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Beautiful Aly

2009-12-21T21:35:00.000-08:00

Our friend's daughter Aly is the sweetest, and these new pictures that her grandma shared show that quite well!! The photographer really captured the little one we all know and love!!

To see all of the great photos go to the photographer's blog:

http://smontgomeryphoto.blogspot.com/2009/12/watch-out-world-here-comes-aly.html

Welcome baby Ben!

2009-12-15T16:13:00.000-08:00

Our friends Jonny and Marina and their little daughter Amy have a new addition in the house, brother Ben! What a beautiful, blessed family!

Our first snow...

2009-12-13T18:34:00.000-08:00

After a super summer and a very mild fall (except for these last two weeks which have been COLD and clear!) we have our very first snow. Let the panic begin!! Puget Sounders don't care much for snow and would prefer it stayed up in the Cascades and leave us lowlanders alone. Here's hoping the weather folks are right and warmer temps and rain are on the way Tuesday!

Tumwater Santa!

2009-12-08T17:41:00.000-08:00

Every year the fire department here decorates one of their antique trucks and goes around the neighborhoods collecting for the food bank. Pretty snazzy truck, great music playing to, but unfortunately I didn't catch that on video, so we just have the snap:

Nick's Indiana Jones Birthday!

2009-12-07T17:03:00.000-08:00

Nick is now 6, hard to imagine! Here are the pictures from his party:

Here is the cute Texas cake Mema made for his birthday, Indy in peril!

Greg, being the good dad, preparing to go outside for the pinata, it was VERY, VERY cold out, and he and Darane' and all the kids braved it! Grandma on the other hand stayed in where it was warm.

I love the expression on Nick's face in this picture as everyone sings Happy Birthday to him. What a sweetheart!

And then on to the presents.

We are so thankful the kids have kept his December birthday separate from the Christmas celebration. The won't even decorate the house until his birthday is over. Love it!

Are they cute or what?

2009-11-25T17:00:00.000-08:00

Beau and Ralph both like to sleep in as I'm getting ready for work and leaving the house...they look pretty snug tucked away in bed!!

But for the next few mornings, I'll get to sleep in with them!! Woohoo!!

Stormy!!

2009-11-06T16:54:00.000-08:00

We had a very stormy day! Wind, rain, thunder, lightning and even hail. Pretty big hail for here, larger than pea sized! Beau had just asked to go outside when a huge thunder boomer rattled the entire house. I ran to the door and he was cowering and quaking on the porch!! Scared him pretty good. Wouldn't leave my lap until the storm was over. Ralph was over playing pool in the clubhouse and said the hail on the metal roof there was REALLY loud.

I tried to take a quick video, but the worst of the hail was done by this time, still pretty weird:

Update on the strawberries

2009-11-02T16:51:00.000-08:00

I took this picture a few days ago, Wednesday I think, and there were still a few more very close to being ripe. Our mild fall has allowed me to get a few tasty little strawberries every few days, although since the rains have started they are getting fewer and fewer and I have to compete with the slugs to get them! I think the ones I'll get later this week will be the last, but wow! What a blessing to still have fresh strawberries on the vine in November!!

Halloween

2009-10-31T21:28:00.000-07:00

Miss Savannah and her howling wolf pumpkin.

Nick's creation:

Indiana Jones and Slash, ready to trick or treat...though Indy was a bit under the weather.

Julie's son Ryan was a fierce Ninja!! Trust me he had all the moves down too. Very cute!

Stawberries in October

2009-10-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

I planted a few strawberry plants this spring and they have been prolific to say the least! I've really been impressed with a first year crop. But now with our extended nice weather I'm getting another little crop! Strawberries in October no less!

These were from today:

And there are a lot more that are on the verge of being ripe but there's a really cold forecast for tonight, so I thought I'd get these in just in case it comes true! These may be the last, but they are beautiful!!

Nancy visits!

2009-10-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! Nancy and her friend Jim visited with us today and we had a great time! We just caught up with one another and revisited family history and had a nice dinner out and then visited some more! They are on their way to Yuma for the winter (from North Pole, Alaska, talk about extremes!) but interestingly they went by way of Europe. They spent three great weeks touring Germany, Holland, Belgium, France and Switzerland. Did a little couch surfing as well and thoroughly enjoyed that! Now they are back to Camas for a few days and then off to Yuma! If we get that way this winter we'll definitely stop in for another visit!

Nancy and her Uncle Ralph:

Nancy and Jim:

Savannah's 9th!

2009-09-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

Sheesh, where does the time go...the girl is now 9!

Birthday highlights, let's see if you can guess the theme! Hint: think pork.

Savannah taking a whack at the pinata.

Nick too.

Finally, the candy is set free!

Savannah with her trophy pig!

Mema made the pig cake for her:

Blowing out the candles!

Grillmaster Erik with the roast pig...

Presents!

And her age mowed into the lawn, a tradition with Greg, next year, two digits!

Doin' the Puyallup

2009-09-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

Ralph and I haven't been to the Puyallup Fair for many, many, MANY years, and man, has it changed!! It seems bigger, but maybe because it's just been reconfigured...and it was so crowded we couldn't easily get around. We found out that there were 86,000 people there the day we went, no wonder it seemed busy! And it was much more spendy than either of us remembered: $6.50 for an elephant ear...come on!! Not to mention $10 (weekday) to park and $22 to just get in the gate!

Still we managed to eat some fair food, onion burger for Ralph (and a Krusty Pup) and a Krusty Pup and homemade taffy for me. I wanted a scone (picture freshly baked, hot, with butter and raspberry jam!) but alas, the lines were incredibly long at every stand and I decided it was not worth the wait.

We also saw two great shows, The Coats, a great a capella group and Billy and the Hillbillys, a funny musical show...kind of back hills humor, bluegrass and classical music all rolled into one. And of course we strolled the exhibits. We looked at miles and miles of quilts and all the 4-H baked goods and sewing projects but my favorite of all fair exhibits are the Grange exhibits. Such artistry with food! Here are some of the great one's from this year's fair.

Rainbow of variety:

A locomotive:

This year's fair mascot, strutting:

City pea patches:

And my very favorite:

In my boss's garden

2009-08-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

Tiny froggy visitor! Too cute!

Mom, Dee and Arlene

2009-08-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

I don't really remember life without these women in it. They were friends from the time my mom was 11 I think, stayed friends their whole lives. Each with their own families, mom with me and Randy, Dee with Rick and Steve and Arlene with Christine and Colleen. We were raised together, still count ourselves as friends even though we don't see each other often. Funny thing is, like with our moms, regardless of how many years go by we just seem to be able to pick up right where we left of.

I recently reconnected with Colleen on Facebook and we've been reminiscing a bit. It's been a blast to catch up with one another. Just fun. Remembering times we spent together as kids running with our moms all over the place. That's what summer was for, right?

This morning Arlene died. Long, loving, happy life. She'll be missed. I'm glad I can be here for Colleen and for Christine as well...amazing how the Lord works. Bringing us together just now.

I can't help but think of the happy reunion when Arlene arrived in Heaven this morning...with my mom there to greet her. Oh, happy day!

A fun teaching afternoon and evening

2009-08-16T19:21:00.000-07:00

We enjoy most of our neighbors here, by and large they are a great group of folks. We particularly enjoy Al and Ruby who live across the street from us. We often visit while we are out walking Beau or watering the yard or getting the mail. They are the sweetest couple!!

Recently, Ralph started playing pinochle in the weekly game at the clubhouse and really enjoys it. He thought it would be fun if I could learn to play and join him, so I showed up and thought I could look over his shoulder and pick the game up that way! Wrong!! The play is far too fast and I didn't know the lingo, plus they all converse while playing. Long and short of it is I didn't learn a thing, gave up and came home early.

Al noticed my early departure and asked Ralph about it, when he found out I couldn't play he talked it over with Ruby and they invited us over this afternoon for no pressure games/lessons for me! We played several games with visiting and snacking, then took a break for strawberry shortcake! Then we played and talked more and surprisingly, I got better, little by little.

After we'd played to 1500 twice they decided the guys would go get pizza and we'd have supper and visit some more! So we had Papa Murphy's pizza and Foster's beer and a lovely time all around. And they sent us home with strawberries and shortcake so we can have this treat again tomorrow!!

Have I said how much we love living here??

A house divided?

2009-08-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

I drive by this house every day on the way to work, and these signs caught my eye because three of them are for mayoral candidates. We have five folks running for mayor this term. Made me wonder what kind of political debates were happening around the dinner table. (the green and white sign is for our neighbor Betsy, who's running unopposed for city council).

One day I finally checked it out further and discovered they have a little business that they run out of their house...for signs!

Go Peter! You gotta love a guy with radio station call letters for a last name! KMET!!

Fourth of July

2009-08-14T13:41:00.001-07:00

The family picnic and fireworks at Donna's were great! We had a nice visit with everyone, had a ton of great food and there were three families (including us!) in the neighborhood shooting off the best fireworks I've seen in years...

First - the food! We had brats, burgers, hot dogs and steaks on the grill...Lyle grilling! Plus all kinds of snacks, salads and desserts.

Here's Marlene, Ruth, Donna, Dennis and Lynn enjoying the picnic!

Table two: Ralph, Victoria, Dianna, Cory and Lyle.

Brandi and Annette:

LT looking sharp!

Then we played cards, basketball and visited until it got dark enough for the fireworks. Here Cory, Donna, Marlene and Victoria play.

Ralph and Lyle looking over Angie's wedding pictures...she and her new husband Kelby were apartment hunting in NM for Kelby's new job while we visited so we didn't get to see them in person this time.

Donna with a two pointer!

Brandi and LT:

Lyle (making the shot), Lynn, Cory and LT.

This was just PART of the arsenal that Lyle brought...the neighborhood was like a war zone, a pretty war zone but WOW it was loud, bright, beautiful and fun.

Here's Ruth and Dennis:

Annette, Lynn and Dianna:

Marlene, Brandi, LT, Donna, Lyle, Victoria and Cory.

After the fireworks Dennis and Ruth and Lynn's family said their goodbyes, but in the spirit of "the night is still young" several games of Whist ensued.

While Brandi and Beau called it a night!

They certainly bonded during our visit and Brandi's new mantra is "I want a Japanese Chin!"

The new used car

2009-08-10T14:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, after two road trips in the Hyundai we decided we needed a more comfortable road car. The Hyundai zooms, and gets great gas mileage doing it, but the seats leave something to be desired on a long road trip. You get the picture! Since I love the Hyundai and want to keep it as my daily driver we decided that Ralph's old Camry would be the car we'd lose.

