Tag: jouyeaux anniversaire

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Joyeax 32ème Anniversaire de Mariage!

French Ethereal

Once again another wedding anniversary has come around as Mr. Ethereal and I celebrate our 32nd. This has been a good year for us with moving into our new home, visiting with our daughter in June, beginning a new job (me) and some exciting news I have yet to share!


Our fair maiden wearing my wedding veil…
I never got a post out for my parents’ wedding anniversary this year but on 9-19-19 they would have celebrated their 60th. I often wish that they could have lived long enough to see their grandchildren grow up. They never knew about my youngest brother and his wife’s adopted daughter. But, then again, she wouldn’t be a part of the family if our mother hadn’t passed. Bittersweet reality…


I’ve shared Mom and Dad’s wedding portrait before but it is always a favorite!
Here they are 37 years later. Most likely this is Christmas time of 1996. Bayer-AGFA held a company Christmas party in New York City with other divisions of Bayer Corporation (Miles, Mobay and Cutter Laboratories ~ the latter where my father began working for the company in 1979 in the Bay Area, California). 




Just a week ago Hubby and I went car shopping and were offered a great deal on a new Audi Q5 so I guess that is our anniversary and Christmas present for this and several years! I haven’t driven it much but it does have good pep. The car Charles had been driving these past nine years was beginning to nickel and dime us, so it was time to replace it.  🙂

This is us two years ago.
From the IOOF Downton Abbey-Roaring 1920’s dinner.
Just a few physical changes since then…  Like where the heck did this neck thing come from?? But other than that we are happy and enjoying this stage in our lives.
🙂
Back to more post pics…
😉
The living room library table is freshly polished and shares some family photographs from when my brothers, parents and I were young. The only other of my parents’ wedding photographs that I have is featured here. 
A first photograph of my younger brother Gene and his then girlfriend Linnea is here, too (lower left). They have been married just three months less than we have and have three grown children.
Love this vignette of family photographs plus two favorite postcards! I have had these cards for as long as we have been married ~ and they have always been in these two frames.
Here’s to many more anniversaires! Oh… and that exciting news I wanted to share with you?
Justine is about 8 weeks along as of three weeks ago.
Our son Peter and daughter-in-love Justine are expecting!!!
If you haven’t seen a few photos from their wedding those can be found here.
A new and first grand-baby is on its way! We are very excited for this sweet baby’s announcement!!! A wonderful anniversary present indeed especially for Mr. Ethereal’s parents, who will now be great-grandparents.
😀
Sharing with
Thursday Favorite Things ~ Follow the Yellow Brick Home
All About Home ~ Common Ground

Bisous,
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French Ethereal’s Birthday Anniversaire #4!

French Ethereal
Looking back  this month I realized that this little
blog of mine is now four years old!
Still a baby by many standards but at the suggestion of my son, who knew I was enjoying other designers’ blogs at the time, this little blog was born…


A quiet party ~ celebrating four years of friendship!
I think  my favorite part about writing for you all is getting to share thoughts back and forth ~ our modern day
“pen pal letter writing”
if you will…
Actually, I know it is.
😉

So for  this year’s fourth anniversary I thought we’d take a look
back at where we’ve been and a few of the changes
along the way…


Summer splendor in the garden at our Big House in Murrieta, California.  Also an introduction to our Garden Maiden!


My very first post I shared this photograph with you
and shared a little about myself and the things
I like to do ~ a lot of sewing and gardening.
🙂

That year I bought a camera for my husband as an Easter present
and for Father’s Day coming up so he could take photographs of our son and his other pole vaulters at track meets… but soon that camera was taken back as I began taking photographs
around the house.
{He teasingly reminds me of this once in a while}

I had been taking photos with many instamatic film cameras
over the years but shifting to a digital camera was a totally
new experience
for me!

That was then ~ just after I had mostly finished the slipcovers for our sofas.

This is now ~ rather last summer’s slipcover project plus stenciling.

I had resisted buying one for quite a while but always knew in the bottom of my heart that I wanted to shoot good quality photographs like my father took when I was young and brother took
in his part-time photography business.




We hadn’t been able to afford a good camera until this particular
year and it really bothered me that I hadn’t captured my
children growing up with a camera that could really
show who they were.




I grew up with my father performing in many theatrical
Gilbert and Sullivan shows, operas and the like, and one thing
I’ve realized over the years is that photography for me is an
extension of the theater…
I get to create a performance for you with every photo
I share ~ a little of my heart as it were.


As a  lifestyle blogger it is fun for me to share recipes with you from time to time though really I’m not much of a cook.
My mother loved to bake and I think I inherited that love
from her ~ so you’ll mostly get tea parties over here and a
few dinner recipes once in a blue moon.

I’ve looked at my style and I don’t think it has changed all
that much as I still love the Shabby Chic look and all whites.
Without a bigger “house” I can’t really share more furniture photographs with you until we find that next one.
We are looking and will begin the process of qualifying for a
home later this fall.
 A few too many little emergencies this year have prevented us from buying this summer but it’s all good.
We are paying cash for everything these days and often
I think our resolve to pay cash is being tested.
Part of God’s plan, I’m sure.
😉


Six French style cane back chairs finally got a little “redo” with white paint to match these two.
All received new seat covers.
But you know me  ~ gardens are decorating the home
 and roses are my loves!


A rare rainy day in the summer of 2015 in Southern California.  🙂
And the Garden Girls have been here since day one.

And too Mr. Yoda ~ here reclining in his dog bed.



