Christmas Day

Our Christmas Day started out with a stop at the Sessions to spend some time with my sister Julie's family. We had our traditional Christmas morning rolls along with some cookies, coffee and cocoa. Mmmmm. In the picture are Jodie, Julie, Luke, Rodney, Cara, Baby Rylie and Scott. After the Sessions we went to Amber's for lunch and then our Santa socks and gifts. Jennie and Will are waiting patiently to begin, so it was a perfect time for a picture.

The girls found hats and mitts in their sock. I gave Santa a little help on this one. It's a little hard to tell, but there really is a butterfly design where you see the holes. They are pretty cute, the hats and the girls. If you would like this pattern you can find it at www.suzies-stuff.blogspot.com

We had a delicious dinner cooked by the girls. I was in charge of appetizers this year. Amber found some great crock pot recipes, she made ham and cheesy potatoes using 2 crock pots. Both were delicious. Jennie made a festive salad with rice, oranges, and pomegranate. She also made a cabbage and apple vegetable dish. Mmmmm, the girls are great cooks, which they did not get from me.

Carole, Ron, Jennifer, Will, Amber, Jerad

Merry Christmas to all!

Nativity

Many years ago, maybe 30, I made this Nativity set for our home. I see I forgot to add the straw this year. Oops! The figures are about 8 inches tall. As you can see there are some pretty tiny pieces to cut on the saw, but it was fun to do. A few years later the church wanted a new Nativity set. Ron and I got busy and made this one. He made the stable and I once again got out my saw and made the figures. These are about 12 inches tall, so it was a little easier. They are also large enough so people can see them during the church service. The children like to come up after church and look at and move the figures around. On Christmas Eve, after I took this picture, I passed 2 girls walking up the aisle. I overheard one of them say, "Can I be Mary this time?" They were heading to the stable to recreate Jesus' birth.

Merry Christmas

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Thanksgiving Sales

Are we crazy or what? No, it's just another adventure for us. We decided to go shopping at the day after Thanksgiving Sales. Hmmm, that means I was up at 2AM and on my way to Amber's house. We really didn't have anything special we were looking for, we just wanted to go for the experience.Will volunteered to be our chauffeur. Amber is in the warm truck as we wait for Penney's to open at 3:45, and yes, that's AM.

Amber and Jennie are in line at Old Navy. Amber's to the right of the green tree. You could find your item, but the lines were REALLY long.

I'm holding Amber's slippers as we wait in line to pay. Fortunately this line was not very long.
Our next stop was Target, which opened at 5:00 AM. The line wound all the way around the Target store and then around the Sears building. By the time we got in the store there were already people coming out with their purchases. We found one item to buy, but the line at the registers went across the front of the store, down the side and half-way across the back. It wasn't worth the wait to save $5.00. We put the item back and headed to our next stop.

This is the Target parking lot at 5:30 AM. It was packed! We couldn't believe the number of people out shopping and they WERE shopping. Look at the shopping bags and cart full of Christmas gifts.

I bet you're asking if we would do this again. Ah, probably not. Other than the fact that I am NOT a morning person I am not willing to fight the crowds to save just a few dollars.

Thanksgiving 2009

We had Thanksgiving Dinner at our house this year. Ron decided to try some recipes from Sunset Magazine, so we had a Modern Thanksgiving Dinner. Jennie and Amber each had a couple recipes to make and we did the rest. We had a day filled with cooking. Here is Amber getting her fingerling potatoes ready for grilling.

Ron is preparing the Grilled Butterflied Turkey. This is a first for us. Other than it taking longer to cook than it said, it tasted pretty good!

This is Gary the Turkey. Jerad got him as a white elephant gift at a work party, but he has ended up on our Thanksgiving table. We think he is pretty nice.

Here is the end result: Grilled butterflied turkey with rosemary dressing, Pancetta sourdough and apple stuffing, Chile-roasted acorn squash, Sauteed spinach with crispy shallots, Grilled fingerling potatoes with dill. What you can't see is the Asian pear salaad with pecans and the Pumpkin pie and Pumpkin bars. Mmmmmmmm....

Jennifer and Ron in the buffet line. Eat up!!

Clam Digging Day 2

Day 2 of clam digging was not so much fun. A storm had moved in, which brought rain and very high winds. In this picture Jennie is just leaning into the wind. There was so much water rushing across the sand that we couldn't see where the clams were. It was cold, wet and miserable. However, Jennie and I looked and dug and did manage to get one limit between us. She found most of them. As for the rest of the diggers, they also managed to get only one limit between them. Ah, did I mention there were 4 of them?
I shot a couple videos just to give you an idea of what it was like out there. Listen to the wind blow and look at the water being blown over the sand. What were we thinking?

Clam Digging 1

We went clam digging at Moclips with Jennie, Will, Randy, Beth, Brad, Robin, Evan and Lanissa. The house we rented was amazing and we had a great time with family and friends.

This is the view from our deck. As you can see it was a very short walk to the beach.

Ron and Jennie are all bundled up and ready to dig.

Jennie and I got right to it and had a pretty easy time finding the clams.

Look at all the people out digging. We definitely had plenty of company.

Jennie is counting her clams to make sure she hasn't gone over her limit. We were pretty happy as we had our limit before the boys. We were done and they only had 1 or 2 in their net. Hmmm, we don't even like these things, but we were the champion diggers.

The boys are giving the clams their first rinse to get most of the sand off of them. As you can imagine everything gets covered in sand when you are at the ocean.

Beautiful Day Fishing

The day started out with a beautiful sunrise, and just got better from there. You can see they are keeping their warm clothes on so it must have been cold. I don't think they really care as they are having a great time fishing.

They get up early and freeze their fingers, but when they get a fish on it's all worth it. If this was a movie you'd see that Norm has a fish on and that he caught a very nice Steelhead.Norm just netted this nice Steelhead for Randy. Randy is showing you his catch of the day. See that smile?

Happy Boys

We had some pretty happy boys today. The weather was beautiful and the fishing was even better. Here's some pictures of Norm and Randy with the catch of the day.

Pumpkin Carving

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Dave and Amy went home last night after dinner. It's a pretty quiet day around camp with only me here. Ron and Norm are out fishing, so I decided to carve the pumpkin Norm brought me. This was the most unusual pumpkin I have ever carved. It had VERY thick skin and not many seeds. It was not even slimy inside, but more fuzzy. It made the clean up pretty quick and easy. I then roasted the seeds for the men to have for snacks. They loved them.

Snake River Trail

Amy and I went for a walk along the Snake River at Hells Gate State Park in Lewiston, Idaho. We were looking for the "Hen and Chicks", which are Indian petroglyphs. It was supposed to be about a 2 mile walk along the river. We walked and walked, and looked and looked, but also stopped and took lots of pictures. We were gone for 2 1/2 hours and never did find the petroglyphs. Later the ranger told us we stopped about 40 feet short of our destination. We were disappointed, but will try again next year. The petroglyphs are fading and getting harder to see, so we were hoping to find them this year. This first picture is Amy walking along the trail. The trail starts out wide enough a car could drive on it, but it is getting pretty primitive as we get further away from camp.We saw some amazing rock formations. These pictures are good examples of columnar basalt.

I was hoping to get a photo of Amy. Here she is in front of and sitting on some columnar basalt.

I never pass up a photo opportunity.