BEACH BUNS!!!

2011 Gone, 2012 Begins

2012-02-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since our last post but I am full of excuses about why. One major reason is that my computer blew its circuits a week before Christmas and we didn't get it in until after Christmas. The repair people said the computer was dead and when we got another they would transfer my pictures and other files to it. Little did I realize, until I got the computer home, that none of the programs were on the computer that allow me to do anything with my pictures.
We had someone come to install programs but couldn't get on the internet because the new computer had updated programs that couldn't read the old wifi. You know how it is when you get going on this stuff.
So now we have a new computer, new wifi system, new program for shrinking pictures for blogging and computer illiterate me trying to figure out how to run it! This is not pretty.
That's only my first excuse. I have more. But I'll keep them to myself.

Shawna, Kenley, Barb and Landon at the beach in February! Kestyn is wrapped up in a blanket behind us. It was a cold day.

We've had my nephew Landon coming out and getting some stuff done around here. The new terraced beds now have lights along the stairs. The big flowering plum that left unedible fruit everywhere is out along with some major pruning on other shrubs and all the debri chipped up into a nice large pile.
Landon has had some beautiful sunny days to work in. The last time he was out Shawna and the girls came out to enjoy the nice weather and beach too. It turned out to be rather chilly at the beach but we enjoyed it anyway, just not for long.

Kestyn and Kenley warmed up in the house.

The girls preferred the warmth of the house. Totally understandable. We have lots of toys for them to enjoy.

It was mid December that I blogged last so I am throwing in some of the pictures taken at Christmas with Marlea, Lucy and Caymus. I don't seem to have any pictures from Christmas at our house with my family, which was pretty wild in the getting here. A heavy wind storm caused a wet and wild ride on the ferry to the island. There were some very excited folks arriving at our house!

Our Christmas present from Marlea, getting us ready for a beachy new year.

These guys haven't opened any presents yet. They are excited in their anticipation of it.

Caymus made Grandpa a sparkly winter scene and framed it. It's very cool. He's pretty excited about it!

We got both kids a laptop for Christmas. Lucy has hers set up at her birthday desk and has been doing some fun research and extra credit school work on it! She is such a good kid.

All of us and our technology sitting at the kitchen table. The new vision of the future. All hooked up and in tune with the world.

Such a an excited and silly bunch.

2011 was a monumental year for me. I won't soon forget it. Well, maybe soon, my memory cortex has taken a major blow of circuits this year. I do have some favorite pictures from 2011 and wanted to share a bunch of them, since I don't have much more to say anyway.

Bryce and Desiree

Everybody loves the beach! Isis wants to just lick it up.

Morning on Grandma's lap. Everybody has to be there!

Isis and Bryce, same angle, just before he left for Iraq.

Granpa and Isis reading a book together. She would sit so nice for him.

Isis with barely any room for playing in that little tub.

Fun in the hot tub! Which was only 95 degrees so they played for hours!

Isis and Caymus watching cartoons after hot tubbing.

Isis and pure joy!

Lucy and Bob practicing kayaking.

Lucy and Kestyn playing with the float tubes at Family Camp.

Lucy at the beach at sunset showing off her bright green eyes.

Marlea and Bob at Lance's wedding.

Jane Seivers, Marlea and Barb at the Galveston seminar boat cruise at sunset.

Nephew Shane, brother Ray, and nephew Cody. All real men!

Til the next post! Hope 2011 was good to you. I'm still recovering.

End of 2011 update of activities! Finally!

2011-12-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

This is the day Isis learned to climb up on the chairs, then the table. Our world was about to change. The next day she was loaded in the car and headed to Kansas. (Not because of her new climbing skills, really! but it was just in the nick of time to save Grandma's house)

Since my last post we've had a lot of changes around here. The biggest one being the absence of our dear little granddaughter.

Isis was really learning to relax while sitting in the drawers.

With apples in season she could spend the day eating one, taking them everywhere she went.

While we were in Europe Desiree was busy getting rid of stuff, packing stuff and readying for the trip to Kansas that she and I were going to make in her little car. That little car holds more than anyone can imagine. I'm always shocked! So within a week of returning from the awesomeness of Germany, Belgium and Holland we were packed into her car and on the road.

Desiree really loaded her little VW Beetle. There was no extra room. Isis went into her carseat, then the passenger seat pushed back into place with a DVD player strapped to it. Toys and food within easy reach.

Here we are, ready for the 4 day drive to Kansas. Isis is barely visible in the back seat window. We had great weather, sunny the whole way! Once we got to Fort Riley and the car unloaded at their friends house I was on a plane the next day. A very emotionally disraught grandparent. Gosh I miss that baby!

But her Daddy, my dear soldier son, Bryce, was due home anyday. Now I know how very difficult it was for him, missing his beloved wife and baby girl.

He did make it home! And they are all a very happy family. He said it only took Isis a couple minutes after greeting him and she was planting kisses on him! A Lucky and very happy Daddy! They are all getting reacquainted and relationships re-established as we approach the holidays. They are moving into a new place at the end of December and really looking forward to it.

Gary has been gone a lot! While I was gone to Kansas he left for a month long trip of work. New Orleans and Chicago for Coking.com training, and Port Arthur, Texas in preparation for coker training of 20 Saudi nationals at the Port Arthur facility. This is a picture of the brand new coker at Port Arthur

He spent Thanksgiving away from home. Some of his off time was spent touring. This is the Field Museum in Chicago.

Here he is in the overhanging skywalk at the Sears Tower in Chicago. In spite of his jolly appearance he was a little creeped out hanging over the city, encased in glass.

Up to Crystal Mt to celebrate Reid's 30th Birthday! Holy cow! To me he won't be a day over 27, which is how old Bryce says he is. Hmm. I think they lie to me. This picture with his Ski Bum farmers hat, reflective goggles and a trail through the snow fields behind him, pretty much tells you who he is these days.

30 years old, and cautious? Hardly.

Marlea and Bob met us up at Crystal Mt. We had a nice time. Even went dancing at the Snorting Elk bar, which sits below the restaurant that Reid is the chef at. Some fun 'grass rock' music. We 'over 30's' still got it!

This is Nadiya. She is an outgoing and sensible girl who has captured our boys heart. Nice catch Reid!

Reid is enjoying life fully and safely. (at least he assures us he is safe)

Our landscape project has had some recent work done. We had the little excavator over here and with Gary Poole at the helm and me with a pointer finger we got these rocks set in along the driveway side of the new walls. The circular well tiles will be containers for plants. The 2 closest are set but the farthest one and one more still need to be set in their permanent spot.

As of yesterday, with the help of our nephew Landon, and islander Jeremy, all the rest of the beds got their gravel paths in and dirt filling them. At the bottom of all this is the rocks that will get placed into rock garden going from the bottom of the last bed on the left hand side.


It looks great! Now all we need to do is finish that bottom and make that rounded arbor looks like it belongs there. But things take time and Christmas is a couple days away. Not much will go on til after the first of the year.

So as you can see, we've been very busy. And this is only the stuff I had pictures of! Gary had the cameras for work stuff so there are things that I did that I have to rely on memory for. That kinda sucks since my memory is going quickly.
Thank you for your patience in my lack of blogging. My new years resolution will be to do better! If I can remember to.

Charlemagne's Cathedral

2011-10-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

Lily and Big Bear Flats made it to Charlemagnes Cathedral! Those two are really getting around.

This is the cathedral and as I had suspected it has been added on over the centuries. The surprising part is that the original and oldest section is that light pink stone section under the domed part. The dome was added a couple hundred years ago. This oldest part has mortar done in the roman style and it's rather on the pink side and still in great shape.

The part to the left of that with the long windows was added around 1500 to help accomodate all the people making pilgramages here. This was right under Jerusalem as one of the top 4 places to go. Those windows are the tallest in europes cathedrals. Unheard of in their day.

In an upper room is the throne of Charlemagne. It looks plain but the marble slabs date to 1000BC. There's a significance to that and the steps, being they are recycled from other ancient and important religious sites of their day.

Yes I was there! Along with many others.

The cathedral's importance as a pilgrimage site is because of it's relics. Any cathedral that wanted notoriety had to have relics. This one has some great ones. The sarcophogace in this photo has Charlemagnes remains. At least 92 of his bones. The others are probably relics in other cathedrals.

This is looking up in that oldest part of the cathedral. The Prussians had decided the plain stone that the walls are made of weren't worthy of the relics here and they had them covered in marble and then added some gorgeous and very elaborate mosaics on all the surfaces that weren't covered in marble. At the bottom of the picture is an octagonal chandelier that measures 12' across.

In the foreground is the alter that Charlemagne had been kneeling in front of when he'd been crowned king. Behind the alter is where the very best relics are kept. This one has the clothes that Mary was wearing when she gave birth to Jesus, the swaddling clothes that Jesus wore after his birth, Jesus' loin cloth at the time of his death, and the shroud that held the head of John the Baptist. Wow! Those crusaders really brought back some great stuff.

Every 7 years is a special 'celebration' where the containers that hold the relics is opened and examined and pilgrams are allowed to see the relics. Then they are sealed up again.

The cathedral windows.

The base of the caathedral windows.

The mosaic that is at the top of the dome. This is the original picture, the Prussians just put a golden mosaic to show it off.

One of the many mosaics at a juncture in the ceilings. This was all very impressive. We'd had enough for the day after this.

Today we head back towards Amsterdam and spend our last day. We visited one last castle before our Europe trip is over.

This is Kastel de Haar. There had been a castle here long ago and this renovated castle was in this very spot. Some folks with a lot of money did this renovation. The woman was a Rothchilde. Filthy rich. But what a legacy. The family uses it in the month of September and has since about 1900. The designer for both inside and outside was the same guy who designed the Amsterdam Central Station and the museum that holds Rembrandts works. He had a pension for medieval and a host of workers to help with the wood work.

My battery is nearly dead. I need to post this. You may have seen Gary's Facebook post but this is mine. We are headed back tomorrow. So you may not see much posting for a while. Life will be different when we get back to the USA.

Bye for now

Aachen, Germany to See My 32x Great Grandpa

2011-10-29T01:48:00.000-07:00

The BeachBuns have moved from Belgium to Germany and the site of King Charlemagne's treasures! My cousin Tim has gotten WAY into family tree research and found a leg of my lineage that puts Charlemagne as one of my ancestors. Who knew I was royalty?! Well. I did and Gary refers to me as his queen, so I guess he knew it too.

In front of the Aachen townhall is Charlemagnes Fountain. The town hall was where Charlemagne was crowned King and is still used today for city business.

This is the original statue from the fountain which now sits in the Coronation Hall. The one that is outside is a replica, the original bronze statue was brought inside a few hundred years ago. This is as close as I get to being near my great grandad. He's beautiful but hard to warm up to.

This too is a replica, made by a goldsmith 2-300 years ago. It is a replica of the crown worn by Charlemagne for his coronation. It's pretty big and would've been worn over a velvet hood. Probably more comfortable that way too.

(Please excuse my poor snagiting here. Snag it has been problematic for me)

The crown sits with other replicas of the regalia that was worn or carried during the coronation. All the originals are in a museum in Bonn. I was hoping they'd be willing to part with some of this as my heritage but they asked me to leave instead. Oh well, it was worth a try.

From one of the windows of the townhall we could see the cathedral that Charlemagne had built. This is the oldest cathedral in Europe. When looking at it from here I think some parts have been added on over the centuries. Charlemagne lived in the 800's. Gary and I arrived too late to go thru the cathedral today so we're going thru when it opens on Saturday. It's quite stunning!

I love the little bridge going from the rounded top to the spire top towers.

Looking up one of the windows.

It always amazes me all the statues that are added onto these cathedrals. All are made of stone and no two are alike. I love castles but cathedrals have an incredible beauty and craftsmanship that is all their own. They were built to impress and tell the bibles' stories for the illiterate. They still impress today!

Here is Gary putting a picture of the fountain on Facebook! So some of you already know we were here! Technology is incredible! We've seen people using their Ipads as cameras. Looks weird but it works.

So, we've found a hotel in Aachen that has a full shower door (we've had nothing but half doors that allow half the water to fly all over the bathroom). The beds are full size instead of small twins pushed together, but they only have a twin size down comforter on them. I guess making things fit the space isn't in the european way of doing things. Oh well. We're staying here another night then off to the Amsterdam airport.

Till then......(I know you wish you were seeing your rich relatives. We can't all be me) (Thank Gawd!!!! as Gary would say)

Brugge Day 2

2011-10-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

Here is a map of Brugge. As you can see there is a moat around this city. The very center of it is where all the markets are. Gary and I have rather thoroughly explored half of this city along with some parts above the half point also. Our tactic wasn't to find museums or cathedrals of choice and therefore see the city while trying to find these places. No, for the first time in Gary Pitman's history we have explored this city by looking up a street and deciding if it looked interesting or not. Pretty simple, just letting our eyes do the decision making.

There's a first time for everything. We can do that in this city since most streets have something intriguing or charming about them to pull us along. We've found ourselves at street corners and realizing that of the choices available to us we've already gone down one or two of them so lets take the one we haven't gone down. We've been very entertained and not disappointed.

