Walk cancelled because of snow!

I was downloading and editing pictures, when Vera said it was snowing!  It kept getting harder, so we decided to cancel our walk for today.

The snow was coming down pretty good at noon.  I had spent most of the morning on the computer, doing my blog for the weekend and finished editing the pictures.  I started to edit some video I took Sunday, but that takes a long time, so I went to the shop for a while.

When it quit snowing this afternoon, this is what we ended up with, about 2 inches.  I decided putting skis on the Cub for flying tomorrow might be a good idea.  Well, after two hours of searching for them, I gave up!  If I ever want to hide something, all I need to do is put it where I can find it easy the next time!  I finished this a little earlier than normal, they have a special at Blog2print, 10% off getting this year's blogs made into a book, but it only lasts until January 3rd.

Holy Cow, I am behind again.

Friday

If I think of something, I will add it later!
First addition, Vera said we walked!

#2  I was working on planes in the shop today, big surprise isn't it!

Saturday

I worked on planes and got the motor home ready for flying Sunday.  We did our walk Saturday afternoon when it had warmed up a little.  I went over to Dianne's to see if the twins were there, I was pretty sure they were as the "Babies Sleeping" sign had been up.  Once I knew they were there, I ran home to get them the presents we had gotten.  I wanted to get them pink and green Little People cars, but there were no pink ones online, just green, I could have gotten pink by driving to Olympia, so much for that idea.  Then after christmas while we were shopping, I found a pink one at Walmart, but no green ones, so I got Harper an airplane.  While I was running (walking) home to get the presents Harper said "Maybe he got me an airplane", pretty amazing that she guessed right!

Sunday

Some of the planes I flew today, the Facetmobile flew, but it needs a few adjustments.  It took off like a Saturn 5 rocket, straight up, it sure surprised me and Audrey, who was taking a picture of the take off, all the picture showed was grass and the tail of the plane.

This is the rest of the planes I flew today.  It was good flying, very light winds and some sunshine in the afternoon, I got in 11 flights.  I had both my propane heaters out and they sure felt good.

This is the sunset as I left the field today.  When I got home, I watched the recording of the Seahawks win today, that was a good end to the day.

Back to Walking!

The rain held off until we finished our walk this morning!  There was even a pretty sunrise.  I spent the morning editing some more pictures and doing my blog.  I went out to the shop and decided to try one of the solar lights I got at Walmart, wouldn't you know it the one I picked up out of ten did not work right.  I love a challenge, so I opened it up and found a broken wire, then just as I got that one repaired, another broke!  I finally got it back together and put it out by the pond to test.  It was lit up later, so I did good.  I had a visit from Jeff in the afternoon, it was fun talking with a fellow modeler.  I did some more organizing in the front of the shop before calling it a day and going in to watch a little TV with Vera.

Time to play with things!

Wednesday morning and things are getting back to normal, Vera wore her new top and bracelet to bible study this morning.

I took my Jawstand and the new tools I got to the shop to try them out.  Right away, I found a use for the Jawstand, Bill's wife did not think anyone would want this airplane cradle, but I hauled it home any way.  One small modification and it mounted to the Jawstand just fine.  After Vera got home from bible study and we had lunch, we decided to go look at the half off Christmas decorations.  We didn't find anything at Lowe's, but at Home Depot and Walmart we ended up with quite a few things.  Walmart was a zoo, but I kind of expected that!  After a stop for gas, we headed home via the Westside Hwy. as there was lots of traffic on I5.  I edited pictures and ordered my Christmas present, did my Christmas day blog and called it a night.

Another great Prime Rib!

Well, I took plenty of pictures today, 117 in fact!  About 2 we headed down to Mik, Michelle and James' for our annual Christmas dinner.  We had a great time, lots of good desserts and snacks.

 I think this was the best prime rib yet, Mik does a great job cooking them on the Treager.  He also cooked up a turkey (which I am sorry to say I was too full to try), dressing, potatoes and gravy that were all delicious!

Vera talked James into frosting the brownies we brought.

When James and Gage packed in this present for Michelle, I had to stop them and get a picture.

Debbie is giving John Patrik a lesson on her IPad, he was really looking at it and grabbing for it.

Mik and Michelle put up the tree and lights, James put up all the ornaments, it looked great!  After we opened all the presents and just before leaving we all posed in front of the tree for Christmas pictures

Michelle, Vera, Bev and I.

 The guys, Mik, James and I.

We had a great time, days spent with family are always the best!

Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas Eve, I counted 41 people, most of them family!

Of course, there was lots of good treats to tide us over until Santa arrived.  Not shown is the turkey in the kitchen.

The kids are all growing up, but we do have some young ones so the tradition will continue.

Harper opened the door for Santa and hopped right up on his lap.  She told him what she wanted for Christmas and whether her family had been naughty or nice.

