it, so here it is. (I just went back and checked, and yes, I did post this back in January. I'll go ahead and leave it here. Some of you may not have seen it.) This was one of my stained glass projects. I made this frame for my 3rd grade class picture. That's me, fifth from the left, middle row.

This is a pretty handkechief that I sandwiched in between two pieces of glass and finished the edges like stained glass.


I showed you the top shelf of this when I wrote about my cat collection, but here is the rest of it. The small old photo at the bottom is a picture of my grandmother when she was young.

Blasphemy

The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” – John 10:31-33

Jesus’ opponents were quite clear about one thing; Jesus was not merely a nice man running good-natured errands for the neighbors. He was either the very God or a blasphemer. Their accusations, while wrong, at least showed that they understood the issue.
Read Leviticus 24:16 for background.

Taken from A Year With Jesus by Eugene H. Peterson

People need to make up their minds about Jesus. Too many believe that he was just a good man. If he was not who he claimed to be, he was not a good man. He was either a liar or extremely mentally disturbed. I choose to accept him for who he said he was, the Son of God.

Chocolate Shirts

Have you ever owned a chocolate shirt? I have two of them. What is a chocolate shirt you ask? It is a shirt that has been dyed with chocolate and smells like chocolate. Whew, what could be better?

Both of these shirts were obtained in San Diego at the Seaport Village Shops. The first one is probably – oh I don’t know – maybe 8 or 10 years old. I’ve had it a long time. It lost its chocolate smell long ago, but I still like it. The second one I bought last summer. Here are some pictures.

This is the first shirt.

This is on the back of that shirt.

Here is the front of the 2nd shirt. I almost didn’t buy it because of the words on it, but my sweet Hubby assured me it would be OK.

There are similar shirts that are dyed with dirt instead of chocolate. They are pretty – sort of a rust color. (I didn’t smell them so I don’t know if they smell like dirt. Probably not, who would want a shirt that smelled like dirt?) I considered getting one of those, but with a choice between chocolate and dirt, what would you choose? I’d say that is a “no brainer.” OK, Connie, I know your thoughts on chocolate and dirt, so I’m guessing you would choose dirt.

An Old Tattered Picture

Here’s something that might be of interest to someone. At least it is of interest to me, ha ha.

Back on March 15 in one of my memes, I told about meeting my future husband in the summer when I was 11 years old while I was visiting in Oklahoma. After I went back to California, we started writing to each other. We wrote quite a few letters back and forth. During that time, I sent him this picture of me. He carried the picture in his wallet for years. That’s why it’s so tattered. Awe, isn’t that sweet? I think it is. We met in 1948. We got married in 1958.

This picture was made at the same time. See what good shape it’s in – not tattered at all. I was in the 7th grade here. I remember the skirt well because I made it. About that time I started doing a lot of sewing.

My Cathedral Window Quilt

I’m not sure if it was in the 70s or 80s that I started this quilt. I think it was in the 70s. I got it about half finished and abandoned it for several years. I finally got back to it and finished it. It was really a lot of work. Each square was done individually and then sewed onto the next one. When it was finished it was finished – didn’t need to quilt it. Each square started out as a 9 inch muslin square. It was folded several times and then the print square was stitched into it. That is not a good description I realize, but it’s the best I can do. Oh goodie, I just looked online to see if there was anything about a Cathedral Window Quilt, and found this site that tells all about it. If you’re interested you can click on it. Here’s the site: Cathedral Window Quilt. It was all done by hand. No machine work at all. Now it’s just folded up and put away in one of our closets. I did use it on the bed for a long time as a bedspread. No, not a bedspread, I guess you would call it a “coverlet”. This was our bedroom in the last house we lived in before we moved here.

A Beautiful Quilt

As I have previously stated, my husband was a pastor for almost 50 years. He went into the full-time ministry in 1957, after he graduated from college. We were married the next year. These years of ministry were spent in four churches, three in California and one in Arizona. Every one of these churches was a great experience, and we were treated wonderfully well (for the most part) at each church. The above picture was taken at church during our ministry at our last California church. The ladies had put their quilt making skills together and made this beautiful quilt as a surprise for us. I was so glad the main color was pink. I think someone there knew that was my favorite color. These little pillows were cute too that one of the ladies made. I made a quilt while we were there too. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day I’ll show you that one.

Happy Monday

I hope all of you had as happy a Mother's Day as I did. Church was very good. A 99 year old woman played the piano for the offertory - a medly of Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art. It was amazing. She got an extended standing ovation. Ordinarily my kids take me to a restaurant for lunch on Mother's Day, but this time my daughter fixed lunch. We had a delicious lunch and a nice relaxing day. Here is a picture of the desserts she bought at a place called the Wicked Bakery. Yum yum. I had some of each of these delicious things (except one). Maybe that's why I'm up a pound this morning. I may have to quit weighing again. It can be so depressing.

We are going to be very busy this week doing some special things with our kids. I won't have as much time as I usually do to spend at the computer visiting my bloggin' friends. I'll have some interesting things to share with you later on.

Mother's Day

My children are very thoughtful of me on Mother's Day, and every day for that matter. The best part of the day is just being with them. My daughter always chooses unique gifts. One year she framed these pictures for me. The pictures from left to right are my grandmother, my mother, me and my daughter. Originally the frame was a natural wood color. That was the way it was for a long time, but when we painted the wall where it hangs, I painted the frame to match.

I couldn't get a good shot of the picture without using the flash, and that accounts for the light reflection. Incidentally, the rosebush was in our yard in California.

Birdcage Picture

When I was posting the picture of my birdcage in the doll room yesterday, it reminded me of this picture of a birdcage in our powder room. I found this picture at Marshall's Home Goods so it was quite inexpensive. When we redid our floors with the Travertine stone we also put the stone in this room, repainted the walls and had a new toilet installed. The old one wasn't working very well and we thought this would be the ideal time to replace it since the old one would have to be taken up anyway. You'll never believe how much trouble I had deciding on a replacement stool. Finally decided on this one. It's a Toto toilet. I had never heard of Toto toilets before I started doing research for this one. I really really love it. You love a toilet, Charlotte? Well, yes, I do love this one. If we ever replace another one, it will be a Toto.

Here is a closer up view of the birdcage picture.

P.S. When my Hubby saw this post, his comment was "You're scraping the bottom of the barrel now."

On the High Ledge in the Doll Room

We've been in the doll room several times before, but today I want you to look up higher to see what we have on the high ledge.

Here are those three objects closer up.

To the left is a mission birdhouse my Hubby made. We had it in the family room for awhile on the top of an armoir. When we moved the armoir out, there was no place in there to put the birdhouse, so I suggested we put it in the doll room. I love it there. This is one of my favorite of many many birdhouses he made.

Meet the Laulu family. On the left is Mr. Laulu. Santa brought him to my son when he was about 3 years old. He immediately started calling him Laulu. He liked that bear so well that the next Christmas Santa brought him Mrs. Laulu and baby Laulu. He had a pretty big bear collection when he was little, but Laulu was always his favorite. When he outgrew the bears, I didn't have the heart to get rid of these three, so I've kept them all these years. Along the way I had to make a new body for Laulu. He was just loved to pieces.

I love this pink birdcage. Partly because I love pink, partly because I love birds, partly because I love birdcages. Mostly I love it because my daughter gave it to me not long after we moved here. Some of our friends from California were visiting right after I got the birdcage, and they thought it needed some birds in it, so they bought the two little birds for it while they were here.