Celebrate!

Our annual New Year's Eve Hanger Dance was a blast this year! It is such a good time and yes, we are spoiled....we just walk across the street to the party! The night always starts out with food! Lots of yummy snack foods to enjoy!

Dave is supposed to start playing at 9pm but he can't resist tickling those ivories and this year the music started before 8!

Lots of classics are played....Let's Do the Twist....YMCA.....The Chicken Dance......The Macarana....waltzes......line dances.....we danced them all! Eileen and I love the dance and Dennis and Greg love to watch us!!!!
But Dennis did try the Macarana....was it that painful, Dennis??? he, he, he!

I've discovered it's much easier to line dance in my boots than in heels, but it doesn't stop me.

Greg was a bit under the weather with a cold and called it a night around 11pm. We all felt bad for him and he insisted I stay and enjoy the rest of the night. After the midnight countdown, I helped to put food away and said good-bye to 2009! Looking forward to 2010 and all that it brings! Happy New Year!

Christmas 2009

Our Christmas weekend was an absolute blast. We spent Christmas Eve day traveling to Mom and Dad's and then over to Beth's for dinner. She always has a beautiful table set and we managed to fit 15 people around her tables. It was good food, laughter, more food and we even got out of dishes. This year, Beth's family did dishes whilel the rest of us headed back to Mom and Dad's to get presents organized and desserts ready! (yep, more food!)

Andy and Teresa drove over from Idaho and actually had a very nice trip - no snow, ice or stormy weather. It was so good to see them! And to catch up on all that they are doing!

The gang before dinner! We then spent the rest of night opening gifts and yep, you guessed it, eating! On Christmas day we went to church, had a nice breakfast, and then it was off for a 5 mile hike! It was beautiful and we loved being up in the forested areas. It felt good to get some exercise!

The day after Christmas we spent some time at Ryan and Aimee's....what fun it was to see the grandkids and watch them open our gifts!

Meysa loves games and we found a great game called HyperDash (sorry Ryan and Aimee, but games are meant to make noise!!!). Meysa caught on quickly and we had fun playing it! Lauryn and Papa Greg played hide-n-seek with picture taking!

Wyatt is determined to figure out why this toy of his making noise (sorry again!!! - not really!)!

Just when Aimee thought she had her house all cleaned up, we show up with more presents to make the mess again.

Papa Greg took this picture for prosperity....just to prove men (even young men) do read directions!

All in all we had a wonderfully blessed Christmas season...one with family and friends....one that we won't soon forget. To have both of my boys around made it so much more special for me. We are looking forward to 2010!

Wolf Haven

We had the opportunity to visit a wolf recovery and haven near where Mom and Dad live. My sister, Beth, volunteers here and gave us a marvelous tour. It was very educational and opened our eyes as to the plight of the wolves and how their demise has had such an effect on so much of the natural order of animals. These are beautiful creatures!
Most of the wolves we saw were grey wolves. They are grey, white, black and a mixture of those colors.

These wolves love to come up to the fence and look at the tourists! These wolves will never be reintroduced to the wild as they have become too used to humans and could not survive. Most of the wolves came from private homes or zoos. (For much better detail, Beth would have to be your tour guide!)

Beth is explaining what the wolf population was about 50 years ago. Now there are only wolves in about 7 states. Pretty sad.

This black wolf had only been at Wolf Haven for two weeks and he acted pretty much like a dog. He had been kept in a home and treated like a pet. Everyone fell in love with him!

The four of us in our t-shirts. We will be supporting this venture to insure our wolf population continues to recover. Thanks, Beth, for a great tour and educational experience...you rock!

Best Date of the Year

We celebrated our December date in Portland. It was absolutely the best date of them all. We decided in August to purchase tickets to see Aaron Meyer, a rock violinist. Since the concert was at 8pm, we chose to stay overnight at a very nice hotel in Portland. The Hotel Vintage Plaza has been fully restored and is quite the place to stay. We loved the quaint yet modern feel to this place. It's located right downtown, so once we parked the car, everything was explored on foot!
This is the view looking up from our inside balcony area. We stayed in a room that was once Michael Jordan's loft of his suite of rooms. (He owned the 7th and 8th floors.)

Our room was huge! King-sized bed and very large sitting area, not to mention a garden spa tub that was 4 feet deep! Quite the luxury!

Which way do we go??!!! This street post is located across from the courthouse...any coincidence?? We laughed at the irony of it!

Aaron performed in this historic church. It was a fantastic concert! Check out his website: www.aaronmeyer.com

These dates have been so much fun! I'm now busy making a scrapbook of the year and we are planning for more exciting dates for 2010!

Bitter cold!

We had very cold weather the first part of December...subfreezing temperatures and lots of frozen ground. Not to mention broken pipes all around us. Our area just doesn't normally get this type of weather and we weren't as prepared as we could have been.........except for Rusty! He loves his walks so we got him some winter booties and off we would go!
He wasn't so sure about these at first but after a few shakes of the paws, he decided it was okay. And off we went!

Quite fashionable, I'd say!

The best part was taking them off at the end of nice long walk and getting warmed up! For both of us!!

The reason is Jesus...