Today we found this bridge going into a park and with this little castle (now a restaurant) looking beautiful in the fall reflection on the canal.

Kasteel Mingarden

This is the church that had the farmers market at the base of it yesterday.Fairy tales are made from these.

The flat kids came out today. We had a lovely apple pie with ice cream at this little cafe. They loved it but were so hungry they wanted their picture taken before the pie came out so they wouldn't have to pose before eating.

Gary is clinging to them so they don't get swept up by traffic while I took their picture with the church spire in the background.

The backside of one of the churchs.

A church and belltower that are the background to the city center. Every 15 minutes the belltower plays a little bit of a tune in bells. More of a song are played at the top and half of the hour. Pretty sweet and not one bit obnoxious.

When you look at the map there are a few places where you could cross the moat and enter the city. Those guard towers are still here today. Now there are stoplights to help the traffic go thru, one way at a time. This is the east gate.

This is the west gate. This motor home going thru reminded Gary and I of when we had driven a motor home thru europe back in 1995 with our kids. Places like this narrow medieval gap sometimes damaging the mirrors of the RV if not removing them completely. We never got our damage deposit back from that trip, and no wonder.

Tomorrow we head to Aachen, Germany to see the thrown of Charlemagne at the oldest cathedral in Europe. Since he's a relative of mine we thought we should stop and see if there's any treasures. Who knows, they may be looking for relatives to claim some of his stuff.

Bye Bye Brugge! A city we would highly recommend to anyone!

Brugge, Belgium

2011-10-26T13:01:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful surprise we have had. After an interesting drive from Amsterdam where we ended up going on a car ferry that cost 5 euros, (that's less than half it cost for our lummi ferry) and a 3 mile tunnel under the water, thru some very rural Belgian countryside where every plant in every yard was severely pruned into all kinds of geometric shapes, we have landed in the heart of Brugge, Belgium.
Our GPS took us right in, less than a block from the main market area, and where our hotel happens to be. We chose our hotel on Hotels.com the night before and after being in Amsterdam and observing how the driving and parking is done there, we had no inhibitions about driving in Brugge. Less than a block from our hotel is this remarkable building!

This shows the street along side of it and the awnings are all outdoor cafe's. There's horse drawn carriages on the right hand side.

Today we walked another block from there and discovered this market, which only runs on Wednesday and Saturday. What a gorgeous setting it sets under!

This booth had nothing but homemade sausages! Gary was delighted. That sounds kinda feminine but his eyes about popped out of his head, that seemed like delighted to me.

Brugge is an enchanting city. There's a moat that runs around the old inner city and several canals that run thru it. This is a scene where people could get on one of the many canal boats.

It has a similarity to Amsterdam but it has all cobbled streets with no designated area for bikes, pedestrians and cars.So we're all together going down the streets. The poor bikers are zigging and zagging all over the place.

There are church spires everywhere we look. We took a lot of pictures. Every time we turned a corner there would be another awesome view.

This is part of a brewery. The turret tower is covered in Boston Ivy all turning red. It's just gorgeous.

Some of the buildings have been here since the early 1500's and are still being lived in or used in some way.

Enchanting! We're staying here an extra day. We've walked all over half of the inner city. Possibly tomorrow we'll take a canal boat ride or a horse and carriage ride or tour the brewery or find the windmills or ........ Just know we're having a wonderful time.

Last Day in Amsterdam

2011-10-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

Today is our last day in Amsterdam. As I am writing this at the end of the day I can safely say we've all had our fill and are ready to move on.
We had a really full day! Here are the 3 girls....

and the one boy who've headed out on their own to see the botanical garden in Amsterdam. The boy didn't spend the day in the pub, he was a great sport and went around with us taking our picture whenever needed.

The botanical garden is one of the oldest in the world. This palm is just over 300 years old and is one of the oldest potted plants in the world. I think there are some bonsai older than this but this male is 300, his girlfriend was nearby and she was 200 years old.

They had a butterfly house which I always love going into. They can be quite enchanting. This is the emperor moth with giant 'eyes'.

Once we left the botanical garden we found a fleamarket while on our way to the Van Gogh Museum, then caught the canal boat for our last ride into the museum area. Of course no pictures are aloud in the museums so if feels like a big gap here.

Once out of the museum we headed out for a new route back to our apartment. Guess what we found, a bakery that had olliebollen!! Yea! It's as good when in Holland as it is when in Lynden! We really enjoyed that little break.

So many beautiful views thruout this city. Just amazing architecture here. Lots of crooked buildings all packed in and lined up.

And lots and lots of tourists, bicycles by the thousands! Cars and scooters and buses and very quiet trams. You must keep alert as you walk about, and crossing a street is not something you do while distracted. It is craziness out there!

Off to Amsterdam

2011-10-23T12:59:00.000-07:00

Here we are, Gary and Barb in the last rays of light on the Dusseldorf walkway. We had a really great time with all the tours and dinners and other activities during the conference.

These are the goofballs that we played with. In the back row its Ken Pecateillo, Emily and Alex Larson, Bob Ludoph, and Gary. In the front row it's Jane Seivers, Evan Hyde, Marlea, Paul and Nancy Orlowski. It's a loud and raucous bunch that enjoyed the last dinner and a salute to the hard work and success of the Dusseldorf conference.

As the sun set we all took our last shots of the sites available from the walkway along the Rhine River.

The Rhine Tower and bridge at sunset.

Then it was off to Amsterdam! We had taken the train from Dusseldorf to Amsterdam and once we got here we bought tickets for the Hop On Hop Off canal boats that took us all around to the sights in the canal areas. Here is Gary with Jane and Marlea.

We went by the Maritime Museum and this is one of the boats to tour. We will see this tomorrow.

This is a look towards the central station with lots of beautiful buildings.

Lots to see with the architecture of many generations of occupation in Amsterdam.

Large beautiful homes all alone were very rare and actually had yards with trees and little mooring docks.

In one of the market areas Paul and Nancy decided to have a caricature done of them for their 32nd anniversary, which was the day we arrived on this adventure tour. Marlea was watching and taking pictures thru the process of the picture.

The Heineken Brewery! It was all we could do to keep Gary in his seat everytime we passed this by.

The Rembrandt Museum. Gorgeous building with many of rembrandts famous works along with some of Vermeers.

Marlea and I and all the Flat Kids taking a break.

This was taken from the bridge right by our apartment at the magic time of night. We've had some very lovely days, so far. Tomorrow we hope to see some Van Gogh and the botanical garden that is around 400 years old. Til then.....Bye bye.

Munster, Germany- The spouse tour

2011-10-20T02:03:00.000-07:00

One of our sponser companies, Ruhrpumpen, had put together a tour to Munster for the spouses of those attending our conference. Being I was a spouse with not much to do I went on the tour.

Our bus was met by an English speaking tour guide, who is the young lady with bright red hair. She led us on a walking tour of the main downtown area's highlights.

As you enter this area and look down the street you are met by this lovely church. Originally built in the 700-800's, nearly completely destroyed in WW2 and rebuilt afterwards. And a nice job they did. What could be saved from the ruins was saved and thruout our tour of their antiquities, which all sustained very serious damage, the friezes and statues were reused and displayed in some manner.

This is a closer view of the side of that church and the entrance.

And a view of it's spire from below. There are 3 cages hanging in the upper 'window' that had at one time contained the extremely torchured remains of men who had rebelled against the religion of the king back in the late 800's. The cages are still intact after all this time. Amazing and gruesome when we were told the details.

The interior and main front windows.

Silhouete of the virgin and child.

This church was the very first one in Munster, built in the location of the early pagan villagers worship site.

The interior of that church.

Not sure what and why this is so beautiful. Must not have been listening properly. But it made for a great beacon at the end of a street that had a farmers market going on. Which is what the picture below is.

We had a very nice lunch in a restaurant at the base of that ornate building, a little shopping time and then loaded on the bus to meet up with the rest of the conference attendees at a Ruhrpumpen factory tour. At this there was much to eat and drink and entertainment of the local variety being a group of local guys who get together and dance to Bavarian music doing traditional bavarian silliness in the dancing. I didn't get pictures of this, I'm sorry to say.

Late night for us all and tonight will probably be even later as we tour another factory and have a dinner cruise on the Rhine River as we return to our hotel.

Hope all is well with you. Later....

Dusseldorf, Germany Refining Community Conference and Training

2011-10-17T23:27:00.000-07:00

Gary and Barb have made it to Germany! This years fall conference is in Dusseldorf, just upriver from our Koln, Germany conference of 2 years ago. This city had been bombed heavily in WWII and has been rebuilt. It has a completely different feel to it than Koln.

Marlea's kids made us some Flat dolls to take around and show the sights of Germany to. One is Big Bear (being their Grandpa's nickname) and the other is Lily. So far I think they like Germany. They certainly travel well, don't take much space and don't eat much. I've not heard any complaining out of them either. Very good travel companions.

Our other two travel companions have been really good too! Jane Seivers and our dear daughter! We all took in the sights together on the first two days here in Dusseldorf.

Our first day here there was a festival in honor of the relationship that Japan and Germany have shared for 150 years. Normally celebrated in May but moved to October this year due to the tsunami in Japan.Many of the young people here came dressed up as characters from the many Japanese anime "cartoons". It was very entertaining.

All of the activities were along the Rhine River. From where we were standing you'd see the old church tower with the twisted roof in one direction and in the other direction you'd see this space needle like building and their modern style bridges. This is one of many tour boats loading up. Really big one too.

Here you can see the mix of modern with the old and then art added into it. The large flexible and brightly colored figures attached to the building on the right. They look like they are swarming all over it. Cool and yet creepy.

We've already frequented one of the best restaurants in town 3 times. Last night all of the Coking.com/Refining Community characters had finally made it here and we had to take them to this authentic German restaurant. It has been a restaurant in this same building since 1628. Napoleon ate here and his seat has a statue of him in it.

The best pork knuckles in town and so far it's the best beer too. Frankenheim Beir. Even I have drank several glasses of this stuff and I am NOT a beer drinker.

Marlea treated her little Caymus and Lucy Flat to an apple streudel with vanilla ice cream. She is really good to these little guys. They are kinda spoiled actually. Granpa lets them do anything. You'll have to check out Marlea's blog to see just how bad Grandpa is.

mamalumus.blogspot.com

Those are Grandpa's hands helping them to the Frankenheim.

I'm trying out a new blogger version and have had some difficulty working it for this blog. So there is going to be another blog addition with pictures I couldn't get into this one. Bear with me.

Aufeiderzein!

Family Campout 2011

2011-09-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Finally! A beautiful sunny weekend for family campout! It's been years since we've had one with no rain!

All the inner tubes got pulled out and it was one pick up load after another headed down the river!

The tubers did either a 3 hour run or a 45 minute run. You could pick just how long you wanted to be on the river. It was great!

Out they go! Sure made for a quiet camp once they were all gone.

In the years past, when it would rain or be too cold for tubing we've had to play games for entertainment. This year we had a host of games planned for that possibility.

One of the games was to toss a football thru an intertube that was lodged in between 2 trees.

This is Lloyd giving it a try.

Levi getting ready. He sustained an injury while riding 4 wheeler and has his hand wrapped.
He's ok tho.

Gary showing good form for tossing.

Cody was sporting a rather nasty burn he'd gotten the week before. I'd explain how he got it but he says it's a long story, I never did hear it.

Gary's favorite show is Top Shot and he rigged up a camping version of it with BB guns of all shapes and sizes, aiming at targets of all shapes and sizes.

Tami was doing pretty good.

I'm not sure how well Shawna did but she had interesting form.

Dustin is taking careful aim with a BB pistol.

We had a lot of fun with quite a host of interesting characters. Here's Lucy and Kestyn playing in the intertubes.

This is Landon and Shawna's baby girl Kenley. It's her first family campout! She just learned to crawl so there were lots of ways of keeping her contained.

Landon is ready for tubing.

Isis walked into one of Kenley's containment areas and closed the gate. This was Isis' first family campout too, and she's walking! Holy cow did this girl get around, far and wide. Exhausting! Desiree took good advantage of this temporary arrangment.

Now here is an interesting group. They should be contained but....couldn't be.

Try and get a good picture of Ray and his boys together. It can't be done. Testosterone and goofiness reign supreme!

Lindseys partner in life, Shawn. He took advantage of everyone tubing by planting himself comfortably by the fire doing whatever he felt like.

The BSers. Gord, Cody, Shane, Gary, Landon.

The washer women! Lynne, Char, Toots (Mom). They did excellent work. Thanks girls!

Family photos of the campers by their living quarters.

Landon, Shawna, Kestyn, Kenley, and dog Pika

Mom

Marlea, Caymus, Lucy

Jason and Dylan

Desiree and Isis

Lloyd, Tami and Luke

Lynne, Rick, Levi and Dustin

Char and Gord

Ray, Dylan, Liz, Brett, Cody, Jason, Shane, Arianna, and Sara the dog.

And then there's us.

What a fun time we had. We were still glad to get home and sleep in a warm, dry bed. Maybe the good weather is part of a seven year cycle. Boy I hope not. Sunny weather made this great!

