Celebrating 50 Years of Marriage

My parents were married on November 2nd, 1963. 50 years this fall!

The first celebration of this milestone was held this past Saturday in Calgary (where I was born and raised.) It was also my dad's 80th birthday. Over 100 people attended the party at Brentview Baptist Church. It was a reunion for me since I saw many people who I hadn't seen in 10 years or more. I went by myself and so many people said "did you bring your boys with you?" or "is your husband here?"

My mom, my uncle Gordon, and I sang Keep on the Sunny Side of Life and my mom and Gordon sang We are so Blessed. My uncle Willis is a great accompanist.

I made a video about my parents' life together but due to technical difficulties we weren't able to get it up on the big screen for everyone to see. My father in law wrote the following poem for the occasion.

Celebrating Fifty Years Together

 As we look down the corridor of the years,

What is it there so congenially appears?

As together woven are two threads of life,

To become from different paths both man and wife.

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Once to a choir two fine people went to listen,

Thereafter soon their eyes did they not glisten!

As of each other they were truly much in awe,

As wondrous things they in each other saw.

One evening as a little blue truck trundled down a road,

Only one couple therein did make up the little load.

Then Howard said to Eunice, “Doubt I shall never,

That we a splendid future can make sure together”.

Then said Eunice, “I think just have I seen the light,

So doubt I shall never that you are completely right”!

And so did a great adventure thus begin,

Acclaimed indeed by all of both kith and kin.

Four years hence did Sheila come on board,

And thereby add so much to their sweet accord.

A farming enterprise then became their way of life,

A venture that called for effort by both man and wife.

Indeed here to show cleverly and quick her true mettle,

Eunice at the controls of combine did masterfully settle.

But then did the big city beckon with such a strong allure,

As prospects for a better life did emphatically assure.

There discovered Howard that for numbers had he a flare,

So as an accountant plied he his talent with great care.

Now too they travelled to people in missions to lend aid,

And in Wycliffe’s good service their talents they displayed.

For Eunice too her talents took on a major new form,

As worked she with diligence for the Party of Reform.

Then upon retirement no longer did Calgary excite,

So from this charming city up they rose and took flight.

Victoria it was that for them seemed just the place,

Thither then their footsteps did eagerly they trace.

In that lovely old city with climate too so kind,

Carving out a new life them happy you will find.

Meanwhile to distant Ottawa did Sheila make a move,

Which soon for her was life-changing great to prove.

For in that bustling city her Jonathan she did meet,

Which for them both a meshing circle did complete.

Then soon off they dashed to Seattle’s pleasant shore,

There work to begin and see what all it had in store.

There too with two sons they Howard-Eunice grandparents made,

Who their delight at such great news they everywhere displayed.

As they still in Victoria bask in their happy estate,

Their fifty years together we here gladly celebrate,

And God’s good blessing we wish will on them further rest,

And that the years to come may yet be for them the best.

He really has a gift for writing! My dad made a short speech and gave tribute to my mom.

The oldest person who attended was my dad's cousin Doris. She held my dad as a baby!

My mom's brothers both attended. My uncle Willis lives in Arizona and my uncle Gordon lives in southern Alberta.

Here are my cousins (who attended the event) on my dad's side. They are all children of my deceased uncle John.

Here are some of my cousins on my mom's side.

My mom's maid of honour (in 1963) attended and helped with the event.

I made these tablecentre decorations with mason jars. This is one side with a current photo.

This is the other side of the jar with their 1963 wedding photo.

There will be another celebration held on their actual anniversary in November.

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One Thousand Gifts #334 to #344

Whoops! This is overdue!!!

334. a visit from Grandma back in August. It was fun to have her here during the summer and show her my garden in bloom.

335. back to school means increased time by myself

336. my minivan which allowed me to take 2 of our neighbour friends with us for blueberry picking

337. my husband instilling an enterpreneur spirit in our boys - they went up and down our street asking to wash peoples' cars. They didn't get any takers but I'm glad they did it.

338. a teacher that I was unsure about has been a blessing.

339. my younger son hasn't had any behaviour issues at school this month.