So the hunt began. He looked online, and we visited several car dealers and drove a few contenders. In the end we decided on a 2006 1/2 Kia Optima! Boy is it a nice car and it has all the bells and whistles that a guy could want! Plus more interior room and luggage room that the Hyundai every hoped to have. Ralph loves this car!

And the Camry found a good home with a local high schooler! It's all good!

In North Dakota with the family

2009-07-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

As you all know, our family suffered the loss of two of the cousins this past year, Ramona and David, so part of this vacation time was dedicated to visiting the rest of the family and seeing for ourselves how everyone is doing. We talk on the phone, via Facebook and via e-mail. But sometimes a face-to-face is necessary. We both thought we needed to go and visit and thought it would also help us work through our own grief over these losses.

First stop was Ralph's Aunt Donna, the mom of the two children who passed. In all of our visits to Ralph's family in North Dakota over the years we've always stayed with Aunt Donna. She and I share our birthday, June 22, we are exactly 20 years apart!

As you would imagine her grief is still pretty overwhelming, and yet she was a fine hostess for us. She arranged for Jaci and her and David's two oldest, Abby and Jacob, to join us at the cafe for breakfast the very first morning we were there. It was wonderful to see their smiling faces and to hear the exciting news that they have purchased a new home nearby and will be moving in around the first of August.

We had to say farewell to them, as they were off to a family reunion of their own, with 29 guests coming from California!! The twins, Matthew and Marcus, were already at the reunion, so we didn't get to see them on this visit.

We had a fun time at the breakfast, the cafe ladies are so sweet and some of Donna's friends joined us as well. Donna and her friends have their own booth at the cafe and they even decorate it for the different seasons of the year. Very cute.

The weather was fabulous the whole time we were there, with temps in the 70s and hardly any humidity and very few bugs...still the few mosquitos that were around managed to find me as they always do. Donna's gardens are always beautiful. Ralph and Beau didn't mind sitting out and soaking up some of the sun.

This is Donna's garden between her house and garage, really gorgeous!

Peonies and Delphiniums!

We also visited with Ralph's Aunt Mickey! She's a neat lady, and in years past there has always been lively conversation! She's 96, and she's been in a nursing home for several years now, first from a broken hip, then dementia and now blindness. We knew that she was frail and had some bad days now and then and weren't sure what to expect. We were blessed the day we visited and we had a really nice time with her, still a lively conversation! She's doing better than we thought and we were thankful.

Knowing my interest in family history Donna took us to several of the local cemeteries so I could collect information, and in the process she told me of the discovery of Ralph's great great grandfather's grave. Seems Andreas had come to the US to visit his son and died during the visit and is buried in the same cemetery as his son Peder! Another relative had shown Donna the grave, so up to that point none of us knew it was there. So that was a new thing to know for the old family tree!

Donna also took us to a combination 4th of July/125th Anniversary parade in Park River and it was a lot of fun. Loads and load of antique cars and farm equipment, fire and aide units from all the surrounding communities, pipers, bands, horses and riders and even a Polish dance group!

After that we adjourned back to Donna's for a family picnic/potluck and one of the best fireworks displays I've witnessed in person in many, many years. Between our family and two others it was a beautiful war zone for quite a while after dark!! Really spectacular! More on that later!

Vacation with a mission...

2009-07-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

As my boss said when I turned in my leave slips..."gee you are taking a lot of time off". I gently reminded him that I took virtually NO time off last year, save a few snow days at the end of the year. So began our second vacation of 2009! But we this vacation had some definite missions, to see our friends in Alberta and to visit Ralph's family in ND.

We started off by heading east and then north through Idaho and into British Columbia on our way to see our friends Clayton and Brenda in Alberta. On the way we did a bit of the tourist thing, stopping in Fernie, BC to learn about all the coal mining in the area. Fernie is a cute, historic little town in the mountains...really a pretty spot!!

Fernie was the headquarters town for a huge coal mining company and all the hills around the town that had a rounded effect (like the tree covered ones in the photo above) are areas that have been mined and reclaimed. All the craggy type mountains were not mined. They had a cute little visitor center with a nice guy who let us tour the small museum even though we had Beau along with us on our walk through town. He used to be an engineer for the mining company so had tons to tell us about the industry and the company and the area. It was fun to learn so much in such a short time. Then we were off down the road again.

Continuing on the Crowsnest Pass route we came by Frank Slide. This is an area that fell victim to the mining or to unstable geology...depending on who you listen to. On April 29, 1903 at 4 in the morning Turtle Mountain came tumbling down on top of the town of Frank and the mine there. More than 70 people died and Frank only had about 600 people total, so it was pretty devastating.

The debris field is HUGE!!! Probably more than 30 cubic meters!! And it all came down in about 90 seconds or so. It covered not only a lot of the town and the mine, but also the railroad that ran through the area. In later years part of the debris was cleared away to make room for the highway that now passes through the area.

Then we were off to Nanton, AB and the great air museum there. The museum is also home to the Canadian Bomber Command Memorial, a huge granite wall with all the names of those who lost their lives between 1939 and 1945 in the Bomber Command. Ralph toured the museum and took a few photos of his favorite airplanes and he also had a nice chat with a US guy who flew with the Canadians during WWII. The guy was super interesting and funny and Ralph probably could have stayed and listened to him all afternoon!

Arriving at Clayton and Brenda's in the early evening we toured their new house, beautiful! And sat down for a catch up visit with the two of them. They also treated us to a fabulous dinner out at Nilgiris Tea House just down a block or two from their place...a lovely summer evening walk there and back and a truly wonderful dining experience. Thanks to Karyn the owner and to Clayton and Brenda for a great evening.

It was wonderful to hear about their adjustments to being back in Canada after a few years in Pakistan, about their family and their own thoughts an plans for the next few years. These are awesome folks and we love them dearly. We hope they will come and visit us soon.

The next day we hit the road again, headed for the folks in ND!

Cutest grandkids on the planet!

2009-06-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

Wait. Let me think that over. Nope, they are the cutest grandkids on the planet!

The gymnast

2009-06-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

Miss Savannah, talented gymnast:

The bar:

The beam:

and floor exercise:

Angie and Kelby tie the knot

2009-06-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

Angie looking gorgeous!

Allison, Angie and Dianna:

Beautiful view from the balcony:

Mr. & Mrs.:

The whole family: Kelby, Angie, Lynn, Annette, Allison and Dianna

Cute one of Angie with Lynn and Annette:

Happily ever after!

Beau has found his voice

2009-06-07T21:52:00.001-07:00

Our little dog Beau is a rescue dog and he has some issues from his past that we will never know. Abandonment, fear, etc. And he never makes a sound except to squeak like a tennis shoe on hardwood when he's happy or excited. He runs in circles and squeaks, too funny.

The vet says he is capable of barking, but chooses not to...maybe a shock collar in his past? Who knows. The only time we ever heard a bark, even a single little one was occasionally when he was having a dream.

Last Saturday after one of the occasions when we've left him alone for a short while, he greeted us by jumping up and down on all fours and barking! We were so surprised, we didn't know what to think. It didn't last long, but we were just shocked. After nearly a year, he'd barked!

Yesterday, we left him for a short run to the grocery store, and low and behold, upon our return he did the jumping up and down and barking again! Not only that, but when we took him for his afternoon walk he leaped and bounced along like he was the happiest guy on the planet.

Oh, how we wish he could tell us his story!!

Springtime color in the yard

2009-06-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

This is our first spring in the house, and we knew we had lots of rhodys and azaleas in the yard, but had no clue about what color or variety they were. What a pleasant surprise!! Here's just a sample of the beautiful colors we've been experiencing!

Evan's 2nd birthday!

2009-05-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

Evan turned two on May 22 and his mom and dad hosted a party and BBQ at their home. It was a beautiful sunny day!

He got loads of gifts, but his favorite, bar none, was from his Grandma Mary...his own swimming pool. He and cousin Ryan wasted no time finding swim trunks and jumping in for a dip!

Blowing out the candles!

Sampling the frosting!

Opening the presents:

He was born while we were still in Mexico, can't believe that was two years ago!!

A day with the kids

2009-05-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

Hey, Greg Darane' and the kids came down for the day. We went to garage sales, went and picked up and planted our new mulberry tree and ended the afternoon at the Farmer's Market. They had great music and so we scored a table near the stage and waited for our lunches. Goofiness ensued.

An awesome day overall!

Jo and Bryan...the wedding

2009-05-22T21:22:00.000-07:00

A great joy for a great family, pictures from Johanna and Bryan's wedding on May 16:

With dad Harold and Bojangles. She arrived at the church in the fire truck! Harold is a firefighter/EMT and Jo was an EMT for them while she was studying nursing.

The family: Tim, Harold, Daniel, Jennifer and Johanna.

Jo and Jenn: Sister act!

Jo, the cousins and Grandma Donna too!

Jo and Bryan tying the knot:

The happy couple:

Love you guys, blessings on your life together.

Welcome baby Yahiya!

2009-05-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

Our friend Luke and his wife Ruth welcomed their new son on Friday!! What a sweetheart!

What a blessing for them!! We are thankful for this new little wonder!

Loving our community

2009-05-10T18:01:00.001-07:00

Ralph and I took a lot of ribbing when we decided to buy our new place because it was in a 55 plus community. Hey, we are both over 55!!! We are entitled. But people thought we might not like it because the community might be too quiet, too old, perhaps too cranky.

Admittedly, we are among the "youngsters" here. We are acquainted with people who've been married longer than either of us have been alive. And there are a few cranky folks here, but what neighborhood doesn't have those.

By far the vast majority of our neighbors are wonderful. They are lively, friendly and we have enjoyed getting to know them all. We can't go walking without stopping to talk with someone, usually several someones, and getting the mail becomes a community event! It's a rare occasion when you just get the mail and come home, there's almost always someone else getting their mail at the same time, so you chat, pretty soon someone else comes for their mail, a walker or two joins in and soon there's a pretty decent gab-fest going on.

We recently have been doing a major remodel of our yard. The whole street-side edge of our property had the dreaded junipers...a yukky plant that we've never liked. But they are tough to remove and so we've let them be. But this long hard winter damaged a bunch of the plants and trees in the yard and we had an arborist come out and take a look to see if any could be salvaged. They couldn't. So we started thinking about making the yard ours more or less. We wanted a more edible landscape and the junipers were in the way.