Now it's back home to get ready for 3 weeks of dry dock and a quilting retreat. Off and running!

Caymus Birthday and Crystal Reid

2011-08-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

Guess who just turned 7!!!

Yes it's Caymus! This kid is full of birthday joy!
We went to Salem and had a really nice time with our little man. We had never been to the city of Silverton and a place called Oregon Garden and thought it might have a little something for everyone. So off we went.
Oregon Garden has 20 something gardens of various themes. Caymus enjoyed the electric train in the childrens garden.

It turned into a really hot day and they had a couple of places that it was ok to play in the water feature. Funny thing was I couldn't get the kids to 'play' in the water features. But they'd go near them and enjoy the spray. Lucy and I got a little cool off time by this large fountain.

Part of our talking the kids into the fun they could have at a 'garden' was that there was a childrens garden with a 'hobbit house'. I'd told them about the hobbit books and what a hobbit house should be. When Lucy came out of this one she had an incredulous look of 'that's it?!" It wasn't much but it was cute, from the outside.

It was hot in the Salem area this weekend and we spent some time cooling off at Marlea's house and enjoying the flurry of life that goes on at her place. The garden's look great and things are growing like crazy.

Once we left Marlea's family we headed to Crystal Mt. to visit Reid. He's been trying to get family to come and see him all winter, all spring and now all summer. We're full of excuses and time constraints but we finally made it up there.

His status as chef has upgraded the room he's able to get us as his guest. We were happy with that and the chat we had with his boss on how well he's doing and that the restaurant is finally making money since he's been there. It was really nice to hear.

A favorite place to go while up there is an area called Sunrise. It has spectacular views of Mt. Rainier and lots of short hikes to lakes and vistas. This picture is taken just up from the parking lot and where we needed to decide which direction we were going to go.

It's hard to decide when you have these two to help out.

We chose a direction we'd not taken before and it took us nearer to the base of the mountain. The trails are really in good shape here.

We had a really nice time. Had a longer walk than intended but we needed it.

Then it was time to get back on the road to Lummi Island. In two weeks time it's family camp up on the Nooksack River. Marlea and kids will be coming up for that and we now have a 16 month old to take camping. We are all in for some fun.

But, this weekend is over and we had a really great time.

Happy Birthday Caymus.

PS. We'd gone to a Toby Keith concert with Marlea and Bob at the beginning of this trip. You'll have to see Marlea's blog to see the pictures from that.

mamalumus.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

Oh Boy!

2011-08-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

It's been 3 busy weeks since my last post. It's had it's bittersweet moments.

Two days after my last post Desirees mother past away of complications from cancer. Desiree had me keep Isis while she and her brother dealt with the myriad of things that must be done while grieving. What a painful process.

Because of the death in his immediate family Bryce was contacted and emergently taken from his outpost in Iraq and has been up here for 2 weeks. I am so grateful the military does this and tries to do it swiftly. Granted it took 3 days to get him here but he made it, just in time for the memorial service.

While Bryce was here he was able to visit with family and friends that we already had plans on coming here. Reid being one. I hadn't seen Reid since April and was really glad that he was able to come up, altho it was brief.

We had another wedding approaching in my family so Marlea and Bob and kids came up to attend that. As you can see, I do get great enjoyment out of grandparenting. The first morning that the kids were here I was gifted with a pile of grandkids on my lap, bonding. We love this!

My nephew Dylan came back to stay a few days, before the wedding.

Bob had brought kayaks on one of their trips up here. We keep them on the beach where they are ready for use. This trip had calm water so they decided to tether one of the kayaks so it wouldn't get away and have the kids try out kayaking. All of them really enjoyed it. Bob got to show them some paddling techniques and nobody ended up in the water or lost out to the tide.

Our niece Bridgette, her husband Alan and their 3 kids came out for a west coast visit before her delivery of twins in December. (Yes, they have their hands full!) They had a great time at the beach and Alan even tried out the kayaks himself!

After spending all afternoon at the beach the kids played in our hot tub, which had been filled but not warmed in anticipation for the kids' visit. They still had fun. This is Lucy with Cleo. Cleo is not bashful! She is a child always ready for the adventure!

This is bashful Roland. He had a great time too but some things he watched his sister do instead. Very sweet boy!

And Baby Adam! He just turned one. He's quiet, smiling always! and rolls with the flow. What a great baby!

It was awesome to see Bridgette and family. Gary and I had to leave the fun to go to rehearsal dinner for Lance and Paige. Gary MC'd the wedding and I was a "Brides assistant" so we had to get our instructions, and see what we were in for.

Lucy and Isis had a lot of fun together.

During this time we got in a lot of fun at the beach.

This is half of the Coking.com crew. This is how they spend their 'off' time.

After the beach and it's cold ocean water then it's the hot tub with its now 'hot' water of 100 degrees.The kids spend hours in here!

Then there was the wedding!

My nephew Lance and his bride Paige.

The wedding was the first we'd seen of Bryce and Desiree for the past week. They had gotten her mother's apartment cleanded out and gone thru the painful process of closing up her life.

So glad they made it, and they were glad too. They needed a happy note after all that.

Lots of family at this wedding.

And Lance thanking them all for coming!

These three are the silliest! My dear old friends- Jan, who came up from Winthrop, my sister Char, who was the mother of the groom and looked so lovely, and Doris, who is always ready for some fun times.

Speaking of lovely, our daughter Marlea and her sweety Bob.

MC Gary and our nephew Landon who was the first of Char's kids to marry, 4 years ago in August. Lindsey married 2 years ago in August and now Lance. Char and Gord are finished and have lots of August anniversaries to remember! Birthdays too, since this wedding was on Lindseys and Lance's is tomorrow! They've done a great job in getting their kids married in style. Now with 2 granddaughters the pressure is on for more. "Many children" for Lance and Paige was mentioned several times. Pity those kids for taking too long to put out. But there's lots of 'grand'animals, so that should hold off Char and Gord for a while, if Landon doesn't shoot them and eat them first. (He'd do that, he's a stinker that way)

After Marlea and gang left I got the sheets changed and our dear old friend Joe and his lovely family came from Boise for a couple of days visit. We have lots of real estate property around us we'd love for these guys to buy and we'd see them more often! None the less we had a nice relaxing time with them before they were off to see a Mariners game and enjoy other Seattle entertainment.

Bryce has gone back and we have his girls staying with us. The house is quieter but not silent!

Take care and be safe out there Bryce! We love you and miss you already!

And I am caught up on blogging :)

Summer

2011-07-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

We've had some cloudy, rainy days this past couple of weeks. It's really unusual for July. In spite of that the sky is still beautiful in the evenings. The Alaska Ferry goes by on Friday and Saturday evenings around 7:15pm and the folks riding it to Alaska get some gorgeous views.
Our dear friend Missy (Slagle) Yarbrough stayed with us with her husband Eric and kids Tyler and Corbin. They've moved around some while working for Milgard Windows and are now in Hollister, CA. They drove up for her dad's funeral services and family business. The reason for the visit was very sad but it was good to see them.
My nephew Dylan has been staying with us for a while and working on our landscape project. He is the Lego King and really impressed Corbin with his Lego abilities. The kids were fully entertained.
Dylan enjoyed doing things with Isis as well. Taking her for a walk in the back yard and keeping her from eating things she shouldn't requires diligence. She does love to explore all aspects of her world.
Desiree had washed a bunch of bedding and when Isis saw her pillow in the basket she pulled it out and made herself at home. She took another look into the laundry basket and spotted a tiny corner of her blanket under some other things and hauled that out too.
She lounged about on the laundry room floor for quite awhile once she had her favorite things out.
Travis and Taylor finished the steps and landings! If we had a health care program they'd be in the chiropractors office for the next month. But....a few days off will hopefully do them some good. Tomorrow they start on an arbor at the road where this sidewalk will end. Going up and down the Grand Stairway certainly is an easier way of going up and down this darn hill. Plus it feels very Grand!
Things are coming together!

Walls Arrived! and Visitors were here!

2011-07-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy summer so far which makes quiet time with Isis even sweeter! Gary loves to sit with her and 'read a book'.

Marlea and Bob came up with kayaks to leave with us for the summer. There was high hope of getting them in the water but we had some windy days, making for rough water. But the kayaks are here, ready whenever they are.
Marlea and I are ready for some sunny weather and anything else that might come our way.
I had to work one day while M & B were here and they came out with Isis and visited me at work. Isis wasn't so sure about me while I was wearing a hat, but she got over it.
They also took her to the Bellingham Farmers Market. Marlea got to practice carrying a little one around in her old front pack and Isis was thrilled to be adult eye level. They all enjoyed their time people watching and checking out the booths.
And a visit wouldn't be complete without a visit to Grandma Toots'. We got a private tour of her garden, which is looking really good and full of blooms!
Marlea and Bob have become quite obsessed with combing the beach for seaglass and they spent many, many hours at the beach early in the morning. This haul was on their final day and boy did they get a lot! This is Marlea's take for the morning.
The little competition they have going has left Bob sorely behind Marlea. He's really doing quite good but Marlea beat him badly on the last day. Over the course of the whole weekend he got plenty of glass. Don't let this sad face fool you. I'll never find a piece of glass down there. It's gone!
For our hospitality they bought us dinner at Kuru Kuru Sushi before they left. We all love sushi and this conveyor belt restaurant lets you pick and choose until you just can't take it anymore! We love this place.

The really good news! The rest of the landscape walls arrived!!!! Oh life is good! Ray and Dylan brought out the last of the walls. Travis and Taylor came out to help get them set and Gary did the welding once they were in place.

Awwwh!!! (dorks)

So this is the south set of footings with the 2 green and one white riser from the septic tank. This is 'before' the walls were set in.

All the work going on 'during' the walls getting set in. Ray power spraying an end, Gary welding in the right hand corner and Travis in the upper area getting the footing ready for welding.
The 'after' they were all in place. Gary spent several hours hauling fill into them the next couple of days.
Now Travis and Taylor are working on the steps! A back busting job. Gary hauled the Redi Rock risers to them and once the easy bottom ones were done he had to go around and down the center. Kinda scary.

The last riser of the first flight of steps being set in. Three more flights to go. Working for us can be a real pain.

It's gonna really be something when it's all in and planted. It is going to take a few years but that's part of my retirement plan, for both Gary and I. He will have to work forever to support my retirement plan. Men don't do well sitting around during retirement anyway. They just get in our way. I don't have to worry about that now!

2011-07-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

Summer is officially here! We always take a picture of the sunset on summer solstice and this years was as beautiful as ever!
The last few weeks have been busy! First there were the graduation parties. Our nephews Shane and Dustin both graduated from high school, on the same night no less. Wish our county schools would get that straight!
Dustin looks glad to have high school behind him doesn't he? He'll soon realize that high school was the easy part of his life. It just gets more complicated from now on out.

Visiting with friends and family is the best part of graduation parties.

Visiting with friends! My friend Bedelia came back from her 6 month adventure in the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and a few others I can't spell. She has an all over tan from the wonderful sun in those countries and is now bundled up to handle a Pacific North West summer! I'm feeling bad for her.
Our friend Gimmee Carol was also visiting from her recent move to Azerbaijan and all of us Gimmees had a retreat up at Peaceful Mt. near Maple Falls. We got caught up on their travels and got some cool projects started and/or completed in the process. No pictures tho. Gary was at a coking.com training in Ft. MacMurray, Alberta Canada and had the camera. (that's my excuse)
We also have our granddaughter Isis and her Mom Desiree staying with us. Desiree got her wisdom teeth pulled out this week. All 4 of them. Gary and I took on the baby responsibility and had some fun with this little darlin'!
She loves water! It's too cold for a little kiddy pool but still found this small tub to be a fun time!

She fits in it better this way. It is a small tub.

We finally tuckered her out. Actually we're just as tired but we had to wait for her to go to sleep before we could.
She fell asleep on Grandpa's lap, which he loves! This is a rare occasion. It's still light out and we're still up and talking. She usually hates to miss out on anything. We must have bored her to sleep.
Meanwhile, our front yard project has taken some movements towards completion. We had picked up 2 1700 gallon underground water cisterns and a 1000 gallon propane tank all to be buried behind some of the walls. We needed fill and these items do fill things and are useful.

The propane tank going in.

Our neighbor took the opportunity of having equipment available to him via our property to completely brick in their little back yard. The excavator dug out the sod, which was put in as fill into our wall project, and dumped in sand and gravel for him to lay the brick on. It saved the neighbor a ton of work and did us both a favor.
That's our summer, so far. The whales have been going by more frequently than they did last year. The sun is shining more here on Lummi Island than it is on the mainland. (hee hee) and we are chasing a one year old around while wishing our wall project would move faster than a snail. Oh well. Apparently we can't have it all. None the less, we are keeping busy.

Bryce's Deployment

2011-06-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

The day none of us were looking forward to did arrive. Bryce has been deployed to Iraq. Every minute of his last couple of days was spent with his family, and especially his little angel,

Isis Moon.

She is showing how she waves goodbye. She opens and closes her hands towards herself. Very sweet.

Playfully growling at her doesn't faze her a bit.

Sharing her thumb with her Daddy while having the window curtain pulled over her head. Go figure.

