Mary-it’s impossible for us to determine “load bearing” status from here. You need a structural independence engineer to come in, go into attic and basement if you have basement or crawl space and inspect and determine status of walls. The load bearing walls support your roof and structure so nothing to guess about. Good luck.

All joists run parallel to what please?

Any competent framer can tell you if your framing is load beaing; it isn't rocket surgery. He would have much more experince with the execution of this type of work and would probably be less expensive than an engineer.

Any thoughts? Is it load bearing?

If it was, it isn't any longer.

Joists in attic and basement are parallel to the wall that’s being taken down. That beam in the first photo peaking from wall only extended as you see there to just above the doorway and stopped- didn’t go all the way across

There isn't any load bearing framing in the first picture.

Like they say if the sawzall blade doesn't bind when cutting and nothing falls on top of you it's not load bearing :-)

I agree, you need to call a contractor, that can tell you those things. I wouldnt remove another thing, until you have it all checked out by someone who knows what they are doing. I guess, I dont understand why you are wanting your kitchen viewable to your living room. I can see it open to a dining room, even though, I dont like that either, but, I would never want to view my kitchen from my living room.

We have quite a small boxed in kitchen, kitchen table is tight when seating four- making the half wall a breakfast bar of some sort. Plus with the entertaining we do, opening it up works for us- our floor plan doesn’t really allow it any other way if we want a somewhat “open floor plan”

This might help you. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HGrxVCmlb24

However you feel about the size of your kitchen, if you remove a load bearing wall to make it larger you’ll be in deep doo doo.

Before they start any demolition work, smart people get qualified professionals to identify load bearing walls and offer solutions to how to ensure your house stays up if you want/need to remove them.