After much thought we hired the arborist to not only remove the winter damaged things, but to take the juniper out as well. And now it is gone forever! Since then we've planted some peonies and have ordered some blueberries, raspberries, a mulberry tree and an Italian prune tree. Also some strawberries...things are looking up. We've also planted rhubarb, pea pods, butternut squash and both sweet million and tiny yellow pear tomatoes!

I also got wild and crazy and decided I wanted a small perennial garden in the back near the patio to attract hummingbirds. I've seen a few of the little beauties around and want to encourage them. One of the great delights in our house on the rez was the abundance of hummers drawn to our flowering baskets on the porch...I wanted to recreate that if I could.

So I bought a delphinium, a bee balm and a foxglove to get the ball rolling. In mentioning it to the neighbors in one of the above mentioned gab-fests I now also have some gorgeous lilies, a hardy fuchsia and a cute hummingbird feeder, all gifts from the yards of our neighbors!! So this morning Ralph and I took up a bit of the tiny lawn in the back yard and put in the beginnings of a nice hummingbird garden. I still want to add a few things and some sort of water feature and the requisite edging bricks so Ralph doesn't get overly carried away with the weed-eater, but I'm pretty happy with the progress so far.

And I'm really happy that we live in such a friendly and generous community!!

Losing David

2009-05-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

For the second time in just a few months our family is mourning. Last September we lost Ramona and on April 27 we lost her baby brother David. Makes you wonder what God is thinking.

Just 37, married to Jaci, father to Abby, Jacob, Matthew and Marcus. CFO for his company, school board, church board, generally happy, busy devoted family guy. Hadn't been feeling well for a bit, was hospitalized that Saturday with both blood pressure and blood sugar way out of whack. Very touch and go, but by Sunday he was doing much better, getting stable, everyone breathing a sigh of relief. Dodged a bullet. Whew!!

But Monday morning he went into cardiac arrest and could not be resuscitated despite the best efforts of the team at the hospital.

To say the whole family is devastated and in shock is a complete understatement. Just doesn't seem real. Doesn't seem possible. How could God let this happen? We are all pondering that.

Meanwhile, prayers for Jaci and the kids, and for his surviving brothers and sister and for his mom. And for the rest of us as well, the cousins, nieces and nephews trying to understand the meaning of it all.

More vacation...

2009-04-22T19:20:00.000-07:00

We took a day and packed it with a couple of ruins, one of which was up in the Superstition Mountains, which are beautiful in and of themselves!

We visited the Casa Grande National Monument, which is a pretty amazing place. It became America's first archeological preserve in 1892. There is this huge, ancient four story building that may have served as some sort of early observatory and calendar!!

The four outer walls of the building are aligned with the four compass points and the west wall shown below has two holes, a round one on the upper left that aligns with the sunset on the summer solstice and the square one on the upper right (barely visible in the photo) that aligns once every 18 1/2 years with the setting moon at the extreme point of its cycle. How weird is that?

Built by the Hohokam people, essentially farmers, they learned to tame and divert the Gila and Salt rivers and their tributaries and formed irrigation communities that regulated the system. They also used groundwater runoff from desert storms to irrigate their crops.

They also had the biggest Saguaro cactus I'd ever seen up close. It really dwarfs Ralph and Beau:

Here's the guys close up:

The Superstition Mountains are famous for mining, mostly copper, but gold and silver as well. There were several old copper smelters along the way and a huge open pit copper mine...I even got a sample of copper ore to bring home.

In the town of Globe there is a pueblo ruin called Besh Be Gowah. It's really tucked away and has been partially excavated and reconstructed.

There is a long entry hallway that would have been covered when the place was built and it was designed as a security feature to control access to the pueblo:

There were loads and loads of small rooms used for various things from storage to cooking to living to ceremonies. There was a small central plaza that was used for gatherings.

Many of the rooms were entered via ladders...

They've recovered a lot of artifacts from this site and have a small museum that contains a selection of what they've found:

There is also a small raised platform, that in more than 40 other sites in Arizona are very large and are usually the base for a special residence, and sometime even huge ones that are the base for an entire pueblo. This one is very small and out of character and they haven't figured out what it's purpose was.

And, a lovely fact in Arizona. We stopped at Burnt Wells rest area for a quick break and to walk the dog and in the middle of the pet exercise area is this sign:

Always something interesting and enlightening...it's why we keep going back to Arizona!!

A little history in two towns

2009-04-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

While visiting old town Casa Grande we discovered these three murals on a wall. They represent the history of the city from 1879 to 1967. Farming in general and cotton farming in particular are BIG in Pinal county and you can see that reflected here.

A local stone mason built several stone structures in the early 20s, sometimes with stones that were gathered by the people having him build for them:

Presbyterian Church, now a museum:

The Women's club:

We also visited Florence where there are dozens and dozens of historic and restored homes and buildings. They have a weekend tour of homes in February each year, so we missed that but it was still cool to tour around this little town.

This building is now the visitor center, but originally it was the City Bakery which opened in April of 1890:

Ralph and Beau taking advantage of a bench in the shade no less!!

The Silver King Hotel was started in 1876 by William Long, one of the owners of the Silver King Mine. It was added on to in 1888 and further expanded in 1895 after a fire destroyed a portion of the original structure. It's now owned by the city of Florence itself.

I loved this home!!! It's referred to as the Joseph Spinas "rental" house and it was built in 1913 as a rental home for a local cattle rancher. I'd enjoy this house today with it's broad and shady front porch!

I also loved this storefront on the main street of town and I'm just not used to street trees being orange trees! They were absolutely loaded with fruit too.

The Pinal County Courthouse was built in 1891 and was used for that purpose until it was vacated in 2005 because of its condition. A couple of interesting things about this building: One...they never ended up having money in the budget to actually put a clock in the tower, so that face on the building is actually a metal facing with hands permanently set at 11:44!! And two: rumor has it the tower was where public hangings were performed.

They are in the process of repairing and restoring the building and hope to open it to the public again some time soon.

More vacation tales

2009-04-10T16:02:00.000-07:00

After a few days of thawing out and totally relaxing we decided to head down to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and the Saguaro National Park to spend the day. And the day was GORGEOUS!!

Saguaro National Park is actually split into two, we visited the western one. I love the Sonoran desert anyway and this park is just too cool if you love this stuff!! Remember: Saguaros have to be around fifty years old before they get their first "arm"!!

The Arizona Sonora Desert Museum is another gem. It's part garden, part zoo, part museum. Very cool place to visit, and it was jamming with folks because of Spring break, but still a wonderful spot to spend time.

They have areas for reptiles, tortoises, butterflies, humming birds, water critters, deer and big cats. They even have a man-made cave that you can walk through and learn about the geology of the area.

Ralph, enjoying the garden and a sunny Arizona day.

The beauty and variety of the Sonoran desert!

This cougar found the coolest, shadiest spot in his area and camped out there.

Even the beavers and otters were looking for cool waters and shade, so much so that they couldn't be seen:

Great day to be in Arizona. Oh wait, almost every day is a great day to be in Arizona!!

The road trip to Arizona

2009-04-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

We decided to drive kind of the "scenic route" down to Arizona, going through Oregon, Idaho and Utah on the way. The week we left the weather had been awful and we had more snow on March 10th:

Is it a wonder we wanted to get away to somewhere warm??

Anyway, we took off on the 13th and the drive down was great, Beau was a great little traveler in his own personal Beauville, which was essentially the entire back seat of the car. He had his bed, blankets, treats, all his little comforts. He actually had more room in the car than either of us and he's the littlest. Can you say spoiled dog?

We had sunny weather and no rain the entire way. The only snow we saw was on the side of the roads as we went through some of the passes:

After spending the first night in Idaho we continued on and spent night two in Utah, and had dinner at a great Chinese buffet. We had some second thoughts as we were walking over from the hotel, Chinese buffet in Price, Utah?? But the hotel person said it was great and it was! Absolutely jamming with people and very, very good food. We stuffed ourselves!

As we continued through Utah's canyons it brought back a lot of memories of when we lived on the rez and used to travel some of these road on a regular basis...man, that was a long time ago. But they are still as beautiful now as they were then.

When we lived on the rez, major shopping normally meant a 270 mile round trip to Farmington New Mexico. On the way back we invariably stopped at the trading post at Mexican Water to get a milkshake for the last leg of the ride home. We couldn't resist stopping in for a repeat performance. Here's Ralph coming out of the restaurant with the milkshakes, still great! But inflation has struck and they were $5 each rather than $2. But we enjoyed them and the memories just the same.

We continued on through Kayenta, home of church rock:

Then on to Tuba City, Flag and Phoenix and finally Casa Grande! Woohoo! Break out the shorts and sandals!!

Ralph & Beau seem to have survived the trip just fine. Let the warm relaxing begin!!

Vacation nutshell

2009-03-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

two weeks
3881 miles
highest pass: Soldier 7,000 + feet
snow in the passes, none on the road
sunny days
starry nights
ancient ruins
excavated pueblos
desert gardens
quail coveys
doves cooing
zillions of song birds
a stray road runner
little lizards
giant frogs
bunnies
great friends
a dozen novels
the Superstitions
saguaros
orange trees on city streets
hot air balloonists
horchata
copper mines
no computers
farmer's market
restored old towns
Beau as traveler
30-38 mpg, the windshield needs cleaned way more often than the car needs fuel!!
cheap gas: $1.77 gallon
expensive gas: $2.49 gallon
no alarm
mid-day meals
Cracker Barrel
Mission Royale
Hong Kong
In n Out
Sonic
Church's
Mexican Water milkshakes
Navajo Nation memories
tumbleweeds
flowering cacti
flor de Jamaica
Pinal County Fair
190 pictures
best of all: undivided time with my sweetie!!!

I'll explain all this and post pictures later!!

Snowing yet again!

2009-03-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

Lessons in retailing

2009-03-08T19:38:00.000-07:00

So Ralph needed new jeans, he went online to Penney's saw they were on sale, ordered three pair shipped to the store. In the past, shipping to the store had always been free and he just ordered as he had before.

When we stopped in to pick them up he noticed they charged him $9.20 to ship the jeans and when he inquired the woman told him they always charged shipping, which we knew for a fact was not true. After a couple more questions she said, well no, they don't always charge shipping, they often have free shipping, but its usually for a limited time, just not now. So he inquired about refunding the shipping since he'd never been charged before when shipping to the store, she told him no. Even if he returned the jeans he'd still be out the $9.20 for the shipping.