The last hugs and kisses.

The troops are gathered up for rollcall before boarding buses headed to the airport. They flew straight on into Iraq so it was a long, long trip for these guys.

The weather in Kansas was hot and the evenings were constant lightening storms, and the occasional tornado warnings. I was ready to get out of Kansas the next morning after Bryce left. Desiree and I loaded up their little volkswagen Beetle and headed out. You can see the highlighted route we took. It was a beautiful drive.
This was a good time to take a trip like this. Everything was green, the heat of summer hadn't dried things up. The trip across Kansas was very windy and we just missed a large storm as we crossed into Colorado. We could see it coming and raced on out of there to avoid it!
The beauty of a really little car is that Isis was easy to reach. She was packed into her little space in the back with all her things around her. Nothing was out of reach for any of us. Isis did great for being in the car so long and I think it's because we could so easily reach her and her things.
Four days and four hotels later we made it back to Lummi Island. Isis wasted no time getting into the toys and into the toy drawer. She was happy to be out of the car! (She can't seem to play with the toys unless she is in there with them!)
She was really happy to see Grandpa again and wasted no time getting him wrapped around her finger. She is very sweet, goofy and fun for a couple of duffer grandparents like us.
Desiree is signed up for a course at the Tony and Guy Beauty School. Bryce's deployment time will be used to try to get that under her belt.

Life will be different here on Lummi, we're ready for it.

2011-06-08T14:20:00.000-07:00

Yes, I had some lazy days after Galveston and New Orleans!
But 10 days of them were spent with a high fever. I don't know what I caught but it had me down! So I enjoyed some of that down time in the 'Hammock Garden' I'd created in the back yard.

Towards the end of the week Gary went down to the beach after receiving a phone call from Paul and Nancy Orlowski. While down there a seaplane landed to unload passengers staying at 'The Willows" for a few days.
Meanwhile Paul and Nancy were on their way over from Patos Island after a very successful bit of shrimping and were quite wonderful and generous with their catch!

OMG! What lovely large spot prawns! Gary counted 117 of them!Marlea and crew were coming up the next day to spend Memorial weekend with us for my 55th birthday. Now we had the makings for quite a wonderful birthday dinner! Lucy and Caymus love shrimp! and these were something worth their love! Thank you Paul and Nancy!

While they were up we kept busy. My sister Char invited us over to her son Lance's and his fiance Paige's home for a barbecue. This is the Wagter Boys, Gordy, Landon and Lance. It was great to see the work Lance and Paige have done to their house and Marlea got to see Grandpa Ron, Grandma Jean and Grandma Toots too.
Lucy was in heaven with Paige's horses to love on and Caymus was thrilled to help throw wood into the bon fire they got going. Lots of fun that night.
Lucy and I found the microscope out in the shed and pulled it out. Boy did the fun start then! Caymus found a live spider, caught it and squished it between two glass slides. That was awesome to see. The dirt under Lucy's fingernails was an incredible deterrent to ever bite her nails again. We had so much fun looking at so many things! Lucy said it was the best 55th birthday she'd ever been to. Well, lucky me!
She also informed us that she was born in Prague. Gary tried to argue that she was born in Oregon and she told him he was prejudice against Pragueonians. Heaven forbid! So he accepted it and we were shown how people from Prague carry stuff. She carried all our beach stuff on a stick she found and made it all the way home. We were nearly a mile from home too. Wow those Pragueonians are tough! They are also scientists and that's why she was doing so well with the microscope. Huh, who knew.
Boys will be boys! Grandpa and Caymus could hardly wait to get all the targets made and hung for some b b gun shooting. They showed Bob how to have a good time and between those two Gary could hardly keep up on the reloading! Now I've got shotholes thru a whole bunch of plants behind their targets. Boys!
You can guess that there was a lot of beach time spent. With a low tide we took the gang around the end of our beach to a beach they hadn't been to before.

They found a log bridge!

Sea glass was on Marlea and Bob's mind and the new beach yielded so much sea glass that it was nearly impossible to get them to move along!

Then it was the comparison to see how much each one found. Then the 'I'll trade you my blue one for an agate' kind of stuff. You can see Bob is trying to tempt Marlea with something he deems special. These two can clean a beach! The small complaints of back pain were met with a 'duh'! No pity here.

The kids found their own forms of entertainment.

A sunset hot tub and conch blowing.

Then it was birthday cake time. Caymus counted out 55 candles and all were stuck on my cake. The guys worked as quickly as they could to light them all before the first ones were melted.

Isn't it pretty. You can't even tell the sun has set and it's nearly pitch dark outside.

I made my wishes (at my age I get wishes, plural) and blew and blew. Who put those trick candles in there?!
Once this fun weekend was over these guys took me to SeaTac airport so I could catch a plane to Kansas. We had a lot of fun and it helped to get me out of the doldrums of my cold and back into the land of the living.
Now it's time for the next phase of our grandparenting lives. Bryce is deploying :( and his family is coming to live with us! Oh my!

2011-05-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

We have made it back from New Orleans! Thank goodness! It was getting too hot for me there and the Mississippi River was right at the top of the levees, highest since 1927! Time to go home! But I must finish the story of our fun time in New Orleans.
Our last conference night had a "New Orleans Extravaganza" arranged. It was all a secret for those of us attending. We were asked to meet up in a large room by the hotels' main entry where we were served the drink called "hurricane", a rather sweet fruit punch with an alcohol punch added. Soon we noticed that there were police cars and motorcycles gathering out in front of the hotel. Hmmm curious thing. Well soon we hear the loud but happy sound of a jazz band coming closer and then bursting into our meeting room! The band I have pictured here.

While the band played there were 3 "jesters" going around and putting several strands of beads around everyone's neck. Soon we were following the band out the doors and onto the street where the police cars had the traffic stopped. The hotel was on the corner of Canal and Bourbon St. and we were immediately directed to Bourbon St. where anything goes! The motorcycles were stopping traffic at the intersections but our little parade was stopping the pedestrian traffic with our lively band, jesters, stilt walker and bead throwing conference attendees!

The motorcycles were stopping traffic at the intersections but our little parade was stopping the pedestrian traffic with our lively band, jesters, stilt walker and bead throwing conference attendees! (This is me getting ready to throw some beads!)

There were probably about 80 of us out on this extravaganza. We had a fun time.
We were taken up 3 blocks on Bourbon and then over a block to a lovely old building that had previously been a bank back in the late 1800's and is now a great event center. Each room had a different atmosphere to it and either a bar or a table of food with entertainment.

The largest room had 2 large food areas, tables to sit at and these 'Dead Indians' entertainment. When they were done the jazz band behind them took over.
In the bank vault was this gentleman making cigars. Anyone who wanted one was welcome to take a cigar. This man has been making cigars by hand for over 20 years, taught by his father and grandfather.
The extravaganza turned out to be really fun and just what you imagine New Orleans to be like.
The next day I went on a city tour while Gary was sitting in on some of the conference speakers. I really wanted to see the Garden District so I chose a tour that would bring me there.
Sandra Bollock lives in the Garden District and this is her house! This area has all the large beautiful homes, and all right next to each other. It's ok for the rich and famous but I like where I live.

The tour also included a cemetery tour.

There are a lot of cemeteries in New Orleans! No one is buried in the ground here because of flooding. Most are in these crypts, if you weren't cremated.
No one is embalmed, they want you to decompose rapidly. Your put into your coffin and slid into your crypt where you will bake for a year and a day and then taken out (nothing left but bones by then) and wrapped and crushed and shoved to the back of the crypt where you will touch the earth and continue to decompose. Someone else can now be slid into the spot where your coffin had been.
The crypt in this picture has the 12 slots where that's been done for a very long time. The names of the deceased have been put on each door and then, when those got filled, more slabs were added to the side of the crypt to continue the names. We were told one crypt has 1800 people in it. Now that's conserving space!

Certainly makes for a very old but very beautiful places to visit.
The rest of my tour was mostly thru Katrina damaged areas. The most interesting part of that were some of the new home styles built in replacement. Each one different since each is a design by college students. I didn't get pics of any of that, but it was interesting.

Now that I have all the pictures off of all of the cameras I found this one of the the Coking.com crew and some extras!. Gary's brother Scott and his wife Char came down to Galveston to see what it is that the big brother does. It was great to see them and have all the time we wanted to visit. They pitched in whenever needed, which was often in those setting up days.
Between Char and Marlea is Evan, who teaches the coker fundamentals class with Gary. He is currently living in Geneva, Switzerland since his wife works for Nestle and is was transferred there. (Poor them)
Between Scott and Gary is Ken, one of our cat-cracking experts and teacher. Boy can he eat crawfish! He and Marlea each got a bucket of them and you'd better stand back from Ken! Crawfish flying everywhere!
On Gary's right is Jane and Gary's left is Nancy. I'm sure you recognize Marlea and myself on the other side. This restaurant was along the water and boats could pull up and park. The dress code was anything except nude. Some people were pushing that.
All in all, we had a fun 2 weeks. When we got back to our car in Seattle and there were baby toys in it we were reminded of all that's transpired in the last month!
Building, sheet rock dust, new pantry and bedroom, kids, food preparation, beach combing, baby food, packing, air flights, conferences.......
Home Sweet Home.

Galveston to New Orleans!

2011-05-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

Just where have we been this past 2 weeks? Well it wasn't at a sewing retreat! This little machine was in one of the plantation homes we toured and I had to take a picture for the Gimmees. It's the first picture because I missed it in my line up for the blog and moving it is too hard on this tiny computer I'm working from, so it's first. It is unlike any I've ever seen.

We spent our first week out on Galveston Island at the Moody Gardens Conference Center. The signature 3 pyramids were gleaming a welcome to us! And always glowed at night. This view is from our poolside suite where we all hung out during and after the workout we were put thru each day.
It was our largest conference so far with 365 registered attendees. We'd had a few slow years during the recession and have finally gotten back up to pre-recession times. Oh thank goodness!

I had some fun as well as work. This is Andy Vincent. He has been a pro football player and won many of the strong man competitions. There are videos on the internet of him during some of those competitions and some of the Scottish Highland games he's competed in. My dear grandson, Caymus, has his autograph and thinks he's pretty cool. I got my picture taken with Andy for the brownie points it might give me with Caymus.

This is me working. I took many photos of the conference and this is me taking a picture of the 25 attendees from the Lyondell Refinery in Texas City. They've been a huge supporter for many years and were a fun bunch to photograph.

Here's a look into the conference hall at the beginning. Good crowd. No one ever sits in the first couple of rows of seats! Don't know why, they just don't. So those are sparse. Otherwise it's a great crowd.

Our exhibit hall was also the biggest ever! The 49 vendors kept Marlea running! She's going to have to take a few more pairs of shoes next time. If you don't revolve thru shoes each day your feet are screaming in no time. As it was, we all had screaming feet at the end of the conference. But big grins on our faces.

Our biggest truck display with flags, lights, stairs into different rooms on it, the works.

We had a tour thru the Curtis Wright facility there in Baytown. Lots of large round spheres in large buildings with a barbeque dinner and lots of beer. Ok, I can chalk that one up as 'been there, seen that'.

We also were served dinner on the paddle wheeler thru the Galveston Bay. It was probably our best weather evening in the 3 or 4 years that this event has been sponsored. Really gorgeous night with my favorite sliver of smiling moon.

Jane, Marlea and me at sunset on the paddle wheeler. Here's some hard working girls, and me. They did a great job handling so many people.

After our conference was over we all headed our seperate ways. Gary and I were registered at another conference in New Orleans so we flew there and stayed outside of town since it was Jazzfest in New Orleans and our room wasn't available.

For Mothers Day he and I visited a couple of the plantation homes that were in the area. It was really a lovely and different way to spend the day. In observing some other parents dealing with unruly children while on house tours we were grateful that we no longer had small kids. All of mine were able to call me and wish me a happy Mom's day and I didn't have to chase them around to keep them from touching the antiques or screaming over the tour guides.

This is a courting chair sitting prominently in a sitting room. Only their one hand can touch each other. Where were these when my daughter was dating?

This goldfish fountain was kinda cute.

This is the back side of SanFrancisco House. It's so close to the Mississippi River that when they put the levee up along the river it left only enough room in front of this place for a road. It's pretty in the front but I couldn't get far enough away to get a picture without chainlink fencing and cars.

Off to the left is an 8000 gallon cistern of which there was a second one on the right side as well, supplying the house with running water in an era when that was unheard of.

This is Houmas House. The owner of this house still lives here in spite of the daily tours. He has antiques galore, some are very unusual. What is so striking about these homes is the very ancient live oaks that surround them. Most of the trees are older than these homes because there were smaller homes here first, replaced with these large ones as the money from sugar cane started coming in.

If you'd ever seen the 1963 movie "Hush, hush, Sweet Charlotte" with Bette Davis you may recognize this spiral staircase as the one where the decapitated head went rolling down. The movie was filmed here. (I did see the movie, as a teen, while babysitting. Loved it. Don't remember this stairway tho)

Lovely gardens with statues and fountains were at Houmas House.

This is the back of the house, with fountain, very tall wisteria arbor and my husband, who took me out here on this Mothers Day adventure.