John Patrik got a hold of Santa's beard and put up a real fight when they tried to get him to let go, I thought the beard might come off for a minute.

After the kids were all done, it was time for the adult gift exchange.  I got number 16 and I ended up with a Staple Gun which is something I needed.

This is what it looked like after the gift exchange was over.  After a few more snacks, we headed home.

Way to go Seahawks!

I got the software issue with Jackie's laptop fixed this morning, no mater what shortcut was clicked on, Word opened up!  I finally found the file association was wrong, I ended up downloading the correct one and once it installed everything was fine.

John, Jackie and JP came up to visit this afternoon, later we went over to visit Steve and Dianne, they were not home but Charb, Kelly, Lexi, Ava and Harper were.

Ava and Harper were studying JP pretty close while Kelly held him.   From there, we went up to the Dolan's to see if anyone was home there.

Emmy and Jason were the only ones home, but we had a nice visit with them.  After the Patzers left, I did some more cleanup in the shop until it was time to watch the Seahawks game.  I really enjoyed the game, which was played in typical Washington weather, rain!  The Seahawks ended up winning 42 to 13!

More Cleaning!

I made a run down to Kelso this morning to give John a hand and got to visit with John Patrik for a little while in the Blazer.  I spent most of the day cleaning in the shop, and working on Jackie's laptop until it was time to watch Monday Night Football!  It was on Saturday because of Christmas Eve.  I made good headway on the laptop, getting the hinge repair finished so I could start putting it together this evening.  After I got it together and it booted up OK (I was sure glad to see that!), I ran a scan on it, which was not done at bedtime, so I left it running over night to finish.

Visitors

While waiting for John Patrik, Jackie and John to show up this morning, I worked out in the shop cleaning the North bench.  While I was talking to Barry on the phone, I saw Steve go by with a load of limbs in the pigeon wagon.  When we were done talking, Vera told me Steve and Parker were cutting on the fallen tree, so I got the camera and went down to take a few pictures.

About Noon, JP, Jackie and John showed up and had lunch with us.

Vera and I held him every chance we got, he is a cutie, it is kind of neat having a Great Grandson.  He smiled a lot for us, it was the high light of our day!  I spent the rest of the day repairing the broken hinges on Jackie's laptop.

Another big day at the Post Office!

Wednesday

OK, not too much went on Wednesday, Vera went to bible study and I cleaned in the shop.  In the afternoon, I did some maintenance on the Stearman and got it hung on the ceiling until some better flying weather comes along.

I even swept the floor of the shop, that is a big event because it doesn't happen too often.  We watched a couple of episodes of Lucas Oil Off Road Racing this evening.  We heard a big bang out on the deck about 10, so I checked all around the house and did not find a tree or anything down, come to find out this morning that a metal plaque had gotten blown down.  It really blew yesterday, that cleaning job I did on the driveway a few weeks back was sure a waste of time.

Thursday

 I hung up another plane this morning, later we went down for lunch and to pick up the mail.  There were 3 packages today, new memory for this computer, some ultra bright LED's, and the rest of the hardware to mount the Reflex sight on the video camera.  When we got home the first thing I did was install the new RAM in this computer.  Boy did it make a difference, after the initial start, everything opens and loads much faster.  Then I started on the sight for the camera, it turned out great!  It is very easy to find things through it and the stock takes most of the shake out of the camera.  I am anxious for the next flying session!  Now I am going out to clean up the mess I made putting the sight on, I have that bench clean, so I will try and keep it that way!  The big news today was, John Patrik will be showing up around 10 tomorrow!

OK, when I went to the shop, I took the camera so here are pictures of the Stinson I hung today and the bench when I finished tonight.

This about as clean as it ever gets!

Cookie Party

I woke up about 4 AM and noticed it seemed pretty bright outside, I got up and looked and it was snowing, so I got the camera out and took a couple of pictures.  Then it was back to bed until about 7:00!

About 9:00, I got a call that the Cookie decorating party was starting as Rielee had a late start because of the snow, so she could attend.  There was a good turn out, Macee, Auna, Jason, Rielee, Ava, Harper and myself.  Dianne had made lots of cookies and everyone did some decorating.

Harper is giving Jason a hand by putting on the sprinkles.  Harper believes more is better, there was lots of frosting and sprinkles on her cookies.

When Ava decided it was time to watch their show, she didn't fool around, she started moving the little chairs and table over so they could have some of Grandma's cinnamon rolls while they watched.

When they were done with the snack, they opened presents from Taylor (Dianne's friend), they were so excited, they now have twin penguins.