As she was speaking she went on to explain how Penney's works. The online, catalog and stores are all treated differently, even so far as different prices depending on which catalog you order from. Say the Fall or Spring book or any one of more than 30 "specialty" catalogs that they produce. The same merchandise could be priced differently online, different in any of the many catalogs or even different from store to store. Their pricing is not uniform based on even the region the stores are in. What?

Then she said the prices in the store are sometimes less than online or the catalog. A light bulb went off in Ralph's brain and he asked her to check and sure enough, the jeans were cheaper in the store than what he paid online. After much debate she said she could give him the store price (since we were actually standing in the store), and eventually said she'd also throw in the shipping cost to make him happy. It amounted to over $33. in credits on an $81. purchase. Wow.

As we were leaving the store I said you have to really wonder about a retailer who maintains all these separate price schemes and what the upkeep on that must be. Ralph said its really marketing genius! If he wouldn't have noticed the difference in price he never would have questioned it and would have paid the extra $33 and been none the wiser. Guess that's how they can afford it, they rely on people assuming that their prices are the same throughout the system and the off-again on-again shipping charges all keep people unaware and ultimately paying more.

It was an education for us, and Ralph will certainly keep a sharper eye out, particularly purchasing online, but Ralph's already said he won't be shopping there anymore because of it all. He wants to know why stores just can't charge a fair price for what they have without a lot of flim flam. Good question!!

Will this winter ever end?

2009-03-05T22:32:00.000-08:00

Snow again overnight last night, just a bit, but sheesh. More predicted over the weekend. Sheesh again. Everyone you talk to here is so OVER the snow and winter in general. Can't wait to get to the warmth of Arizona and thaw out a bit.

Welcome baby Valera!

2009-03-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

Our friends Art and MerrieLynn have a new grand, Valera! Here's her picture:

Enjoy the new little one you guys!!

The Ranch House is BACK!!

2009-02-25T19:33:00.000-08:00

There's a rather famous BBQ restaurant here that gets rave reviews from everyone who eats there, and it's been featured on the Food Network and in magazines and has gotten lots of coverage in our local paper. Ranch House BBQ. We'd never been there, but Ralph's friend Steve really wanted to go and see if it lived up to the reputation it had for fabulous BBQ.

Before we could get ourselves organized to go the building was wiped out during all the rain and mudslides we had in December of 2007. Bummer. They struggled along with a temporary location in downtown Oly, but it was just that, a struggle. They longed to get back to their original Kennedy Creek location and quit the downtown location in December of 2008 to get organized to return to their newly rebuilt original location. But...they had a fire! Talk about lack of luck.

Good news though, rather than opening in January as planned, the fire just set them back a few weeks and they reopened on February 9th! We let Steve and his wife know right away and made plans to visit before any other drama ensued.

This place definitely lives up to it's reputation. I LOVE good brisket and this was the absolute best I've ever had. Steve and Patty had combo platters that were huge and delicious. They took about half of the food home to savor later. Their grandson Zack had the pork chops and thought they were fine. Ditto for the garlic fries! Ralph had pulled pork and said it was amazing. We were stuffed! The server came by to offer boxes to take home our leftovers and offered up mudslide pie for dessert! I don't know if that was on the menu before the mudslide that nearly wiped them out or not, but I thought it was pretty funny. We declined, but next time we'll save room for dessert!

They still have a giant wall of sandbags between them and the creek, but the location looked pretty stable to us. Here's hoping they'll be fine from here on out!

If you are traveling to or from the beaches on Highway 8, this is definitely worth the stop for a meal!! We will be back for sure!

Another cousin visit

2009-02-18T19:31:00.000-08:00

Ralph's cousin's came to lunch on Monday and we thoroughly enjoyed visiting with them. I cooked lunch and we just sat around and ate and talked and caught up with one another. It was a wonderful thing.

Seems like we are all so busy but it was truly a blessing to just spend a quiet afternoon together!! Thanks guys for coming down!!

A goal achieved

2009-02-13T19:33:00.000-08:00

Ever since we moved back to the US I've had a kind of secret goal of buying back my retirement for my job. When we left I rolled it to another investment which was doing really, really well and I was happy with that decision. Of course in the intervening years that investment has not been doing so well and the more secure defined benefit retirement was looking like a much better idea. But how to do it?

First, I had to get back to work for the state. That happened in December of 2007. And since then I've been saving money, a little here, a little there, tucking away any small raise or "found" money trying to get enough to buy back the time I cashed in. This year's tax refund put me over the top and that money arrived today.

Not wanting to waste any time, Ralph and I drove right over and met with a counselor who answered all my questions about what I was about to do and I wrote the check!! So now I'm not only back in the system, but fully vested!

And I hadn't really realized it, but it had apparently been weighing on me a bit because once the check was written, with the receipt in my hand it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It feels good! And I'm happy!

Our lovely winter so far...

2009-01-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

Yippee! The snow is gone at long last. Well, except for the giant piles plowed up in parking lots and along curbs, but those will melt eventually.

But in this winter of extremes the snow was followed by three days of rain and temps in the 50s, which caused all kinds of havoc flooding-wise. At one point we had no less than 18 rivers in flood watch or warning, all three mountain passes closed due to avalanches and mudslides, highway 8/101 to the west closed for water and mudslides and then a 20 mile stretch of I-5 south closed due to flooding over the highway. So we were like a little island with no way off unless you were bound for Canada. But within a few days the waters receded and the rain stopped and then came part three of winter: 10 days of fog and freezing temps. Bringing an inversion which held in all the pollutants and made us not only icy but smoggy! Woohoo! Burn bans, the whole thing.

Finally, it's all cleared out now and it's been sunny and chilly for a few days. A very welcome change. We've been teasing each other about trying to identify the huge bright ball in the sky, been so long since we've seen it! Break out the shades...

Lunch with the west coast cousins

2009-01-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

Most of Ralph's cousins are in North Dakota and Minnesota, and sadly we don't have the opportunity to see them as often as we'd like.

The cousins here in western Washington are close by, yet we still seem to have a struggle seeing one another, mostly because of conflicting working schedules. I have weekends off, Phyllis works every weekend, Mike has rotating days off. Try and schedule around that!

But today we were able to make a date for lunch and keep it and Phyllis' daughter and grandkids were even able to join us. We met for lunch at Famous Dave's BBQ in Puyallup and had a really yummy BBQ meal while we had a great time catching up with one another.

Vowing to try to make this a more regular thing we are going to try again next month, gathering at our place for lunch. Here's hoping it comes together.

A little more snow...

2009-01-04T18:45:00.000-08:00

I think you can officially say we have snow fatigue. Tonight is supposed to be the start of 10 days of rain and temps in the 40s, even some days approaching 50. Yet, when I look out tonight, I see the roads beginning to cover up again and the snow coming down, the wind blowing...bummer. Hopefully, it will warm up tonight and this will all go away.

Ralph's dance of joy!

2009-01-03T15:37:00.000-08:00

It is the little things in life and this morning, before it got daylight, Ralph was up doing his dance of joy! Why you ask? Because he heard the garbage truck coming down the road! Our first garbage pickup in three weeks will cause my beloved husband to do his dance of joy. Could the recycling truck be far behind? He was so thrilled to see it come down the road about three hours later.

Now, for this to all happen we had to have about three days of really heavy rainfall to melt the snow off the street enough to have the trucks come down. Overnight last night we had a bit more snow, but just a skiff, so the trucks were still able to come. Yippee!

The heavy snow has damaged a lot of stuff around here besides our roads, which are now filled with potholes. City/county/state budgets that were already strained by the economic problems now have the added burden of snow removal (such as it was) and now filling zillions of potholes.

Plus all three of the state's major east/west highways were closed over the mountains due to heavy snow conditions, including avalanche danger. This last part is a deja vu to last winter. Our passes were closed many days for these reasons last year and they termed it a rare even then. Have to see how the rest of the winter turns out. So far, it's been pretty bad.

As for the other damaged stuff, we are not among the damagees thankfully, our awning roof over our covered patio did fine with the extreme snow load, but many roofs here in our community and around the area didn't fare so well. One of our high schools had a big section of its roof cave in, resulting in an extra week of Christmas break for them. Our neighbor across the street had her patio awning come down. The roof of our clubhouse has damage from the snow and ice (remember the pictures of the icicles??) when it finally did come down it took the rain gutters with it. There is a large stable here that collapsed (no critter injuries) and many others.

It should be cold and another chance of snow overnight tonight and then rain and much warmer temperatures for the next 10 days, maybe even reaching 50 degrees a day or two. While I'll welcome it I have to also remember that with all that rain and warmth comes flooding on all our major rivers.

Winter in Mexico and/or Arizona is looking better and better all the time...

Wishing for the rain they promised!

2008-12-24T14:53:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been snowing since at least 2 AM this morning and it just continues to come down like crazy. We shoveled the driveway and the walk AGAIN because the weather forecasters universally said it would be raining by mid-day. NOT!

I've been using the bird bath in the yard as a measure of the snow:

And here's the street sign by our house:

And a couple of videos:

More winter wonderland!

2008-12-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

Wow, this deep freeze is getting old, but still has it's pretty moments! My boss picked me up and took me to work yesterday and I snapped these pictures outside my office. The trees surround a small creek that runs along side the building and the rock chairs are part of a sitting area next to the creek.

This shows how deep the snow got around our house, check out the bird bath!

And woohoo!! The driveway is clear for the first time since last Wednesday, and we can actually get my car out of the garage! Ralph's car on the other hand may be there for a long, long while.

Victory!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...Part 2

2008-12-20T16:21:00.000-08:00

Another great one from the National Weather Service:

Issued by The National Weather Service

Seattle/Tacoma, WA
12:07 pm PST, Sat., Dec. 20, 2008

... WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 4 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 10 AM PST SUNDAY...

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 4 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 10 AM PST SUNDAY.

A MAJOR WINTER STORM IS ON TAP FOR LATER TODAY INTO SUNDAY. HEAVY SNOW IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP ALONG THE COAST AND THEN SPREAD INTO THE INTERIOR OF WESTERN WASHINGTON EARLY THIS EVENING. HEAVIEST SNOW WILL OCCUR ON THE KITSAP PENINSULA... ALONG HOOD CANAL... AND FROM OLYMPIA AND CHEHALIS WEST TO THE CENTRAL COAST NEAR OCEAN SHORES. 10 TO 18 INCHES OF SNOW IS EXPECTED CLOSE TO THE HOOD CANAL. OTHER LOCATIONS WITHIN THIS AREA SHOULD GET 5 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW.

