Hansell Notes in a Minor Key

when you don't have snow-----

2012-02-02T17:15:00.000-08:00

You gotta make your snowpeople anyway you can! This first little guy is actually several recycled things. His body is made up of 3 Ovaltine containers wrapped in fun foam. I don't recall what I used for his hat (he was made a couple of weeks ago), but I definitely used a ton of hot glue to hold it all together. The snowman comes apart for easy storage.

Here are my sister and brother snow people. I wanted to make a family when I saw some clever ideas online. I knew we had some white upholstery tubes and I had Steve cut them into different lengths. After they were cut, they sat around for ages on my craft table til the creative bug finally bit! The sister was fairly simple. Her hat is scraps of polar fleece sewed together and tied at the top with a bit of pipe cleaner (chenille stem!) and her scarf is a longer bit of the same fabric. The brother was harder to make. I wanted a 'straw' hat and was coming up blank. I didn't want to buy anything and so I had an idea. I found a very aged basket and cut it up and bent it to fit the shape I wanted. It had a hole in the top, so I stuffed a bit of blue fabric in it to and added the foam sea creatures to make it more festive. His scarf is a bit of island fabric and his nose is a wooden peg.
The mom in this snow family is wearing my favorite bit. I made her hat from an old tissue box (I actually think it was Kleenex!) and flowers, feathers and yarn. I learned how to make hats during Music Man at THS and never thought it would come in handy for a tiny art deco thing! She has a bead nose and ended up a tad shorter than I anticipated! The dad was frustrating. I wanted one of those old DQ sundae cups for a ball cap, but couldn't find one anywhere!!! His nose is a part of a bullet and his hat is a 'just do it' sewn fleece snow hat. His scarf is also a scrap of fleece and the mom's shawl is another scrap of fabric. All of the hats are detachable for easier storage-
This critter is my favorite one EVER. I knew what I wanted to do with this, but wasn't sure how I was going to get there. The 'hat' is an old sock--most of it is stuffed inside the tube. I had a heck of a time with the ears and had some fun foam cut out, but they just were not right. I wanted to crochet a tail, but couldn't find my crochet hooks. I had no clue what to do with the whiskers. However, inspiration struck when I was choosing all the eyes and noses for my family (I recalled I had a snowcat rubber stamp and borrowed some of the ideas for this little guy!) His nose is a tiny button and his eyes are plastic jewels. I did discover when hot gluing the eyes on, they were not the same color! However, I rummaged around in my craft debris and found another green eye. (they had spilled in the bottom of my google eyes/jewels/tiny pom poms box!) I was cutting out the hat for the brother when the bottom of the basket fell apart into small sections. I looked at them and grinned! Huzzah!!! One strip of whatever the basket was made of and cut into lots of thin strips made GREAT whiskers!!!! I then remembered I had a bit of furry white fabric left from something (proof--save EVERYTHING!). I even knew where it was and it was perfect! I cut some triangles and glued them to the foam ears I had made and added teeny pink foam triangles on top of that and glued them all to the sock. The fabric for the tail naturally curled up in a tube shape, so I let it and glued it on as well! Jonathan calls the kitty Arctic Cat---which makes me laugh, cuz it does not look like a black and purple snowmachine!!!
Anyway, these are my Cylinder Snow Creations! I was pretty impressed and reckon there are more things to do with those darn upholstery tubes than you can imagine!!!

Jonathan Rocks, AGAIN!

2012-01-24T13:25:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked for a biography of Jonathan by the school. So, I sent one. Then, last Thursday I was told he was one of the three students to win this award. Meanwhile, we had to finish up Jon's Eagle project. We were amazed-his project logged in over 150 hours and had 27 people volunteer to work on it. He also saved the government over 3000$ by using the volunteer labor and recycled materials. (he had coordinated the making of picnic tables for the Umatilla County Forest Dept). I can't find all the photos for that, so I am not posting them at this time!

THEN it was Monday night and we hauled Jon off to the Athena Chamber of Commerce Awards dinner. It was great fun and we learned a lot about the area.

Jon, and two other Seniors were honored with the award of Youth Citizen of the Year. Cool, huh?

The Icing is NOT on the Cake!

2012-01-20T19:35:00.000-08:00

This week of January has been full of weather! MLK Day was pretty tame, but there wasn't any school. Tuesday night it started to snow, by Wednesday it was nice and wet and fun. So, school was cancelled (there was quite a bit of it!). I made my yearly edition of Frank the Flower (see The Pushcart War) and by the time I finished around 930am, the snow was grainy and not as good as it could be. Then, the weather deteriorated! We got rain and freezing rain! Today was the first day I could take good photos. And as you can tell, Frank is now doing the Limbo and the path of grass where I rolled the snowballs is now ice!

our sidewalk is a narrow skating rink. But, that doesn't matter, the whole YARD is a skating rink! and although this picture of the car was from Thursday, it is pretty amazing. Notice, it has TWO layers of ice. There was water in the middle!

The birds have been a lot of fun. They were rather chilled yesterday (the first two photos) when the freezing rain was coming down on them, but they gamely went after the seed. Today, I scattered seed on the ice lawn and the birds were perching on the antlers of Steve's deer. It was hilarious watching the birds skate across the lawn to get the seeds.

These last four photos were by Jonathan-Jack the Frost is pretty cute; the grill on the front of the Bronco is totally cool; I love the foot hovering above the iced grass; and the dove is just precious! Cold, but precious!

Cuppy Cakes!

2012-01-13T19:30:00.000-08:00

Mom sent me a lovely cup cake decorating book for Christmas. So, since the SR class was providing the cakes for the cake raffles during the games--I made cuppy cakes!

My first ones were snowmen. They are so cute and very easy. I did spend way too much for the cookies to make the hats, but everything else was pretty inexpensive.
Are they not just CUTE?

Then, I decided to try the ducks. They are featured on the cover of the book (What's new, Cupcake?). I thought it would be a fun cupcake since the Oregon Ducks won the Rose Bowl and there are a LOT of duck fans in our little town! However, my ducks, as you can see, are definitely not the same as the ones on the cover of the book. I knew they would be a tad different, but they were more than a tad! I regret to say, I do not think ducks are in my future.
Jon called these the 'ugly ducklings' as they were not good enough to go to the raffle! The smooth one was the first one I made, the rough one was using a textured look also featured in the book. I'll save them for Jon and Steve to eat!

TREE, finally!

2012-01-09T14:01:00.000-08:00

Up on the ranch, looking for trees and turkeys.
They found a tree! I was told over the phone it was a little over 10 feet tall. I believed them.

It took a bit getting it into the house and it needed several inches cut off. I think they removed about 15 to get it into the addition.

Later, Steve cut off another 30 inches (see measuring device-) to get it into the living room. The living room is 9 and one half feet tall.

The first tree is the 2011 tree. The second one is 2010. Notice, the 2011 tree still needs a tad trimmed from the top to fit the star atop? This year's tree was definitely full of character!

Before we decorated it, KiLa decided it was a wonderful place to play. After it was trimmed (so to speak), we managed to keep him from everything cept the water in the stand. I was also pleased to see the lego train being placed around the tree. It is neat to see how lego bricks and trains can bring people together, even if everyone is 'grown up' now! Jon took lots of other tree photos, but I cannot find them anywhere. Hence, the reason it has taken me so long to put this 'Tree' Blog up!!!

The Second Weekend in December~

2011-12-13T12:39:00.000-08:00

When Jon went out to thaw out the car for school he found these amazing frost patterns on the Explorer window. So, technically, this is the first picture of the ones in the blog below!!!

Steve got a hold of Jon's camera Saturday and was taking squirrel pictures. We have all decided this is one really cold looking critter!

This photo is one of Jo's favorites. (of course!) You can't really see the candles, but it says '87'. They didn't want to stay up on the cake. Rod, had a GREAT day even if it was a couple of days' past his real birthday. He partied so hard on Saturday, he was too worn out to go to church on Sunday! He went to the basket ball game Saturday evening and they announced his bday over the intercom--totally made his day!

Moses likes sitting on the boxes of lights and decorations. He prefers the high places. And I'm sure the fact that we wanted him to move was a huge reason for his choice of placement!

Jon finally was able to go outside and get some night shots of the snow on top of two days or more of ice crystals. He took so many pictures, but feels these were some of the best ones. I love the 'red' lilac tree! The upright tree is our pear tree, it looks sort of like a candelabra! And the one with the ice on the light is very cool. Since the first pictures Jon took of the Christmas lights, Steve has put the 'big' lights in sequence. Most of the lights around the house have a 1, 2, 3 pattern--they may all be different colors, but they all match! On the very front we have all white ones with a star above the top floor window and on the far side it is red, white, and blue! He still wants to put up more!!!!!

Freezing Fog!

2011-12-09T13:24:00.000-08:00

Last night freezing fog came in and left us some amazing decor. Everything seemed to be touched by the fragile beauty of crystal and it was beautiful to see.

Godfrey was dressed in winter attire, but the addition of ice made him look more magical! I hung my 'evergreen snowflake' on the fence last night and WOW!!!!!

I really need to get this night shade out of the garden, but it looks so pretty. Even covered in ice the deadly berries appear gentled.

I was on a search for a spider web. You know, the geometrical shapes you find everywhere. Well, what I did find were what I thought were icicles. But, when I touched one, they were SPIDERWEB strands covered in ice! Amazing, huh?

The Oregon Grape (which never blooms), my rosebush in the corner of the yard, and the worn out sunflower blooms are all in festive array~

Poor Scooter, this dragonfly is freezing out there!!!!

One of my favorite trees in the yard! It's actually growing fairly well, considering I've managed to kill so many of my bigger plants.

I did find a few webs, but not ones which had distinct dimensions. The first is in an abandoned bird basket and the second seemed to attract a great bit of debris over the last month or two!

The wind chimes on the little house were not chiming, but they didn't need to! As Christmas bells, they were just fine the way they were! The blue lights on the fence are actually my neighbor's~I wish she had lit them, but since it was daytime, they were off.

As I peeked over the fence, I noticed Tex's garden (she has Texas roots, her last name is Burleson) had gilded iris leaves in it. Some of my chamomile was changed into winter beauty with the addition of webs, making my container gardens lovely again.

The color of springtime is in the flowers, the color of winter is in the imagination.

~Terri Guillemets

Halloween is Around the Edge of Tomorrow!

2011-10-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

This last weekend of October was super busy--Not as busy as last year, but none the less, we got a lot done. Jon was able to work for and help out Larry again on Saturday. It was pretty dry and there was a lot of dust. Sitting in the open cab of the tractor, Jon ended up with a veneer of dirt. Actually, it was more than a veneer--I think they could have seeded him if they wanted to! He came home in time to help Steve put my bridge in place. (things are getting closer to done by the pond!)

Steve leveled it all up and placed bricks so the wooden bridge supports would not sit on the dirt and then Jon helped move it into place. (the bucket near the bridge is a water weed that appears to be thriving in a bucket-I am seriously thinking about putting it in the pond in a container) After settling the bridge, Jon walked across it and made sure it worked. I can't wait to plant stuff around it!
Doesn't it look wonderful? I have some tall purple iris, some tiny iris, some wild hyacinth, and a few things from Aunt Kathy's yard to put in around it and the stream. Not to mention my flamingos from Carrie and the lights mum sent.

The next day, Sunday, was the Halloween Concert by the Walla Walla Valley Band. And they were amazing! I got a couple of pictures of Athena people but all of the ones I took of Jon were fuzzy. Of course, as Steve said, Jon is naturally fuzzy, but still! I particularly liked the mitts on the lovely cat's paws. She had a sparkly shirt front on, too-

This sax quartet is close to totally amazing. Note, the Blue's Brothers on the end!
And finally, for all of us who never knew, Pop-Eye plays a sax, too!!! And he is really rather good! The next WWVB concert is in December. It is going to be lots of fun. Although, the costuming will be more traditional, the tunes will be just as fun!

Cats and Pumpkins-

2011-10-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

Making beds is hard to do with a cat around-Max appears to like my very nice clean polar fleece jammies. I was very thankful when he eventually moved and let me finish the chores. The next morning, I found Moses sleeping peacefully on my side...Of course! I woke him up and he was not impressed. Silly cat!

Steve took his pumpkin carving seriously this year--actually, he was just trimming the stem. It had grown at an odd angle and he made a very bad cut with his multi-tool, so he had to fix it!

Moses and Kila were very interested in the carving proceedings this year. Moses was more annoyed with Kila helping and Kila was tasting the fruits of the labor.

This year our pumpkins were a bit different. Steve's Ford pumpkin has shapes from Ford and Jon's is just adorable. He was going for scary, but I don't think it worked at all!!!

Moses didn't think it was adorable either--or he was just disgusted with the whole idea of a photo shoot! My pumpkin is painted this year. I wanted at least ONE pumpkin for muffins!!
Jon did 'Extreme Carving' with his second pumpkin by doing something he has always wanted to do. He shot the face into this guy. It had grown crooked and he braced it with a stick. However, a shot hit the stick and totally mangled the face. Pretty bizarre, eh?

Kila has finally gotten to get outside for a bit. He ended up under the porch, but we convinced him to show up and stuck him back inside. He was none the worse for his experience and wants to do it again!

Hiking and Hunting-

2011-10-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

The first thing they found on their last hike was a super ticked off snake. Jon saw it from the back of the truck and jumped out to grab it. I do wish he was more discriminatory in his snake grabbings, but there you go! This reptile entertained them for quite a while, but it was hunting season, so they finally let him go.
The colors are so beautiful in the fall. I love the different hues of reds and greens and yellows that God put in His world.