340. I'm thankful that we kept our Jeep. My husband's car's transmission quit and if we didn't have the Jeep I don't know how he would get to work and I would get the kids to school.

341. I enjoy watching my son's soccer games.

342. a new Fernando Ortega CD to listen to in the car.

343. this one is hard to give thanks for but I'm going to try - right now I have a cold with a sore throat. I'm thankful for the reminder to take good care of myself in order to bless my family.

344. the sweet concern for my health shown by my youngest son.



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A Minecraft Cake for the Birthday Boy

My boys love Minecraft. A asked for a Minecraft cake for his birthday. I usually get a professional to make cakes for me since squeezing frosting bags is terrible for my tendinitis. My gal wasn't available to help us this time. I was also sick with a cold the day before the party. My hubby did some research and came up with a design. He made fondant, dyed it various colours, and cut out little pieces. He stayed up pretty late the night before the party making this cake.

I made the little Steve character (on the top of the cake) using some patterns I found here.

boys eating pizza

A wanted to open his presents up in our highest treehouse.
His crazy mother even climbed up there to take photos!

We're hoping this is the last elaborate birthday party for A until he's maybe 16???Pin It

A Tween Boy's Dream Come True

Well, I have a tween. I can admit that. My oldest boy is now 10 years old. Double digits. Next year he'll be in middle school. Crazy, I know. For his birthday we invited his friends to play laser tag at a wooded park in our city.

My husband wanted to find was a company that would rent out LT equipment off-site and outdoors. He searched online and found a company based in Shoreline called Laser Tag Live, which seemed to match up with his requirements. He was also concerned that a bunch of kids running around a city park with guns in this day and age might not fly, so he thought we might need to find our own woods away from a park, but Josh from LTL said they had done events at the park we used before and everything was fine.

J was worried that the company might just drop off the equipment and leave us to organize the games, but Josh said he would run the kids through a series of specific games, so that was great.

In the end the equipment was great, with excellent sound effects and long range and accuracy. The games he had organized were very good, and very physical and active. The space he had picked out was perfect. Lots of trees to hide behind, open space between the trees, some brush on the outskirts if you wanted, a "ravine" in the middle, and just the right amount of area.

They did 3 games of about 20 minutes each. The first two were team games, fully automatic fire, 10 hits to kill, 10 rounds before a reload (which required a 10 second or so delay) and you had to return to the electronic medic box if you were killed. There was no "winning" team, just the satisfaction of downing the "enemy" and not being forced back to the medic box yourself.

The second game was like the first, except the guns were set to "Star Wars blaster" style which basically meant semi-automatic firing.

The third game was every man for himself in more of a sniper role: you had to reload after every shot, and a single shot was a kill. If you were killed you had to wait 20 seconds, but didn't have to go back to a medic box. You had 5 lives total, then you were out for the rest of the game until just one man was standing. My younger son C was the eventual winner of this game.

It wasn't the best conditions for good photos but I'll share a few.

getting instructions from Josh

The boys had a blast and so did J, my husband.

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Back to School!

Today is the big day! I have a 5th grader! I can't believe this is A's last year of elementary!

Here is C on his first day of 3rd grade.

I also took a photo of the boys in front of the school this morning but A didn't look too happy. It is so embarrassing when Mom takes our picture in front of everyone!

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A ten year old's perspective of the Mt. Pilchuck Hike.

This is A and this is my account of my hike with my dad and my brother.

DANGER: When I write, I use lots of detail, so this is the detailed version.

 So we drove from our campsite to the trailhead, but it took a long time on the drive from Mt. Loop Highway to the trailhead- actually 7 miles up. It was a bumpy and unpaved road up full of trees on both sides. When we reached the parking lot, there were only a few cars there. There was a man fully dressed in camo painting the bathroom so we couldn’t use it. Too bad. He had a camo backpack and everything. He came out and started on the hike. We got everything we needed out of the car. Remember, you always need to bring water on a hike! Then we walked over to the trailhead. Oh, one thing, this hike required a forestry pass, so we bought one at REI before the trip so we could do this hike. 