ALONG THE I-5 CORRIDOR NORTH OF TACOMA... INCLUDING SEATTLE AND EVERETT... STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL OF 4 TO 8 INCHES IS EXPECTED. IN GENERAL... LIGHTER AMOUNTS WILL OCCUR NEAR THE CASCADE FOOTHILLS WITH HEAVIER AMOUNTS FARTHER WEST ALONG THE SHORES OF PUGET SOUND. SOME PARTS OF EASTERN KING COUNTY... WHERE WIND IS A BIG THREAT... WILL RECEIVE 1 INCH OR LESS OF SNOWFALL. THE HEAVIEST SNOWFALL IS EXPECTED BETWEEN 7 PM TONIGHT AND 4 AM SUNDAY MORNING.

LATE TONIGHT INTO SUNDAY MORNING... FREEZING RAIN IS POSSIBLE IN GRAYS HARBOR COUNTY AND THE LOWER CHEHALIS VALLEY. IF MORE PRECIPITATION OCCURS IN THE FORM OF FREEZING RAIN THAN SNOW... THEN AN ICE STORM WOULD BE POSSIBLE WITH ICE ACCUMULATIONS IN EXCESS OF ONE QUARTER OF AN INCH. THIS IS NOT A CERTAINTY BUT SHOULD BE KEPT IN MIND. ICE STORMS ARE CAPABLE OF CAUSING POWER LINES AND LARGE TREE BRANCHES TO SNAP AND CAUSE MAJOR TRAVEL DISRUPTIONS.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW... SLEET... AND ICE ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.

Sheesh. Who would have ever thought I'd be hoping and praying for RAIN!

Happy Birthday to Ralph

2008-12-20T14:47:00.001-08:00

Yep, today's his day, turning 61! Wow.

We were having some friends come to dinner, but because of all the cold and snowy weather they've canceled. So we are just tucking in and having his favorite for dinner...ham!

As I was out walking Beau this morning I took a few more pictures of the snowy landscape around here, trying to preserve a bit of it before tonights new round of snow and wind (yippee) arrive. They say we could get as much as a foot of snow tonight into tomorrow. Woohoo. Are we having fun yet?

Our bird bath:

A poor iced over rhody by the clubhouse:

Another icy plant:

And icicles (we rarely ever have icicles!) on the clubhouse:

Brrrrrr!

Visit to Santa 2008

2008-12-19T16:03:00.001-08:00

Weather update

2008-12-17T19:28:00.000-08:00

Well, the weather service got this right. It's been COLD, really cold. Dipping into the teens overnight. Pipe freezing cold. Thankfully not ours, but we let the faucets drip a bit overnight and kept the cabinet doors open to let the heat from the house in. Some of our neighbors had frozen pipes and it's not fun at all so we don't want to go there.

And the weather service kept their promise about snow as well, we must have at least 6 inches on the ground here tonight and it was no fun driving home this afternoon. My boss let me take a bunch of stuff home early and let me work from home so I could get here before it got colder, icier and dark. Gotta love him!! This is what it looked like when I turned to close the garage door:

It was very icy on the side streets and even the freeway. People had plowed up snow from the traffic lanes as they drove by and/or changed lanes, so it was very difficult for my little car to get over the piles and onto the freeway. A guy finally stopped where there was a little break so I could get on the road. Very slow going all the way home, but the toughest time I had was in our driveway! Slight little incline but I slowed down too much in order to make the turn from the street and as I straightened out the snow built up a bit in front of my tires or something because I could not make it into the garage! I tried four times, backing up and trying to get a bit of a run at it (but not too much, didn't want to sail right through to the patio out back!) before I finally made it.

There was about four inches of snow that accumulated on my car since I parked it at work this morning and I wanted to get all of that off before I headed home. So I spent several minutes in the parking lot scraping off as much snow as I possibly could off my windows, trunk and hood. Glad I did or we'd have a huge mess in the garage right now!

The snow looks pretty, but not when you have to get out in it!

Our side yard looking toward the clubhouse:

and our bird feeders:

More snow is predicted for tomorrow, then a really chilly two days (13 degrees) predicted and then snow again on Sunday. They say we'll not break freezing until after the first of the year. This is VERY unusual weather for us, we just don't normally get this cold or have this much snow all at once. Hopefully it will get it out of its system and be done with it!!

Ralph broke out the flannel sheets and put them on the bed and we've been very thankful that our new house is super energy efficient. We've been warm and cozy, but our furnace has been running a lot more during the day. Still not much at night thankfully, it will sometimes kick on for a little bit around 5 am or so but that's about it. I'm still betting that our bill this month will still be a doozy though not just because of this cold snap but also because of the Christmas lights out in our in the yard.

Which reminds me to get out and take some neighborhood pictures because there are some very nice light displays around here. It's just forcing myself to get out in the cold after work. Not tonight!! I've had enough snow excitement for one day.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

2008-12-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

How's this for a bulletin from the weather service?

Issued by The National Weather Service
Seattle/Tacoma, WA
3:14 pm PST, Sat., Dec. 13, 2008

... THE LONGEST STREAK OF COLD WEATHER SINCE DECEMBER 1990 IS ON THE WAY...

WHILE THE POSSIBILITY OF LOWLAND SNOW SHOWERS IS IN THE FORECAST AT TIMES OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS... IT IS THE FRIGIDLY COLD TEMPERATURES EXPECTED OVER THE NEXT WEEK THAT COULD HAVE THE GREATEST IMPACT ON WESTERN WASHINGTON.

AN ARCTIC AIR MASS WILL STREAM INTO WESTERN WASHINGTON TONIGHT AND SUNDAY... IN THE WAKE OF AN ARCTIC FRONT MOVING SOUTH THROUGH THE AREA THIS AFTERNOON. TEMPERATURES WILL FALL BELOW FREEZING ACROSS WESTERN WASHINGTON TONIGHT WITH MANY SPOTS DIPPING INTO THE LOWER TO MID 20S. MOST OF THE REGION WILL REMAIN BELOW FREEZING ON SUNDAY WITH AFTERNOON HIGHS ONLY IN THE MID 20S TO LOWER 30S. IN ADDITION WINDY CONDITIONS WILL ACCOMPANY THE ARRIVAL OF THE ARCTIC AIR MASS TONIGHT AND SUNDAY... ESPECIALLY IN THE NORTH INTERIOR OF WESTERN WASHINGTON.

SNOW SHOWERS TONIGHT AND SUNDAY COULD PRODUCE LOCAL ACCUMULATIONS OF 1 TO 3 INCHES... CREATING SLIPPERY ROADS AND SIDEWALKS. ROADWAYS AND OTHER SURFACES THAT ARE ALREADY WET WILL QUICKLY BECOME ICY AND DANGEROUS. THE FRIGID WEATHER COULD BURST OUTDOOR PIPES AND ENDANGER PETS AS WELL. WIND CHILL IS ANOTHER THING THAT CANNOT BE IGNORED. IN THE NORTHWEST INTERIOR THE COMBINATION OF SUB-FREEZING TEMPERATURES AND WINDY CONDITIONS WILL CREATE APPARENT TEMPERATURES NEAR ZERO DEGREES FAHRENHEIT... LOW ENOUGH TO CAUSE FROSTBITE TO EXPOSED SKIN.

TEMPERATURES WILL DROP FURTHER ON MONDAY... AS VERY COLD AIR CONTINUES TO FUNNEL THROUGH THE FRASER RIVER VALLEY OF SOUTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA AND INTO WESTERN WASHINGTON. BY MONDAY... DAYTIME HIGHS WILL GENERALLY REACH ONLY THE 20S WITH NIGHTTIME LOWS IN THE TEENS OR LOWER. THE COLD AIR MASS WILL SIT OVER THE REGION FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK... WITH MOST ALL OF WESTERN WASHINGTON REMAINING NEAR OR BELOW FREEZING EVEN DURING THE DAYTIME. THIS WILL LIKELY BE THE MOST PROLONGED STREAK OF SUB-FREEZING WEATHER SINCE DECEMBER 1990.

IN ADDITION... A WEATHER SYSTEM ON WEDNESDAY COULD INTERACT WITH THE STUBBORN COLD AIR MASS TO PRODUCE A RENEWED THREAT OF ACCUMULATING SNOW ACROSS THE WESTERN WASHINGTON LOWLANDS.

OVER THE MOUNTAINS... TEMPERATURES WILL FALL INTO THE TEENS AND SINGLE DIGITS TONIGHT AND REMAIN VERY COLD FOR MUCH OF THE WEEK AHEAD. WIND CHILL VALUES OF 20 BELOW ZERO CAN BE EXPECTED AT TIMES ... WHICH WOULD CAUSE FROSTBITE TO EXPOSED SKIN IN ONLY ABOUT 15 MINUTES.

PLEASE BE PREPARED FOR AN UNUSUALLY PROLONGED AND INTENSE PERIOD OF COLD WINTER WEATHER.

Crab

2008-12-08T19:33:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while Anthony's has an all you can eat Dungeness crab feed and it's going on right now. Guess what Ralph had for dinner when we met some friends for dinner there last night?

Nick is 5!

2008-12-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

Arrrrgggghhhh! Nick had a fabulous pirate party for his 5th birthday. Loads of fun. Greg had hidden treasure all over the yard and broke the kids up into teams, gave them compasses and taught them how to use them, gave them a treasure map and helped them read the map and use the compass to find their treasure. The kids had a blast.

The whole house was decorated in the pirate theme, notice the skeleton pirate over Nick's shoulder and the shrunken head hanging from the chandelier!

Greg even made a shipwreck in the back yard with a smoking cannon no less. Pretty cool dad!

Striking a pirate pose!

Nick taking his shot at the pinata:

and the kids grabbing up the goodies:

Grandpa Ralph saw this pirate ship and had to have it for Nick, it is so cool. Nick loved it too!

Dad helped him get the packaging off...

Yep, think he likes it.

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-11-30T14:50:00.000-08:00

We had a more quiet than usual Thanksgiving this year, it was really nice and we enjoyed the time together a lot. Nick and I even got in a good solid hour of playing Thomas the Tank Engine. We haven't done that for a long time.

Here are some of the pictures from the day:

Me and Nick playing Thomas, he got really carried away with track-building, clear out into the hallway!

Savannah and Ralph, goofing around after dinner!