When Victorian era boys reached puberty they were moved out of the mainhouse and into small apartments on the property, like this one.

Houmas House thru the garden.

This is Oak Alley. We didn't tour this one since we were too late in the day by the time we got here. Lovely and classic, isn't it!

Now we're in New Orleans! It's hot, humid and the air is full of music! Oh the things I have to put up with!

Only a few more days and we can cool off in good ole Washington State!

Fun with Children

2011-04-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a baby that loves her bathtime! What a joy it was to see her so completely ellated when she got put into the shower! This was fun, for her and her grandparents.

She didn't mind water in her eyes, in fact, she put her face into the spray and tried lapping up the water! What a wild little water baby.

Innocence.

Stinker.

She certainly enjoyed the toy box.

She has been so much fun and really a good baby.

As for our grown-up kids....Well they've been taking care of business. Reid took Bryce to his favorite biking area and put him on a bike. Up hill for quite a ways and then downhill fast, thru trees, over bumps, around corners. Bryce has the scrapings and sore body parts to attest to the fact that the army does not require you to ride a bike as part of their physical training.

I'm glad the boys got to spend that time together.

The next morning it was laundry duty. The boys' clothes were covered in mud and Bryce and Dez had run out of clothes already. But that's what staying at Mom and Dad's is all about.

Soon we will be taking the happy couple back to the airport and Gary and I will go on to the coking.com seminar in Galveston and B and D will prepare for his deployment.

Well, I thought they were happy. Apparently it's not all marital bliss. ;)

Crazy days and crazy nights.............

All the Pitmans Together! Wow!

2011-04-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

This is as good as it gets!

Yes indeed, for 2 and a half days all of our kids and grandkids were all sleeping under one roof! What a wonderful feeling that is. Brief and quick it was, but it did happen.
Before it happened tho... what a stressful and busy couple of weeks that was! Our front yard project came to a screeching halt so that the guys could put all their efforts into finishing the bedroom change over. The old storage room is now a bedroom and the 'dungeon' is now a pantry. It all feels so right. At some point I may post more pictures of that cuz I finally used a door that we've been dragging around with us for 30 years as the new pantry door, and cuz it all looks so nice! But as I write this I realize there's no pictures. Oh well, there's plenty of other pics.
I spent a few whole days painting. The whole room and trim and the new door needed work. The guys were on me often with, "is it dry yet? We need it!"
Well it's all dry now, by golly! With hours to spare before everybody started arriving.
Gary and I drove to the airport to pick up Bryce and family. They were exhausted. Amazingly that baby girl was fairly pleasant for the added 2 hour ride home to an already 11 hour day for her. She's a good baby!
Thru the course of that same day Reid got home not long after us and Marlea and kids and Bob got here on the very last ferry of the night and everyone went straight to bed. Marlea and kids got the new bedroom, Bryce and Dez and Isis got the old bedroom, Bob got the sewing room and Reid got to try out his new tent and sleeping bag out on the deck! Caymus couldn't hardly wait to wake him up!
My three hombres! What a wacky trio these guys are. (it took 18 pictures to get one that I'm only 'sorta' ok with, good grief) Their partners and kids aren't any better! What a busy house we were!
My parents and siblings and most of their kids all came out on Saturday to visit with all my kids and celebrate the April birthdays.
There was a pretty low tide that day and lots and lots of sunshine which no one has seen for a while! It was an awesome day. Many went to the beach for a couple of hours to enjoy that low tide.

Reid tried out his rock climbing shoes and worked those rock climbing muscles. Show off!

Cody and Shane at the beach.

Time to brace ourselves for the feeding frenzy when we saw this mob coming up from the beach!

Sloppy Joes, pretty much standard faire when I have the family over.

Luke, Caymus and Dylan really enjoyed the giant dirt pile we have out front.

Beautiful day and family camaraderie out on Lummi Island that day.

Easter Sunday followed and that was a pretty laid back Pitman family fun day. Reid is showing Caymus about car care and maintenance as he changed the winter tires to summer ones. Caymus loves to do whatever Reid is doing. Sometimes that's scary for me.
There's our little miss sunshine! She came with a cold in her eyes and each day was looking better all the time. It didn't slow down her eating or her good mood. She is such a good baby!

I've been working on a wedding quilt for Bryce and Dez from a design that she had drawn up. It is ready for it's last borders. I couldn't wait to show them. It takes a while to absorb all that's going on in this quilt. I think they were happy with it's progress and it will really be great to get it to the point of quilting.
Easter Sunday means Easter Eggs! The kids had fun decorating and then finding their decorated eggs.
Constant eating has definitely made my sons into large grown men! I am the Mini me now.

Lucy loved playing with Isis! Isis loved following her around!

Like father like daughter. Or is it like daughter like father? Not really sure.

The hot tub is always a favorite. Caymus was in 3 times in one day! It really felt good on that chilly Sunday afternoon.

All too soon it was time for Marlea and clan to leave. This was Bob's introduction to the family. He handled himself well. He and Marlea relieved the beach of all the beach glass and agates that they could find. And as an avid bird watcher he saw 3 new birds. It was very productive. He fit in really well. So far.
Well, that was the weekend. Reid and Bryce and family are still here. So be on the look out for future posts. Mostly they will be filled with adorable baby pictures. Of Isis of course! Golly gee she is cute!
Later....

The Garden Wall Panels Are Here!

2011-03-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

Ray came across on the ferry with a small load of panels, staying within weight for the ferry ride. Behind him came Shane with a pickup truck pulling a trailer with more panels on it. Later in the morning another guy came with another pickup and trailer and Shane came one more time with another pickup and trailer. So, it's nearly all here.
Here is everybody scrambling to get ready. Getting the cardboard covering off the sonatube footings and making sure they're level, digging trenches for the panels to fit from one tube to the next etc.....
Ray is remotely running the boom truck and Taylor is helping to guide the panel to it's spot.
Even Gary got into the act. He became our welder while Shane was out fetching more panels. It was good for him, altho he was one tired puppy at the end of the day.
Everybody put all they had into the project. Here you can see Travis giving the panel a push and shove while Gary and Ray discuss the weather or something.

Shane, Taylor, Ray, Travis and Gary.

Some adjustments had to be made here and there. Travis is working it!

Third level going in.

One of the welds got in the way of the panels fitting tight so Travis is grinding it down.

Gary the welder.

It's coming along. Looks like a lot of concrete from this end, doesn't it. What it is, is a lot of fill needed. Oh dear.

The view from the neighbors side. You can see how we're needing a lot of fill by the gap at the bottom of the panels. Oh dear.
We decided that anyone who comes over must bring a couple of 5 gallon buckets of dirt with them. So now we need to have a party. BYOD!
Here it is, so far. Basically what it looks like from the bottom of the property. We figure all sorts of rumors will start with this. Fortification from attack, infinity pools flowing one into the other, tsunami protection...All kinds of stuff this could be used for.
Come on by and see it! But bring some dirt, or rocks, or anything you want to see buried. We aim to please, and we aim to fill this.

Spring is.....

2011-03-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

Spring is the time for things to be fresh and new. The sign of hope for a better future. Renewing and rebirth of our winter burdened spirits.
For us, this is a rebirth of our property here on Lummi Island. Hope for a future of gardening made easy by garden terraces at waist height, where I will never need to bend over and strain my gardening beleaguered back again.
In order for me to have this fresh and new way of gardening and back relief we must first ruin the backs of 2 young island men! They'll be ok, their young, they'll recover, won't they?
Before things can be fresh and new they must first be muddy and sloppy and looking oh so bad! Morgan and Tosh really did a great job of getting all the concrete into place and came out of it looking like they had a great time playing in the mud! Great time or not the northside footings are poured! Gary got some fill in with the tractor and made it easier to get around. The irrigation main line is laid in along with some wiring for step lights.
Monday morning we'll see Ray out here with a boom truck loaded with beautiful dark gray panels with a slightly washed finish to give them an aged look. All made at 36" high so I can garden comfortably. What a great husband I have to willingly go into this all for a few fresh vegetables and a wife who should never-ever complain of being bored! Ever! Hmmm, so this is his shot at keeping me quiet, keep the nagging down. Hmmm, I never thought of it like that. Hmmm....
At Christmas I bunked with Caymus in one of our spare bedrooms lovingly called "The Dungeon". It has no windows, is quite small and very stuffy if you shut the door. It's also just below the upstairs toilet which had been changed from a wall hanging toilet to an in-floor toilet and hides absolutely no secrets of what's going on in it from the innocent sleeping below it.
Well, this just won't do!
We mentioned to Travis that during any lull time from our yard job he could change the dungeon into our storage room and our storage room into a bedroom, since it has a window. Yesterday he and Taylor got on that job.
All the shelving got taken out and is being reused in the dungeon. By the end of the day they had gotten the first bit of shelving put up in the dungeon and I'll get some stuff on those shelves before the end of the day.

Because of this switch over it means that once again our downstairs spare bedroom, hallway and my sewing room are now full of our crap, again!!! Holy glutton for punishment!
I must go pull nails out of boards, part of that 'reuse' bs.
Someday, someday....All our storage stuff will stay in it's place until needed.....someday.

Spring is Here!

2011-03-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

What better way to show that spring is on the way then to show you some sweet spring flowers!
These are my Greatnieces Kestyn and Kenley. I went to their house and took some photos of them for their Mom Shawna. Two year olds are full of it! I'm only posting this one so Shawna can show them off without my preview being seen here first. They were pretty cute, and oh so active!

This is the last sunset of winter! It's a new day and the first day of spring. Gary is taking a sunset break after doing some work while our crew isn't here.

We finished laying the blocks for this wall all along the back of our two closest neighbors. We're trying to flatten out our property and get rid of these odd mowing spots. Some clunky rock got put in behind the wall, then we'll add crushed. Some dirt will go along the rock wall on the left to have a wider planting area in front of that wall. The rock there is from the fireplace we took out of the house. Recycle, reuse.
Concrete! Oh my gosh what a mess! and extremely hard work! The guys are trying to figure out how the mixer works and the combo of materials that they need. Travis is bringing in some gravel from down by the road. I think he preferred tractor work to everything else. This project has been a challenge since working with wood is more his thing. But he's doing great!
Young bodies were needed to get concrete from the mixer into the holes where the footings are.
Plenty of obstacles to keep them on their toes.

Travis and Taylor are working to stay ahead of the concrete slingers.

Our rock pile! There's our big one!

Half of the footings and sonatubes with I-beams are in. The other half is nearly ready for concrete. The guys are getting a work out. Who needs to go to a gym when you can do this?!

From the bottom looking up.

From Gary's office window you can see the whole project. Large pile of excavated dirt in the middle of the lot, pile of big rocks off to the left for the future rock garden, concrete mixer relocated for pouring the bottom footings and the tractor waiting for orders. Pretty huh? It's getting there. Gotta keep the rain away for next week so they can get that bottom done. I'll work on that.

The End of February

2011-03-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

Well February is over and March is coming in like a lion! Wow! My last week was a busy one. On Wednesday I went on a bus trip to Seattle to the Flower and Garden Show. It was snowing hard here on Lummi Island but not in Bellingham so the tripwas on. Seattle was cold but no snow there. The flower/garden show was not too bad. The plant vendors were great fun.
This first picture shows some resemblance to the sort of retaining walls and paving that we're looking to do on our landscape job.

This display is what my dream for my yard looks like. Magical. Probably won't really get the magic but hey, I can dream!
The drive back from Seattle was horrifying! From Everett to Samish Lake it was a whiteout with lots and lots of snow that had been falling all day. The freeway was one lane thru Mt. Vernon. White knuckle stuff. But no snow in Bellingham! Boy did we cheer when the bus got parked! We survived!

The next morning I flew out with my Gimmee Quilting friends Francie, Carol and Marty. Off to Phoenix to visit Gimmee Pat. We were so happy to leave. There was a windchill of 18 degrees as we loaded onto the plane! Ugh!
We went to an art show along one of the many 'lakes' in the housing areas Pat lives in. This picture is Francie feeling and looking very pleased after purchasing the 'one of a kind' necklace she's wearing. It was a chilly 62 degrees, oh dear, so we needed a sweater here!
We also went shopping for fabric! Who'd a thought! We were told at one of our favorite shops that the fabric designer, Patrick Lose, now had a studio across the street and that he also sold his fabrics there. So...off we went! It was very entertaining and we had wanted to take a picture of us girls to send as a birthday greeting to our missing Gimmee Bedelia. Patrick was at the studio and was willing to pose for a picture with us. It was very sweet.
So we sent that picture and one of us toasting to her good health, safe travels and a very happy, memorable birthday! We miss her. She emailed back the next morning from Laos. What an adventure she is on.
Then it was back home to Lummi Island and a light dusting of snow. It's all gone now and the guys have been here trying to get some work done in between storms. Today was tremendous wind and the guys were limited but they were here. This will happen.
March, coming in like a lion had better go out like a lamb!

The Terracing Has Been Started!