This tiny 'X' in the photo above is sort of funny. Jon took more pictures of the land and the foliage before they found another snake.

This one was also not impressed to be a toy, but suddenly Steve stopped and said, "There's a deer over there!" (by the 'X') They realised it was a buck and they were very fortunate the deer did not 'see' them playing with the snake! After a short bit, the shots were fired and God blessed us with dinner!!!

Steve was VERY happy!!! After they took care of it, they heard noises in the tall grass just a few feet from where they were and lo and behold, there were cows. Steve and Jon were thankful the shots did not wander into THAT herd!

Sunset in the hills is always beautiful, but when you are successful, it is even more impressive.

This one was a lot bigger than Jonathan's, even if Jon's did have the larger rack!

Another Hunting Hike

2011-10-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

The weather has been dreary, but the colors and scenery are amazing. It appears Jon shot the only buck on all 300 acres--they have seen a lot of does and fawns, but nothing with antlers. They'll show up next weekend, after the season ends.

The upper pond and reflections of the trees.

I love this one- Jon is an amazing photographer!
Steve looking over the ranch. The hills remind us of the time during the flood in Genesis. You can just imagine the water receding from the tops--if you don't agree the flood could change so much so fast, I remind you to think of Mt St Helens. In just minutes valleys were formed and entire trees were washed into lakes where they took up residence on the bottom as if they grew there.

Another favorite photo.

They also saw huge flocks of birds migrating. It took a while, but am pretty sure they are Sand Hill cranes. (he took a few that were blurry, but had more definition in the shape of the silhouette.)

A hunting we will go....

2011-10-02T22:59:00.001-07:00

October 1 was a VERY busy day! We started the day by going to a young man's Eagle Ceremony in Pendleton. It was incredibly special and I was so glad I insisted we needed to go. Later on, Steve and Jon went off to the mountains. It was a lovely day. The clouds were puffy, the sky was blue, and the colors of the world were amazing!

Jon took several photos of Steve (as usual) and then they finally got down to business.

Steve called me from the ranch--it was getting dark--and told me the end of their day of hiking was better than the first part. And then he told me Jon got his deer. It was not pretty, but he prevailed! Our one shot, clean kill kid sort of ran away this last year as a youth hunter. Yet, he did manage to bag Bambi's older brother!

I took several other photos after the guys maneuvered it into the shop and around the engine less Bronco. However, they are pretty grisly. Even for a mom who is used to hunting photos! Jon shot it a couple of times. One shot shattered his back leg and also hurt the corresponding leg. Another shot literally creased his belly fur and the final shot was from 10 or 15 yards away. It was definitely a lethal wound....At any rate, Jon's pretty happy. This antler set we are going to keep as horns only. We still haven't taken care of last year's head..which is in the freezer still! European mounts are so messy!!!!!!

Round Up part 2~

2011-10-02T22:47:00.000-07:00

The first photo is setting up the ice cream booth the Sunday before Round Up--the next one is the Friday of Round Up...the favorite flavor is almost always the purple one you see. Huckleberry!

Jonathan got to actually see parts of the rodeo this year and took some FUN photos!

The four photos above are all of one horse and rider--as you can see, the horse objected to this particular rider who thankfully was not hurt in his brief ride and subsequent tumble.

This last photo was sort of funny. This bull was penned up and managed to climb over the pen and escape! It appears you just have to be on the right side of the fence if you are going to watch!

Round Up Parade

2011-09-18T22:22:00.001-07:00

This was a practice run for the TigerScot band. (I obviously missed it since I thought it was going to be later in the day.) BUT, they are featured in a video by the Eastern Oregonian! Make sure you listen to the last note played by the Pipes and Drum band--it is Jonathan!! They were supposed to be right behind the oxen, who open the video, as an incentive to keep them going. Jon said it didn't really work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odjZ3Np4YIQ

The most awesome Mounted Band is also featured in the video--I love these guys!!!

These kids were so CUTE and the four teens in the next photo just made me laugh!

This guy's costume was amazing and I was particularly amazed by the reflection from his eyes...til he got closer and I realised he had on sunglasses!

This cute little pony and cart I had to photograph for my youngest niece. It's not pink, but it is ever so adorable!

I love the horses-they are so regal. They all have yellow ribbons to help commemorate 9/11.

Probably two of the most unusual thins we saw--we are not exactly sure what this mascot is. I believe it is supposed to be a cougar. The man in the next photo. Well, he attracted a great deal of attention due to his commando attire.

I probably got this in my blog last year, but it is just funny--as it is supposed to be!
This is also for my niece (the younger one). He had his horse dancing all through the parade route! Pretty amazing!

There are more photos to come--next blog, Rodeo!

Labor Day---for real!

2011-09-09T12:20:00.001-07:00

Labor Day is a holiday, right? Thankfully, by the time this water leak was discovered almost everyone was 'home' from their relaxing day and ready to get dirty! Steve had just gotten in from working on my car and a guy drove past and said, "Hey, do you know you have water bubbling up from under your fence?" (I always wonder WHY people ask questions like this. I mean, really!) At any rate, we called some people and after some frantic calls by them, they got to work trying to stop the new stream in town.

Rod and Dorothy came down for dinner--we didn't realise we were going to give them a yard show, too! Rod seemed to enjoy all the commotion and company. At one point there were at least 7 people who stopped by to visit at one time. We had visits from the city policeman, the guy from the gas company, city workers who were retired, and a lot of neighbors who wondered why the water was off or wondered what was going on.
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As you can see, when the hole was dug the pipe was eventually found and yup, a stream of water was shooting out of the pipe. They put what is called a band aid on it (metal clamp) and left it to dry out. The problem was believed to have been caused by a giant poplar tree. It's roots appeared to have broken new ground as well as pipes. When they 'found' the root, the workers were not sure if it was the pipe or a gas line. The man pictured was on his tummy in the muck with his arm buried in muddy water and he had grabbed something, another man went down and scratched the thing and discovered he had bark under his nails. Until then, work slowed and the watchers moved further across the street. Which, in retrospect, was sort of silly. If a gas line was struck, being 20 feet or more away was not going to help!

The creek moved rather fast and flowed from the top of the fence (by the barricades) to the end of the fence down the hill. (Jon took a video, I'll see if I can add it in later) There, it vanished into a run off drain. When they were done with the digging and the fix, they stuck barricades in the mud and called it good. The next day they checked it again..and discovered it was still seeping. It is a very old pipe as you can see....

Thankfully, we have a chicken wire fence in the corner of the yard (the people before us said they had kept chickens in that area--) and since we use it once in a while for the dog, it made a 'fence' for us when we took the wooden one down. The city finally filled in the hole on Thursday. The main water guy told me, as he moved dirt, that the leak appeared to be ok now (I had looked at it Thursday morning and the pipe was still wet under the clamp!!) and if it wasn't they'd be back. (!!!!!!!)

All in all, it was an interesting experience and I am just very thankful OUR water was never bothered by the line breakage. Even if it was in our yard!

Scout Camp-2

2011-08-03T13:28:00.001-07:00

This is NOT fair--so much of our technology is backwards in time. I thought I had beat the system by posting the second half first, but alas....I had also started with the first one (makes sense, doesn't it???). Thus, starting with the first one, even if it was posted second still put it behind the rest of the story of camp. Does that confuse you? Well, it confuses me as well. We can all be confused together! Piffle.

To read the first part of camp, scroll down.....and then scroll back up for the conclusion. Thank you.

Jon would ask, "Mom, why did you choose these photos?" Well, there were so many to choose from, I just had to make a stab at it! This top picture was a poster on the swim bus (they took a bus to a lake for swimming and even for a hike).

One of the merit badges Jon did this year was climbing--the boy on the other end was a bit small and the video Jon has of his wall climb is pretty amusing.
I love it when people borrow Jon's camera-candids!

The camp, Camp Fife, has an lovely scenery. It is not the Oregon coast, but it is just as beautiful!
One of the Scouts found a baby chipmunk. (not of our unit, I don't believe) It was in the middle of the road and wouldn't stop running out into it. So, the boy decided to adopt it (he had adopted several critters before). I am sure this is what spurred Jonathan to acquire Archibald. (a vole he found while helping a friend do major yard work.)
A couple of nights were devoted to flag retirements. In this one they cut the flag into all its pieces and burned each one separately. Jon said it took a very long time!

Later, Jonathan took photos of glow sticks. Here the Scouts stuck all the sticks together and made a huge rope. Then, the boys twirled it and played with it. Jon has some super amazing photos of this.

All ready to go home! Jon enjoyed his last year of Scout camp, although he did say that being an SPL was a bit like being a parent!

Scout Camp--Part1

2011-08-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

This is a very small bit of Jon's last Scout Camp as a Boy Scout. He may someday go again, but it will be as an adult leader. Jon made this sign for their Troop--it did crack, but it looks pretty nifty for spur of the moment!

Jon always takes car photos--I am pretty sure this is Mt. St. Helens (and how come it is a Mountain AND a Saint?).
The boys arrive at Camp Fife. They all packed in tents, so it was a lot of work to get organised to camp for the week. Jon took over 500 photos--and a metal works merit badge as well as a sailing one. He now wants to set up a forge and get a sailboat!

One of the things Scouts do at camp are cheers. This is a toss that was a part of the Troop's Spirit cheer. (Jon will correct me if I am wrong on that!) They won the Spirit award a couple of times.

The area had been logged and when you put lots of little log pieces together with boys (and I am sure girls), you most likely will end up with a pyramid! They posed on the structure for a photo before they took it back apart.

One of the more interesting things was snow. Yes, snow on the mountains. I was traveling with a friend to Portland and we noticed Hood had a lot, but this is just above the camp! No wonder the days were hot and the nights cool (50s)! The layout of the camp is beautiful.

Boys and leaders at Camp Fife July 2011.

Visit from the kids

2011-07-18T12:52:00.001-07:00

Tony spent part of his visit playing cards with Grandpa. Here we have, in succession, the deal with the thrill of a good hand, and the drama of dropping the wrong card.

Oh, and Grandpa winning--again!

Kim's photographs of 'life in the country' include Jon showing off the torso of the deer he is making for Steve, Steve perusing a manual for Jon's Bronco, and the harvesting of the field next to Rod and Dorothy's.

Gotta love a Deere!
Then, we did a bit of a photo shoot.

Kim held Dorothy's hoe for her, while she photographed Grandma and Tony--I couldn't resist taking Kim's photo. It reminded me a bit of Green Acres (although, I am positive Kim would be more resourceful than Eva!)

It started to rain saber tooth tigers and giant wolves, so we retired inside (for the most part!). Tony and Grandpa played a game Rod learned at the care center with dice. I think his score interpretation was sometimes, well, a bit dicey!

Jon borrowed my camera (his was in the Bronco and it was raining pretty hard!) for a while. I loved his raindrops and the English Walnut leaf (I took the pinks picture!).

4th of July Weekend--2011

2011-07-08T22:31:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday, Tony!!! We went out to a sub shop for his birthday and Jon just had to take a photo of 'The Destroyer'. It was VERY large!

We also had a huge tree limb that was working on falling off one of our locust trees. (it finally fell on its own, but it was sort of scary!) We had it tied to the two locust trees to keep it where we wanted to~

For Tony's birthday, Jon finished my Mother's Day present! A loverly metal dragonfly. I am so proud of Jon and I just love Scooter!

We had been asked to visit with the kids on the coast for Tony's birthday, but we were super busy this weekend. One of the things we did was celebrate the Fourth of July at Pioneer Park in Walla Walla. Jon, as a part of the band, needed to be there on Sunday to practice. http://www.youtube.com/user/WWValleyBands#p/c/476E369E17C5CFD3

I think you can click this site and listen to them for yourself! The last concert online is the Jazz one from March. If you get a chance, you really need to listen to the one from Halloween called Trick or Treat.

The birds in the park are as amazing as always! I love the aviary and I am glad it is still there.

4th of July we started the day hearing a short concert by Chris August. He did sing Starry Night and 70 times 7, so that was very exciting!
Then the Walla Walla Valley Band played. What an amazing group of performers they have! All ages and all talents make up one of the best bands I have ever heard. This band has 3 people from our town in it. Jon is a part of an awesome bass section. He has learned a lot from these people.
After the shows, we visited around the area and this blacksmith was very captivating. We saw all kinds of stuff and I learned that those bricks of curly fries are VERY greasy. Steve and Jon thought they were just yummy. (I only shared part of a brick.)
We closed our Monday evening at the Theatre's in College Place-It was a spectacular show! This year, however, we did manage to get ash on us from the explosions. (the guys also took part of the afternoon to watch the latest Transformers movie and I read a 'new' to me Brian Jacques book.)

Father's Day 2011

2011-06-19T20:39:00.001-07:00

Steve got a really cool game from the kids (GI Joe Monopoly) then we toddled off to a GREAT sermon by Delbert, followed by lunch with Dorothy. But the bulk of the afternoon was spent with Grandpa Rod at the care center. When we arrived he was in bed-he had just had one set of visitors come in and we were next in line!

One of the things that was bothering him was missing a Bible. He couldn't remember the end of Psalm 23, so he asked Steve to read it to him.

After a bit, we went outside and sat in the sunshine. (we finally had a bit of warmth and it was splendid!!). We also met a very unusual breed of dog. She is part chihuahua and part dachshund. His owner called her a Cha-Daw.

Then, Steve gave Rod communion. Rod recited some of the verses from the last supper. It was moving.