Road Trip!!

2008-11-25T21:32:00.000-08:00

Ralph and I haven't taken a vacation or even a weekend away since returning from Mexico in the summer of 2007. We decided it was long overdue so took a three day weekend and went to Ocean Shores. Haven't been there in a while and we had such a great time.

We took Beau with us for his first long trip in the car. We were a little concerned he'd jump all around or fall off onto the floor of the back seat, so we tucked a cozy blanket in the laundry basket, put him in on top of the blanket and hit the road. He didn't seem to mind at all, and went to sleep almost instantly. He woke up on the hilly curvy bit of road as you are nearing the cut-off for Ocean Shores and I thought for a minute he was going to be sick, but he made it just fine. Think he was mainly curious about the change in the ride!

We got to the beach just in time for lunch, so we stopped in at a restaurant we've eaten at before, Alec's, and Ralph had the razor clams and I had their great fish and chips. Yummy, then we shopped a tiny bit and checked into the hotel. It was right on the ocean and we had a first floor room with a patio so it made it easy to get Beau out for his walks, even though he didn't mind making a grand entrance through the lobby so everyone could ooohhh and aaaahhhhh over him.

We packed a backpack full of his stuff to reduce the stress of being in a strange place, even with us along. Being a rescue dog he definitely has separation issues, though we think he is bonding just fine he still gets a bit nervous in new situations. Once he settled into the room with his stuff and ours he was great!

The weather on Friday was stormy and chilly, so we only got in one short little walk down toward the beach before the wind and rain drove us back to the hotel. We settled in in front of the little fireplace and just relaxed and enjoyed the view!

Later we went to dinner in our hotel because it was literally a dark and stormy night and we didn't feel like getting out in the weather. We had a great meal, though the staff outnumbered the guests about 3 to 1, and those were just the ones we could see. No telling how many were in the back of the house! Might be a sign of the economy, or it might just be it was a stormy Friday! I had Butternut squash raviolis with toasted hazelnuts and Gorgonzola cheese and Ralph had oysters. Another yummy meal!

Our friends Bruce and Cherita joined us for breakfast Saturday morning and then we all took a long stroll down the beach. The day was beautiful, sunny and amazingly warm for November.

Beau was loving this new and unusual walk! He practically wore his little nose out sniffing everything he came across, and since it was stormy the night before there was a LOT to sniff! He was really fascinated by this big driftwood log and also by a crab that had been buried under the sand, and then a car drove over it and made it mad. It poked out from under the sand and was moving around and Beau wanted to get up close and personal with this nifty new critter. I kept him at a safe distance to he wouldn't get caught in this crabby crab's claws!

Later in the afternoon we went to Bruce and Cherita's hotel and got there just in time for a really pretty sunset.

They stayed at a resort/casino just up the beach from us, and the speed limit signs coming into the property are pretty funny, not 20 mph, not 25 mph, but 21 mph. As in Blackjack!

Then Ralph and Cherita did a tiny bit of pre-dinner gambling on penny slot machines while Bruce and I stood behind them cheering them on. We had a great visit with them over dinner at their hotel, Ralph and Bruce went for the prime rib, Cherita and I went for the sea scallops. Yum again!

Sunday morning was sunny but COLD. And though it was warm and toasty in our room Beau could hardly pry himself out of the king size bed.

Last but not least, pictures of us at the ocean:

Elf Yourself 2008

2008-11-16T20:58:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Here's Aly:

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/dWZLKaPDpESFRWaxyoLF

More of Aly's family:

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/Jroc2CzKOzBfaNyh67n1

The kids, elfing:

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/5aKTqgKgZ0fWiDozdt8d

Small world - twice in one week!!

2008-11-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

Small World, Part One:

While talking on the phone with his Aunt Donna in North Dakota she mentioned to Ralph that she had a letter from a man here in Washington. The letter had been sent to the high school in her small town, the gentleman was looking to connect with the family of some of his high school classmates, one of which was Donna's brother and Ralph's Uncle, John. She shared some of the letter, Ralph found it pretty interesting, especially the part where the writer is from our little town here. Less than a couple of miles from us. Aunt Donna wondered if Ralph would call the guy and try to catch him up on family stuff. Sure, no problem.

Ralph called, left a message and a few days later the gentleman called back. They had a lively conversation about North Dakota in general and Ralph's mom, aunts and uncles specifically and in the course of the conversation Ralph asked him where else he'd lived besides here and there in his 93 years on the planet. Centralia. Hmmmm, Ralph asked him if he was related to the family that had the business on the Galvin Road? Yep, that was them. Turns out one of this guy's sons was one of Ralph's best friends in high school. Whoa! So they've decided they need to get together for coffee and chat some more.

Small World, Part Two:

So, we are walking Beau before taking off for a family get-together and as always, we let him set the course. At this one corner he invariably turns left or goes straight. This day he make a hard right and we follow along to see what the new adventure will be. Mid-block a tiny little fluff of a dog comes charging out of a driveway to our right barking and growling like he's a big guy or something and Beau just ignores him. I'm reaching down to shoo the little dog away. As I stand back up, there is my friend Sharone that I haven't seen in at least 10 years. Whoa! We both worked at Meeker Mansion, she following my tenure there. We did a quick little catch-up standing in the driveway. She's now a pastor and the little dog belongs people in her parish who live here and she was just dropping them off on their way back from a mission conference in Portland. Since we both had little time we promised to Google one another and have e-mailed back and forth since then.

Never know where the twists and turns of life take you when you are willing to make a simple phone call or change your course.

Ryan's mohawk

2008-11-12T22:23:00.000-08:00

We went to dinner the other night to celebrate Ronnie and TJ's birthdays and little Ryan stole the show with is great mohawk! Green highlights even! Isn't he the cutest?

Julia and Rachel

2008-11-11T20:00:00.001-08:00

Our friends daughters on their trip to the pumpkin patch! Beautiful little ladies! We don't get to see them often and are thankful for pictures! They are growing so fast!!!

Evan and Ryan trick or treat

2008-11-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

How cute and adorable are these two??? Ryan was the Blue Power Ranger, and very, very cool. Evan was the cutest little skeleton ever!!

Julie making a final adjustment to Ryan's costume

TJ and Billie Jo in a pre-trick or treating snuggle

One of our neighbor's spooky little garden

The pumpkin patch and halloween costumes

2008-10-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics of the kids with their pumpkin carvings and their halloween costume. Nick is a pirate and Savannah is a fruit bat. Mind you not the evil vampire type but a FRUIT BAT!!! Okay then!

Nick looks like he might just crawl right in there!!

Having great weather!

2008-10-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

Normally, October begins the ugly months here. Loads of gray days and rain, rain, rain. But this month we've have some really great days! Sunny, relatively warm, amazing days. The fall colors have been more intense too, or maybe I just appreciate them more!!! Here's what I mean:

And looking north and west over Olympia from Tumwater Hill:

Family potluck

2008-10-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since all of the Jensen/Downs descendants from these parts got together, I think it's been about five years or so. High time we did it again. Cousins Bev and Doloris suggested it, cousin Tim and his lovely friend Nina volunteered to have it at their house, and what a great time we all had. The weather even held for most of the day, only finally raining around 4:30! Around 40 people showed up for long overdue visit and a wonderful family potluck meal. Man, we have some great cooks!

From Louise's family:

Dick and his family:

Doloris:

And Bev's family:

From Alta's family:

Donna and her family:

From Major's family:

Pat, son Joe and wife Wendy:

And from mom's (Jennella's) family:

Randy and Karen, me and Ralph

Kiesha and her grandma Donna having a chat:

Brother and sister Tim and Cyndy:

Donna with new greatgrandson, Ryder:

And greatgrandaughter Elleah:

Thanks to Tim and Nina for being such great hosts!

Royalty in the family

2008-10-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

We always knew cousin Tim was a prince, good that others are finally acknowledging it! He was crowned prince of his homecoming court at UMC! That's Prince Tim on the left, I wonder if he gets to keep the crown?

Savannah's birthday

2008-09-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

Can't believe she's eight!

The party had a dog theme, only stuffed dogs as gifts though!! Mema made this doggie cake specially for Savannah:

Even cute dog themed napkins:

A cute shirt on a cute kid:

A picnic on the living room floor:

Greg always cuts their birthday number in the front lawn:

Opening the presents:

A family visit

2008-09-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

Ronnie, Julie and Ryan stopped in for a visit to see the new place. It was good to have some time to catch up with one another!! Ryan is now in kindergarten and loving every minute of it! Julie walks him to and from school each day.

They also brought along this great photo of the whole clan. It was taken this spring when they all went to Disneyland for a few days. Good looking group!!

TJ, Billie Jo, Evan, Julie, Ryan and Ronnie

Ramona Joy

2008-09-14T18:13:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you a bit about our cousin Ramona. Joy was an inspired middle name for her. Wonderful wife, mother of four, daughter, niece, sister, aunt, cousin, daughter of the King of Kings. Valedictorian in high school, got her degree in Fashion Marketing and was fabulous at it, working at local family clothing store. Indispensable employee.

Shall we talk music? Beautiful singer and musician teaching those skills to her children. She served on the board of her local civic music league, played the organ at church, sang in the choir. She taught Sunday school and worked with the youth group. A fine arts booster in her community and also worked with the local fire department and VFW. Too much more to mention.

She really enjoyed cooking and baking, scrap-booking, sewing, gardening, entertaining, helping with fund-raising efforts, and serving as her family’s historian. She was a campaign manager for a local politician.

She was a GREAT letter writer, the only person that I still was writing to, actually putting pen to paper and WRITING. And she wrote back. Wonderful letters filled with community activities, growing children and a loving husband. The kids' various adventures and their own. Visits to their farm for the weekend, the latest from the garden their youngest son planted and harvested all summer long. Something great she'd whipped up in the kitchen. The pride in her family, they had all grown up so well and are such great kids, so accomplished, each one of them. So blessed.

She never got the hang of e-mail, never really wanted to and lately, we'd been talking more than writing, long conversations on the phone once or twice a month. I'm really thankful for those conversations.

Ramona was struck down in the crosswalk in front of the store Friday morning on her way to work. Dead at the scene. The driver of the semi says he never saw her, never felt the impact. He just kept on going. He was stopped several blocks later. The whole thing is under investigation.

As her youngest, Tim, put it: "There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief", quoting Aeschylus, ancient Greek dramatist and playwright. Well said.