The girls gave me a present and a really cute card they had made to open right after I got there this morning.  It was this little Biplane tree ornament, they told me that I could put it on my tree, but since we don't have a tree, I put it with our stained glass ornaments.  The party sure got my day off to a good start, I messed around on the computer and did more organizing in the shop the rest of the day.

Slept through that!

Sunday

Vera went to Church and I started cleaning the electronics bench in the shop.  My goal was to have it all cleaned by the end of the day, I did not make it, probably because of the Sunday football games.  The Seahawks did great, I really enjoyed that game, the Sunday Night game would have been better if the Patriot's would have won, but it was a good game to watch.

Monday

I went back to work on the electronics bench this morning, I have been taking everything off a section at a time and washing it before putting things back.  I kept an eye on the baby sleeping sign and when I noticed it was down, I headed over.  The first thing I heard was Steve saying "Thanks for the Christmas Present", need I say I was a little confused!

It turns out this tree had blown down last night, I never heard the wind, I slept right through it, but it woke Steve up when the tree went down about 3 AM.  After the girls had their baths, Harper couldn't wait to get her boots and jacket on and go see it.  On the way to it, she checked to make sure I had my camera.  They were not too happy being up on it for the pictures.

It looks like it was pretty rotten, it took down two maples with it.  I continued working on the bench cleaning and got the garbage can down to the road before we left for the Mark Morris Concert James was in.

It was a nice concert, all Christmas music, the kids did a great job!

Afterwards, we went to the Sweet Spot for a treat.  This is Hunter (James' girl friend), James, Aidan, and I did not get the other girls name.  It was our first time there and we really enjoyed it.

Return to Cricket County

It tried to snow here this morning, but nothing was sticking.  I did yesterday's blog this morning, then I checked out my curtain job in the motor home and it worked out.  I worked on planes and cleaning the shop until it was time for the church play and dinner.  They were putting on a play called Return to Cricket County to raise money for a mission trip to Haiti in the spring.  The first act took place during the dinner.  The dinner was great, Beef Stew, Biscuit and Sweet Potato Pie.  The last three acts were upstairs in the sanctuary.  It was great fun, I have not laughed that much in a long time.  I added a link to a short video I took of the start of Act II.  It was a great end to the day!

https://vimeo.com/55701274

A busy day!

No picture again today, (I was too busy) so I am using this picture from December 2003.  I arranged for Barry to take James for his first light plane ride in Barry's Maule at Olympia.  James was a little hesitant at first, but it did not take long until he was flying great.  Since he had soloed some radio control planes already, he knew what to do.

I started out the day bringing in our solar lights and candles from the deck and drying and cleaning them to store for the winter.  Then on the list was the motor home furnace, I had pulled it out about a week ago because it would not start.  I cleaned it up, checked the safety switches, cleaned the orifice, adjust the spark gap, and soldered a bad looking connection on the circuit board.  I test ran it in the shop with no propane, the fan ran and the igniter sparked, so I took it to the motor home and installed it.  It sure made me happy when it started on the first try and every time I tried it the rest of the day.  I did some work on the curtains by the table of the motor home to seal them better.  I also got the reflex sight I  ordered for the video camera in the mail today.  It looks like it will work great, I had to order a couple more parts for mounting it to the stock and I will be ready to video airplanes.  This evening I settled in and watched another Pink Panther movie, what a good way to end the day!

All Done!

We walked this morning, then stopped at the Post Office and all that was in our box was 4 slips for packages.  I picked them up, we went home and wrapped them, we finished the Christmas cards and went down to mail them.  I checked the box again and there were 2 more slips!  We took them home, wrapped them and now we are all done with the Christmas shopping.  I worked on the RV-9 for a while until the twins woke up from their nap, then went over to see them,  Great fun as always!  This time I put on Harper's hair band, she had a funny look when she saw that and tried to pull it off.  It was stuck on my big head, so I took it off and gave it to her, she told me "Don't do that again!".

This evening Mik, Michelle and James stopped by after getting their tree up at Miller's.  James got to drive part way back and then got to drive back from Papa Pete's when Mik and him went to pick up dinner.  Mik had brought a pecan pie for desert also, we watched Thursday Night Football while we ate, it made for a special evening.

Christmas Cards

Vera went to bible study this morning and I got caught up on my blog.  When I finished that, I decided to get our Christmas cards ready, it goes pretty fast addressing the envelopes with the computer, besides with my handwriting half of them would not get there.  I spent the afternoon making up a Christmas letter for the people we don't see very often.  Debbie had planned a dinner at the El Ranchero to celebrate Josh's birthday, we had a good time and got to meet his brother and grandmother.  We also came home with enough left overs for a great lunch tomorrow.

We saw this Nativity scene on the way over to Fred Meyer after dinner, there are lots of lights up now and it is really getting to seem like Christmas.  We did a little shopping, I found my exchange gift for Christmas Eve and we headed home.