A celebration of life

Elvera Iacolucci Detore Zallocco

June 15, 1919 - Dec 5, 2014

 

Auntie Elvera was my Dad's older sister, she was 95 when she died. 

My brother, his wife, my dad, a cousin (granddaughter to Elvera) and I made the trip up to Seattle to celebrate with the Iacolucci family a life well lived.  I have so many wonderful memories of her as a child.  I loved going to her house because she always had a tin of chocolate chip cookies, make as a bar cookie, not a drop cookie! 

And everyone was "honey" and she always had a smile on her face just like you see here.

This picture was taken in August of 2013.  My dad is on the left and their other sister, Carm is on the right.  This is the last picture of the three of them together.  We had a big Iacolucci reunion picnic...I think there were about 90 of us this year.

I knitted a Prayer Shawl for my cousin Bonnie, she really gave up her life to watch over her mom the last several years.  She was devoted to her and gave her much love and great care.  There will definitely be a hole in Bonnie's heart, but she walks with the Lord, so I know she is happy for the place her mother is now residing.

My cousin, Miranda, my dad and his sister, Carm who is 90.

It was a lovely funeral service with fabulous scripture and stories and then a wonderful dinner for the family at of course, an Italian restaurant in Burien, WA...Filiberto's.

 

Auntie Elvera, you are loved and I am happy that you are now with the Lord.

 

While we were in the area, we took the time to visit my Mom's last remaining sister, Lorraine.

What a cutie she is...and 92 years young!!  She didn't have a tree, but she had so many awesome decorations up and lots of Christmas stockings that she makes herself with kits...lots of sequins and details to them...she is amazing!

Christmas Tour of Homes

BELIEVE IN THE MAGIC

A year ago I was asked if my home could be a part of a "tour of homes" as a fundraiser for my church.  I looked around and saw so many things unfinished, even after 5 years of living here.

I thought, why not, maybe this is just what we need to light the fire under a certain person and get this house completed!

So I said YES!

I asked Dina's MIL to help me "stage" the house, so on November 2nd we began our decorations (I was heading to Hawaii for a week later in the month, so I needed to get some things done before I left). Here are some of the pictures:

 

This piece of luggage belonged to my MIL, it had an SAS sticker on it! It made it over to Europe many times in her lifetime!

 

 

 

The Guest Bedroom, filled with Teddy Bears

The pillow reads:  "Dear Santa, is it too late to be good?"

The Hall Bathroom

 

The Living Room

The built in shelf to the left of the fireplace

The Living Room Christmas tree...9 feet tall and filled to the brim with ornaments and lights.

The built in TV unit to the right of the fireplace.  Finally I have a place for my Dicken's Village!

 

the sofa table has the Advent wreath and candles...the sign in front of it says:

the magic of CHRISTMAS

is not in the presents

but in His PRESENCE

 

I have a Lladro Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus piece in the center given to me many years ago by my MIL.  In front of that is a book by Ann Voskamp:  Unwrapping the Greatest Gift...The three grandchildren who live next door would come over, we would light the candle, and read the scripture from the book, then the children would draw a picture to put on our Jesse Tree.

The Entry

 

this is the entry table filled with the "favors" I gave out at the Open House, I downloaded a printable M & M Christmas Story and printed it out.  I used glassine bags and placed about 25 Christmas colored M & M's inside the bag with the story stapled to the outside of the bag.

 

The Master Bedroom!

Finally had my gas firplace completed and the mantle got put up just days before the open house. 

My dad gave me a Nativity set that belonged to my mom, it is beautiful...I made a "believe" banner and added a red dove to each end.  I potted "Paper whites" in pots three weeks before my event, they all bloomed and gave off a nice scent.

 

 

 

 

I used the Norwegian ornaments that belonged to my MIL, I added the white balls which were made from strips of muslin glued onto a foam ball.  The burlap garland was made from burlap yardage cut into 5 inch strips and then the center thread pulled to make the gather.  I have had the red wooden bead garland for years and thought it added a nice touch to the tree...keeping it rustic with reds and whites. 

 

The Front Porch

always important to have that curb appeal...

Front porch at night all lighted up

front door burlap wreath that a friend made for me.

I bought the huge lantern from Home Goods and filed it with Christmas balls, big and little and about 4 battery operated Martha Stewart string lights that had a timer so it could come on at dusk and shut off when we go to bed!

an antique Santa, sled and some burlap home made pillows on the bench.

These skis are very old, hand crafted and made by Scott's grandpa and him when he was a young boy, I actually have some pictures of him skiing with these ski's.