To say we are all devastated would be a massive understatement. We are stunned, heart-broken and angry. Add to that we can't be there for the family. We can only call and e-mail. What seemed like a great way to communicate on Thursday has lost its meaning entirely. Doesn't make the grade. We want to be there to dispense hugs and cry with them. But we can't. So, we are staying here, touching base with the west coast cousins, vowing to see one another more often. Life is shorter than we think.

Our acrobatic grands

2008-09-02T20:35:00.000-07:00

The kids came down for a visit and it was the first time Darane' and the kids had seen the house, and also the first time all of them had met Beau. We had a great day together.

The kids took Beau for a walk and played with all their toys here and we just had a great visit over all. Greg also did a bunch of things like install our new doorbell and programmable thermostat! It was just fun to goof the day away.

Nick and Savannah with Darane' in the big chair!!

Nick trying to make his escape after messing grandpa's hair!

We are getting settled finally

2008-08-29T20:24:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of the house, this time with our stuff in it!! We are loving living here, having a great time getting to know our neighbors, and so far they are all great!

We've been to a pancake breakfast and an ice cream social, plus Ralph's been going to all the Monday morning coffee and donut gatherings. We go walking every evening after dinner and we meet more people as we get out and about. And our neighbors have a "G" gauge railroad in their garage and yard and invited us to play the other night. What fun!!

Here's a view of the living room from the dining room:

Looking from the front door to the dining room:

Our bedroom (new curtains coming soon, too pink and flowery for me!)

The kitchen:

Ralph absolutely loves our new dog Beau! They go walking at least once every day before I get home, sometimes twice, then we all go after dinner. Beau LOVES his walks!!!

And both Beau and Ralph love their naps!!

The Summerfields visit!

2008-08-22T20:12:00.000-07:00

We were blessed this week by a visit and dinner with the Summerfield family, fresh from their home in Bolivia! We had not seen them since the summer of 2005, so we were thrilled they had the time to come for a meal with us. It was great to catch up with them. Their kids have grown a lot in the past three years! They really enjoy their work and will be happily returning there in January after a bit of furlough to see friends and family. Ralph went to school with Tom and Laurie back in 1996-98! So we've known them a while. Wonderful visit!!

Meet Beau!

2008-08-21T19:23:00.001-07:00

He's our newly adopted Japanese Chin, who is three years old. He's a sweet little guy, very lovable. He has a few issues, such as lack of depth perception, so he and Ralph get along great because Ralph doesn't have any either!! But he loves to go walking and you must do it at his pace, so no more leisurely after dinner walks for us. Gotta keep up with Beau!!

The Super Ninja Video

2008-08-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

Nick and Savannah's cousin Kylee has put up a great "ninja" video of her and the kids. Too funny!!

Amelia's Desk Adventure

2008-08-08T21:38:00.000-07:00

Our youngest niece, Amy, returned from a week's vacation to find her cube redecorated by her co-workers. Check out the YouTube video:

New pictures of Ryder

2008-07-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

Ryder James:

With mom Kiesha:

With dad Kelley:

With Papa Ed:

With big sister Elle:

Summer fun in the lake

2008-07-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

We've had an extraordinary run of sunny warm weather this month and the grands came down for a swim in the lake. They had such a blast! They ran and jumped and splashed and then ran and jumped and splashed some more until they were completely worn out.

Savannah started jumping off the dock and decided it was fun!

The lake has a ton of small fish in it and even with all the people splashing and swimming around there were still little fish hanging out near the shore. Greg even found a big snail, which Nick found fascinating.

Baby Ryder arrives early

2008-07-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

Kiesha's new little son Ryder gave us all a big surprise, arriving about six weeks early. He needed special care for a few days (breathing assistance, IV, feeding tube) but he's proven to be a tough little guy and was able to go home within a week and both mom and baby are doing fine.

Here's a couple of pics from Grandma Cyndy:

Ryder James

Grandma Cyndy with baby Ryder (that's Great Grandma Donna peeking on the right)

We thank God for Ryder!!

New pictures of Evan

2008-07-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

Billie recently sent us some of Evan's first birthday portraits and we think he's looking particularly adorable in these!!

My personal favorite:

Cute little man!

Adorable tub time photos!

What a sweet guy.

Greg turns 34 & Nick gets the training wheels off!

2008-07-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

Being born on the fourth of July means that every birthday for Greg is a big celebration, at least somewhere!! He's gone through phases of having big parties and has now moved into a quieter mode. This year it was a camping weekend with family and friends.

Since we aren't big campers anymore we just joined them for the day rather than the whole weekend. It was a lot of fun with Greg's friend Eric BBQing ribs, brisket and chicken for the birthday meal. Really fine job of it too, pretty yummy!

Lucy also prepared lumpias for Greg's birthday and he even shared!!

And Greg conducting the happy birthday singers:

It was a big deal for Nick too as he decided he needed to have the training wheels off of his bike. He got the bike from Santa for Christmas in 2006 just after he turned three. Check out his technique:

And here's cousin Mike with his summer Mohawk:

And Savannah in her best 4th of July form:

At long last!! SUMMER!!

2008-07-02T19:50:00.000-07:00

FINALLY! We have had lovely warm and sunny weather for several days in a row now including a 91 degree day on Saturday and a 94 degree day on Sunday. Now it's settled into a marine layer of clouds in the morning that burn off fairly early and temps in the 70s and 80s. Can you say "perfect"? So nice to have good weather and the temps will stay in that range for about the next ten days at least with a few "maybe" showers here and there and some thunderstorms in the Cascades. But I'm a happy girl! We even got to take the flannels off the bed! The furnace hasn't run since last Wednesday. Our bill may finally dip below $120 this month! So much to be happy about. See what a little sun and warm does for my disposition?

Gas prices. Is this crazy or what?

2008-06-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

Had to snap this as we were traveling down Black Lake the other day. $4.50 per gallon for REGULAR!

The last two times we have filled up Ralph's car and then mine we've paid $4.09 at Costco. That seems a real bargain compared to this! We are thankful we have only an Accent and a Camry!

Breaking bread

2008-06-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

Seems like most of our great visits happen when food and friends combine!!

Over the past month we've had many wonderful occasions to break bread with friends and it has been wonderful. The month long adventure began on May 31 with the BBQ at Tom and Kathy's for the visit of their son Tommy, home on leave from the Coast Guard in Louisiana.

Then our friend Sue decided that even though she lost her husband in October, she still wanted to celebrate their wedding anniversary. We all thought it was a great idea! So on June 8 we gathered at a steak house in Tacoma and had a wonderful meal surrounded by her family and closest friends. A fabulous time was had by all, starting with great conversations, followed by yummy starters, a great salad and a lobster and filet mignon dinner that could not be beat...except by the wonderful desserts. But by the time dessert arrived Ralph and I were so stuffed we had to decline dessert. The best part of the whole meal was that we were all seated around a big table and had the luxury of time to visit with one another. Sue's great celebration idea was a huge success. Here's a few pictures:

Sue and Cherita celebrating together:

The entire gang at the beautifully appointed table...we had a private room and everything! Very elegant!

And the beautiful salads they served.

The following weekend we had dinner with some friends from church and had a great Summer BBQ meal of grilled burgers, baked beans and macaroni salad with fresh cold watermelon for dessert! Again, the meal was the excuse to get together, just hang out and visit. Robyn and Carolyn hosted and Bob, Sue, Ralph and I feasted! It seems like all of our lives are so busy that we just don't slow down enough and these meals give us that opportunity. We try to do them every other month or so...and I hope we keep doing them because we love these couples!!

Then last weekend was a whirlwind of food and friends with my birthday celebration thrown in for good measure. Ralph and I started out celebrating my birthday with dinner out at Anthony's Friday night. It was a pretty night, lots of boats on the water and people out walking around on the Port Plaza and boardwalk. Really great. And the first of our local strawberries were finally coming on so I had a lemonade with pureed fresh strawberries on top. So good I had two! Ralph had steak for dinner and I had a combination of beef kabobs and coconut shrimp. Yum!

On Saturday we had our community garage sale here in the subdivision and then later in the day Tom and Kathy and Art and MerrieLynn came down and I cooked a Mexican meal for all of us. We visited for hours, lingered over the food and had root beer floats for dessert! Wonderfully cool and creamy after the Mexican meal. We've been friends with these couples since our youth group days in Graham a LONG time ago and we still enjoy getting together with them regularly.

Sunday brought Bruce and Cherita down for the celebration of both my and Cherita's birthdays! They brought us wonderful fresh picked Spooner strawberries from the Puyallup valley. We whiled away a few hours visiting with one another and then capped the evening off with a dinner at Outback!

Not a bad way to spend the month of June!!

Two big answers to prayer

2008-06-10T21:27:00.000-07:00

First, our friends the Mellsen's have arrived safely back home after two years in Pakistan. We are thankful for their safe journey and for the time they'll have this summer with family and friends. Praise the Lord!!!

Second, our prayers regarding what to do when our lease here is up have been answered as well. We found a place we liked, made an offer and it got accepted. So, come August we'll be moving again. We are excited and a little overwhelmed. These are some of the listing pictures and some pictures that Ralph took during the inspection phase. It's still filled with the current owners stuff, so you'll have to imagine it with our stuff for now. Hope to have a housewarming once we are settled in.

Exterior, double car garage, corner lot, in a 55 plus community!

The big window wall is on the left from the front door.

The wall opposite the front door:

To the right of the front door, the little windows and door are to the breakfast nook.

The breakfast nook, from the living room side looking to the kitchen. They are using it as an office, not sure what we'll do with it.

The dining room.

The kitchen, taken from the dining room, it wraps around to the right and goes to the breakfast nook.

The master bedroom.

Master bath.

Plus there's a second bedroom and bath down the hall. There's a tiny little patio and yard hidden away in the back, you'd never know it was even there. And the patio is covered, so we'll be able to use it even when the weather isn't so nice.

The garage has two workbenches too, this one being the nicest of the two.

We are THANKFUL for answered prayer!! Praise the Lord.

Ahhhhh, Juneuary!

2008-06-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

Yep, Juneuary. A local news person coined that phrase it describes our crummy spring weather, which is persisting. We still have lots and lots of cloudy, cool and yes RAINY days. We struggle to get into the 50s each day and dip into the low 40s at night.

Still have the flannel sheets on the bed, latest ever that's ever happened. Still wearing the winter outfits much of the time, but I did finally shed my winter coat in attempt to try to get acclimated to the weather. Still clinging to jackets and sweaters on top of my long sleeved shirts. Mostly I'm just cold all the time.