Steve-a younger dad and Rod-the older dad. Rod was regaling us with stories of his youth. Memories of birthdays and his favorite foods: Pickled elk tongue and pig feet knuckles. Oh, and Grandma Flossie's pies. Apple, cherry, and mincemeat (made with the a fore mentioned elk!).
Three generations of Hansell boys.

Beach Wedding!

2011-05-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

Wi-Ne-Ma was the setting for Mark and Christy's wedding. It was so pretty! There had been some rain, but it finally stopped and was beautiful. As you can see, there was a nice sized crowd that gathered at the ocean's side. We were sitting in the 'balcony' section, so had a GREAT view of the whole show. (it was really a sand dune, but we were up higher and looked down on the group!)

Everyone came in according to tradition, and also, according to tradition, their flower girl stole the show! Many of us photographed her instead of the bride and groom!!

Mark and Christy tied their knot with a festive braid and the flower girl continued to cover and uncover the petals she sprinkled on the sand.

After the final vows and a kiss, we were off to the Jacob's for a crab, pig, and oyster feast. The cows were impressed with the festivities and also honored the couple!

Out and About

2011-05-03T17:17:00.001-07:00

We started our journey on Friday night-the roads were clear and the sun was setting in our eyes. Jon took a great many fun road photos that I am not putting in the blog--there were a LOT! Trains, more windmills (the one below is amusing because it shows two types of technology in the same photo!), and cars of all kinds.

When we finally reached Portland, it was dark, but Jon was able to shoot an icon. Yup, the Portland sign with the deer. It used to be an advertisement for something, White Stag, I think it was. Now, it just heralds the Rose City. At Christmas they put a red nose on the deer, which is always great fun!

Saturday, we had some time before the wedding to visit the Trask River again. This first picture is of the 'dam hole', a great fishing spot!

We chatted for quite some time with friends at our old home and then took a nostalgic run to the park. Jon took photos of the paths and the place he used to play and capture tiny fish to hold in containers til it was time to go home.

I particularly miss the English Daisy flowers that grow wild on the coast. Here, in the east, we have violets in the grass. I adore and love violets, but wish we could have both! Jon picked me a flower and I saved it, hoping it will seed and spread lovely little English daisies all over the yard!

Although, there were some changes along the river, there were a great many things that have not changed one bit! This tree has grown quite a bit since we moved in 2007. We were glad to see it was still there with the strange weather everyone has had.

Webbed Ones

2011-05-01T22:51:00.001-07:00

The Oregon Coast has a variety of winged creatures, but you just have to adore the antics of the gull. While we visited, I was sad because I remembered several bits of bread I had at home. While we lived in Tillamook, we always took bread to the beach and if we didn't have time to get to the beach, we tossed it out for the crows. I love crows!!!! Jon took all these pictures. I particularly like the surfing gulls!

This crow was investigating an old crab shell the gulls were playing with.

If anyone is familiar with The Rescuers, this bird in take off mode reminded us of the albatross the mice took as they launched off into adventures unknown.

This made us laugh, mostly because as a sentry bird, gulls are very good. They even deposit remarks on motorized vehicles that are obeying the sign!

Male Mallard ducks are so pretty. These were at Arlington and the first picture we dubbed, Ninja Duck!

Marching On

2011-03-30T00:01:00.001-07:00

Ok, this is really strange. I have not put up a blog in ages and now it is all very wierd. First, these crocus from the start of March were not taken sideways! So, that is bizarre! I hope that when it gets published, they fix themselves!

On March 17, Jon earned his Life Scout rank. It was also a great party to say good bye to a man who has done Scoutmastering in the area for a long time. He may not do BSA stuff, but his love for the boys has taken many of them to places they never thought they could. Jon put together a neat little winter camping slide show to the tune of Summer in the City.

One of the things Jon wanted to do this month was play 'real' Monopoly--not the kid version we have that takes less than an hour to play. This one took us several days and we only stopped when I went bankrupt and Jon raked in the dough! One night Moses decided to help me. At least, we called it that!

Nana's birthday was fun. We still have not called her yet (there are still a couple days in March!) but we had cake and ice cream anyway! Jon blew out the candle on the cupcake for her...since she was at a concert with a friend AND not even in the same state!

I also made cookies..this one was sort of interesting as it had a smiling face on it! Jon did add one 'eye' as it appeared lopsided, but the rest of it was all baked in! Jon said it was delicious!

The day after spring break ended we got snow. It was not sticking hard, but it was sticking. Very droll as it was SUPPOSED to be after spring break! The poor daffydowndilly was not impressed and my read of The Secret Garden was much more fun than seeing my poor flowers get snowed upon!

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

2011-02-08T23:01:00.000-08:00

Monday, the last day of January, we got a box addressed to Jon. It was full of goodies from Nana! A new brown snap up 'fancy' shirt, an itty bitty knife (Jon said it had to be small, it was a Gerber!) that was very cool, and a chocolate fish were among the treats. (it was a mixture of Christmas and Birthday stuff)

Jon's BDay just happened to also be the big half time show with the pipes and drums band at his school. So, we did NOT get to eat pizza and watch movies. However, when we got home Jon found this stuffed critter on the table. Yup, he finally got a turkey. He decided, after deliberations, to call him 'Phil'. The ammo was much appreciated also.

Saturday it was nice enough to head up to the mountains to go shooting. Jon took his camera and shot these critters. Can you believe how many elk there are up there??? Wish they had been around during the season! Jon also found this track. He is pretty sure it was a wolf track. They saw a LOT of elk that afternoon. It was like being in Tillamook!

Since it was pretty close to Jon's birthday, Saturday we had pizza and watched movies. We watched Ground Hog's Day since we had been busy on Wednesday and that is where the turkey got his name. If you are familiar with the movie, you remember that the prediction takes place on Gobbler's Knob by a rodent named Phil. And there you have it! We also had pizza and I made an ice cream cake for Jon. It was a bit more work than I thought it would be, but not bad at all. I did discover that it is not really a good choice for small families as it is not something that can go in lunches!

It is hard to believe this itty bitty 3 year old is now 17.

We love you, Jon-Jon!

Snow Scouts-one foot at a time

2011-01-10T15:14:00.000-08:00

Books not to read before a snow camp: Into Thin Air. Jon's been reading this for English and snow and wind and cold toes were not good things to think about when experiencing it first foot!

They left on Friday night and it wasn't snowing....yet. It started snowing a bit after they tucked up in the tents and was still snowing when they came home on Sunday. Saturday, Jon's toes were pretty cold, but after rubbing them well, he was ready for a snow shoe hike.

Tents in the snow-just a little taste of home. And the boys thought they created a new snack, but if you visit 'Living the Travel Channel' you will see that Karla and Paul have already consumed beverages with noodles overseas!

Shoeing with Cameras-

It snowed for the entire hike, creating some really nifty snow shots!

A couple of the scouts took skis, but the majority were on shoes. Most of them went back after they reached a trail marker...but some continued on in the snow! (Jon was one of those)

Jon's cocoa was so hot it melted the frost around it. You can see how cold it was by the frost on the propane tank! More feet, resting after the hike.

Sunday the trees were beautiful, the snow was beautiful, but the boys were looking forward to warmth and dry toes.

Moses curled up next to the discarded shoes and socks on a thermal jacket liner when Jon got home. Jon curled up on the couch with a hamburger and polar fleece!

December!

2011-01-01T22:14:00.000-08:00

December is over, but the memories are not! We had snow and no snow and then snow again. Of course, the snow that came while the kids were here ALSO arrived during our Christmas play. So, once again we had snow for the play. In spite of that, we had pretty good attendance.

Since we had some snow, Tony and Kym played in it. It was soft powdery stuff, but they made it work!

"it's not snowball snow...."

However, Tony's comment proved untrue as they tossed it all over the place.

Even inside the house-Welcome to all our friends!

The next day it was damp snow, perfect for a snowman and I made one. I did not get a photo of it earlier in the day, but by 9pm it was bent over in a goodbye bow! Yup, that snow lasted one weekend!

It all came back just after Christmas. A LOT of it. Poor Godfrey went from a thaw to being covered in fluff! We ended the year with a drop in temp that was not fun-in single digits!!!!!!

Snowvember Days

2010-12-05T22:37:00.000-08:00

It is already December..and the weather is very much like it has been for the last few weeks. So, I'm going to post a few snow photos from LAST month. Just to get us caught up to December!

Godfrey was almost up to his knees. Thankfully, much of it has melted. Jon is our snowman!

Thanksgiving it was pretty snowy. The kids didn't get to come down and that was probably a good thing. We have continued to have snow and freezing fog!

Pumpkins!

2010-11-13T20:03:00.001-08:00

It is about time I got the pumpkin story up here! This is a saga of volunteerism, ingenuity, and pollination. We put wanted to put taters in the spot where our 2009 punkins had grown, so dumped the seeds and junk after Halloween last year in an odd spot in the yard. Well, they came up!

Steve was pretty excited and we went to this wonderful website called the pumpkin nook to learn about raising our own. We learned that these gals are pretty easy to grow, yet they are very sensitive. Most of the early summer was spent watering and hoping for baby pumpkins. Later, Steve got more serious and made a cover for them. If the female flowers get cold, they die! There were a few large ones that started, but Steve was wanting more.

He finally decided to pollinate the female flowers. And they took off! Here you see a male flower on the left, and on the right a not very old female. The gals open in the morning and that is when they are at their best. So, using a q-tip, Steve touched the inside of one of the very abundant male flowers and tapped the pollen into the female blossom. If he was fortunate, the baby pumpkin on the end of stem grew into an orange ball!

We harvested these ones first. Almost at the start of September! We knew we had some great jack o lanterns!

As the weather chilled, we diligently covered and uncovered the girls so they would not get too cold and grow big and strong. Unfortunately, the days just were not warm enough and they stalled.

For some reason this photo-which really is NOT slanted-seems to want to blog off kilter. The littler green pumpkins we ended up tossing as it and three others froze. The bright orange one made 4 cups of puree and the larger one is orange all over now.

And here is Steve with his 12 'girls'. He did have two more, but they went to Beaverton with Tony and Kym. We planned on carving the bigger ones for Halloween, but decided against it. One, we were very busy at the end of October and, two, we did not want to have someone come and smash our hard work while the house was empty over the holiday. So, he plans on carving some for Thanksgiving! It should be fun, we hope it doesn't snow!

Just a few photos from our visit with Mum-

2010-11-09T18:42:00.000-08:00

Mum got to relax with Moses, visit the horses next door and go up to the Mountains with Jon. Next time she visits, we'll take her shooting! (Maybe!) And we'll hope the weather is better. The mountain visit was pretty much the prettiest day she was here..and it didn't stay pretty very long!

The wedding was ages ago and I really need to get a bit up about it! It was so neat having mum come down and visit. We had not seen her in ever so long and it was special to actually get to hug her for a change! The weather was pretty frightful for most of her visit, so on the drive to the coast it was fun to stop in Arlington and photograph the ducks. Actually, Jon took most of the duck pictures! The drive to the coast was hectic, rain on the freeway and a novice city driver was interesting, but only a foreshadow of what was to come!

(a view from a car window..)

There are many thoughts that come to mind when you think of a big project. One quote by J. Heywood is particularly apt, “Many hands make light work.” There are so many people who helped with the wedding. Roxanne and her two, Flett’s, Pam W, Jacit, Karla B, Teressa S, Dr. T, Doug, Scott, Tex, and the list goes on! And it really did help make the work lighter.

I think the most amusing thing happened after the wedding, though. We had bunches of flowers left over and as it was Halloween, we decided to give some away. We had a rental house, so we didn’t get many trick or treaters. However, the ones who did visit received chocolate and the girls got roses. Well, one of the guys got one, too. He was adorable. A group of Alice in Wonderland characters came by to visit and the Mad Hatter wanted a rose. When I gave him one his response was, “I got a rose!” followed by “I love you!!!

(a visit to the creamery was a must-I got some adorable Tillamook cheddar earrings--metal, not cheese!--and we had a yummy lunch!)

On the way back to EO, the weather was truly horrid. Jon drove thru rain, bumper to bumper traffic, and wind. We barely got mom to the airport in time! The rest of the ride back was fairly uneventful and when we got back home~it was shirt sleeve weather! We were thankful we had two cars, Steve drove the one with his parents and Jon drove my Escort.

Hiking with Guns, continued.

2010-10-05T19:47:00.001-07:00

Monday after school. It was just barely 4 o'clock and here he is hiking away into the grass. At 430 I heard two shots. Several minutes later I saw Jon hiking back, almost running. Sans coat, hat, gun, and with a huge grin. Yup, he got a deer!

However, it was a bit of a ways away and in a gully. He did drag it up from where he shot it, but it was still on a hillside. The first photo shows about the location of the kill. (the lighter green bushes near the darker ones by the taller lone bush..kind of in the upper right of the photo.....got that?) He did say it was a 'Forrest Gump shot' and he managed to avoid all the guts. He thinks he is going to write to Remington because their core lok bullets don't expand when they hit bone, they explode. Which did ruin a bit of meat, but not much. They did find one fragment.

The deer was, they think, an older one. Steve says it was a 6 by 4, including the eyegaurds, and the antlers were thick and spiky. The ears on the deer were notched in at least 3 places by what we think were previous fights. It was a pretty big and heavy buck.

This was the first 'knot' made to haul it the rest of the way out of the draw. Things actually went more downhill from there. It didn't take long to get it cleaned out (via cell phone instructions by dad), but the hard part happened when we tried to get it in the truck. We used several methods and ended up calling for dad again. We were planning on meeting him partway and dragged the buck several hundred yards through the grass. However, we hit a snag. Well, more of a ditch than a snag. And since I am the mom, I had to check out what happened and fell in the ditch also. By this time, it was dark. If we had gone 6 feet on either side of the ditch, we would have been fine. But, we didn't.