Anyways, we started the hike on a kind of road that was for skiing. After we passed some big boulders, blocking the way for people trying to use the vehicle to get a little farther, there was a registration notebook we had to sign to get any farther. There were only a few names already scribbled in. Then the trail narrowed to go in a deep forest. There were a few landmarks that I remember on the forest part of the hike. The first one was a creek that we had to cross on big rocks, then a fallen tree right over the path and crabgrass clearing of to the side of the trail. It’s funny we never saw anyone in the forest part of the hike, neither on the up or down in the forest. We rested at a big tree to have a snack. We packed lunches to eat at the top, chocolate bars, trail mix, granola bars, and fruit leather. We brought chocolate bars to give us sugar and energy. I didn’t eat my snickers bar until we got to the rocky part of this climb. The start of the rocky part had the 1 mile marker stuck in the ground. It was a tall thin orange marker. We started seeing them a lot in this section, but we didn’t see any more mile markers after that. Now I think it’s time for me to explain this hike. It’s a 3 mile hike up and a 3 mile way down, so that’s 6 miles to hike. It’s really hard because you have to keep going in a diagonal angle position going up but we made it and I go well going up but not down. Back to the hike, we saw a lot more people in this area and there was a great view because this part was really open and you had to always look at your feet because you’re stepping on rocks. There was a few intersections that got us confused which way to go. Some people passed us on the way up to. We were getting close. We keep climbing over rocks, looking up in the fog to see where we would go, and talking. Boy did my brother talk. He talked all about superheroes and stuff. I wasn’t interested in that sort of stuff so I just kept on climbing. There was a big concrete hexagon that we passed and some broken wood of to the side of the trail. It was really foggy up there so we couldn’t see where we were going, we were up so high, and we were in the clouds. Although we could see below and there were so many trees. We went around the mountain to reach the top. Some people that passed us had dogs!!! That was amazing they could get so far on four legs and over the rocks. There were three peaks we could see: one unknown, one I think was Mount Pilchuck, and Little Pilchuck that is connected to Pilchuck. We entered a sort of small forest that would lead us to the top. We went into switchback mode but we were still walking on rocks. Then we saw the top. The top was a small wooden hut that was placed on rocks. We had to really climb through the rocks it could also be called a scramble. WE HAD REACHED THE TOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

It’s amazing and mesmerizing that the people who built this got the materials and somehow built this on these boulders and one side’s a complete cliff. They must have been really brave to do that. The view was spectacular. It was foggy at first but then two sides cleared up. We could see Everett, Lake Stevens, Marysville but not my house {Cheesy Laughter}. The cliff side was still foggy. When we went down we could see where we went but not the fire lookout. Yes, it’s a fire lookout. That means another use for it is to spot forest fires. Good Idea, Huh?  We had hiked up 5,300 feet. There were two other parties already there. A man that we had already seen with his Chihuahua now leashed bit my dad for no reason, and there were three Hispanic people that we never had seen. They must have started really early. We ate our lunch up there as we normally do every hike then went down. While we were eating, a whole family came up with 2 kids, two elderly men, and a couple with bear bells. Annoying, but smart. 

We started on the way down. I’m only going to give some things away on the way down cause you already read the way up. At the concrete hexagon, we saw a small family of 3 that had a little kid that had climbed that far. Inspiring! I didn’t need all the rests that we took. When we reached the registration box there were a lot more people signed in. At the bottom a few people put in the wrong date and then everyone copied that date. That was weird. And we reached the parking lot there were a lot more cars parked. Also, you know that camo dressed guy. Well we didn’t see him on the trail until the way down but then we lost him again, but he was leaving the same time we were. Weird. So anyways we took the long drive down and it was a great hike well walked. Next year we are going to do Heather Lake. Bye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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A write up of the Mt. Pilchuck Hike - by my eight year old

My Climb Up Mt. Pilchuck
By C J Bloedow

I won`t get in very many details in this don't expect a lot, thank you! :)

We started driving up a 7-mile road, as we were driving up I was thinking, what if we walked up this road instead of hiking Pilchuck? Then - wait did I forget to say why we were driving a road at all? And yes I did,so I'll tell you. We were driving up the road to get to the parking lot for Mt. Pilchuck. The road was VERY VERY potholey, if we took the Hyundai I`m sure we wouldn't make it.We started the climb just walking and then we found a registration box where we signed in. We made some landmarks for the way down. (!. Fallen Tree 2. Creek 3. Tiny Bridge 4. 1 Mile Marker)

