A CHARMING MARCH WEDDING

Jake and Mary's wedding was shared with close friends and family in the city of Battleground, Washington. The couple met and got to know each other at the Word of Grace Bible Church where the ceremony and reception were held. Jake and Mary had the help of the talented and inventive Kae Yelchaninov for their event planning and design. It was a beautiful wedding despite the not so pleasant weather outside that day.

I was very happy to see my younger brother all grown up, in love and getting married to someone who loves him. I wish both Jake and Mary many years of love, laughter and happiness together. Thank you for having us be there to share your day.

The bride requested for my mother to craft a special cake for their wedding day. We all enjoyed every single morsel, plus we got to take some home with us.

Such a great way to make an exit, with sparklers of course!

WEEKEND RECAP

This past 3 day weekend was one well spent with close friends and family. On Friday the hubby and I flew up to the bay area to attend my god daughters christening, followed by her red egg and ginger luncheon.

The christening went well despite both mommy and baby being tired. We were treated to short spot of rain in San Francisco during the luncheon at All Season's Restaurant. On our way back to the east bay from San Francisco we were able to see an entire rainbow from end to end, which was quite an awesome sight to see.

On their way back to San Francisco little Vesper was so tired she passed out in the car.

The favors of M & M's that had Vesper's little cute face printed on them.

The delicious cake and red velvet cupcakes

Of course the red eggs but no ginger.

We flew back home on Sunday morning so we could spend some time with my mother in laws cousin who was visiting with his wife on their way back to New Hampshire from Mazatlan. On Monday, also Memorial Day we went to vist Poppy's burial site along with Grandma, it could not have been more of an appropriate day to do this. We finished off our weekend with some lounging on the couch along with a few snacks.

THE WEEKEND AHEAD

This weekend is Memorial Weekend here in the states. For most of us that work full time jobs this means we get a 3 day weekend with no work on Monday. Can I get a hooray!!

I will be flying up to the bay area with the hubby this weekend for the christening of Vesper Meili Gee. I have the honor of being one of the godmothers to this beautiful little girl. She is the daughter of my oldest and dearest friend Ampy. I am still quite taken back by the fact that I am a godmother to someone so special.

I have tried to do some research and read about other peoples experiences as godparents but unfortunately there were not many results on this topic. So here are some ways I hope to be a good godmother to Vesper. I want to maintain a great relationship with her as she gets older. I want to keep our relationship personal, and I want to see her often.I know that children do better when they are surrounded by people that love them. I am looking forward to seeing her precious little face and giving her lots of kisses on her chubby little cheeks this weekend.

The invitation and cute little Vesper.

With little Vesper, and her mommy Ampy during my rehearsal dinner.

WEEKEND RECAP

This past weekend my new brother in law and his wife Amber welcomed their second child a little boy named August Renholt Nichols. His arrival just so happened to fall on the same day as my husbands birthday. Now we have double the celebrating to do each year.

Here is a photo of little August and the happy family all together.

We did a spot of gardening early Saturday morning and boy has everything grown so well this year. I will be posting an update on our garden later this week. Then to celebrate my husbands birthday we went out to some art shows in Culver City and we finished off the night with dinner at the restaurant Fraiche.

I spent all day Sunday doing laundry and cleaning, fun stuff....

THANK HEAVEN FOR LITTLE BOYS!

This past weekend I attended a Baby Shower for my future sister in law Amber, who is also one of my bridesmaids. This will her second baby, a little boy who will be named August.

When I woke up that Sunday morning I was a little worried as it was cold and raining outside. To my surprise the clouds rolled away just in time for the Baby Shower at 3pm. It was a small gathering of close friends and family at Amber's cousins house in Long Beach. We spent the time eating some delicious cake from Sweet and Saucy Shop, chatting with each other and watching Amber open all her most adorable gifts. I must say I love baby clothing, they are so small and oh so stinking cute.

Since I have attended so many baby showers in the last few years I have to say that I have become quite the expert at navigating through a Baby's R Us. I now now which products are better than others for babies and new parents to be!

Here are a few photos from the event!

This is the card I made for the little baby boy August

Tissue paper flowers are so darn cute and so easy to make

The yummy cake we had with three different flavors, one per layer. Lemon, Candy Bar and Red Velvet.

Amber and her mom Karen. Isn't she the cutest mommy to be!

With two of my future sister in laws and our good friend Tracy who just got engaged.

Lastly the yummy macaroon favors we all got to take home. Also from Sweet and Saucy.