2011-02-21T20:03:00.000-08:00

We were once again graced with a brief appearance from our skiing/boarding/chef extraordinaire! He comes in, throws laundry into the machine, eats a banana, drinks some fruit juice, gets us to watch extreme skiing videos, puts wet clothes into dryer, sleeps, wakes up, eats another banana, french presses some coffee, packs his stuff up and leaves! Like a whirlwind!

At least he's loving what he's doing. What more can a parent want for their kids.

In the meantime, more work on the Island Landscape. Theo was working on the retaining wall by our garage where there is a wood retaining wall that was giving away. He found the reason it was giving away. This gigantic root from a pine that we'd already cut down had been pushing against the wall. Well, it's gone now!
We're having the block laid right on the asphalt and before that could happen Gary and Theo had to knock off the lip that's on the bottom of the block. One more unexpected step. This slowed the project down and it isn't quite done yet since Theo is now juggling our projects with his other job at the Willows. I'll have a picture for ya when it is.
In the meantime, out front things were really moving! The excavator arrived! It's a small machine but really able to do some damage. This is the same machine that pulled out trees from our backyard 2 years ago. We were glad to see it back.
The excavator operator is Gary Poole. Travis Phillips is on the ground directing him with depths needed for the footings that will support the retaining walls. Some of the holes seemed awfully deep but Travis assures me that they are needed and are deceptive due to the varying levels of our lot.
The beauty of having so much dirt excavated was all the rocks coming out of it. The part of the yard where you can see the blue tractor with my Gary on it is where a rock garden is going. Some really large rocks and even a boulder the size of the tractor tire came out of the ground! It's awesome! We won't need to haul in so much rock.
A lot was accomplished on the first day, at least when it came to moving dirt. Now Travis has the really big task of getting footings set. We're only doing half of the property initially since backfilling will be a difficult task and we need all the maneuvering space we can get.
Gary finished the day up by moving rock into one pile and dirt out of the way into another pile.
And a Beautiful Sunset was enjoyed at the end of a great day. Snow is in the forecast. Work, in the next few days, will depend on how wet it actually gets out here.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

A Month Of Birthdays!

2011-02-16T10:54:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday! to Marlea, Gordy, Lynne, Paige, Brett, Rick, Francie, Bedelia, Luanne, Judy, Travis and the many other Aquarians and Pisces that were born in February!
Good Golly what a lot of ya!
(this is the fabric cake I made for Gimmee Francie's 60th birthday)

Being our lovely daughter is one of the many birthday celebrants Gary and I headed south. Little did she know that a surprise party was being planned for her! The day of the party Caymus woke up with a fever and stayed home from school. That set her party planners into a tizzy. Since I knew about the plans I made sure he was dosed with fever reducers in the late afternoon and he was well enough to keep the surprise going.
When Gary and Bob said they wanted to go out for steak that evening and asked her if she had a suggestion on a good steak restaurant she suggested the very place the party was planned at! Very convenient and very innocent looking. She was definitely surprised!
Her friends are mostly family people so there were lots of children who all just love Marlea. It was hard to see her in amongst the little herd.
The restaurant had a putt-putt golf course behind it and that cleared the kids and some adults out of the restaurant.They had a great time. Caymus felt pretty good most of the time. Sure couldn't say that the next morning.
He was definitely down with a pretty high fever. His cat Skippy John didn't mind. It was a nice warm body to snuggle up to.We spent the rest of the weekend at home with him while Marlea and Lucy went to a wrestling tournament and then watched SuperBowl from their couch. It really felt like 'grandparenting'. Being there to take care of a sick grandchild when needed.
There was lots more birthdays to celebrate when we got back. My brother Rick is turning 50! The little brother, the baby brother!! Wow, we're all getting there aren't we?! I had to make sure he got his purple shirt. I felt bad that as the in-laws were turning 50 we didn't get them purple shirts so I took it upon myself to get them 'Over 50' shirts in red with purple letters.

Gordy got his.

Lynne got hers!

Now isn't this a nice combination?! Both 5o now!

We had fun with it. If you can't laugh about it you just make yourself a target for us! We love a good target.

Well now we're getting into the parts of the month that didn't include birthday parties. I went to the Habitat for Humanity store looking for inspirational leftovers and had a wonderful surprise. An appliance store had donated a bunch of brand new appliances at the year end. And there was just the refrigerator I wanted! It had the new oil-rubbed bronze look, plus the french door frig with pull-out drawer freezer bottom. And better yet- the price was right!
So out with the old frig whose door couldn't open all the way because there wasn't enough room what with the island being right there. Where you had to bend or squat down to find the things in it that you most wanted, which were always at the back and on the highest shelf where you really couldn't see them. Out! OUT! OUT!

Ahhh! Isn't it pretty! No more bending over. We can stand right in front of it and open the doors all the way! And there's everything! all in view! Awesome!

Our yard continues to be worked on with new walls going in from one part of the yard into another!
This is the finished wall in the backyard. Now I need to fill in behind it with dirt and then hang my hammock for the summer!
The front yard is getting started on too. The precast concrete panels have been figured out and ordered. Here is Theo rototilling the grass which was then scraped off and moved to the bottom to be used later as backfill and topsoil. It's going to come together by summer. I am ready!

JANUARY 2011

2011-01-22T10:46:00.000-08:00

This year, like all years, started out with a birthday celebration! December has a lot of birthdays, and in recent years the beginning of January has been blessed with a couple more.
I love this birthday cake! It was purchased last minute and in order to have enough candles for some of the 'older' celebrants several boxes had to be pulled out. It is so colorful and fun! Just like the diverse group named on it! Love it, love it, love it!
Luke was the most excited! His birthday was the next day so he was really feeling the birthday buzz!
Luke stayed near the cake to be of assistance in the candle blowing, if it was needed. Apparently his mom, Tami, needed the assistance.

He is obviously ready with bated breath as Levi takes his turn.

Then there was Landon, the spitter! You can see Luke's expression beginning to show the disgust we all had at this version of making sure no one else wanted any cake. I had some cake, got a bad cold later that must have been from 'the spitter'! That'll teach me.

Here's the birthday group. Tami, Jean, Levi, Landon and Luke, front and center.

Char's youngest son Lance (who is not a spitter like his older brother) asked his sweety Paige Sullivan to marry him. A very romantic Christmas present. She said yes. They wanted to get their 'Save the Date' cards out ASAP and asked Char to take some pictures of them. Char said they had better have me do it, so...What fun I had! Paige has her horse at the farm where Char and I, and our siblings, all grew up on Benson Rd. She and Lance wanted pictures done at the farm.
We had fun 'shooting' all around and inside the barn. Some things have changed, somethings haven't. We probably would've explored more after the shooting but it was only 38 to 40 degrees out. BRRRRR.
Char did some homework on poses, thank goodness. It has been a while since I've done this.
Paige downloaded all the pictures onto her laptop. I don't have any of them. I guess I'm going to have to have her send me a couple that I know I liked. Maybe you'll see those eventually. If you got a 'save the date card' then you're seeing one of my pictures.

That was the beginning of January.

The rest of January has seen some work getting done in our front yard.

We found a new handyman in our neighbor, Theo. Our previous handyman, Vic, married and moved to Alaska. We've been looking for someone ever since. Most people have never called us, back, but not Theo! Yeah!
He put in this short (in height) block retaining wall between our parking area along the road and our yard. Once he was done with that he pruned some of our trees, removed some, and then chipped it all up into a nice pile. Yeah!

This spring we hope to get this yard terraced, making it more comfortable to work and get around in. Our vegetable garden will eventually be here along with some orchard trees, a rock garden and a shrub/perennial border. Keep checking on our progress. By this time next year I hope to have more work than I can handle. (What am I thinking?!!!)

WISHING YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

2011-01-03T12:45:00.000-08:00

the stockings were hung by the chimney with care....
Since Marlea and the kids were coming for Christmas I had to get some stockings made for them. That turned out to be rather fun, although making something without a pattern and just 'winging' it can have it's own problems I managed it. I see I don't have a blog size photo of Caymus' moose stocking. Ah shucks.

Lucy and I had fun doing all the baking for Christmas. Since she is 8 now her mother had promised her she could, and would, learn how to cook. We followed recipes and did accurate measurements of all the things that mattered and whipped up some treats.

It was pretty fun for me working with just her, but I'll admit to frustration when both kids wanted to bake. Patience is a virtue and a new years resolution I should put on my list.
Lucy had gotten a beginners knitting kit for Christmas and Gary helped her get her yarn wound up into balls.

We had our traditional Christmas eve fondue dinner. A hot cheese fondue makes everything taste good and has been a nice way to get the finicky eaters to eat something other than the cookies made earlier.

Legos! Caymus enjoys playing with Reid and Bryce's old ones but he also got a bunch of his own for Christmas that we had fun with too.

The kids opened some gifts Christmas Eve and their stockings Christmas morning. Then we packed up and headed to Barb's family Christmas held at Char and Gord's.

This is Kestyn in her new hat knitted by Marlea. Kestyn wouldn't let anyone but herself put it on her.

Caymus and Luke admiring a sticker book.

Marlea with Kenley, Brett, Barb, Lucy, and Lynne

The two newest additions to the family were there. Bentley on the left and Kenley on the right. They were born 6 days apart and have grown the way of boys and girls. Bentley is a little chunk and Kenley is petite.

Marlea got her baby fix holding Kenley.

Kestyn's hat was a hit with my Dad. Landon thought it looked great on him too.

There was lots to do the day after Christmas with all the new things the kids received but Caymus and Grandpa had some bee-bee gun shooting they'd been wanting to do. They got a bunch of targets set up with cans, bottles and boxes and had an hour or so of boy fun.

Lots of relaxing in the hot tub at the end of every day, since it's a novelty for them. The weather had been cold too so it warmed us up all the way to the bones.
Before we knew it was time for them to go. It was really a nice time and very full of activity for Gary and I. The kids had fun and hopefully some new Christmas memories from Lummi Island.
They got snuggled into the car with lots of new fleece blankets, pants, and jammies and a couple of new videos to watch on the drive and small toys to play with. Off they went, back to Aumsville.
For the next 2 days Gary entertained himself with organizing all the Lego people that we have from our boys' boxes of Legos. He had way too much fun weaning himself back into our quiet little existence here, without small children.
The Christmas tree is down and the new year is here. We can move on from the holidays into the preparation for spring.
I trust you've all breathed that sigh of relief once the holidays are over, I can't be the only one. Enjoy getting back into normal. I sure am.

Working our way to Christmas

2010-12-22T10:21:00.000-08:00

Decorating in the Pacific NorthWest
Rain or Shine the Christmas decorating will go on!
Gary and I took one last trip to Aumsville for the year. We hadn't celebrated Lucy's birthday with her and wanted to do that, so we headed to their house. We took her to the restaurant of her choice (Tin Tin Buffet) and to the Toys R Us to look for her gift of choice. We had a lovely time and got a glimpse into the minds of 6 and 8 year olds. Whoa.
While there we helped with the outside decorations which consisted of 3 outside Christmas trees. It wasn't raining when we started but it sure was when we ended.

Of course all visits come with some play time. Lucy and I got caught dancing in her room, which had flashing Christmas lights in it. Rad!
Got in some Lego time with Caymus. Doesn't he look sweet and innocent?! At that moment he was!
Nice time with the kids and we no sooner left and they had a tornado hit their little town! (So that's what the black clouds were all about when we left. Hm, who knew) Their house wasn't bothered at all but 6 blocks away the city 'center' was destroyed! Unbelievable! For months Caymus has been on this concern for hurricanes and tornadoes and we've reassured him they don't happen in this part of the world. Then bam! We're wrong! This will take some working thru for him.
We headed to Crystal Mt. after our Aumsville visit. We had a couple things to take care of. First, we had to meet a tow truck in Ellensburg where our sweet little Subaru was sitting with a blown head gasket. It had left Reid stranded one day up on a mountain road and he'd gotten it down to Ellensburg. We had it towed to a friend of his in Seattle who offered to do the work needed at a 'friends' discount price. Thanks Ricky Vreeman! Your awesome!
Once Suby was taken care of it was time for our second and most important part of this trip up into the mts around Mt. Rainier. Snow was coming down hard at times. No wind. It was stunning! So beautiful it took your breath away!

And here was our son! Fresh off the mountain from a great day of skiing! Here he is standing just outside of the Alpine Inn Restaurant/Hotel and Snorting Elk Bar. It's over the river and up the hill from the parking area. You can see the arbor arch in the lower center right of this picture.

Here we're in the parking lot with the archway entrance and bridge over the river. Beautiful isn't it. Just a few days before it was pouring rain and snow only on the ski slopes. What a difference a few days make.
Our business here was Reids 29th birthday! Holy cow! He is starting the new annual 28th birthday party and we were there for the first one! Yea us!
If you've seen Reid's Birthday/Christmas list you'll have seen his request for a bright and flashy one piece snow suit.
Well his sister found one for him and had us bring it to him for his birthday. Reid likes to stand out in a crowd and this purple suit might do it. You can see he loves it!

Nice buns in it too!