Our November date was spent in Portland at the Grotto. Since it was the start of Advent, we decided to begin our Christmas season by putting it all into perspective. The Grotto is transformed into a light and music show and depicts the birth of Christ...the true meaning of Christmas. As we meandered through the exhibits we were struck by the beauty and joy of the story.

We are making this season one of remembering what it really all means....and we gladly say "Merry Christmas!"

WAC

Well, I decided to tap into another creative side of me....or so I thought....and take pottery class at the Willamett Art Center. It was a lot of fun but it was work, too! I have always enjoyed my ceramics and thought it would be fun to learn how to throw my own bowls. Which would be good if they actually had turned out to be bowls!!!
These are most of my creations during the 8 week course. We learned how to throow, make pinch pots, pour molds, glaze, and just create.

This is my favorite piece: it's a clay-mache that I stained and glazed. I am planning on making more of these for my garden area.

This is a little candy dish that has a creative glaze pattern. It my second piece that I threw on the wheel....we won't talk about the first piece!

I molded this dish and decided it would make a great bread plate. I embedded leaves into the clay and after it was fired, I painted it with low-fire glaze. A fun dish to make! I am really glad I took the class and maybe some day I'll try my hand at it again. But for now, my passion is really my photography and scrapbooking.

Date #10

I realized I am behind in my postings of our date weekends. We spent a very nice October day at Newport, Oregon. The focus of our date was just to relax and explore the shops and coastline.
We discovered this great little restaurant a few months prior and decided we had to stop again to satisfy our cravings of clam chowder. It's the best around...those who have stopped at Mo's (another very famous clam chowder house on the coast) need to come here ....this tops Mo's by far!

It turned out to be a very nice day.....sunny, warm....and lots of beach area to explore.

We ventured down to the harbor and took some great pictures. The boats were fun to watch and we even managed to get down on the docks to explore them up close.

The sea lions took over several of the docks in the bay area. Noisy creatures, they are!

Greg stood by this boat just to put into perspective. These are massive watercraft and we hope next year our date weekend will be spent fishing and crabbing on one of them.

WARNING: This is made for human consumption!

One of the "joys" (please sense the sarcasm in all of this!) of turning 50 is to participate in a ritual known as a "routine colonoscopy." Who in their right mind thinks this is routine or even something that one should be doing? Anway, suffice it to say I have succumbed to the pressure of the medical profession, my husband, family and friends. There were some funny parts to all of it and one of these days, I'm sure I will laugh about it!

When I brought the cleansing agent home, Greg honestly thought it was for the hot tub (we buy our chemicals in bulk!)! Oh don't I wish it was!!! And in case you are wondering, it is a full gallon and you drink the entire amount in about 5 hours!

One other funny part is that I don't remember very much about the entire day and I kept asking the same questions about the results, my IV, and how did I get home--finally Greg and my sister clued me in that I had asked those questions several times! I just don't remember doing so!

On the serious side, it is a good diagnostic procedure (or so they tell me!) so don't put it off based on this posting! I only want it to be in the archives so I can actually prove to those whom I said "not getting that done!"

Final Thoughts......

I had an absolute marvelous time taking care of my grandkids while Ryan and Aimee had some relaxation and sun! Okay, I could have gone for a little of that warm weather too, but all in all it was a fantastic week! Thank you, Aimee and Ryan, for entrusting me with your beautiful family. I feel so very blessed and grateful. Grandkids are the best reason for having children - just wait! When are you going away again together? I'm first in line for those kids! Or maybe I'll just come get them and you can have a weekend to yourselves! Love you guys!

Day Seven

Today is all about....MEYSA! She turned 6 years old. It was pretty exciting for her and to top that off, Mom and Dad are coming home. She was one pretty excited girl! Having a birthday is always special and I did my best to make it fun for her. Here she is, right out of bed!
Of course Lauryn wasn't to be denied her picture either! I have to admit, it was fun taking her picture as she didn't mind smiling!!!

Remember those tie-dye shirts? The kids were really excited to wear them and we were organized enough to get pictures BEFORE school! I have this figured out, just in time for the parents to return home...go figure!!!

Cute kids and I won't let anyone tell me differently! I love these grandkids and feel so very, very blessed in my life to have them!

Meysa on her way to school!

Meysa after school...she had a very special birthday at school.

Now I used to make cakes all the time for the boys when they were growing up and it has been literally 15 years since I made and decorated a cake. Meysa wanted a horse cake and with the help of Aimee's cookbook on how to make cakes, I managed to come up with a pretty good looking horse, if I do say so myself!

Nana and Papa joined us for Subway sandwiches for dinner along with cake and ice cream. I know it wasn't the same as having Mom and Dad home, but Meysa really did have a great time!

Nana and Meysa

Nana helped out with Wyatt and he actually took to her quite well. He was a pretty happy boy with all the commotion birthdays bring.

It came time for presents and as Meysa said, the best part! Greg and I gave her a cowgirl jean jacket...she loves horses!

What can make a girl happier? Money and horses!

Then it was time for the cake! It tasted really good and there were even two pieces left over for Ryan and Aimee to enjoy! Hope your day was happy, Meysa!