As you can see, it was a bit of a jarring experience for all involved. The tire is off the ground and the truck was sitting on the bumper and the leaf springs. The driver's door would not open because the cab itself slid forward on the frame. Other than that, they were able to dig it out and it drove home fine. But apparently, getting stuck on the ranch is a Hansell tradition. So, Jon has officially joined the club.

The deer is now hanging and Jon plans on putting this European mount (he wants another one) opposite the one in his room with the coyote tail hanging from its antler. Go Rednecks! We were all pretty sore on Tuesday and my ankle is swollen, but on the whole, it was an eventful afternoon and evening that we will never forget!

Hiking With Guns-Part 1

2010-10-04T08:01:00.000-07:00

The scenery was lovely, the weather was amazing, but the deer were scarce. I was told they saw one, but he scented them and was hot footing it elsewhere. It could have been the sounds of WW2 in the hills around them, too! It appeared that everyone was out in force this weekend. It is frustrating to see so many deer and then when you need to see them, they are gone!

Jon did get a coyote. It was sort of cute, he told his dad how he shot it by using Teddy Grahams as markers. That, I think, was one of the key notes of this first part of Hiking with Guns. They REALLY liked Teddy Grahams!

Round Up-100 years!

2010-09-21T16:03:00.001-07:00

Saturday started out a bit damp, but quickly warmed up to tank top weather! All along the street were no parking signs and a man in a tow truck drove past often warning, "all cars parked along the parade route will be towed." He wasn't joking! After the rigs were moved, these guys came by to pick up the signs. The one the man is reaching for also had part of bumper near it. A lady came by and knocked it over, bumping off a piece of her car. She got out to put the sign back up, but didn't know what the black thing was. She drove off before anyone could tell her it was her bumper.

At the beginning of the parade there were 100 people on 100 horses carrying 100 American flags. It was pretty impressive! Rumor was that these flags were flown on bases overseas, but between you and me and the internet, the flags looked pretty pristine for being flown in a desert! After they rode past, a wagon of people came by. I don't remember who they were, but obviously a wagon was a great place to talk from!

These pretty horses have tiger stripes on their legs. It is a particular breed that I don't remember, but they were very striking. Almost as impressive as the band that played while riding horses!! Doesn't that tuba player look like he has his hands full? The people next to the players are leading the horses in case one of them takes offense at the odd noises coming from their backs.

These oxen were also very cool. They, too, have handlers in case of unhappiness. I was told by a fellow spectator that one year the handlers gave them too much relaxant (they have to because they can get a bit out of control) and the beasts lay down in the road and wouldn't move!
I also took a photo of this stunning black and white horse and rig combo because it was so pretty!

There were a LOT of horses in this year's parade. It is completely non motorized, although I did see at least one gator scooping! I liked the fringe on this one's harness and the large ones pulling the fake wool bags are very stately creatures.

These two signs made me laugh. The first one is on an oil rig proclaiming use in motor cars! The second is just funny!

I loved this little guy and his mining couple! Except the lady was way too far behind and almost as overladen!

And at the end, is the hearse! I am not sure I'd want to be carted around in a glass hearse, but then..I would be dead, so maybe I wouldn't care! Actually, the very last thing in the parade is a steam calliope, but none of the photos of that came out very well!

Oregon Live has some stats on this and if I knew how to post a link, I would do that! The hope this year was that the parade would make the Guinness Book of World Records for a parade with the most horses in it. And apparently it did. Don't know how many there were, though. There were 188 or so entrants in the parade and most of them were horseback or rode in wagons! Some of the more interesting entries were the rodeo queens from ages past. And many of them were still riding and they had on the most amazing outfits! The horses did not stand still enough for photos, though. And I am pretty sure the horses were not the same ones they rode from 1950 or the 60's!

Mtn Ranch (Jon's pix)

2010-09-06T00:25:00.001-07:00

I figured that will all the interesting things we have been up to, it might be a good idea to post the photos that Jon took on our camping trip. Well, not all of them. I am just posting the animal ones..and well, one of Steve and I.

This deer photo was of the deer we saw on that first night. As you can see here, they were in a line: 4 point, 3 point, two point..and the last one did not get in the picture. He was a spike. So, as we keep saying-the deer are there. We only hope they stay til October when Jon and Steve will go 'hiking with guns' (deer season). The next morning, after the cows woke us up, Jon got up first and proceeded to wander around with his camera.

He found this teeny tiny frog that was about the size of his thumbnail..and took photos of it after he 'released' it.

He also learned where grasshoppers sleep.

This top one is guaranteed to make one feel VERY VERY small! It is where we are going to go for our Youth service next Sunday morning. It is on the 'upper place'. While up there, we visited a teeny pond that was so covered with water skippers it looked like a convention! Jon also found a Hairy Woodpecker. They look exactly like the Downy ones, but are bigger. Of course, on the tree, they look small!

Last weekend of summer vacation-mom's photos

2010-08-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Jon has wanted for ages to camp up on the ranch, so for the last weekend of summer vacation, we did! We only stayed up there one night, but with all the dust blowing around making us sneeze, it was long enough. Next time, I'll bring more tissue or take allergy meds and we can stay longer!

Jon, never a child to travel the beaten track, took the road less traveled to get to the pond..needless to say, it was very adventurous! The first photo does not do justice to the ruts, rocks, and washouts we encountered! I am not even sure what trees we started between. The second photo was the path we should have taken!

We got up to the area a little late in the day for much activity, but Jon unloaded the wee boat and took it out on the pond. Yes, that is a pond. We forgot the rake to use on the rather aggressive weeds choking it! Next time! Steve and I took a walk and found a couple of the willow trees he planted. The deer had eaten them, so we collected the wire holders and will plant some more next spring.
Speaking of deer, this was one of 4 or 5 bucks we saw. It is a grainy picture as they were about 100 yards away or so. At one time we saw in a row points of 4, 3, 2, and spike buck! So, we know they are there, just gotta wait for hunting season. We are hoping they stick around!!!

The next morning we were awakened very early by a cow alarm! In a city you have car alarms..in the woods, cow! They had finally gotten out of the grass where they spent the night to come down to the pond for a drink. On the good side, because they broke the fence we were able to go for a night walk in the CRP (Conservation Reserve Program-for farming areas that are not able to be farmed anymore). The Toyota is where Jon spent his night. Tents are not a good idea here due to the cows. The ground is really torn up and there are 'pies' all over the place!

One of the things we did on Saturday was go to the 'upper place'. It is totally amazing up there and I learned that this is where the guys sight in their rifles. And after a bit of a hike, that is what Jon did.

We got back to camp for a spot of relaxation and some lunch. Jon had with him approved camp out reading, especially nice for use in a kit bashed together hammock! (rope over 20 years old is not good hammock rope!) Lunch was hobo veggies and pork steaks. I had forgotten the salt and pepper, but BBQ sauce worked very well along with the Ranch dressing. Steve added a side of Mtn Dew to his.

We were planning on doing another longer hike, but I was very sneezy by this time and since the cows were out of the CRP, they decided to fix the fence (note, they are not our cows. the owner rents the land for them). It was a lot more work than they had thought it might be!

On the way back home, Jon had to take a 'vista' shot of the world below us. It is pretty incredible what you can see and my next blog will be the same weekend, only from Jon's point of view!

I did bring a book-NEVER go anywhere without one! And was able to read one of Tamora Pierce's books about Tortall (Protector of the Small-Squire).

Camping on the Umatilla

2010-08-14T12:04:00.001-07:00

The first weekend in August, Jon went on a Scout camp out up the Umatilla River. The most unusual thing happened on the way up, they were stopped by GOATS! He had to take the pic thru a window, so it was not as nice as it could have been.

But, after the goats and a bit more of a drive, they reached their destination. Home sweet home for the weekend!

While up there, Jon found all kinds of critters! Here are just a few of them!

Aren't they fun!!!??

Trees are so amazing! And the second one is a bridge the boys fixed up after it fell apart (they camp up here often) and I was told it survived this last winter.

One of the things Jon was annoyed about was the fishing. It was above the hatchery and they were tiny, he was swimming with them and none of them was 'bigger than my hand.' So, he caught and ate crawdads! Fried in oil after boiling (because by the time they were all cracked out the critters were all cold..so they recooked 'em!). Everyone tried some and no one died, so Jon figgers he was a pretty good cook!

Missing the Tillamook Fair this weekend. There are some GREAT photos on Face Book if you are interested! And THS VE is going to sing the National Anthem at the demo derby tonight!

Days in the Sun

2010-07-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

One of the most amazing toys in the world are bubbles. They float, dance, reflect colors, and just encapsulate childhood perfectly. The boys have spent a lot of time with bubbles and I think one of my very favorite memories was once, on the Trask, when we blew a gazillion bubbles and there was a carpet of bubbles on the grass that they ran through! We used Bubbles at rest stops to get car wiggles out and have tried to get the cats to chase them (the cats prefer laser lights..). Here, in EO, bubbles don't do as well. It is very dry here and the grass is sharper. And in our small town, I learned that the WATER has a great deal to do with bubbles. We had purchased a huge bubble wand thing for the summer reading program at the library and it wasn't working. As I did research, I learned that hard water is bad for bubbles! You need twice as much soap to make them work well! Professor Bubbles has a lot of GREAT bubble information on his site. One day this summer we had some kids visit for a day and part of it was spent trying to photograph the biggest bubble! What a very fun project!

After the bubbles and some popsicles, the kids were pretty sticky, so one of them opted to play in the water. She eventually decided to be a sprinkler and watered the garden as she sang, "I'm a Little Teapot'. Much more entertaining than the silly tractor that only goes one way or the other!

One of the best things about summer are gardens. One of my friends from College Place gave me some green beans from his and OOOO, were they YUMMY! We have mostly taters in our garden. The tomatoes are crowded out by volunteer sunflowers and I have not the heart to 'pick' them yet. (the sunflowers) We do have some sort of scab on our taters, but so far they have not inhibited the flavor! We have gold ones, white ones, red ones, and blues. Also learned that when you boil red, white, and blue taters together..for some reason you get GREEN water!!

One day while digging taters we found these 'seeds'. I have looked, but cannot find information on potato seeds that look like this! Pretty odd, huh? At first, I thought one of the tomato plants had escaped to another spot, but they are from the potato vines!

This last picture has a background of hops. We got this baby hops plant from Elgin in early 2008 and it FINALLY took off. Literally. It goes from the ground, across the trellis and anywhere else it can! It is sort of a pest! I am glad I planted it in a deep pot!

Am reading Generation Warriors by A. MacCaffrey and E. Moon. Am excited to finish it again because I found a NEW Grandma Dowdel book by R. Peck!!!! Jon hopes that she isn't watered down as that can happen with characters who keep showing up. He is right, but I have faith that Grandma will continue to blast her shotgun when necessary and put the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) in their place!

BYOC!

2010-07-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

BYOC will be added to any invites to parties at our house in the future! Bring your own chair! Yup, it was hilarious fun and it should be mentioned that the ones who found it most hilarious did not include the birthday boy. Actually, man as he IS now 46! It was a tad unplanned, but in spite of that I counted 22 forks and spoons in the sink when I started to tidy things up after 10pm. We had people arriving from 645 to just about 10pm~ And many of them brought cards and some even brought presents! This first photo is just around 730. We had only a few people here at this time. I think that there may have been 15 or so. Every time there was a knock on the door people exploded into laughter at the look on Steve's face. He was very surprised that his quiet birthday at home was turning out to be NOT so quiet!

After dinner (we ate around 6) around 630, I suggested to Steve that he might want to go and get some folding chairs from his parents house as I thought we'd have a couple extra people visit. However, his parents got here too early and we 'killed' time playing rummy with some ultra cool cards the boys got Steve while Jon was in DC. They have posters from WW1 and WW2 on them are great fun to read. The funniest thing was that Steve's mom did not remember WW2 at all. She said it wasn't in their history books and they didn't study it! We were amused! She was about 12 or so when it started. Steve's dad got drafted just after he turned 18. He and his twin turned 18 on Dec 10 and they joined the coast guard.

After several rounds we got some more visitors and one of them brought Steve the best present ever. A garbage bag for a car with a pizza pocket and 2 burritos! Cracked us up!
The next best present was from one of neighbors and friends who had a yard sale last weekend, too. He came in with a bag and tissue paper and said he was glad Steve had had a birthday as they had a lot of stuff left over from their yard sale! Inside the bag was the perfect gift for an 'old man'. A beaded massage thing! It almost brought down the house!

Well, 3 cakes and 6 quarts of ice cream later we have most of one cake, a bit of the angel cake and about 2 quarts of ice cream left. OH, also made a cake and sent it to work with Steve. That vanished like snow in Arizona..in July. All in all, it was a great deal of fun and I appreciate everyone who helped to make it that way. Until next time-Happy birthday, Steve!

There be squirrels among us!

2010-07-06T23:29:00.001-07:00

If DC ever runs short of Obama burgers (Jon had one while he was there "It's not the largest burger I've ever had, but it was pretty tasty.") they can probably survive on squirrel! Here is a recipe in case anyone ever needs it from Allrecipes.com for slow roasted squirrel:

2 squirrels - skinned, gutted, and cut into pieces
4 large potatoes, quartered
1 pound carrots, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
4 onions, sliced
2 cups water
1/4 medium head cabbage
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

In a slow cooker, place the squirrel meat, potatoes, carrots, green bell pepper, onions, water, cabbage, salt and ground black pepper.
Cover and cook on low setting for 8 hours.