We stayed just one night and it snowed during that night. The next morning Reid could hardly stand it and was outside our door once it was daylight to wish us a safe drive home and a thank you for the birthday presents and wishes. One picture in front of the sign and snowy landscape and he was off! He had to work later so he was going to enjoy as much of the day skiing as he could! Who could blame him, it was a landscape begging to be enjoyed.
Back home for us and back to the gift wrapping and preparations for a Christmas with the grandkids here! Stockings to make, tree to fetch and decorate, cookie fixings to have ready. Finding our Christmas cheer. It's been many years since we've had children here for Christmas morning and we're going to make the best of it!
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Thanksgiving Day Snow

2010-11-26T18:05:00.000-08:00

Gary is Getting a Path out to the Driveway
Thanksgiving Day turned into quite a snowy day after a week of snow, ice, temps in the teens, and high wind.
With roads having ice on them and the addition of lots of new snow we decided not to stress ourselves out with a drive off the island.

The snowplow made it to our little dead end street around 2:30 and we decided we needed to get out of the house, so we walked down to the beach. It was beautiful there.

The 'Dragon' looked more real and ominous with a dusting of snow.

We had plenty of birds to keep us company. A small flock of grosbeaks came in for fuel. I got lucky catching this visit, the starlings were dominating the feeders but must've been at the suet long enough for the grosbeaks to eat.
This is a good indication of how much snow we got. Made for a nice hat on my big gazing globe.
Snow was all gone when we got up on Friday. So unfair. If it was going to keep us home for a family gathering like Thanksgiving it could've stuck around another day. Oh well. We didn't go hungry and were plenty entertained.
Happy Thanksgiving. Sorry I missed it.

2010-11-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

Bryce and Desiree's Wedding Quilt- so far.

I told B and Dez that I'd post pictures of this for where I am so far. So....
All the circles are still in the auditioning phase. They are just setting in place while I decide if the fabric choice and size are 'right'. And the white around the big circle is just a visual guide made of paper, for me, for placement and the auditioning of those fabric choices.

This is the original drawing that I am working from. I have the background of the lower half done since it's the same as at the top but I need to figure out the details of the non-background parts. I'm hoping to be completely done by their 2nd wedding anniversary, ready to hand over to them.
So Desiree and Bryce, if you have any suggestions, or changes you'd like to see with the circles, let me know. Ditto for the lower right hand details. I have limits to my abilities and the ability of the fabrics but this is certainly a good challenge for me.

All Our Grandkids Pictures in one Post!

2010-11-17T18:03:00.000-08:00

The flying Baby!
You may have seen this little one flying about on Halloween. I wish I would've. She is adorable in these wings. But she flew around in Kansas and that's a long way from here.

Since Grandma Toots can't get Facebook to see these pictures I told her I'd snag them and put them in my blog so she could see how adorable our little Isis Moon is. Actually she was adorable at birth and is just getting bigger and more mobile while staying cute and adorable.

She loves her Daddy and loves it when her Daddy throws her around and makes weird faces, along with all the other Daddy things he does.

Bryce and Desiree didn't realize Grandma Toots wasn't on Facebook and seeing these pics but now that I've let them know they hope to update their blog so we can all see what life in Kansas is like.

Their blog is theboundlovers.blogspot.com. Hopefully they will get to updating soon.

Gary was off to Texas on another business trip so I went to Marlea's for a few days. It was one nasty drive in the rain! Oh well, the price we pay. We had some fun once I got there.

The kids had their first wrestling tournament. They'd only had 2 practices before this tournament and didn't really feel ready but they gave it their all anyway. This picture is while they are waiting for their turns and grabbing a snack after weighing in.

Once things got going it went pretty fast. I barely caught any pictures and many are blurry due to the fast action. Here is Caymus in the black and yellow trying to work his way out from under his opponent.

Marlea and Lucy are waiting for a match to be over and then Lucy's up next.

The kids came out of their matches hot and sweaty after giving their best. They didn't win any matches but this is the beginning of the season with lots to go.

Marlea and I had gone to the Salem ReStore and came out of it giving each other high fives! It's a great store with really decent stuff. I think because it's also the Habitat for Humanity store. There was better stuff that came from contractors rather than homeowners doing renovation jobs.

This table is one of the great deals we got. It has a leaf that goes with it and when open the legs spread out another 2 feet and it seats 8 easily. It feels like a piece of 'real' furniture. The dining table she had was chintzy and small. Now she just needs to get some chairs to go with it. Table cost $35! and is solid wood!

Marlea also wants to tile the bathroom vanity and we found what is in the bottom of the picture, 4" porcelain tile, and the top filigree tile and then took that to Home Depot and got the granite tiles to go with it. Tile from ReStore with a bag of grout- $5! Granite from Home Depot -$16. So far so good. We also got a new metal sink at the ReStore just the shape and size she wanted with the appropriate holes for $25! She can't hardly wait to get going on this project.

I'm hoping Marlea posts some pictures of the front of her house on her blog. We cleaned up windows and screens and light fixtures and the neighbor rototilled her whole front yard! She's ready to start laying out the landscaping for the front and the house is looking tidy and cared for. Gary and I call it the Cherish House. It seems like no one has cherished that house over the years but that is all changing now.
I need to go and get him from the airport shuttle. Maybe he'll post his trip in the next couple of days.
Later.....

Long Weekend in Oregon

2010-10-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

Caymus the soccer Player!
With several days of beautiful sunny weather we ended up having a great trip to Oregon. We had two purposes. One was to see Marlea's new house and help with some garden work. The other was for a Jimmy Buffet concert at the Rose Quarter in Portland. The timing of the concert being the determining factor as to when we'd be going.

First things first. The kids had soccer games on Saturday morning. Lucy ran her little heart out and played a great game. It was an exciting game to watch.
Caymus' game was less interesting but he played goalie really well and felt great about how the game went.

When we got back to Marlea's it was all work, work, work! The kids were great helpers the whole time. Youth is a wonderful thing. I'd be worthless after playing soccer so hard but they were ready to go!

There is large areas of brick and gravel through out Marleas yard. She wanted an herb garden off her back patio so we cleared the gravel out of the way. Under it was plastic which, once pulled up, made for bare dirt ready to be turned over. There is also a lot of larger rocks around the buildings and we used them to outline our new bed. Some compost was added, plants put in and a bale of alfalfa used as a mulch and soil additive and she had an herb garden! Love those 75% off plant sales this time of year!

The herb garden helpers! All that's missing is the 2 kittens who were having their first days out of the house and exploring the yard. Comical sudden dashes of gray fur and tinkling collar bells kept us on our toes.

On our chore list was finishing the painting in the kids' rooms. Lucy had already painted her room a bright turquoise and wanted large polka dots painted that matched her bedspread. It sounded easier than it turned out to be. Particularly since I am not a very good painter and have no patience for being particular. Circles need particular patience.

I bucked up and got 'er done! Lucy sang songs to me while she waited for her turn in this process. One of the songs was titled 'Polka Dot Madness'. I loved that song! and repeatedly broke out with the chorus singing "polka dot madness" loudly!
Fortunately, her room turned out pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.

In Caymus' room they were painting the dirt bike hills that he wanted after they'd done the lovely blue sky. Now all they need is the motor cycles and monster trucks to add to this scene.

Gary had equipped Marlea with a tool belt full of tools and his old red, white and blue suspenders to use during her renovations. She wore it proudly!

Lucy and Caymus must've looked like they were having too much fun. A couple of neighbor boys came over and wanted to join in. With these 4 excellent helpers taking turns on the come-along, pruners, and shovels the unwanted shrubbery didn't stand a chance!

The come-along was attached to Marlea's Tahoe and used to pull out the nasty arborvitae that were at least 40 years old and had the large ugly trunk and stump to match. The neighbor wanted the logs and since he does landscape maintenance for work he was willing to take away the stumps and debris in exchange for the logs. Great bargain!

Gary took our little electric chainsaw. It might look wimpy in Garys hands but it did the work of a much larger saw!

The triumphant dynamic duo!

The front of Marlea's house before those forsythia shrubs were pulled.

And after. She has a lot more work to do but at least she can see the front door and out the windows.

I picked up 4 apple trees on mini-dwarf rootstocks and we put in an espalier along the back fence. Here Gary and Marlea are getting the wires hooked up and Caymus is digging holes.

Wires up, trees planted, pruned and tied to it. The herb garden will eventually connect to a bed that goes around the back of the house but a whole bunch of sod has to come out first. Next time perhaps.

We had also removed railroad ties and used them to make a compost 'bin', started the compost pile, moved a small shed from one visible part of the yard to an invisible part, made a doggy potty area out large rocks and gravel, hung shelves for her 'bar' with sheetrock screws, and replaced her shower head with one that goes higher than your armpits. Her hotwater heater faucets got fixed by a plumber and now that girl is up to her clean armpits in laundry, composting, and dog potty training.
So it was goodbye to the happy gardeners and off to Portland!

Here we met up with Gimmee Carol and her husband Ed and Ed's brother Andy and wife Vicki! Jimmy Buffet fans are called 'Parrotheads' and his concerts bring out the parrothead in everyone! Carol and Ed have stuffed parrots on their shoulders! You can't imagine what it took to train those parrots to do that!

The parrots remained well behaved thru out the whole concert, unlike some of the others. It was all fun. Everybody's favorite Buffet songs were sung by Jimmy and the 20,000 fans in the auditorium. If he'd wanted to change the lyrics to suit the occasion you couldn't hear them!.

Parrothead Gary and his wife Barb, who plays along.

At breakfast the next day we were able to meet up with Bedelia! who now lives in Portland. Her daughter Lillie and new boyfriend Josh came too and we were able to do some quick catching up. Carol hadn't seen Bedelia in quite a while either so it was a good visit for everyone. It may be awhile before we see Bedelia since she is headed to Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam for 6 months and leaving at the end of November. She looks gorgeous and has a partner she's excited to be traveling with. I am so happy for her and wish her a fabulous trip!
We're back home nursing sore muscles and a cold coming on. The weather changed. Fall is here!

Fall Drive to Artist Point, Mt. Baker

2010-10-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

Picture Lake and Mt. Shuksan
Every year Gary and I try to take a drive up to Artist Point in the fall in hopes of hitting some great fall color. It's the highest point that you can drive when headed up to the Mt. Baker ski area. Gary was up there a couple weeks ago and they had just barely gotten the parking lot cleared of snow. Now it's bare. Some years there's still snow around the parking lot but not this year.

Our trip started with a ferry ride to get off the island. There's a great view of Mt. Baker from the ferry dock. I got the camera out a little late but you can still see it's going to be a clear day up there.
The Lummi Indians were unloading their crab pots at their pier next to the ferry docking pier.
We had a nice drive up into the mountains but it really got good once we were at the top.
Our first stop was Picture Lake. I think this little spot is the best view of all anyway. Here you can see Mt. Shuksan, which is a shorter mountain than Baker and "behind" it. You can't see it til your at this point.

This is the 'classic' view from Picture Lake. It's made even better when the water is still and you get the perfect mirrored reflection. There were photographers waiting for that to happen but I'm not patient enough for that. I thought this came out great anyway.
We really hit the peak of color this year, finally! The reds of the lowbush blueberries were awesome!
Yep, we were there! Not dubbed in.

I love the look of the mt. hemlocks surrounded by the mt. ash and blueberries. There's such beauty in these snow tortured trees.
There were so many great pictures I just had to put in my favorites. Sorry. (not really)
After this we went the next mile or 2 to Artist Point where the views of Baker are so lovely.
We weren't the only ones to come up with this idea. The parking lot was pretty full but people were dispersed throughout the area and it was quite pleasant and didn't feel crowded.
Just a couple of close ups of the mushrooms and mt. ash, which came in all shades of yellow and orange.

This is Table Mountain. Baker is just to the left of this. You can see the trails that run along the side of it. Some go up to the top of Table Mt. and some go on towards Baker.
The parking lot of Artist Point is just below Table Mt. and all the these paved trails come out from there. It's rugged rock and oasis' of trees and shrubs. Directly opposite from this is Mt. Shuksan, so when your up here there are views all around.
On our way back down the mt. we noticed this very large bronze statue at the entrance to the Mt. Shuksan ski lodge. It wasn't here the last time we'd been up. I think it's crows. Why not eagles? I don't know, but it's impressive anyway.

After a very beautiful day up the mountain it was back to Lummi Island via the ferry. Here we're getting on at Gooseberry Point.

Gary is looking smug after managing to get us up to the mountains at the peak of color and back to the island in time for a gorgeous sunset.
What a perfect day!

Calgary Seminar 2010

2010-09-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

Here is Marlea the Red and Calamity Jane getting ready to hold up the oil sands coking show and steal the coke drum.

There they go making a break for the getaway truck

Boss Hoss and his sidekick Mr. Coking.Com look like they need some help to stop Calamity and Red from making their getaway

Yes we got some support from the gunfighters of Calgary they did not want to see that coke drum leave the Oil Sands stopping production. Instead of a fight things turned out to be lots of fun

Marlea the Red turned the tables on Boss Hoss and he gave up the fight out gunned and out numbered

We had a good seminar in Calgary lots of networking - presentaions - breakout groups - fun and food

With the 18 attendees in Coker Training Evan Hyde and Gary when over 500 coker folks trained in the last 3 years in their Coking 101 it is an 8 hour class on the basics of Delayed Coking.