There was a part of the hike that was made up of all rocks! I had fun climbing over the rocks.To pass the time I talked to Daddy about Minecraft and Superheroes. At the top of Mt. Pilchuck there's a "scramble" to get to the fire lookout at the very top. At the top we ate sandwiches and chips for lunch, also at the top there's a great view and - wait did I say great view i mean incredible view, I think you could probably see for 50 miles :O:O!! Daddy took some pictures of the view at the top with Mommy's camera. We started the way down a few minutes later. I actually had fun going down Mt. Pilchuck! I was hopping on and off rocks, sliding down rocks, using shortcuts and well, I was just really fun! After we had passed all the landmarks, (!. Fallen Tree 2. Creek 3. Tiny Bridge 4. 1 Mile Marker)guess what,WE HAD REACHED THE BOTTOM:):):):)!!!! I had climbed Mt. Pilchuck!

And this is the end of My Climb Up Mt. Pilchuk By C J Bloedow. Bye!Pin It

Annual Father-Son Camping Trip

This year the boys and J hiked up Mt. Pilchuck. They camped at Turlo campground, in Verlot, 10 miles east of Granite Falls. They camped mid-week for the first time which meant there was no-one in their campsites to their right and left. 

The next section is written by J.

The first evening it rained as promised, which was a bit of a first for us. We cooked our Italian sausages over an open fire. After the meal we went to bed very early. C got to sleep first, but A and I didn't pass out until darkness fell. Despite the early bedtime, we slept a long time and didn't get up until about 7AM when a crow decided to go crazy over our head with caw-caw-ing to some other crow far away.

After a breakfast of bacon and baked beans cooked on our Coleman camp stove, we packed sandwiches, prepped a backpack with 5 water bottles, and headed out to the trailhead. I was glad I brought the Jeep, because the old forest road, now called Mount Pilchuck Access Road, is massively potholed and non-maintained in the middle, unpaved section. We started walking at exactly 9:30 AM. There was cloud cover and mild temperatures. 

It's officially a 3 mile hike each way, and 2,200 feet of elevation, spread out pretty much over a constant grade. It took 2.5 hours to get to the top and 1.5 hours to get down. I had to rest a lot with the pack I was carrying, that included the water, snacks, and Sheila's camera. The boys did well, though it was a challenge to be sure. A is a master of the climb up, whereas C comes into his own on the descent, where other people's ankles and feet start getting very sore.

There were really very few other hikers on the trail. Near the top we asked a couple of groups how far we were, and got some encouragement to continue. One group of middle-aged single women were alarmed by seeing a man with a hunting knife in the wilderness to protect his children. Sigh. At the top, which has a refurbished fire lookout, you scramble up some big boulders and then climb a ladder. There were two other parties there when we got there. 

It was completely clouded in at the top when we got there, so there wasn't any view to enjoy. We set about eating our sandwiches, and I noticed that there was a gal on her phone, so I realized we suddenly had cell coverage.

I called S from the top of the mountain which was fun, and each of the boys talked to her also. After about 20 minutes up there, another hiker said: "Look, the clouds are breaking." And we all turned and saw our first view. Fortunately over the next 10 minutes the clouds increasingly moved out and about 180 degrees of the view became visible, in the westerly direction towards the sound. You could see all the way out to the water. 

After taking a bunch of pictures we headed down. While the going is tough on the ankles and knees, I was so glad not to be lugging that pack against gravity any more.

We were very proud of ourselves for our achievement and grabbed some drinks and ice cream. After that we went shooting with their new air rifle I bought them and their bow-n-arrow. A local convenience store owner told us where we could find a shooting pit the locals use, up the old forest road towards Lower Boardman Lake Trail. There was no-one else there and we had a great time for about half an hour plinking cans with BBs we bought from Cabelas. We also tested out the bow-n-arrow which was fun.

A says he'd like to try an even more challenging hike next year!


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