Everyone that seemed to review it thought it was really very good! At any rate, here is a montage of Washington DC squirrel photos by Jon!

I was a bit annoyed with this one, it appears they gave it a bit of a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie that I made for Tony's birthday! However, the critter seemed to like it as it got so close to Jon that the only thing in focus on that picture was the tail! So, if Shirley C needs a job, she can go to DC and feed squirrels (it was her cookie recipe!).

Jon took this one in the Capital I think it was. Yup, there are squirrels in the Capital building! Or something that LOOKS like a squirrel!

They are everywhere, looking for treats, burying treats and you can even find them in skeleton form or STUFFED! (not with cookies, I might add!) The last two came from the museum of Natural History, I believe. Which made me realise that squirrels are EVERYWHERE!

We'll post more of his amazing adventures later, but I just HAD to put the squirrels on first!

4th of July weekend

2010-07-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

No pictures. Jon took the camera to DC. However, it was a good weekend anyway. It was odd having no kids around, first time EVER that has happened. But, we survived. We wanted to go to the Walla Walla Valley Band concert at the park and missed it completely. BUT, the very best thing happened when we DID go. We got to see one of the sweetest little girls from our past who has grown up into a really very nice young lady. I was so proud of her and so proud to know she is in our circle of friends! I must have hugged her close to a gazillion times and it wasn't enough!

Later, we decided to go and see some fireworks. We had gone to a location in College place every year ages ago and decided to try it again this year. It was amazing! When we visited that spot when the boys were smaller, it was popular, but not packed. This year, it was packed! We even saw people out with little bbq's! It was pretty fun, we ended up sitting so close to the action that we could see them light the fuses! Well, sort of. On the other hand, it was really rather too loud, but am looking forward to going back next year to the same spot! A couple times I wondered if we would be getting sparks as they floated down from the sky very close to us! We got to sit (unplanned) near some friends from church and they had two very young ones there (ok, 4ish?) and a tweenager. The twins and the tween were a great deal of fun and it was so neat to have a twin crawl up on my lap and say, "I like you.' After the show, we sat in the parking lot and waited for people to leave. As we waited we watched 5 or so teens play hacky sack! After reflection, we realised that was popular in the early 80's and THAT was at least 30 years ago! I came home and googled it and learned that it was created in 1965 or 1972, depending on which link you prefer! Pretty amazing, huh?

We also spent our weekend watching movies. Movies that Jon would perhaps NOT like. One of the more classic ones we watched was Flashdance. What GREAT music! Story line was a tad lame, but fun movie all the same. Now we are looking forward to seeing Footloose, on film and then on stage in Walla Walla!

Also read a story about the Tillamook Burn (Fire on the Wind) and am thankful for all the rain and one of my old 4th of July favorites (Clancy's Glorious 4th), which is fun old fashioned kid lit.

2010-06-23T22:56:00.000-07:00

The guys got to go sailing with some people from church. Jon, as usual, took photos and I thought we'd start with these two. The paper pirate and dad! Kinda makes you want to giggle, huh?

They got to sail on the Columbia on the Washington side. It was about an hour drive to get there and it was NOT breezy at all! When they arrived they had to motor for a while before a breeze kicked in. Jon got to steer back to shore at the end.

In that last photo you see the boat, the Adios (Jon couldn't remember the name of the one he was on!) and the guy who organised the trip, Steve.

Reflections and trains are great things to photograph! Gotta love BNSF!!!!!

It was late when they furled the sails and settled down for a BBQ. And if you look closely in that photo, you might be able to see the giant man who, too, is settled down for a rest!

Birds!

2010-06-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

I set up an area for the birds that was nicer than just the feeders over the mint and they seem to appreciate it. So do the cats (see window).

Jon took these one afternoon. Well, I took the first one! Are not these finches and house sparrows CUTE????? sigh. Even though they are pigs and super noisy way too early, they are very much fun!

Mudding..not exactly what they wanted to do!

2010-05-30T17:17:00.001-07:00

A lovely tranquil May Sunday afternoon on the ranch.

NOT!!!

After being rescued by a good friend, they are on the road again!

Jon took a great many pictures of this not so fun experience, but am not loading all of them. It would just have been too much mud for the computer to handle!

Spring Lyrics

2010-05-25T10:40:00.001-07:00

"Let me tell you 'bout the Birds
And the bees,

And the flowers

And the trees,

The moon up above

And the thing called Love....."

(not exactly how I wanted to lay it out, but there you go!)

Early in May

2010-05-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

Just a few photos from May 9 up on the Mtn ranch. The geese were pretty amazing!

more April animal antics!

2010-05-08T17:35:00.001-07:00

I know, it is May, but it has only been May for a week and I still have some pictures from the last trip to the Mtn Ranch that need posted. And some pictures of the critters who normally don't get photographed! So, to begin: below we have our dearest Rusty cat, Katy Kat, and then Teddy. Katy Kat and Teddy are the grumpy ones in the family! Rusty cat is just, well, to mix up the animal kingdom, she is a lone wolf!

Up at the ranch, Jon found a zillion or so (he said) of these cool flowers. When he got home and we were looking at them on the television (hooking up the xbox to the camera!), I realised what they were. Yellow Fawn Lily's. They are so pretty! I didn't realise how many of them were around in the woods in the spring.

One of their ideas was to chop down a tree by hand. It was a VERY large and long tree, as you can see! Jon had some pretty amazing callouses from the work of using a hand axe, but he was pretty proud of himself!

They also saw several more deer and this ultra cute chipmunk that posed for many photos for Jonathan. Isn't it the cutest thing you ever saw???????

Am reading a sweet series by Kristen Britain. Green Rider and Call of the First Rider.

April Animals on the Ranch!

2010-04-30T22:10:00.000-07:00

Look at all these cute critters! As cute as they are, however, I was annoyed. They also decided to nibble on my golden willow tree sticks that survived from our move from Tillamook! We had stuck them in a bucket with water and finally gotten around to planting them up on the ranch this spring. Unfortunately, the deer REALLY liked the coastal treats. This last weekend the guys went up and put some wire around a few. Hopefully, those ones will survive. Jon took scads of deer pictures (as usual) and we especially liked this one of the deer jumping the fence.

The mountain creeks were running nicely this April and tree frogs were everywhere! They found this adorable green one as well as a darker brown one.

More deer! It is too early to tell if any of the ones they saw were bucks, but I am pretty sure that come October the ranch will be devoid of white and black tails! That is the way deer season works!

Next up, pictures of the ranch at the END of April and flowers in the year. Jon got some of the cutest chipmunk photos, but you will have to wait for those!

winter/spring..whatever!

2010-04-09T18:46:00.001-07:00

Spring means snow, right? Well, we got a skiff here in April and it was NOT fair! The daffodils wouldn't lift their heads and even Moses was not impressed. He was seriously looking for that door into summer and this one was NOT it! (actually, I think the daffs are ones that keep their heads down as they still have not lifted them!)

For the WMHS band auction I had Jon make another flower. I really wish I could keep this one, but we needed to give it to the band fund. I added one of my cement leaves and we call it Garden Stuff. This one has petals made of kitchen knives and leaves made of a spatula and a spoon. It is VERY clever. I hope people like it. I think we'll make more and see if they sell during Caledonian yard sale day! That is the problem with creating things, you just want to KEEP them!

Maxwell, today, found that door into summer. It was not very warm out in the yard, but on the top of the lawn mower in a sun puddle he was very content! Jon said he couldn't mow the lawn since Max was sleeping. I told him to move Max and mow anyway. The front eventually got cut.

Am reading Alcott, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom.

Rainbows and Chocolate

2010-04-03T14:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have to really look for the rainbows, but when you find them they are amazing! I always wonder about what might be at the end of the rainbow and I have never found a 'pot of gold'. but it doesn't matter. The promise of a rainbow is much more awesome than gold!

It is even better than chocolate, which is a debatable point, I am sure! We had our annual Princess Party at church and I was asked to bring in my chocolate fountain. It is such a fun party tool and I made certain to let parents know if their little girls in their pretty frilly and lacy dresses ended up with a coating of chocolate, to use a product designed to remove oil. Fountain chocolate has a LOT of oil in it! We also learned how much fun this type of chocolate is as a lip gloss. Many young girls really like chocolate. (can you say, understatement??)

I also did something different this year when it came to tidying up. This year I brought the fountain home in order to dismantle and clean it, rather than doing it at the church. It was MUCH easier, but I did think the cleaning tips in the directions left out some very important hints. (If you are a fan of Willy Wonka, you will also realise that they leave out scenes of cleaning in the chocolate factory. This, I feel is not fair!!!) So, if you have a fountain of your own or are thinking of getting one, please refer to these extra notes when the party is over. (I have used my fountain several times and felt it was time to write this information down for sharing.)

1. You need at least 2 empty sinks and a LOT of hot water. 2. You need two people to take apart the fountain when it is all messy with the melted chocolate. One person must hold the bowl of the fountain in place as the second person untwists things. (This is a VERY messy job.) 3. All the fountain bits for my fountain (except the electric base) are dishwasher safe, but to make sure it is all very clean I suggest running the bits through the dishwasher twice after rinsing them off completely. (I realise this is not an energy efficient idea, however it eliminates the grossness of wiping chocolate residue off your stuff after it is clean when you are ready to use it again) 4. When you remove the first layer of leftover chocolate, do not use a sink of soapy warm water as you actually end up with a larger mess than you started with. Also, do NOT use the little sprayer thingy that is often attached to a sink. Warm water and chocolate and oil can go a very long way when sprayed. Trust me! 5. When scraping together the chocolate to toss, I use an old plastic container with a lid. The chocolate does not compost well and attracts many critters who are better off not knowing how yummy chocolate is, just throw it away. (NOTE-fountain chocolate is not reusable. However, with our 'kid' parties, we serve them the warm chocolate in little cups, thus keeping our chocolate very clean and crumb and germ free. This allows me to actually retain the chocolate for another use, but it is not a practice that is naturally followed..as much as it kills you to toss the used chocolate, you must do it!!!!!)

If you follow these tips, you will have a much more enjoyable time using your fountain and you will refrain from adding to Craig's List after it's first use.

advice for the last days of March..or anytime, for that matter.

2010-03-27T17:53:00.001-07:00

Our shower is finished! This is great cause for rejoicing as it was taken apart the 6th or so of this month and driving several blocks for a shower is kind of a pain. Now, don't get me wrong, I was very glad we had water in our house and the chance to go somewhere to shower. But, it is so nice to be able to shower, put your bathrobe on, and walk to your bedroom to get dressed!

At any rate, since I felt I had cause for a celebration, I decided to 'use' a salt body scrub packet that I have had around for ages. It was an organic mix of fragrant oils and sea salt and looked festive. I carefully read the packet and it suggested that you should not get the mixture in any sores or do any shaving prior to use. I was good with that. Not rubbing salt in wounds was one of those mantras you learn at your mother's knee along with hot stuff burns and don't spit into the wind. (ok, that last might have been from Jim Croce, but you get the picture)

As I mixed the salt and oils as directed I realised that I had clipped a hangnail on my finger a tad too short. Ouch! Then, I started applying the paste to the skin. Yes, it did smell nice, but I had not known that 'wounds' could also be scratches along my arms and legs from working in the garden (I had just done that) and all the teeny holes in my tummy where I had been taking my insulin shots were also areas in which salt should not be scrubbed. Needless to say, it was all a rather stinging experience. In my haste to remove the organic sea salt, I had also forgotten the bit of advice on the packet that suggested that the oils may cause tub to become slippery. Thankfully, I did not slide much and in spite of feeling like an Olympic speed skater for a milli second or two, I survived.

All in all, I have come to the conclusion that one should not just read the directions to things carefully, but one should also heed them in their entirety. Although, in heeding directions you can lose a great many interesting experiences. Not necessarily exciting, but definitely interesting.

Am reading Hidden Harbor by Katherine Pinkerton as I have just finished House Upon a Rock by Elsa Pederson concerning the Alaskan earthquake of 1964.

Seattle or Bust! (in a walnut shell, rather less than more!)

2010-03-22T14:21:00.000-07:00

The YD youth from our church left our small sleepy town in two vehicles just a little after 8am on Friday. We had no idea what was in store for us! As we drove through the mountains we go to see lots of snow and it was beautiful!

Then, we arrived in Seattle. Our first glimpse of the Space Needle was as thrilling as seeing snow! Kids in both rigs were snapping photos of this amazing bit of the NW. We had quite a bit of time to kill before the conference started, so after playing around the best fountain I have EVER seen, they participated in a brief round of laser tag at the foot of the Space Needle.

Afterwards, we were introduced to Dare 2 Share and the Blaze conference at the Key Arena. We did NOT get dinner that night, but we did see a great deal of down town Seattle! (The one way streets and a statue of a naked man and boy in a waterfront fountain traumatised our girls as we drove past more than once!) I think we got back to the church where we were staying around 12:30 am!!! We also learned that the Space Needle is a terrific landmark. The next morning we got up and found a much needed breakfast before another day at the Key Arena. On this day one of the things we did was visit a school. Ours was under construction, but it was neat we got to be 'on the ground floor' so to speak. We visited the school and talked about the trash around them and how it symbolised the world moving in on it. After we picked up the visible trash and talked to people about Jesus, we walked around the school praying for the facility, the students, and the faculty. It was a humbling experience.

