Marie's Funeral

The church had used the photos I sent them to make up this screen display.

 Lots of visiting went on before the service, this is Vera with nephews (right to left) David, Gus, Gus's wife Kelly, and Dean.

James is coming over to sit with me.

Pastor Karla gave a very nice service for Marie.  She opened it up for comments and stories about Marie and there were so many that she had to cut it off.  Marie was well liked!

At a reception following the service, we got most of Marie's nieces and nephews together for a group photo.

This is Vera with her brother Leonard and his wife Kathy.

I asked James if he would take my place as a pallbearer, Dean, Gus and David were the other pallbearers.

 I was sure glad I asked James after watching them carry the casket across the uneven ground.

Pastor Karla gave a good graveside service.  After the service Vera, Michelle and I joined some of the others for dinner at the Rib Eye.  It turned out to be a great day!

More Deck

The last couple of days have been mainly spent on the deck.  Fitting boards around the posts for the rail is taking quite a while.  The picture is what was done when we quit today.

Lots of company today.

After we got the mail today we ran up to the Toledo field.  Most of the Threshing Bee stuff is gone except for a couple of combines out in the field.  Only three of the club tables have been moved back, the rest are over by the fence line South of the field.  We made a run down for more deck lumber this afternoon.  The eyes are doing great and I am ready to start doing things again.  Later I worked on the delta and figured out where the battery should go so it will balance.  I got the mounts for a battery tray made and after sorting my entire scrap balsa drawer I found an old battery tray that was close to right size.

James, Dalton and Courtney came to visit us this evening.  Dalton and Courtney are heading off to college and wanted to say goodbye to everyone.  They went out to play on the Razor and ended up talking to Parker for a long time.  I had a nice visit with Courtney while they were talking.  James did do a little riding on the Razor after Parker went back to work clearing brush.

I had dinner, took the tray out to throw it away and there was Josh, Debbie and Jordon visiting with Dianne and Steve.  They had just had pizza and stopped by to see how I look with no glasses.  Jordon is a happy camper after finding the remote.

He is walking so good now and doing lots of baby talking.  He headed right for the toys we keep by the stove for him.  We had a good time playing with him and visiting with Josh and Debbie.  After they left I got the battery tray cut to size and called it a night.

Garage Sales and Delta

Saturday we went to the only garage sale that was advertised in the Daily News, we got a couple of small items there.  Then we checked the light pole by the Fibre Credit Union and found several more so off we went.  There was one at the end of Carnine Rd, the first time we have been that far up it.  By the time we were done we had found seven sales.  On the way back to town we stopped at one on Lone Fir and I got a 3 cell Mag-Lite for $3 and it works great. In town I found a brand new set of sound suppressing hearing protectors for $5.  The last one we stopped at was right across from our driveway, I got this Dremel tool for $2 and after repairing the cord it runs fine.  While we were there I ran into one of Barry's friends Steve W. who was helping our neighbor.  Her husband passed away in May and she is moving to San Diego.

We went to church this morning and a number of people congratulated me for getting my cataract surgery done.  This evening after several tries I got the elevon linkage for the delta hooked up.  I am getting closer to having it ready for a test flight, maybe next week some time.

More arrangements

We had a really nice visit this morning with Loren and Veda before they move to Arizona.  Veda showed us lots of pictures of their home and the surrounding area.  I showed Loren my mobile hanger and the delta which is my latest project.  I was pleasantly surprised when I stood outside talking to Loren and the light was not bothering my eyes, the healing seems to be going very well.

  Shortly after Loren and Veda left we headed up to the Chehalis United Methodist Church to meet with Marie's Pastor and discuss the funeral service.  Pastor Karla is very nice and I think we got everything fairly well covered.  Since we have never done this before we are hoping it turns out OK.

Now I See

Tuesday the 21st we went to Chehalis to see Marie's lawyer, when we finished up there we had an hour until our appointment at the funeral home so we went to Dairy Dan's for the first time and had hot fudge sundaes.  Boy were they good, now we are planning on going back sometime.  The meeting at the funeral home went pretty good, most of the arrangements got taken care of and we headed home through the smoke.

Wednesday I couldn't eat all day because of my cataract surgery in the afternoon.  Michelle volunteered to do the drive home for us.  The drive down was easy and we got there a little early which was good because it took a couple of minutes to find the check in, which we had walked right by!  The surgery took about two hours total to do both eyes.  The staff and doctors at Kaiser are great, they told you their name and exactly what they were doing and why.  They made it a very pleasant experience.  Michelle did the driving after that, we stopped at Panera Bread in Vancouver for dinner, then stopped at the Kalama Chevron to say hi to James.  I slept in my recliner with my dark sunglasses on so I wouldn't be tempted to rub my eyes which were really scratchy.  This morning they were much better and I could see great!  I could tell right away that the double vision was gone and everything looked very sharp.  I had a 10:20 Postop appointment and it was nice on the drive down not to see two fog lines.  The appointment went great, I have 20-20 vision now so I will not have to wear those glasses but I will need to use reading glasses for fine print.  The doctor took out the one stitch he had put in and everything was finished there.  He mentioned that the stitch was 1/20th of the size of a human hair.  I sure couldn't feel anything when he did it.  We went to Costco afterwards and I picked up some reading glasses that just happened to be on sale.  Then we wandered the aisles picking up a few things and some snacks.  This evening I went out to the shop, did a little work on the delta and checked out some speed controls.