 

 

Well, this completes the Home Tour, I did these pictures not only for you to see, but also for me to remember how lovely it is to decorate for Christmas and to bring the spirit of Christmas into every living space...I haven't counted, but I have quite a few nativity sets...some quite small and then others that I placed on the mantles...the true reason for celebrating this Holy Day!

Thank you for staying with me through all these photos!

 

 

 

 

 



A SPECIAL BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

Happy Birthday DAD!
October 18, 2014

Dad's 93rd birthday.  We celebrated at Tebo's with the family.

All the grand and great grandchildren are sitting with him.

From left to right:  Standing is Kyle, Lily sitting on Teale's lap, DAD, Jalen,

Caleb, Addie sitting on Lacey's lap,

back row:  Tristan, Ellie and Dina.



Aloha!

November 15, 2014

Linda took the train down on Friday, and we were up at 5 AM Saturday morning to leave for the airport for our flight to The Big Island!  We arrived in Kona at noon... oh man was it hot and muggy!  We took a bus to the rental car lot and got our car that Scott had arranged for me.  The clerk sent us out to row E slot number 11...So Linda and I headed outside and we could not find "E"...it was NOT marked at all.  So I went back inside and asked for some assistance, the clerk looked out and said I was right, the row is NOT marked, but it is the row with  the first car being a red mustang convertible!  I walked outside and told Lin we were in the right row, just need to go to number 11 and it was a white Mustang convertible that Scott arranged for us to drive!  What a surprise!  But if ever you want to drive a convertible, don't you think it would be while in Hawaii?

Lin and I were so excited to start our vacation adventure in Hawaii!

We got our luggage and headed to Costco where we picked up a few items to have for our breakfasts and lunches.  We planned to mostly eat out our dinner meals.  After unloading our luggage at the condo in downtown Kona, we headed to The Painted Church for our Saturday evening Mass.

St. Benedict a priest from Belgium took regular house paint and started painting every inch of the inside of this church.  It was astounding!  Lin and I were immediately greeted with warmth and hospitality.  Someone even came around and placed a yarn Lei around our necks (see the above picture of Linda).  After the Mass was over, the priest asked all visitors to stand and introduce ourselves and tell where we are from.  There were quite a few of us visitors and one couple was celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.  Father asked that couple to come to the front of the church and he blessed them.  Another man was celebrating his 73 birthday and he placed his hands on him and gave him a blessing also.  Two Hawaiian ladies sang and one played the ukulele...it was beautiful!  We were so happy we went to this church for our service in Hawaii.

Our condo was down at the end of the building looking out at the ocean.  We met a very several special lady at the pool who was from Canada, she and her husband come very year for 6 months.

On our trip to find the Painted Church, we spotted these bright shrubs along the side of the road and we were thinking they looked like poinsettias...so we had to stop and sure enough, they grow wild along the side of the roads...amazing!

 

We took a road trip one day towards Hilo, the rainy side of the island.  It took nearly 2 hours to get to this beach...Black Sands Beach...we had to see the black sand and we had to see the nesting turtles.

About 3 miles from our condo was a beach and its claim to fame was snorkeling and having lots of turtles.  Of course we had to go there and YES I did snorkel.  Linda wasn't into the snorkeling so much.  I loved it!  I loved seeing all the bright pools of yellow fish, blue fish and one HUGE turtle swam right by me...I wished I had an underwater camera.

One morning we got up at 4:45 to drive north  to the Blue Hawaiian Helicopter Service.  We had arranged to take the Big Island Tour...over waterfalls and the volcano...a 2 hour trip.  We were so nervous but very excited to do this.  15 minutes prior to our leaving they announced the flight had to be canceled due to weather.  OH, what a disappointment.  But we scheduled another flight for the next day at noon, sadly that too was canceled due to weather. 

It is said that The Big Island has 9 climates...and we did witness a couple of them.  Since we were up north we decided to drive around and see horse country...Waimea... as soon as we started our climb to a higher elevation we experienced one of the climates...wind, rain and by the time we actually got to the town, it was very stormy, so we headed back down, but took a different route and it was very slow going due to the weather and the curvy roads.  Our destination was Hawi which a friend had told me about, we had planned to go there for our lunch after the flight, but we ended up driving through it at 8:30 AM and it was pouring down rain, so we didn't stop.  As soon as we headed south and neared Kona we had beautiful blue skies and lots of sun. 

One day we went to Hapuna Beach and played in the water, jumping waves, riding them into shore...well, I should say "I" jumped waves and played in the water.  I felt like a little kid, it was so fun, I was laughing at myself the whole time. 

I wonder where our next destination adventure vacation will be?