After more lessons and music at the conference, we went back to the church (once again losing our way and seeing some incredible lights at the Seaport) and talked about how we would live the cause in our town and schools.

The next day was Sunday. We ate breakfast at Beth's (highlighted in Man VS Food) and not only was it excellent, it was probably the best meal we ate the entire weekend! Because it was so filling, we had to work off some calories in a nearby park. Afterwards, we went to the morning service at the Greenwood Christian Church and toddled off to the zoo. It was a good end to a full weekend of learning and growing. Jon took several videos during our vist along with scads of photos. This particular video we call 'don't tap on the glass'.

For more on Dare 2 Share visit http://dare2share.org/ you will be glad you did!

The trip home was pretty uneventful and the view of the Space Needle as we left the city was met with relief!

Where in the World is Sasquatch?

2010-03-11T22:14:00.000-08:00

There are just some things I don't understand. Power tools and stuff like that are one thing, but then there are others. Like people who don't use their blinkers because they are a)pointing that direction anyway or b)in a right hand turn lane so everyone should know they are going right. Or perhaps those people who create signs like those photographed by Kanga in their blog Living the Travel Channel. Or even people who need to sue a furniture company because they broke their ankle tripping over a kid in a crowded store (their OWN kid). But, today, the one thing I have found that is just wrong is truly head shaking.

I am on the creation end of the program for our Cub Scout Day Camp this year and thought it would be fun to have Sasquatch visit prior to our Sasquatch Egg Hunt. (watermelons) I know that there is at least one Sasquatch around cuz he hangs out with Umatilla County Commish, Bill Hansell. So, I called and after a bit of searching learned something that is just not right. This particular Sasquatch is not only a member of the Oregon National Gaurd, but he got DEPLOYED! Yes, you read that right. There is a NW Sasquatch now serving overseas somewhere in our armed forces. I only hope that as he wanders around with his M4 that he doesn't forget his forest home and his friends in the land of Lewis and Clark. He may now resemble Chewbacca from Star Wars, but he still belongs to those of us in Oregon and Washington. As anyone who has seen Harry and the Henderson's knows, living legends don't show up all that often and we need him to help remind us that mysteries and things that go bump in the night are not all scary.

So, God keep you Mr. Sasquatch and may He bring you home safely.

Looking for the Sunset

2010-03-05T21:35:00.000-08:00

Jon has been playing with the camera again. Which is quite alright as he has taken some amazing shots of our Father's world. (note: that is a wonderful song, by the way This is My Father's World) Anyway, we were cleaning up the little house in anticipation of guests and he decided to hang around outside and shoot birds. Thankfully, as it was in town, he used the camera. He caught a cowbird and a robin in the yard. And then he asked if we could take pictures of the sunset. As it was just before 5pm, I was a tad skeptical. The sun has been setting later and we'd be getting home after 6, but it would also count as driving time, so we set off.

We found this red tail hawk who was perched minding his own hawking business until he was chased away by some smaller birds. Mobbing is so not nice!!! After we lost him in the sky we saw that next to the road was a ditch full of cat tails and red wing black birds! The male was most interesting as it is courting time and he was showing off a LOT.

The camera did decide that the windmill was more entertaining than the bird and focused on that instead! We thought it was a cool picture even if it was not what Jon was 'aiming' for! And as we looked back we saw Athena! This shot is practically the entire city. Pretty nifty, huh?

We were trying to reach an area that Jon prefers for sunset photos, but he did stop to take this one across the ditch. The sun kind of melted away for the rest of his photo shoot, though. So, we'll wander out on the next sunny day to see what we can find!

Reading March books. Finished The Secret Garden and am doing Brian Jacques. Redwall books are such FUN reads!!!!!! Eulalia!

Springing up with MORE Bdays!

2010-02-24T22:40:00.001-08:00

Steve is working on the windows! This one was framed in and is awaiting the final touches (paint and caulking). He is also working on my gardening shelves and the rails on the steps going outside in the basement! Whoo HOO!

As for me, I cleaned up this part of the yard that has not been touched since we moved here. We think the previous people kept critters in here as it is all fenced in with sturdy hog wire. I tidied it and we hope to use it as a pen for Teddy when we have visitors. The second photo is the debris I pulled up! It really was a bit of a mess.

Almost as big as SPRING is our school here. Speaking of schools, congratulations to THS's Freshmen who won the charity drive for 2010!!!! That was an amazing amount of monies all the classes raised! $63,269 goes to Doernbecher Children's Hospital this year and the rest of the funds goes to scholarships and such. THS also won in the Cowapa League and WMHS won in their league!!! http://wmhs.athwest.k12.or.us/ I am not sure exactly how to imbed links, but this is where you can go to see a pipes band video. Jon is in the VERY back with his baritone.

And SPRING! Crocus are all over the place! I have quite a few and then I found these teeny tiny purple ones. I have seen yellow ones around town, too! Very sweet. I also have these tiny white flowers that I cannot remember what they are blooming. I am going to look and see if I wrote it down anywhere. The tag is broken in half...right under where the name of the plant is! I even saw a robin today on our back fence!

And last, but not least, today is JaLeen's Bday (she is 5) and Jacit's is on Sunday, I think, (and she'll be 21). The pink cake is supposed to have chocolate chips in it..they sank and the chocolate frosting is way too much. Steve says it will really help tone the strawberry down on the cake and Jon tried a bit and said it was not too bad at all! (he was a tad skeptical of having a pink cake!) I was going to send it to JaLeen for her bday (the mix), but didn't get that far yet. So, made a cake for her and her sis instead! So Happy Birthday to my nieces!!!!

Am almost done with my Anne books and will read Farewell, My Subaru (recommended by Kym) next. Jon LOVED it! Also will get out some of my Brian Jacques books.

Sixteen years

2010-02-04T22:08:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking a lot about that wonderful song from Fiddler on the Roof called Sunrise, Sunset. Those years do seem to move rather swiftly, don't they? sigh.

Sixteen years ago Jonathan was born. He was over 9 lbs (no, I cannot remember what he weighed or measured without looking, but I do remember one of the books Cyndi loaned me that day-a Star Trek cook book!) and had a lot of tubes attached to him due to my blood sugars being too high the previous day. Steve and Tony came AFTER Jon was born and the Calvert family (Terry, Cyndi, and Ryan) visited, but it was a most excellent Friday. And yes, Jon is fairly loving and giving. (remember that rhyme: Friday's child is loving and giving) He often surprises me with something he has done or made. (ok, sometimes the things he has done are not the BEST surprises, but they almost always make me laugh!) When he was very small he would bring me English Daisies or dandelions wrapped in a leaf and tied with a bit of grass. Now he brings me flowers made of metal!

We had a party yesterday with Gma and Gpa because Jon has Scouts on Thursday. Naturally, we had pizza and cake and ice cream. I did offer salad, which Jon reluctantly ate. His cake had the traditional 16 candles and he said I spaced them out too far..he couldn't blow them all out at once!!!! (if you see the little 'candle holders' they are actually those tiny 100 cal cookies! Pretty cute, huh?) You would think a bari sax player could handle a few candles! He had an illuminating evening, anyway. He got several flashlights!

At school today one of his teachers played happy birthday on an app for him, he sat around and bled (his words-they also sang to him and gave him a birthday red cross pin), and he took cupcakes to Scouts tonight. Chocolate with home made chocolate frosting, of course. He ended the evening with an episode of Burn Notice. He is a great fan of Michael Weston's!

As for me, am diving into my McCaffrey books. Started with Restoree and am doing the Pegasus ones. Which if you think about it, kick off all the rest of the books because they learn to colonize space in this trio and most of the rest of the books are in space.

Thoughts On February

2010-01-28T14:23:00.000-08:00

February is one of the best months of the year, hands down. It is the shortest month of the year and that is always a cheerful thing. It is also unique in that it is the only month that gets an extra day every four years. And the very best part of February is that no matter how the ground hog calls it, spring is coming!!! I love how February is often full of the destruction of winter with a tempestuous March just around the corner. It makes spring seem that much more vibrant after the last ditch effort of snow, ice, and cold. Especially if the month starts with snow!

February is a month full of important birthdays. Well, besides the obvious ones we celebrate for Lincoln and Washington there are many more. For instance, there is Bill Mumy, Don Everly, Clark Gable, Me, Farrah Fawcett, Norman Rockwell, Rosa Parks, Charles Lindburgh, Jonathan, Red Buttons, Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, Sonny Bono, Jacit, JaLeen, Cyndi Calvert and Steve Irwin. I used to share my birthday with a little boy...well, since we are the same age, I guess that is not the right phrase! Anyway, we had a birthday or two together when we lived in Homer. I wonder where Jimmy is today?

This last week, I looked in the mirror and had to laugh. (Which really didn't seem to help much.) I noticed more wrinkles than I have ever seen before (someone once told me that EO was bad on your skin!)! I am not sure if they are wrinkles or impressions left by leather stamps or laugh lines. I think I'll go with laugh lines. I like the idea of the amusing parts of life being etched on my skin. OK, I don't LIKE it, but it is more bearable! I also saw a few more sparkly strands on my head. Growing up in Alaska, when you saw white on top of the mountains we called it termination dust and winter was on the way. OUCH! I am not going to try to dye them away, but it is a bit distressing. Not as distressing as the distinct touch of gravity I found about my person. No, it was not the solemn staid kind that ones gains over time to show maturity. It was more of the kind discovered by our hero, Sir Isaac Newton, that pulls, distends, and distorts. As I survey the ravages of this rather interesting law, I show profound skepticism on how exercise can put things back the way they were. Is exercise not more pulling, distorting, and distending only in other ways? Definitely needs more thought.

February also has great holidays in it. I mean, really, how awesome is a holiday that celebrates a day dedicated to a rodent weatherman??? I love Ground Hog's Day (the movie, too!). Then, we get the President's birthdays (2 of my favorite movie scenes from Bing Crosby's Holiday Inn!) and to top off the whole month there is Valentine's Day. I ADORE Valentine's Day! It is such a cheerful, fun, happy holiday. Even when you are sad, seeing silly overblown hearts can make you smile. Especially if they are sitting with overstuffed bears holding candy. When the boys were small, I used to make heart biscuits for dinner and stick Valentine's in their lunches. They grew out of that, but I still love hearts. I wear heart earrings every day I can in February and my favorite pairs are the ones that look like tiny conversation hearts.

Romance and relationships are the highlight in this month and because of this I have a certain bunch of books I like to read. This confuses many people because the author is not a typical romance author. In fact, she is a SF Fantasy writer. Mostly just SF, but if you devote a few days to her works you will soon realise how all of her books deal with strong relationships of some kind. Now, I have not read many of the books Todd has written, but Anne Mc Caffrey is a beautiful read for February. The Killashandra trio ties music and sound and light and memories into a very colorful saga that may make you cry. The brainship stories (and the ones others have written with her) describe relationships that exist beyond the known stars. Sassinak and Generation Warriors highlight relationships that change an entire solar system and more! Then, there are the books Anne is most famous for, Pern. The love the riders have for their dragons, the passion the people of Pern have to survive, and the intensity of their relationships that exist in these novels is incredible! Go ahead and try one! I do read another author in February. On the 14th I read The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery. A friend of mine and I used to borrow it from the library tag team. Then, I bought it in a used book sale and got a copy for her on Valentine's day. So, that is my Valentine's Day read.

Speaking of LM Montgomery she put a phrase in one of her Anne books that I loved. She said that 'amethysts looked like the souls of violets'.. Or something like that!!! This is one of the other super awesome things about February, the color purple (NOT the movie). My all time favorite gem is an amethyst, with opals coming in on a close second. When I was a teen I went to an amethyst mine with my grandma and mom. (I won't inflict any pix on you of that time as the teen in the photos was VERY late 70's!) However, the place was amazing!!! Granted, not all amethysts are purple, but the majority of them are.

So, on this eve of January, I welcome you all into February! As the days grow longer in this shortest of months may they glow with snow and sun and the promise of spring.

Something about Snow, Winter, and Camping

2010-01-18T17:04:00.000-08:00

It was not a nice looking day around 10am on Saturday morning, but packs were packed and cars were loaded and off they went! It may not be a Great Adventure, but it would be interesting!

They found a site and proceeded to set up camp. Digging the firepit was the worst part of the whole campout. Well, that and having the wind blow the rainfly partially off the tent at 2am! (Jon suggested that the pit took more calories to make than they had in dinner.) All in all, the set up took them pretty much the entire day! Last year the snow was about 15 ft deep, this year it was a little more than 5. So, in that light, things were easier. However, it did snow on them and rain and blow. Maybe it was going to be an adventure!

Sunday they did lots of snow things. Jon learned how to snowshoe. He said it wasn't that hard, just a LOT of work. You had to be very deliberate about how you walked. Some of the guys went sledding, too. If we ever learn how to post videos, we'll share those. Someone had made a giant snowman and left it as a sentinal on the hill. Not sure what the Scout is discussing with him here, but it makes a good photo.

Jon also found this very wierd thing that no one could identify. So, of course, Jon had to photograph it! He took at least 500 pictures this weekend plus videos. I am sure if you visit, Jon would be glad to share them with you!

Monday morning they loaded back up and came home. Minutes from their sojourn in the snow, the landscape was bare and blue. It is good to have him home and after washing all his camping clothes the house is almost back to normal. And as Jon listened to the wind this evening, he remarked that he was very glad to have a roof over his head! His final thoughts are that it was more of learning experience than an adventure. Which in the long run, is the best thing anyway!