BABY, BABY DONT YOU CRY FOR ME

This post is dedicated to Leonard Berg, my fiancee's grandfather who passed away last month after 94 years of life on our planet.

I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to get to know "Poppy" (the name he went by with family) in the last four years. As I mentioned before my fiancée and I spent just about every weekend at his grandparents home. They were generous enough to allow us to start a vegetable garden in their backyard. We have learned some much about growing your own food just from this experience and from Poppy and Nina.

I miss hearing all of his stories about the Totem Pole, the Bolero Room as well as other night clubs from the swing era. Poppy was quite the dancer and gentlemen and he could sing a tune. The title of this post is one of his famous songs he wrote many years ago. He would tell me how he would get up to sing this song at some of the night clubs in Boston and the girls would all have one tear running down their cheek towards the end. He was also a Marine during WWII, and he had many countless stories about his experiences while he was overseas in Okinawa and a few islands off the coast of Japan. My fiancees mother Cora found an old tin of his from WWII and it was full of old photographs , letters and memorabilia he kept with him while he was overseas. It was fascinating to look at all this stuff and to know that he kept these items close to him during his time overseas.

This is some of his artwork that he painted many years ago. He would always talk about picking up watercolor painting again, and you can tell by these that he did have an eye for it. He often talked about how realistic those paintings of my fiancées father surfing were.

Among his many stories of life during WWII and the Swing Era he told me about his childhood and what he had to do to make money while the other kids would be swimming in the lake during the summers in Massachusetts. One of these jobs was thinning carrots for 10 cents and hour, another was picking strawberries. These things do not seem foreign to me as my own parents and grandparents had to do similar odd jobs o make money in Russia. Although Russia did not experience the great depression like the US did , for everyone around the world the times were tough, which meant that everyone had to make do with what they had readily available.

Poppy you are greatly missed and will always be loved and your life stories will never be forgotten.

A SPECIAL DEDICATION

I am working on a special post in dedication to my fiancées Grandfather Leonard Berg who passed away last month after 94 years of living his beautiful and long life.

I have bonded with both of my fiancées grandparents in the last four years as we have our veggie garden at their home. We would spend every weekend working on our garden and having many countless cups of tea with his grandparents. I miss him dearly!

Big Weekend

This weekend is the official future in laws meeting weekend. I have been planning for this for quite awhile now and I still feel unprepared. My parents will be arriving tomorrow afternoon and staying at my house. They will officially meet my fiancees parents on Saturday for the very first time. His parents have been born and raised in Long Beach, CA all their lives. Which makes them not only California natives but Southern California natives. I grew up in Northern California as of the age of eight when the family decided to pack everything up and leave our native mother Russia for a better life in the United Sates. My parents have since moved to Washington Sate so visit are are few and rare because of the distance. Washington is beautiful, green, lush and covered with trees. It reminds me so much of Russia and maybe that's one fo the reasons my folks decided to up root the family yet again and moved up there. So getting back to this big weekend we will be having. I have been slightly on the stressed side these past few weeks because of this impending visit and because of all the necessary preparations I have had to undertake to make my parents feel welcome and at ease. I know it will be fine and I will most likely laugh at myself for being unnecessarily stressed but I am a perfectionist at heart and a big planner. I will post photos of the weekend next week and details on the happenings that will take place.

A Fond Farewell

It has taken me awhile to find the right words to write this post. This is dedicated to my grandmother Claudivna Zherebnenko that passed away on 9/11/2010. Although she has been yearning to be with her husband my grandfather who passed away 10 years ago. The family still selfishly wanted her to live on with us for as long as we would have her. She was the last surviving grandparent for my siblings and I. I know this is depressing to say but we all know that death is an inevitable meets to an end of a life well lived. For some of us we do not want to think or accept this fact. Even though the family were brought together for this somber moment it was still a wonderful opportunity to see family that we have not seen in a long time and to spend time with each other. The ceremony took place in a small church in San Leandro not too far from her home at my aunts house. You knew she lead a full life by the show of presence at the ceremony in this small quiet church. Afterwards the funeral procession was directed to Livermore where she would finally be laid to rest side by side with her husband and my grandfather. The weather gave us gloomy grey cloud cover at the beginning but by the time we were ready to say our final goodbyes at the cemetery the sun shone brightly and I would like to think it was for her. I ended up learning a lot about my grandmother that I did not know and that she lead a quiet life of servitude to her husband and many children (9) and grandchildren (54). She was a strong woman, who loved to read, tell stories and cook up a storm like no other. I will always miss her and feel blessed to have shared so many wonderful memories with her as a child and as an adult.