Had 15 inches of snow at Paradise on Mt. Rainier over the weekend. 15 inches. In June. Come on!

When there is a sunny and semi-warm day we all practically swoon from the shock of it all and wander around in a daze wondering what that big bright ball in the sky is. Seriously.

So ready to be done with this and move on to warm. Even somewhat warmer. Right now I'd settle for being in the normal temperature range for this time of year, rather than consistently 10-15 degrees colder than normal.

I'm through griping for the moment. Summer, the official season, is just a couple of weeks away, maybe the sun and warmth will arrive with it. Let's all hope and pray!

BBQ with the Pena family

2008-06-03T19:41:00.000-07:00

Tommy was home on leave from the Coast Guard, reason enough to have a party! The Pena family used to help Ralph with the youth group years ago in Graham, and all four of their kids were part of the group. They are all grown up now of course!

Tom, Kathy and grandbaby Ethan:

Tom with Ethan:

Ethan's big sister Abigale:

Melissa, Tommy, Kyle and Jeremy:

Ralph and me and Tommy. So good to get to visit a bit. Hoping he gets transferred back to the NW soon. He and his wife Jane were in Astoria for a while, but he's now in Louisiana and Jane is in Pennsylvania! They are both in the Coast Guard.

Evan's First Birthday Party

2008-05-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

Evan is one...man did that year go by or what? Billie and TJ threw a big family party, complete with BBQ dinner to celebrate the occasion. We had a great time.

His birthday cakes, the little one was just for him! The bigger one was to share.

The presents:

Grandpa Ron and Great Uncle Ralph playing with Evan.

Billie Jo getting the cousins ready to play pin the tail on the donkey.

Grandpa had just got caught sneaking a bit of frosting to Evan...the blue evidence was on his tongue, lips and chin.

Mother's Day

2008-05-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

We had a nice day at Greg & Darane's for Mother's Day this year...though the weather was kind of off and on. Greg grilled some chicken, Darane' steamed some king crab legs and we all contributed part of the meal. Everything from baked beans, to corn bread, to salads, to cake. Plus we had a good visit together.

Cousin Mike spent the night before and he and Savannah barely made an appearance though, it was tough to get them out of her room and the video games!!

Nick was in fine goofy form, wearing two hats

And standing on ice cubes on the deck in his bare feet pretending to be a penguin!

And my presents in pots the kids painted themselves! How nice is that?

Looking for a house...maybe

2008-05-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

We have been looking around a bit for alternatives to staying in this house for another year. It's really too big for us, hasn't been maintained all that well in the past, has a big yard to maintain, and it cost a fortune to heat it this past winter. That last item was probably a combination of a really crummy and long winter and us trying to reacclimate after two years in sunny warm Mexico. So, options are staying where we are for another year, finding someplace smaller to rent that will be more energy efficient and have less yard to take care of or to maybe buy a place somewhere.

As far as the possibility of buying goes we have been seriously looking at over 55 manufactured home communities around here. No laughing here!! Greg thought it was a great idea because it just means less he'll have to do when we are old and decrepit!! (Kidding) But our reasoning is we don't want to go deeply in debt because I would like to retire in 5 years or so and Ralph is already retired so this makes sense on a lot of levels. We also want to be able to lock it up for a couple of months a year and head to a warmer climate to thaw out during those colder months. So, security is also an issue, having other folks around to keep an eye out, etc.

We've been poking around for a few weeks now and have pretty much discovered 3-4 parks that would be nice and even a few homes in those parks that we are interested in and could afford, but we have to wait until we are closer to our lease being up...it will be a nifty ballet of making an offer and getting it accepted, then getting accepted by the park, then taking care of the financing (already got that pre-approved and waiting in the wings), closing and moving (YUK!). All that will need to take place within about a six week period if all goes smoothly!! No stress involved there.

Please keep all this in prayer if you would! Thanks.

Family resemblances

2008-05-05T18:25:00.000-07:00

Most of you know I love researching our family histories and that I've done it off and on for over 30 years. It's been loads of fun and it's been really, really frustrating at times too. But along the way we've connected with loads of family that we didn't know and that has been a blast.

One of my grandmas was raised by another family and claimed she never really knew her real family...she shared what little bits and pieces she could remember but she was very little when she was separated from them and didn't remember much. Always drove me crazy because even with a very unique first name I could NEVER find out anything about her past no matter how hard I searched. Then I got an e-mail back in 2001 in answer to a plea I put on a message board and that message contained the text of an obituary from 1918 listing my grandmother as one of five children surviving her father!!! I was flat astonished to find that she did know her real family and was in contact with them at least at this time. She was already married and had three children by then!

So, the hunt began in earnest. I tracked things down and found that she had a total of five brothers and sisters. Brothers William, Major, Jr and Joseph and sisters Sarah and Hattie. WOW! I even tracked down some relatives of her two aunties that lived near Bellingham (so close and yet she never saw them that we knew of) but they were unconvinced of the family connection, so I finally gave up on them.

Recently, though, two of my cousins that I knew of but had no idea how to contact caught up with me and we have been having a blast since then. They have given me some very cool pictures and have cleared up one of the mysteries that I suspected but could not confirm...who my great-grandmother was!! You see, great grandpa was married at least three times that we are sure of and I wasn't quite sure where grandma fit into the family scene. Still don't know what happened to great-grandma or why grandma and her sister Sarah were not raised in the family home, so still lots of work to do but what a great blessing it has been to have at least part of the mystery solved.

Here are some great family pictures they've sent:

Great Grandma Emma Rose and Great Grandpa Major on their wedding day in 1879:

My Great Aunt Sarah and my Grandma Vernie in a composite I made plus their mom Emma Rose:

My Aunt Louise, Grandpa Alfred and Aunt Alta:

And the note that was on the back of this photo written by Grandma Vernie to Great Aunt Sarah:

My Uncle Peter, Aunt Alta and Aunt Louise, they are my grandparent's older children:

And many years later, my Uncle Major in his carriage:

Thanks Mike and Pam for sharing all of this and much more!!

A tale of two Saturdays...

2008-04-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, beautiful, warm, sunny. Spent the whole day outside. Had the patio doors flung open. Ahhhhhhhh.

This Saturday, the pictures say it all. Will Spring/Summer ever arrive???

A new job!

2008-04-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I started a new job for the state as a Librarian on a tax project. It's a permanent job and ironically it's in a complex of offices where I started my career in government in 1990. How's that for a bit of deja vu? Even weirder is there are six or seven people working for this agency that I've worked with before, all of us working on this project. Wow! Like old home week.

I think the work is going to be very interesting and challenging and so far I'm enjoying my new team mates. We are a tiny staff now, but will be growing like crazy over the summer as the project gears up and we'll have quite a crowd in place by fall. Kinda fun getting in on the ground floor.

I do miss the folks at GET, great group there too, but the job was temporary and when the opportunity for this one presented itself I really felt I needed to pursue it and I'm glad I did!!

82 glorious degrees

2008-04-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

At long last, the first REALLY nice day of the year!! A wonderfully sunny and warm 82 degrees (tied the record for this day actually) and we spent nearly all of it outdoors soaking up the much appreciated sun and WARMTH. When we were indoors we had two of our three patio doors wide open to the fresh warm air. Fabulous!!! Would be great if this could continue all spring and summer long, but alas, winter is back in the forecast for the next 10 days. Temps in the 40s and rain, rain and more rain. But what a GREAT day today was!!

Opening weekend at the Farmer's Market

2008-04-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

We got down there in between the rainstorms, but we didn't stay too long because it was windy and cold. Ralph wanted to get either some jerky or some chicken pepperoni from Stewart's, but between the long line and the windy conditions he decided it wasn't worth freezing for, so we'll get it next time we go...hopefully we'll finally get some REAL spring weather. Here's the line at Stewart's!!

Because our weather has been so crummy, lots of the crops are still weeks away from being ready to sell, but this market always has a lot of other interesting things such as bakeries, jam makers, salsa makers and loads of other things on the block:

Handmade pottery

Handmade chocolate, hand tempered even!!

Flowers, more flowers, and even more:

Even oysters (and fish of course)

And the lavender lady:

Kathy's surgery

2008-04-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

Lots of prayers on lots of lips today for my cousin's Kathy's surgery to replace a heart valve and those prayers were answered by a very successful surgery. She'll be in intensive care at least overnight, perhaps another day. We are all quite thankful things went well. Praise God!

Fundraiser for cousin Kathy

2008-03-25T17:50:00.000-07:00

My cousin Kathy needs a heart valve replacement and the surgery is scheduled for April 1. She's been a little short of cash and leave time and so her brother organized a benefit dinner and auction for her this past Saturday.

My goodness, he did such a fabulous job. He prepared a great manicotti and salad dinner on top of organizing a raffle and auction!! When you ask him he says he had a lot of help getting it together, but he was the driving force to get it done.

Tim cooking:

Ed and Cyndy serving:

They had a big table full of raffle items and sold about $400 worth of raffle tickets alone, plus the proceeds of the auction and the dinner to help defray the medical expenses above what her insurance will pay and to cover the two plus months she'll be off work recovering.

Tim auctioning one of dozens of item, this being his highly sought after pickled asparagus!!

The kids came out to support Kathy, on their 11th wedding anniversary no less!!

And the guest of honor, Kathy!!

Tenebrae 2008

2008-03-24T19:47:00.002-07:00

We missed the Tenebrae 2008 service at church this year, but heard all about it on Sunday. Everyone said it was the best ever...great music and preaching are a given at Mt View, always awesome. This service also had some extras, the sound of sins being nailed to a wooden cross echoing through the sanctuary, symbolizing all the things we need to and CAN leave at the cross.

The thing that blew everyone away was a painting done by our new youth pastor Mat...done during the service itself as people watched and listened and heard the word of God they saw this painting evolve and emerge as the service progressed. The pictures say it all:

What a gift to our congregation. He is RISEN!

The great nephews

2008-03-24T19:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday took us out to Billie Jo, TJ and Evan's house for lunch, yummy meatballs over rice. Very good, but the company was even better. Our great nephews, Ryan and Evan, were both in such good moods, very cute and silly. Here are some pics

Evan and daddy TJ:

Ralph, Julie, Evan with momma Billie Jo:

TJ and Ryan reading about Zelda:

Ryan playing Zelda with Uncle TJ:

Auntie Julie with Evan:

Ralph, Julie and Evan goofing around!