Blue Skies and Rainbows

2010-01-14T23:45:00.000-08:00

Winter seems to be over. For the moment! We have had warmer weather this last week and even rainbows! I am pretty sure I heard birdsong this morning that sounded like robins and the bulbs are poking their wee little green heads up from the cold earth. However, it is still mid Jan and there is still the rest of this month and all of Feb before we finally reach March. Even if it is very windy outside and our grill blew over! We thought that was rather strange as it is next to the house and very heavy.

Read Julie/Julia and it was interesting. Finally got all the Inkheart books and am now reading those. The movie of the latter was great fun and I wanted to read the books over, especially as I never did read Inkdeath!

The rest of the story

2010-01-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

maybe!
OK, here are two of Jon's jillion and one Christmas pictures. Gma and Gpa were bowling, then later Tony and Steve were trying to decide who was the best golfer.

We took Tony to the Pendleton Airport and Jon insisted on remaining camoflauged.

On the coast we stayed at an awesome place and entertained a great many friends. Three of the soldiers we love dearly are pictured here (Travis, Zach, & Christina). T just got back from deployment and Z leaves soon, while his wife, C, is off to finish boot! PHEW! I took a great many more pix of this time, but could not decide which ones were the 'best' ones to choose. Besides, it gives me a chance to do another blog!

In the airport we took pix with the Gov of Oregon. Of course, he was a bit stiff, but that is to be expected of a politician meeting so many kinds of people! I only hope he was not really that short.

Here is Tony's plane as it left PDX. We were sad, but thankfully Kym was there to help make things better. It always helps to have someone else there.

Waiting for Inkheart to show up at the Library and also Julie, Julia.

Christmas and more.

2009-12-30T00:11:00.001-08:00

I don't have the pix from Christmas, exactly. Jon has them on 'his' page. I was given a tripod for Christmas and Jon LOVES it!!!!! He tooks a gazillion or more photos and will have to figure out how to get them from him!

Our season started with Muppets Christmas Carol and the decorating of the tree. We were also sung to and given treats by some very nice neighbors!

Christmas Eve day was rather foggy. The guys went up to the ranch and it started out sunny, but proceeded to deteriorate! I thought it was rather Brigadoon like! (even if I stayed home!)

My other present was this very cute little man Steve made me. Tony and I call him Godfrey, after the main man in My Man, Godfrey. Moses preferred the end of Christmas the best, where he got to play in the wrappings! Silly kitty.

The boys' Christmas Eve movie was Public Enemies, which brought us to gangsters. Jon and I took several pix of Tony dressed as one of our 'Enemies'. However, we did think he looked more like a 'copper' than a 'gangster'!

New Years book resolution read: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath. Already read the first one, but want to read it again. The movie was VERY good, even if it wasn't exactly like the book. I rather liked it a lot!!!!!

An ongoing edition of birds...we hope!

2009-12-23T12:04:00.000-08:00

Tony and Jon went out and guess what they got? Yup! Pretty cool, Jon's first bird!

Moses, CFI-Cat Food Investigators

2009-12-23T01:04:00.000-08:00

One day Moses decided his kibble was stale, which was making mealtimes rather boring. He also noticed that his two leggers had brought home some new stuff and left it sitting untended near the kitchen. Granted, it was not Purina or Friskies or even Meow Mix, but it was fresh kibble. Thus, this bright bag required a thorough investigation. The scent of the assorted flavors drove Moses crazy and he realised he just had to get inside to more fully experience the contents. Thankfully, God gave him 6 toes on each front foot, and he was able to scratch his way through the sealed edges. After several minutes he had managed to make a hole in it. He sniffed the delicious odor and tried to reach the treats. However, it was very hard to maneuver his whiskers through the tattered opening he'd made. Thankfully, the biggest male two legger finally fixed it. The two legger properly cut away the torn and shredded bits of paper and Moses was able to nibble the top shapes off a freshly broached bag. We finish this tale with a contentedly crunching feline who knows a good thing when its carted in from the car!

Winter Wonder Where?

2009-12-20T00:24:00.001-08:00

Just a week ago we had snow. A LOT of snow. Winter had arrived with white fluffy powder and cold. It was lovely and very Currier and Ives like, or maybe even Norman Rockwell. At any rate, it was great.

The roads and fields were covered with white. When Jon took that last photo we realised our view of the area had changed dramatically.

But, it was not to last. Just days later it started to rain and we had so much water around it flooded some areas a bit. And now, we have bare pavement and fog. Some pavement has ice, but for the most part our world has been wrapped in a misty and smelly blanket of fog!
In spite of the Non-Christmas like weather, Santa arrived early and brought us Tony. (actually, we picked him up at the airport and Jon didn't wear the Santa stuff..he did not want to scare anyone!) Will post more pix later. But, Holi Happy Days everyone and Merry Christmas!

Am reading Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates, best Christmas book ever!

Oh, Christmas Tree!

2009-12-09T23:13:00.001-08:00

As seen earlier by those on FB, this is the tree Steve and Jon found during elk season. I was told it was just a little taller than Steve. But, as many suggested, things always look smaller in the woods! Since we couldn't find our tree stand (we have not used it for 2 years) we left the tree in the addition for a while).

Jon's Scout troop is also doing Christmas trees. It is interesting how much trouble it can be to choose a tree. And it is just as much trouble to keep warm!!! It was COLD!

We finally found our tree stand and Steve went out to fit the tree in it. But, he discovered a problem. The bucket of water had frozen! He was going to pull the tree out and trim it up, but decided to just cut it where it was stuck. Water and 2 degree weather makes for some solid ice!

He ended up cutting quite a bit of it off. Mostly due to the part in the bucket, I think. However, he did chop off some from the top, too. Thankfully, it is still fairly tallish! And it looks GREAT! Now, we add the lights and wait for Tony to come home so we can decorate it!

Also with the tree came some long pine needles. Moses was extremely interested in this new organic toy. Jon thinks he looks like Hobbes getting ready to attack Calvin in the first photo and Cat Kong in the second!

10 days til Tony!!!!! And reading Christmas books.

Thanksgiving!

2009-11-28T23:34:00.001-08:00

It looked totally pathetic, but my Thanksgiving cactus bloomed! One lovely pinkish white bloom! I had to use it as decoration since it worked so hard to put on its holiday dress.

The best part of our Thanksgiving was not dinner, but we had guests! Rod and Dorothy, Tony, and even Moses were a part of our gathering. Moses came VERY close to snagging my plate by pulling on the place mats, but I saved it in the nick of time! Tony called after dinner, but it was great to hear from him!

After dinner we played games. Grandma and Grandpa bowled on the wii. It was a great deal of fun and someday we may get some more remotes! Grandpa kept hitting the wrong buttons, but in spite of that, both he and Grandma made a strike or two!

Steve's main job this break was to insulate the addition. This stuff on the ceiling is a stop gap kind of thing, but it will do the job for now. He also fixed a bunch of gaps and leaks that he discovered. The next part will be the walls. However, he has to get the right insulation. He picked up the wrong stuff before! I think it was just another reason to go to Home Depot!

My job this break has been the Christmas play. I am personally very proud of my camel I made from photos and memory. I was stressed about the eye lashes until I googled what to do. I used half of a feather for each eyelash. And they look scrumptious! The rest of the camel is made up of cloth covered kids. So, I am just posing with the head.

Read a great book called the Lace Makers of Glenmara. I very much recommend it to you lady readers.

And what's in your window?

2009-11-19T00:06:00.000-08:00

Steve was taking the old frames off the window to put prettier ones up (or at least start to do that!) and look what he found! Old ancient wasp nests, lots of dirt, and long hair (longer than mine, he said!).
There was also another flavor of wallpaper.

This was trying to get a perspective on the window without getting too much chandelier in it. There is some wall board back there. It looked very interesting and we realised why the cold comes in so well!
Jon helped dad by vacuuming up the dust as Steve carefully cut the odd shaped very old board that was in the way. He then stuffed insulation in the hole and boarded it all up. Pretty will come later. But, for now, it is not bad at all! Except for the mess that was mostly cleaned up.

Am done with the Nancy Farmer books about the Sea of Trolls (very fun stuff) and am now starting New Moon again. I am not getting the hype value. I keep wanting to spank Bella and am thankful that Edward is gone. I kind of like the kid Jacob, though!

More Scenery by Jon

2009-11-14T15:42:00.001-08:00

As you can see, we have snow at the ranch. No elk, but lots of pretty snow pictures!

Jon, being the inventive and creative kid that he is, discovered another use for whatever it is he uses as binoculars. Granted, the lenses were dirty, but it was pretty effective! In the first picture you can barely see Steve on the hill by the trees. The second one shows more accurately where he is in the first one. Jon took one more, but it was almost too close! LOL.

Here is his telephoto tool!

No mud on the Toyota today! And the hills are amazing with the snow.

These thistle heads were very interesting and I do wish they would have brought me home some, I kinda rather like these little aliens!

Other cool shots by Jon: This very old rusted truck surrounded by more reds and browns and whites and one of the ponds.

Pretty amazing world, huh????? Thanks, God!

Elk Hunt Scenes, Day 2

2009-11-11T11:24:00.000-08:00

This day was not as damp as the previous one, but there were still no elk. The pond at the right is the lower pond on the upper place. Now, I realise that means almost nothing to most of you reading this, and I totally understand. However, I was told emphatically, this is how it is designated. The scenery up on the ranch is amazing. Steve and Jon have done a great deal of hiking this month.

Jon always manages to be in the back looking for great pictures. The area is full of expanses of green and gold and incredible acreage. Although, they did not see an elk, they did see sign that there are elk around. The tip of Jon's shotgun is quite near the 'sign'. Steve did see an incredibly nice buck, which is normal. It just stood there regal and quiet, looking right at him, before it calmly walked away.

The guys did get a load of wood, so something was gained besides exercise and gorgeous footage. Thus, another day ended very early (daylight savings time is hard on all of us!) and in a blaze of glory.

Elk Season or Just Scenery

2009-11-07T22:27:00.000-08:00

First day. To me, it just seems odd to actually hunt for an elk. In Tillamook elk were yard ornaments. Granted, they were voracious, huge, destructive yard ornaments, but they hung out everywhere. We saw them spar, rub their velvet off on our apple tree, and bugle at each other as they forded the river. Although, I will over look their ornamental value if one is brought home for the freezer.

The guys left with the chance of rain following them around.

However, Toll Gate had snow and bad roads. This semi carrying a chip truck had slid off, the semi was already gone and they were unloading the container. They didn't have to stop, just slow down.

The first photo is rather clever me thinks. Jon took a picture of his gun toting shadow. All the rest of the pictures are of the area around Black Mountain. This area is where Rod used to hunt. They did see the spot where the 'preacher's camp' used to be set up. However, someone else is using it now. Although, Steve did say it looked pretty much the same as it did 30 years ago. The snow did not stick up there, by the time the guys left, most of the snow had gone, too.

They didn't see any bulls, but were impressed by the amazing world we live in. Spectacular, is it not???

Am reading Twilight..finally. Finished half of the Pellinore series by A. Croggon. That one is super wonderful and well written to boot, and I am waiting for the rest so I can finish it.

Pumpkins!

2009-10-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

Steve decided we had better carve the pumpkins or they'd go the way of last years..uncarved, unlit, and unfun. (actually, those were my words!) So, Jon grabbed the large orange one and left Steve the greenish one. After they drew on their faces, it took forever to get them open and once they did, we say why. Look at that rind!!! Wow!

During the carving, Jon decided he wanted the seeds this year. And he even said he'd eat them..not like the last however many years of seeds we have cooked and eventually given to the birds. Well, we'll see! As you can see, Jon prefers the Greek method of carving. Steve prefers the artisitic method, thinking hard about his design and then applying it to the rind. I, liking Leah's pumpkin this year, asked for a cat. He obliged me by patterning it after Moses. Well, they are both orange!

Jon's turned out pretty good, eh?

And here they are waiting for the 31st. The two next to the kitten pumpkin are not carvable..they are soft and so are being used as basic fall decor!

This last shot is one I wondered if I could do. It is 'From the Eye of a Pumpkin". Looking up to the sky..or actually, it is the edge of the railing on the deck. Now, if I could just paste in a cat....hmmmm.

Falling temps and leaves and pears

2009-10-27T14:12:00.001-07:00

Well, I realised I had not put up a photo of the addition with the siding all done. Note the strange color variation? We are not sure why there is a difference in the blue and green pieces. They all came off of the back of the house. We are thinking it may have been a fading thing. Which is why when people wanted to look at the house no one knew if it was green or blue. Go, figure. (note, I may have mentioned this in an earlier blog, but it is VERY strange!)

The youth in our church went to a corn maze in Walla Walla. One of those things that says fall is truly on the way. Jon thought it was tame because they had paths to follow. I thought it was rather long, myself! And another part of fall is the falling leaves. Here we have Moses who has been liberated of his hated collar and was decorated with locust leaves. As I crouched to take the picture, he decided he wanted to see what I was doing. He had been sitting there in the sun for several minutes and was looking very cute!

The most amazing part of this fall has been the plethora of pears! Our plum tree was pretty sparse this year, but the sink in the photo has just some of the pears that fell off the tree during yesterday's amazing wind storm. I don't know what to do with them all! No one but me eats pears~ And the teeny one came off of our other pear tree. It was too cute for words and I set it next to the teaspoon for a true comparison.

And last, but by no means least, is our dishwasher!!!!!!! The 25$ bargain we found on Craig's List covered by a piece of wood from Home Depot that was also a bargain (I think it was 6$ because it was broken on the far end.). Am very excited about this being up and running finally! And I have more real counter space now!!! Steve did a great job! (even if it is not quite finished exactly...)

