Haunted House

Ron and David are out fishing on the Clearwater River in Idaho. The weather is terrible, but that doesn't stop those fishermen. Amy and I decided that a nice inside project would be good for us today. We started putting our cookie Haunted House together in the morning. While the first step was drying we bundled up and went for a short walk. After lunch we started adding the decorations. We had a great time creating our Haunted Houses.
Amy's house has the orange roof and mine has the green. They are supposed to be scary, but I think they are pretty darn cute.

First Catch

Today was the first day of fishing for the boys. While they were gone Amy and I went for a walk and visited the Lewis and Clark Discovery Center. They have some very nice displays of the expeditions travels through Idaho. Here is the first catch of the trip.

Don't these look like 2 happy boys? They had a great day and caught 6 Steelhead and 5 Salmon. The fun is in the catching and not the keeping, so they released all but these 3. They were so excited and had many stories to tell about their day. This included the 18 pound native Steelhead that was a real fighter. It was a great catch and release. You don't keep native fish.

We like to get the fish ready for the freezer as soon as possible. David is starting the cleaning process. He filleted the fish and cut it to size.

I wrapped it in plastic wrap and then Ron vacuum sealed it before we put it in the freezer.

Tea Party

I always help Betsy by serving tea at the party. This is a very special job and I enjoy it as I get to visit a little with everyone as they come and get their tea. This year I served a persimmon and a cinnamon tea.

The table was decorated for a Fall Tea. Isn't it beautful?

Char and our hostess Betsy

Cream and sugar?

This is Betsy's mom Flo. She always helps Betsy get the silver polished and the flowers arranged. She is amazing,

The Amsterdam

My cousin Karen is taking a 67 day cruise to the South Pacific. She left Seattle and her next port was Vancouver, Canada. Ron and I received permission to come aboard and visit her. This arrangement had been made months ago as she needed to get permission from Holland America. They reviewed our personal information before approving our visit. Security is important on a ship like this. This is a picture of the Sea View Pool. On hot days Karen likes to sit here in the sun and read. She has been on this same ship for 2 other cruises. You can visit her blog at www.dreamcruise.kweenkaren.com to follow her adventures.

We thought the cabins would be small, but her room is really quite large and very conveniently located.

We had lunch on the Lido Deck. There was champagne to celebrate the people boarding in Vancouver. It's called the Embarkation Champagne Lunch. Great fun!!!

Here we are on the deck of the Amsterdam with North Vancouver in the background.

Karen and I are standing on the stairs in the Atrium. It's a beautiful area of the ship.

ALS Walk & Wicked

I had a very busy weekend, well a busy Saturday. In the morning I walked in the Bellingham ALS walk in support of my brother-in-law Scott Sessions who has ALS (Lou Gerhig disease). We were the green team, can you tell?

Then it was a quick change of clothes and we (Amber, Jodie and I) were off to Seattle to see the play "Wicked" at the Paramount Theater. We met Jennifer there as she now lives in Seattle part time. The show is about Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba the Bad Witch from the Wizard of Oz. Did you know they were friends from school? It was a great show and I will look at both witches differently from now on.

Betsy's Studio

My friend Betsy is a music teacher and has an amazing studio. However, she is also involved in many other things and has very little free time. She is remarkable at everything she does, but doesn't always have time to get her materials organized. We decided to have a work day, which looks like it will turn into several work days. Today we tackled the desktop, but also talked about ways to organize her files. This is our before picture. Oh my!

This is the after picture. The counter top really is purple now that we can see all of it. We threw away some things, put things away that didn't belong in the studio and filed away things that did. Hurray for us!

Labor Day Weekend

Ron and I got to camp a day before everyone else. We took our bikes so we could ride around Crocket Lake. It's a nice ride of about 6 miles. We stopped at the block house so I could get a picture of us bikers. The weekend started out very nice. Notice that we are walking on the beach with no coats and that the water is very calm. It was beautiful!

Ah, but here is the next day. We are all bundled up and the wind is really blowing. The sun did pop out occasionally, but not for long. Oh, and look at the water now!

The waves were pounding on the beach and breaking over the cement on this light.