The end of the year!

I got the little wind chime airplane Bev got me for Christmas put up, it is all made out of silverware.  It was too cute to hang outside, so I put it below the fan in the shop.  I did some roof work the last couple of days, I got the gable fan frame work made and the fan mounted on it.  I spent today charging up my batteries for my annual New Years Day flying.  I also got a quad out and made a flight around the house and motor home, my last flight of 2015!

Time to catch up!

After a couple of days resting up from Christmas I guess it is time for me to get caught up with my blog.

Saturday morning I was up about 7:30 getting ready to make my breakfast when I noticed the sunrise and the frost on the shop roof.  I got the camera, went outside and took a half dozen of so pictures of the shop and the sunrise.

I had two of the cinnamon rolls that Debbie gave us for Christmas as dessert while I was checking my emails.  James came up later and stocked me up with wood pellets before going up to do some target practice with his grandpa Bob.  I went up on the roof and tried to find the one small leak that is left, now we wait for the next heavy rain to see if I got it.  On the way back, James stopped by and we had Papa Pete's pizza for dinner.

Sunday about ten, I noticed it was snowing a little so I took a few pictures before watching football.

By eleven it was starting to stick and I put a picture of it on Facebook, that got a few comments.  I watched the Seahawks game, that was sure a disappointment!

It was sticking pretty good by the time the game was over and when I came in from the shop later there were no bare spots anywhere.

Monday I was having a pretty laid back day until I decided to clean off the driveway with the mower.  Then I ran over the leaves James had mulched a while back and mulched them up some more.  Vera surprised me with this picture, I didn't notice her on the deck.  In the background is another project, cleaning up the tree that fell during the wind storm.  I also ran over the trails and found a dead alder down on one of them.  I unpacked the gable fan and louvers today and did some planning on that job.  Of course, Monday night football finished out my day.

Christmas Day

We went down to Mik, Michelle and James' for our annual Christmas celebration.  The first thing Vera did was get a picture of Bev and Michelle.

Michelle was demonstrating her selfie stick to everyone and took a bunch of pictures with it.

The angel was crooked, so James used the selfie stick to straighten it.

Delicious prime rib and turkey cooked on the Traeger by Mik.

 There was lots of good food brought by everyone, I forgot to take a picture of the desserts, there was pumpkin pie, pecan pie, nuts and several types of candy.

Mik is carving the prime rib.

James is singing along with his new JAMBOX, it really sounded good.  He had it going all day with music from his phone and the battery hardly went down.  We had a great day, good food and lots of time visiting with family, it doesn't get much better than that.

Christmas Eve

What a great Christmas Eve, forty one of the family together to celebrate!  Cathy, Bob and myself were on the balcony taking pictures and Mik had not arrived yet.

The cousin's picture at Christmas and Easter is always special.

There is so much great food each year, there are some really good cooks in this family.

Dan and Robin provide turkey, ham and the trimmings every year and it was excellent as always!

This is the part the kids were waiting for, Tor hopped right up on Santa's lap and told him he wanted a basketball.

Santa really grilled Rielee about if she had been good this year and how the other kids had done.

The younger generation was having a great time all evening.

Posted on the door were this year's annual 2015 Trivia contest, David got all thirty of the questions right.

After the presents were opened it was time for family pictures in front of the tree, it was sure nice having Barry and Mona there this year.

James and Tierney both included Ainslee in their picture since she couldn't come.

During the gift exchange Tor played catch with James several times.  He can throw pretty good, occasionally one doesn't go where he planned but for the most part he was really accurate and fun to watch.

Here I am with the best present I have ever gotten!  It was a very nice evening, I hope you had a great Christmas Eve!

Christmas Shopping

Monday we didn't do much, I slept in after the big weekend and did a little work on the Extra 300's pilot.  Tuesday morning Vera had an appointment with her eye doctor.  While I was waiting this group set up and started playing Christmas songs.  I really enjoyed it, so I took a picture of them as we left.  We had lunch at the Country Deli and then finished up our Christmas shopping.

This is how the Extra 300's pilot looks now, a lot different than those ugly googles they had molded on.  It took lots of grinding and painting, but I am happy with the result.

As I was going in from the shop, the moon showed up through a small break in the clouds.  I don't have the manual focus completely figured out yet so this picture is a little blurry.  I didn't crop the picture, so this is how large my picture will be once I get it all figured out.

The Birthday Party

Sunday the church had a birthday party for Jesus downstairs in the Fellowship hall.  The kids put on a play that was really cute, lots of parents and grandparents there today taking pictures and videos.

They had requested finger food for after the service, there was lots of variety and it was all good.  I was sure full when we left!  I spent the rest of the day watching football.

House Dedication

Marie had donated her old house and another lot to the Habitat for Humanity and today was the dedication for the first house finished.

Marie was arriving at the same time we did, they had arranged for her to be brought over for the dedication.

This is Marie talking with Jeannette who along with her husband Jim are who the house was built for.  Jim is a veteran who is disabled by a stroke so the house was built to accommodate wheelchair access.  They have been living in a 5th wheel without any hot water for the last three months.

 The foreman of the project from start to finish came over and talked to Marie for a long time, thanking her for the donation.

Vera and I estimated there were about thirty people there, a lot of them were people who worked on the house.  Local businesses donated lots of materials, I believe about eighty percent!

There were even donations to stock the kitchen and furnish most of the house.

I have posted other pictures here during the construction, it turned out pretty nice.  The business next door donated the landscaping to finish off the outside.  We are glad we got to go, it was nice seeing Marie so happy.

Evening at the Grotto

This evening we went down to the Grotto with Mik and Michelle to watch the Mark Morris choir sing.  The boys came onto the risers first and I got a picture before the girls showed up.

It is a beautiful setting and the acoustics are great, the camera picked up the singing very well.

This is James during one of the songs!

The rain held off, so we had a good time doing our group photos and visiting with the kids before looking at the lights.

Vera put a grin on everyone's face when she put on James' hat and got into their group picture!

They have a very nice Nativity scene set up.

Right behind the Nativity scene is a cliff, they project images and lights on it.

This is looking down one of the paths, all the bushes and trees are decorated.

This is my favorite area, it looked like a blue river.

After we had dinner at Famous Dave's (Very Good!) we stopped at Kalama so Mik could do some more flood damage repair on the Antique Mall.  The restaurant owner's boy friend had finished installing the wainscot, so Mik was not going to have to put in a long evening.  They are planning on reopening on Saturday.  It was a nice evening, it is relaxing walking around the Grotto looking at all the lights.

Extra

My prop adapters showed up this week, so the Extra 300 is all ready to test fly.  I was looking at it and decided it needed a pilot.  I ended up finding one that looks pretty good in my collection.  The glasses don't look quite right, so I will be doing a little work on that.  I did some more work on the roof this week, things are starting to dry out, maybe I got it this time.