Catching up again

This is on August 13th, when we got done removing all the rotten wood there was nothing left.  That part of our decks was built right after we moved here in 1982 so we got pretty good service from it.  On Thursday the 16th we went up to Olympia to see Barry and Mona.  After visiting and checking out their decorating we went to lunch at the golf club.

On the 17th James came up and we spent the evening out on the deck enjoying the nice weather and visiting.

This is how the deck looked on the 19th when I quit.  It is all treated lumber this time, the original deck was lumber from trees we took out and it was cut by my friend Ray.

On Saturday the 19th we went down to the Cowlitz Valley Radio Control Flyers field for a Fun-Fly and picnic.

There was a pretty good turn out, more cars and people showed up after I took this picture.

I counted 10 members from the Lewis County Radio Controllers and 13 from the CVRCF.

This is my planes, I got in eleven flights today.

My next to the last flight of the day, my friend Steve used my camera to take it while I was showing Dave how the P-39 flew.

Debbie and Josh went by and spotted the motor home so they turned around and came down for a visit.

Seeing Jordon walk was the highlight of the day.  Last week he was taking 5 or 6 steps, now he is walking all over the place and he can get himself up if he falls down.

Monday the 20th we went up to see Marie and arrange for Hospice.  She was really weak but we had a nice visit with her.

We went to lunch at Jeremy's and then headed home.  We had only gone a few miles when we got a phone call that Marie had passed away.  We went back and made a few decisions about arrangements, picked up some of her stuff and headed home again.

Jordon's Birthday Party

We went up to Debbie and Josh's for Jordon's birthday party today.  He was really excited about something in this picture.

Jordon is getting pretty expressive with his hands, I saw him making lots of gestures while baby talking about things.

Josh's is giving him some help by unwrapping a toy fishing pole.

Jordon wanted nothing to do with his birthday cake and promptly dumped it out of the bowl into the cup holder.  Then he refused to take a bite of it and spit out the little pieces Josh gave him.

Josh had brought his trailer home today, this is where the drunk driver hit it.  There are lots of wrinkles in the sides and the cabinet doors will not close inside.  A 6000 pound rated strap broke and the race car inside hit the tool box and a car seat they had in there.

On the way home we noticed how the smoke was changing the sun's appearance so we stopped and took a couple of pictures.

Normally I would not zoom up on the sun but with the smoke I could without ruining the camera.  We had a good time at the party, it was a lot of fun watching Jordon.

Deck, Jordon and Josh

We discovered this rotten 4 X 6 and another that is almost as bad today so we decided to replace all of them.

Vera took this picture as I was taking more of the deck apart so we can get at the beams.

I got a call from Debbie wanting to know if we could watch Jordon until Bev got up here from Portland.  Josh was coming back from the races on Hwy 12 when he was hit head on by a drunk driver.  Everyone was OK in Josh's pickup.

We had a good time with Jordon while waiting for Bev to arrive.  He is doing a lot more walking than the last time he was here.  Today was his first birthday and the party is tomorrow.

Later we saw this picture of Josh's truck on Facebook, the wreck took off the left front wheel, then the other car hit the left front of the car trailer and it looks like the trailer frame is warped.  Josh's race car came lose and did some damage inside as well.

A day of rest, AKA Flying

Vera hopped out with the camera and took a picture as I unloaded the first plane.  The sunlight has a red tint to it this morning, probably from the wildfire smoke.

This is my line up of planes for today along with the Bird of Time which was under the motor home.  The two boxes are sitting on some old model magazines, one box is a charger and the other is a heat gun for shrinking covering.  Our friend Rick is moving and gave them to me to pass on to someone who could use them.  Chuck took the charger and some of the magazines, Jim got the heat gun because his had just burned out along with the rest of the magazines.

This full sized motor glider was doing lots of flying today.  If you look close after clicking on the picture you can see little wheels in the wing tips so he can taxi.

After taking off he can stop the engine in flight and retract it into the fuselage.  If he needs it again, he can extend it and restart it while flying.

More Deck and Delta

Yesterday we got the benches all torn out and this morning we started tearing up the deck boards.  After we got about half way done we started sawing the boards into smaller pieces before removing them.

The Mutt got lots of use today, the boards are no match for a six foot steel bar.

One of our trailer loads is ready for the compost pile.

It looks like I am trying to figure out what to do next.  We quit for the day when the sun started hitting this area.

I got some vinyl decals made for the delta this afternoon and hunted up a set of stars to put on it.  They sure dress it up, I really like my Cameo vinyl cutter.  Doug stopped by to check it out and gave it his seal of approval