Chem Lab!

2009-10-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

Well, we didn't get a single deer. Very sad. So, deer season ended last Wed. This Saturday we did a chemistry merit badge at Whitman college. It was a great deal of fun and although Jon did most of the stuff at home, he did get to do some hands on experiments. We also got to see some pretty cool demonstrations of chemistry. Unfortunately, I am not very adept with my new camera yet and many of the photos were blurry. Sad, but true. So, here is what I got today.

These are of the mento and soda pop blow ups. They used these specially made doo hickey things to drop the mentos in the soda. It worked VERY well. The last two frames are of Jon's soda pop. The worst part of this was the boys were told they could NOT drink the leftover soda as the mentos had been in the chem lab. It is very bad to eat things that are stored in the chemistry lab. That rule made the Scouts very sad.

In this first photo the guys are making mini marshmallows grow and shrink with vacuum.
Here Jon was doing something with combining chemicals, they had to record their results in pen. It appears that pen is the preferred method of recording chemistry data and it is recommended that you use ball point as some other forms of pen react badly to certain chemicals. One young chemist told us about a lab partner he had who actually lost all his data when a chemical spilled on his paper and the ink vanished! (So much for the dog eating your homework!)

These last photos are of a couple of the experiments. The goo in the tube is called elephant's toothpaste and the young lady had already moved when I turned the camera to see what the boys found so amazing! The young man in the background is Nathan, the chem lab professor. The balloon has hydrogen in it and when it was lit on fire it well..exploded. The boys were VERY impressed with that one. The last one almost didn't work. The plant container on top had thermite in it. When it was lit on fire with magnesium the stuff melted and turned into molton iron that flowed into the bottom containers. It melted the top clay planter, too!

An amazing day in the world of Science!

Still no deer, but....

2009-10-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

Jon caught this bug up at Grandma's...well, ok, it is a praying mantis and it was so creepy I had to use the zoom part of the camera on it. I don't mind snakes, but bugs just have too many legs. (shudder) If I am close to bugs, they better be in bug jars!

Later that day, we did see the most amazing thing ever. A young (it was a teen age kitty) cat was stalking a pheasant! We watched it for a long time, and it appeared the kit finally gave up. We really wanted to see what would happen when they met. The pheasant did look rather confused, though. It was too far away in the field for a video, so you just get the series of photos.

On Friday there was no school, so Jon and Grandpa went up in the Toyota. All day they wandered the hills in search of deer..and found nothing.

Finished Howard's End (very very very good book). Might do The Fairy Godmother by M. Lackey again..not sure.

Hunting season

2009-10-07T15:23:00.001-07:00

So, far it has been just a lot of long hikes. I even went up with Jon after school one day (Monday) and it was lovely, but very cold. He wouldn't let me hike with him, though..he said he could be quieter on his own. He also is using gdpa's rifle...which is an automatic and so far he has not gotten his deer. Very sad, but kind of funny! One shot, one kill has bit the dust! Steve said he's a normal hunter now.

In the last photo there is a black dot...it is a bear. It was watching them! Except for the bird and the one of Jon, all the pictures are on or around a draw (or canyon) that they like to hunt in.

The robin is one of the hundreds of of them that are all over up at the ranch. We did see a grouse..Jon almost ran it over with the Toyota (he drove it, 3rd generation to do that!).

It is finally fall...

2009-10-03T00:33:00.001-07:00

OK, I am not totally thrilled fall is here. It has been rather chilly out and last week we had to turn on the heater for the first time since well...we turned it off! I did get my blanket done in time, though. Very glad.

I learned a lot from this project. 1. Buy fabric from a fabric store. I like the patterns and the print, however...it was NOT printed on the fabric straight. 2. Just because a fabric has lines does not mean they always end up the same direction when you cut. 3. If you go back to a project after a bit of a spell...measure everything again! I had to rip out the first seam of the thing when I realised the printed material was off. I had not noticed it on the bed, but did when it was on the floor. 4. When making a blanket, use the old one for a reference. I made this one about 6 inches short on each side. 5. Serging over a serge is not as easy as it sounds. 6. And you CAN serge and sew on the same project!!! So, there you have it. Our 'new' polar fleece blanket and if mum can send me about 2 more yards of mid weight dark brown fleece, I can make it right!

It is a cool cats print and the 'edges' are of a plaid that is within the print. I backed it with my very favorite old flannel sheep sheet. (Just on the printed part)

This is a project Jon made for Biology. It is a plant cell made in 3D from wood. He cut it all out and then painted it and labeled it (I helped with that, he need more hands to glue and hold the strings tight while they dried a bit! I held the glue and the blow drier...)

Best news ever: Tony is back from Romania!!! He is in Vilseck and we'll see what happens next.

Am reading EM Forester's book Howard's End..very long and very funny and very thoughtful!

"Ice Cream! We're Gonna Eat Ice Cream!"

2009-09-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

And if it was Huckleberry, it was gone! Favorite ice cream of the Round up goers was definitely the pretty purple stuff with the berries. I don't know how much was eventually sold, but overall I heard that they sold more than previous years. Of course, with cones the size most of the guys made..it is no wonder that for 3 bucks people were crowding the booth! These unidentified children were very pleased with their cone of choice! I distinctly remember one little lady when she got her cone. She took it gently and her eyes grew large as she whispered 'Wow...' Now, that was a reaction that showed appreciation.

Friday was the Round up parade. And as a picture is worth a thousand words..here are some pictures!

You can make your own captions. Also, there was NOT a WSU float this year..or at least, I didn't see one. And Sasquatch, he always hangs out with the Commissioner.

(Quote in title cribbed from Bill Cosby)

Maximum Ride is not.

2009-09-17T11:43:00.001-07:00

Well, just a note. Found out why the bubble gum books I mentioned below made me think bubble gum..they are not all written by the author! He does what several other author's do..he has group writes where people write for him and then he puts his name on them. Grrrrrr.

Also wanted to post a picture of the Oreos I made. Link on the right for the Cupcake Project is where the recipe came from, thanks to Stacey! (Friends are so wonderful!) These had green colored mint filling. YUM!

And Steve is just about done with the siding. Notice the odd colors we have. The greenish one is the original house color and the white ones are the new boards. We have no idea where the baby blue ones came from..but we took them all off the house that was there! It will all be up by this weekend!

And Jon has been seriously in the sky lately. I have TONS of cloud pictures on both digital cameras.

Am reading EM Forster for Noelle and FINALLY got the Empire of Ivory so I can finish that silly dragon series!

siding and cement

2009-09-12T01:08:00.001-07:00

Actually, that is not as odd as it sounds. The siding is a type of cement board and Steve has been putting it on the new addition. However, it is not that easy to cut nor is it easy to staple on!

And my cement leaves are VERY cool. I have also made some stones with excess cement from the leaf decor. I only have room to make a few leaves at a time and needed to do something with the extra cement!

this leaf I sprayed with cooking spray.

I have used sunflower leaves (my favorite!), rhubarb leaves (next favorite) and the pumpkin leaves. In the stepping stones I used lots of different leaves to make shapes. In the one above I think I used choke cherry leaves..but I am not sure! The rhubarb leaf above has the veins left in it because Karla B suggested letting the leaves 'rot' to make it easier to get off. And guess what?? She was right!! After a day or so, the leaf was so dry, the bits slid right out of the lines. Way to go, Karla!!!

I am not sure how that happened..in the pictures file, the stone has the butterfly shape facing us, no on its side. Hmmm, odd. Am reading James Patterson. I liked his adult book As the Wind Blows..the kid ones are rather ummmmm, kiddish! The adult ones seemed more realistic, the ones about Maximum Ride are more bubble gum and not as scary real.

Things I have learned from cement.

2009-09-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

This is the rhubarb leaf that I made. As you can see the veins in rhubarb are very thick, which made it not easy for them to release from the cement. Thus, I broke some of it. Which was very sad and why the second photo has bits at the top of the leaf. I also used mortar because I wanted a smooth textured leaf. This may be why it crumbled so easily. I will try this again with regular cement. After the curing, I will attempt to fix these breaks and the large crack in the top of the leaf on the right.

When you make a cement leaf here are a few things that I learned. You place a nice pile of sand or whatever under the plastic that you place the leaf on. I have poked several leaves when making my piles and seeing if the pile is right for the leaf. Then, you cut your wire. I think that if you used that tiny holed chicken wire (not sure what it is called, but we don't have any and so I use this stuff!) it might be easier to work with! I also sprayed the pumpkin leaf with cooking oil this time. It will be interesting to see what happens! LOL.

You put a layer of cement on top of the leaf, if the cement is too dry it will not glop well. I like a really gooky type! I have also learned to NOT put the first layer of cement clear to the edge (does not always work, though). On top of that you put the screening material and then glop on more cement. This is where you go to the edge of the leaf...sometimes! Then you cover it and let rest for about 3 days. We'll see what they look like then! The long part is the curing time, which most sites suggest is 3o days!!!!!! You know, it is pretty hard to find places to stash these things! And after unwrapping the rhubarb leaf, Jon asked, "Mom, what are you going to do with it?" I replied, "Not sure, but it is pretty cool!"

And last but not least, a cat! Maxwell, reclining in an out of the way spot..keeping an eye on things.

Punkins and cement!

2009-08-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

I don't think our pumpkins will be ready for Cinderella by October, but they were volunteer. And we learned that pumpkins have male and female flowers which don't always bloom at the same time. If it is too hot, just the males bloom and the females prefer a cooler temp. So, until about two weeks ago we had just one pumpkin (the orange one) and now we have maybe 4! Very fun!!! They are not very big, but they came up on their own, so we are not complaining!

And I have been playing with cement. I always wanted to make a concrete leaf and after reading many directions online, decided to try it. Mine used a pumpkin leaf and it was a learning experience. I just made several more today using a much bigger leaf of rhubarb and smaller ones of choke cherry and something else I can't remember it. The first photo is after it was dry (not totally cured, just dry) and the second is after I took some of the leaf off..which might be an uphill battle!

I also made some stepping stones using what is a cake frosting technique. You can see how the layers look on the rectangle stone. The first one was just trouble..which is why it is so funny looking! (it is the one with the plate pieces) The others are not bad at all. I particularly like Jon's camo one. They also need to cure and we will see how they hold up. Right now they are a tad crumbly on the edges. I don't know why, but we'll see how they look after curing.

Am reading a series that is not quite done yet. The last book comes out next month..of course! It is by Angie Sage. Fun author! I like her explanations at the end of the book.

Not everything is what it seems

2009-08-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday was interesting. I did not have my glasses on when I spotted a bright reddish shape in my garden where no reddish shape should be. I slipped on my outside shoes and dashed out to the garden and found a poppy plant!!! I was puzzled and excited. Excited because I had planted an entire packet of the seeds earlier this year, but puzzled because only one came up. As I looked at the flower more closely, I realised what had happened! The blasted thing looks like a thistle! I have learned that anything that resembles a thistle over here...probably is. So, I had been weeding up my young poppies. In fact, as I looked the area over (I had not weeded that particular area in a week or so and this flower was under my Virginia Creeper plant), I did see at least two more plants that WERE thistles. So, I toddled off to church is a rather disgruntled mood.
See how thorny the leaves look?

At church I got to play with some of the kids and we were going over the story of Lazarus. This is a great story of a man Jesus raised from the dead after 4 days and it leads into a good discussion on friendship. As I told the story I asked questions. Things were going fairly well until I asked the kids the names of Jesus friends. The blurted answers were Mary...Martha....Stewart! And the worst part was, they kept saying the names! They knew that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but insisted on Stewart being a friend. As I was discussing this with one of my very dear friends Monday morning, she started laughing and said....'Martha Stewart!' On further reflection we are positive that was where the snafu lay, but now I will never remember the story of Lazurus without thinking of the poor forgotten friend Stewart. He must have been in the kitchen.

Book list: a lot of different ones. The dragon ones I thought I had finished, but there are two more! Sent the first one to Tony. And on a different note, did everyone see that Jeremy from Zits finally got his DL???????

after camp

2009-08-17T21:59:00.000-07:00

We dashed to the coast to pick up Jon from camp and now we are home. Registration is on Thursday and the nights are getting cooler. I like the cooler nights, but am not ready for school days.

Here are the crosses and a bird that, as we look closer is probably a vulture. It was in the trees near the crosses and last there is an overview of camp. Jon was kinda sad as they did not hike up to the crosses as a group this year. We drove up! It is a very long way!

Am reading some more of Patricia Briggs. I think she is a new one of my favorite authors!

The cats and the Toyota

2009-08-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a photo by photo scene of Moses and the Toyota. Later, as you can see, Maxwell hops up. We are not sure exactly what they were doing in the Toyota, but it makes for an interesting montage. It may have been that Rusty cat likes to sleep in it.

They were on the roof and inside, too. Unfortunately, they had their backs to the camera and the pictures would not have been very flattering, even for a cat.

Jon is now at camp again. I will post more pictures of that later. There is a great blog on the missions building at Camp Wi-Ne-Ma over in my blog section. It has finally cooled off. Now it is only 80 degrees outside at noon!

Books I am reading: Black Powder War. This is the last in that series. Not as good as the Patricia Briggs books I just read, but not bad at all.

too hot

2009-08-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of cat pictures. Unlike Kanga and Daddy Bird (Living the Travel Channel), we have barely stirred this last week or so. It is too hot. Today the temps have dropped and it is only 90 degrees at noon. Anyway, here are Max and Moses, late at night, waiting for all the lights to go out so they can play.