So thank you  for coming along on this journey here at
French Ethereal and I hope to share many more lovely stories
dreams and bits of theater with you in faded beautiful
photographic dreams…

Sharing with
Keep in Touch ~ Let’s Add Sprinkles
Feathered Nest Friday
Thursday Favorite Things
Sweet Inspiration
Friday at the Fire Station ~ A Fireman’s Wife
Inspire Me Monday ~ Create with Joy


Jusqu’à ce qu’on se revoie,
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Jouyeaux Anniversaire ~ A Love Story

French Ethereal
~ September 19th ~
is a wonderful day for me as
I remember my parents ~
This would have been my parents
57th wedding anniversary…
  


My parents spent 38 wonderful years
together
Both passed in their 66th years seven years apart.
Both from cancer of differing types ~ Dad due to 
melanoma
Mom from lung cancer.
I miss them both ever so much…

A photo collage at our Big Home ~ Mom and Dad’s wedding portrait along with a smaller round snapshot
centered in the middle.  On this hallway wall,  I’ve displayed our wedding portrait {upper left} along with a card I gave
Charles long ago {lower left} as well as my father’s parents’ wedding portrait.


But, I didn’t come here to cry
or
to make you cry,
I came to share a love story…
🙂


Gene and Ginny met while working 
at a small coffee shop
in Boston, Massachusetts
while both were attending college.


Dad was in between services
with the 
United States Army {enlisted, 1950’s}
and the 
United States Air Force {as an officer}.
He was going to the University of Massachusetts studying 
a double major in Business and I want to say Law,
but I’m not really sure about the second.
Gene had spent three years with the Army 
down in Panama 
traveling and performing with the 
Army band there ~ 
playing the piano and french horn.

He moonlighted playing in a jazz band on 
Saturday nights at a club there ~ eventually 
being offered
a job with Lester Lanin
and his band and orchestra.
Gene didn’t take the position, though,
instead signing up with the Air Force, 
becoming a JAG ~
short for Judge Advocate General ~
in other words: a solicitor, a lawyer.


Gene and Ginny married in September of 1959.
They married during the golden era of Hollywood
around the time when Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco
and
 Jacqueline Bouvier married the future President John F. Kennedy
when they were the toast of the nation.

My mother was tall and lithe ~ she looked beautiful in 
high school photos in her yearbooks 
wearing the proverbial 1950’s skirts and 
Peter Pan~collared button~up shirts with a 
cashmere sweater over top.

When she and my father went out
she was stunningly beautiful in 
the evening gowns she wore, and 
her hair was stylishly short like Jackie Kennedy’s.
She was studying English
at Boston College
and
played on BC’s basketball team
{something I found out years later}.
Later on she switched majors to 
Special Education
after my deaf brother was born.


Their first posting with the United States Air Force
was to Ohio, my home state.
My deaf brother Frank and I were born 
there in Ohio.
On a side note
the rubella vaccine was brand new back then
and I was vaccinated and so was Mom
however
babies in-vitro couldn’t be
so
that is how Frank became deaf
as a result of rubella floating around
from neighbors who unfortunately 
had the disease.
And happily we love Frank
just as he is!
🙂


I used the Canon to photograph this Polaroid I took when I was about 11 ~ our second house on Oahu, Hawaii.
My three brothers ~ Frank, Gene and Tom ~ about 1972.  I shared in my last post about these
Koala Bears.


Many other wonderful places came thereafter:
Colorado {where my brother Gene was born},
Massachusetts {where my youngest brother Tom was born}, 
then four fantastic beach~filled years in Hawaii
and finally 
moving to sunny California
where my father retired after 20 years
of military service.

My parents were best friends
who loved opera and listening to
Boston Pops performances
on t.v. specials in the late 1970s and through the 80’s.
The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan records, and many other
operas and musicals
were the stuff my brothers and I grew up
listening to every weekend.
My father and mother performed in a number of plays together
when we lived in Hawaii and Dad was always a
lead character in one play or another
all the way up until his passing.

They had a shared love of watching football
basketball and hockey on t.v.
The San Francisco 49ers were their favorite football team
though they were happy to watch any football game.

Sometimes, Dad would play his rendition of the
Happy Birthday song for Mom and us kids
whenever it was our birthdays.
His arthritis was bad so he rarely played piano anymore
as he got older so it was a treat when he would play.
I was always in awe of his ability 
to read so many notes
on a page of sheet music at one time!

Frank standing out front of Mom and Dad’s home as it was in 2008 or so.

Connecticut was their final home place
and they found a home with 12 acres and a pond.
Every February they held a skating party
inviting friends and family
serving
New England clam chowder
or Daddy’s famous
spaghetti and meatballs made with
cooked chicken and Scottish banger sausages
to the hungry crowd.

A view through the kitchen window screen down to the half~acre pond.  

Their plan on Dad’s retirement
was to sell this home
buy a motorhome coach and travel down to
Tennessee and the Carolinas
looking for a retirement home
and
visiting my aunt and uncle on Hilton Head
as well as traveling the country.
This was not to be…
{Funny, as now we are living that life… more or less.}
😉


All good Love stories must come to an end
but Love never really ends
does it?


I’d love it if you’d share 
your parents’ love story
or your own 
or a family member’s love story
with me and 
with the others who read 
this little ole blog!
Please leave a comment and 
tell us your story.

Blessings to you on this lovely
warm Sunday morning,
🙂



Sharing with
Create Link Inspire ~ The Crafty Blogstalker
Wow Us Wednesdays ~ Savvy Southern Style
Feathered Nest Fridays ~ French Country Cottage


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