Grandma, Lucy and Caymus Time!

2010-09-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Calgary seminar time for Gary and the Coking.com gang, which means that Lucy and Caymus and I get to spend time together with nobody else to tell us what to do! We wore pajamas most of the time. But that's ok, nobody to tell us to get dressed!
Foggy days out here on Lummi Island. Most of the day we'd be kinda socked in. It would get nice at some point and possibly rain a little later.
Because of this odd late summer weather we ended up staying at the house quite a bit. Only one trip to the beach while Gary and Marlea were away and one when they got back. That was ok. We found things to do.
I found out things about these kids that I didn't know before. For instance, while making dough for pizza I found out Lucy likes to eat flour. Dry flour with nothing else in it. It would make her puff out flour when ever she would try to say something, which added to the hilarity of it. Water was needed as a chaser, of course. And, of course, she had a little bit of a stomach ache later, duh. But who wants to listen to an old grandma anyway.
The kids had been in school for 2 weeks so they ended up bringing school work with them. So we took care of that in the morning. We ended up reading about Orca's and tidepools and watched "Free Willy" movies and some videos on wikipedia. Lucy even found what we think is an inner ear bone of a whale at the beach!
After a few rousing games of dominos I found out that Caymus can build quite a structure out of dominos that takes quite a bit of blowing to make it fall down.
We spent some quality time making things. This perler bead set from Gimmee Carol turned what I thought would be a couple of hour project into a 6 hour marathon of making as many things as they could think of! We quit when it started getting dark and I thought Carol might like to have some beads left in the set. They really enjoyed this, Thanks Carol!
We took some found and some purchased items and glued them onto a frame that had both a cork board and a photo section. After gluing they chose a picture to put in and that completed that project.
Eventually Gary and Marlea did come home. Gary and Caymus spent some time together on Saturday afternoon. Here they are cleaning the BB guns they'd used to shoot plastic bottles and other targets.
Hot tub time is always enjoyed! Protection from splashing is usually needed.
Reid came home! He is finished for the summer season at Crystal Mt. and came home to see the gang and get his storage stuff cleaned out!
A visit to Grandma Toots on Sunday morning and then some Taco Time lunch before they all head back to Salem. We had a really nice time. I've already forgotten most of the annoying moments. By next year this time I'll have nothing but fond memories. Hopefully they will too.

Family Camp!

2010-09-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

The Setting- Nooksack River in Van Zandt, WA

Labor Day weekend and my family goes camping! This year was the biggest group of campers yet. Fortunately this perfect little setup along the river is really big. With 5 trailers and 3 tents it needed to be. The river had a giant sandy area right off the camp area and the water was a nice lazy course with the occasional speedy spot wherever it joined back up with itself.

Char and I were happy to be back!
Everybody loves sand and water. The big boys never get tired of digging. They made a large 'cave' along the waters edge. Speed trap for as you floated by.
What might look like tattoos on Lucy's shoulders is mud from having covered herself with the stuff. She had to be sent out into the water to clean up. She didn't mind.

This year we're trying to get smarter with the pictures. Only took 10 years to get to this idea. What can you say for 'trailer trash'.
Anyway, we tried for a photo of everyone with their trailer, or tent. I didn't get everyone but hey, I'm 'tent trash', what do you expect.
So this is Char and Gord. Should've got my mom in this one since she was bunking with them. Next time, if one year doesn't wipe out our memory.

This is most of Ray's family. Shane, Liz, Ray, Cody with Brett in front and their dog Sara. Since Dylan was missing for the picture of Rays family we got him next to his tent with his friend Jason, who has come to Family Camp for the last 3 or 4 years. Practically family.
This is Lindsey and Shawn and their tiny dog, Wrecker. We all aspire to live up to the term 'trailer trash' as good as these two. You guys are AWESOME!
This is my brother Rick's family who are going to be adding to the melee' of family camp with Lynde's little addition. It's TJ, Levi, Alena, Rick, Lynne, Hunter on Dustin's shoulders, Lynde, and Eddie. Isn't 'barefoot and pregnant' a trailer trash term? These guys are doing good!
Finally, Marlea and the kids made it to Family Camp! It's been 5 years! You could hear this little group all weekend long. Marlea has a laugh that carried thru camp and down the river. That must be where Lucy gets hers, which could be heard anytime she was being a stinker, which was often. They had a great time as you will see by the photos.
Caymus was on Cousin Lukes bike nearly the whole weekend. He spent a lot of time making jumps in the sand and trying them out over and over! He aspires to be like his Tio Reid!

CardShark!

This is little Kestyn.
Kestyn is Landon's daughter and Char's granddaughter. She is as cute as could be, and quiet as a mouse. Nobody can say No to Kestyn. Everyone would do anything for her. She had a little pink wheelbarrow that needed putting together. How many uncles, great uncles and grandpas did it take to put that little pink wheelbarrow together? Nearly all of them. All the helpers wouldn't fit into the picture. It took both grandpas and one uncle just to get the little flower decals on it. She has a lot of power over these guys. Look out when she figures out how to use it!

Here's another little girl with some power. You can see it in her eyes that she has some realization of it. Look out.

Lots of fun was had on the 2, 3 and 4 wheelers!

This looks like a contest of the smallest 4 wheeler jumping over the smallest chair! Dustin has got some height in this one. Wahoo! I think he won!
Saturday was the big communal dinner and everyone came out for that. Marlea counted 35 people. That is nearly everyone. My sons weren't there, :( which would've added 4 more to the mix. They were the only ones missing.
Food is always good tho. Gigantic burgers, corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes, lots of salads, and beans to keep it all moving. Always great fun on Saturday night.
Sunday wasn't so sunny and a lot of card games had been taught and played. Apples to Apples was quite fun and a lot of people were able to play it at one time.

There are very few girls in the family. These two are the Princess' of camp!
Boys, and lots of them. These are the youngest ones, playing and sharing well. Caymus, Hunter, and Luke. (Hunter is Lynde's son and my brother Rick's grandson, and Luke is my youngest sister Tami's son.) And they did play great all weekend long!
We all had a great time. Gigantic fires! Campfire games. (Shane and Rick)
Lucy had some fun with my camera. If it wasn't for her I'd have 210 less pictures of the weekend. Everyone lets her take a picture where they would duck away from me. (Lynne with daughter Alena, and Lloyd below)
But they just let her take pictures of them and she would cackle away and keep shooting if they tried to duck away from her. But she got some great photos out of it. Watch for her name someday when she becomes a famous photographer.
But sometimes even she could get you to say.....

"ENOUGH!"

And that was our sentiments as we packed up our gear in the rain on Monday. We're done, we had fun, ENOUGH!
Hope your weekend was nearly as fun as ours!

Seaside and Cannon Beach

2010-08-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

Lewis and Clark(and Gary and Barb, Lucy and Caymus) at the Seaside Promenade
We met up with Marlea and the kids at Seaside Oregon for Caymus' birthday. We all shared a room that overlooked the beach, just 2 blocks from this statue of Lewis and Clark and 1 block from the aquarium. Everything we could want just outside our door.
It had been Caymus' 6th birthday on the 20th and since Gary and I hadn't been to the Oregon beaches in quite a while we thought this would be a good opportunity to play on the beach and see the birthday king.
When you arrange to see the birthday king of course you must see his lovely Mother and sister!
We had such a great time! They had the best weather of the summer too. Hot and sunny with enough wind to fly the kites. We couldn't have ordered it up any better.
On the day of our arrival Daddy's Girl had an exciting surprise for herself and us. At 5pm she was making an offer on a 3 bedroom house in Aumsville, just a couple of blocks from where she lives. It's a great little deal being a foreclosed house with 0% down. Right up her alley.
I had to capture the moment where she was on her computer filling out all the necessary information for her real estate agent and loan application and making that offer. We were all very excited over the weekend dreaming of the possibilities. So far, as of this post, it's looking like she'll be getting this house! You go Girl!!
Meanwhile we did all the things we possibly could in a couple days time. Bumper Cars. You can see Marlea and Caymus just to the left of Lucy.
Bike riding, both on the full length of the promenade and on the beach. Gary brought all of his kites and he and the kids got the kites out to the full extent of their kite string! I have pictures of that but the kite just looks like a dot, it's up so high.
I had gone out to check on their kite flying but they had already pulled the kites in and the kids were playing in the water. I had no intention of getting wet past my ankles. The water is cold. Well, you just can't help but get wetter and wetter as you play in the waves and pools. Before I knew it my pants were so wet they dragged and I caught my toe on them and down I went! Soaked to the neck! The kids said that since I was wet anyway we should really play in the water. They were right, of course, so we splashed and chased and had a fabulous time!

Back in 1981 Gary and I lived in a tent on the Oregon coast with our tiny daughter and had a picture of Marlea and I at Cannon Beach with Haystack Rock in the background. Years later Marlea lived at Cannon Beach and had a daughter of her own. We tried to recreate the picture. Here are some of them, from then til now.

Barb and Marlea in 1981.
Barb and Lucy in 2004.
Barb, Lucy, Marlea in 2004. Marlea is about 6/7 months along with Caymus.
Marlea and Lucy in 2004
Marlea and Barb 2010.
Barb, Marlea and Lucy in 2010. Haystack Rock never changes but we girls sure do.
Fun time!!
After we left these guys Gary and I went to Portland to visit our friend Bedelia. We met up with her for dinner and I regret to say I didn't get any pictures! (The Gimmee's are not going to be very happy with me) Bedelia is looking awesome! and doing very well. Of course she is planning a trip to far away places this fall and will be going with her new travel companion, Sam. I think they are both in for quite an adventure. Hang on to your hat Sam!
We are now back home, nursing a very bad cold. Damn cold water. The price of fun!

2010-08-20T15:28:00.001-07:00

I tried something different with this post and now that it's up I see it didn't work. Dang it.

It's a beautiful day on Lummi Island

2010-08-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like a hot summer day and a good book! With one cat curled under my chair and the other one nearby to keep me company in case I should choose to reach over and pet them, I have spent many an hour rereading a series of books by a favorite author. ( Diana Gabaldons' books about Claire and that gorgeous redheaded Scot, Jamie Fraser, sigh)
I know I should be doing other things but hey, it's summer, and I don't wanna!

But I will brief you on some of the happenings since Isis left. Even tho our world is an emptier place without her, we must go on.
We had our family July Birthday Party at my brother Ray's. It was his birthday, his son Dylan, my great-niece Kestyn, and Gary's. In the first weeks of August it's Lindsey, Lance and Alena's, which were also celebrated. Kestyn got all the cute gifts tho.

Gary took our Lummi Island neighbor Roger and his friend Dennis, who was visiting from Florida, out on a tour of Whatcom County. They were thoroughly impressed, particularly with Lynden, being from cities that can't even compete for cleanliness and tidyness.
They stopped at our old place in Everson which turned out to be bittersweet. The kids who have it now are keeping it up to their best ability for two working people and it looks pretty darn good. The bitter part was the fact that the Indian trust land woods that borders the whole north edge of the property is being logged! We would be heart broken if we were there witnessing it on a daily basis. We had really used those woods during the kids' growing years. Goodbye Camping Spot, Treebeard, Fern Alley, Swimming Hole and the many other secret little hideaways we had.
Our consolation is the joy we're getting from our new island garden and the beach here.
We recently had decided that a really large rhody was going to have to be removed, since it didn't go with the rock garden wall that has developed. Gary dug it out for me, with the help of the tractor. (It still had the original plastic pot around the roots!? Go figure)
Roger and Rhayma were willing to adopt it so we put it in the gator and drove it up to their house.
We helped dig a hole and plant it since R & R were busy preparing for the Edible Garden Tour and had plenty on their gardening plate.
So it's in a happy home and I have planted the rock wall full of sedums, hen and chicks, and added a hardy gardenia and dwf. conifer. It's as cute as can be and will improve in years to come.

This is the hole made from the digging
out of the rhody.
The picture is taken looking towards the house lanai.

This was taken from the lanai, after we'd planted and Gary got gravel up into the back yard where there once had been grass.

Another finished project in the last couple of weeks is the kitchen!
We pulled out the oven, put a dishwasher there.

We put a wall oven on the countertop, for now. And a new flat, smoothtop range was put into the island.
Someday(we can hope it's not in the overly distant future) we will remodel the kitchen and use these appliances in the new design.
I am no longer complaining of the old appliances, and have a dishwasher to hide the dirty stuff into, keeping the counter top from cluttering up with that.

Meanwhile it has led us to grilling a bit more.
So, if you would like to come out and visit, see what island life is like, give us a call. I'll put my book down and grill you up something!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARY!

2010-07-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Gary!
It's been another wonderful year! Your probably having WAY too much fun in Louisiana right now. Walking over, under, thru the coker there in Garyville is right up your alley in ideas of a fun thing to do on your birthday.
Like a paddle thru the mangroves, or....
playing it up in a parade, any parade!
Skiing down some awesome black diamond run, maybe at Alta or Whistler....
Or enjoying your grandkids.
You've always had way too much of the 'stinker' in you.

And plenty of cohorts to be a stinker with.

THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND!!!!! Happy birthday! You are special, in more ways than I can count!