RV Travels With Huggy

Last month I attended a reunion celebrating the 50th anniversary of my high school graduation. I was amazed at how many old people there were there! I guess there were about 520 of us who graduated that day in the old Spokane Coliseum back in June, 1961 and that was just those of us from Lewis & Clark High School. At least two other Spokane high schools graduated the same day in that same building. I think there were about 140 of my classmates there and over 200 with spouses. It really doesn't seem possible that it has been that long.

Pat and I have never stayed in a 5 Star hotel so we ponied up the bucks to stay in the event hotel, Spokane's recently remodeled Davenport Hotel although our room was on the 14th floor of the newer Davenport Tower. It is a very nice place although I am not sure I'd pay the full overnight rate. We got a group discounted rate of some sort so it was only $140 a night, plus $20 to park the car and of course all the taxes that are added on. Everything there was high quality. But we didn't have coffee in our room. You had to go to the Starbucks coffee bar in the lobby area for coffee. We only stayed two nights but it was fun.

On our way home we stopped in the Lake Chelan area to spend a couple of nights visiting friends and tasting wine. The town of Chelan used to be famous for apples and other tree fruit and I guess it still is, but it is now also gaining popularity as a producer of grapes and some of the best wine in the state. Our friends live just across a vineyard from one of those wineries with another dozen or so within just a few miles. And many of them also have some fine eating included. It was a good time, but we found another desert wine that we fell in love with, so bought a case of small 375ml bottles that are $26 a bottle. The good news is that we got a discount for buying a full case!

We both enjoy the Western themed town of Winthrop that is on the East side of the North Cascades Highway, so on our way home from Chelan we came through there and ate lunch at our favorite place in Winthrop, the Duck Brand Hotel and Cantina. It was good as usual and the trip across the N. Cascades Hwy was beautiful and almost uneventful. I had forgotten that in addition to this being the summer season (it finally came!) it is also Road Construction season and that delayed us a couple of times. I guess they can't do much road work in the winter when they have over 70 feet of snow at a mile high elevation. In fact, the pass closes all winter and this year didn't reopen until June. But with this road when we come back into civilization on the West side we are almost in our backyard in the town of Burlington. We did stop at a car wash to treat the car to a bug removal session. Speaking of the car, our Prius averaged right at 50 miles per gallon for the trip, using about 15 gallons of gas to go about 750 miles.

We are also experiencing a much more negative side of growing older and that is losing friends and relatives to death. A cousin of mine died in June, an uncle just last week and a very good friend of ours who lived in the same park we do died on Aug 28th. He was 13 months younger than me! I think the message that we have to remember is to live every day as best you can and enjoy them and your friends as you never know when either they or you will no longer be around to do that.

Labels: Events, Family, Friends, Trips to see things, Wine tasting

I am still around although I haven't posted anything for some time. I think this last December is the first month I've not put up something since I started this blog in Dec 2005. I don't have much to add here but will do a little updating.

Christmas came and went. My Navy son enjoyed a month long leave between his assignments and is now getting used to a new job in a new location. He had never been with Navy Air before so decided to try it this time. He likes the job and the people he works with but they hope to keep their house in another town that is too far away for a daily commute so are trying to resolve that issue. He may end up renting a small apartment in the new town for $500 - 600 a month just to have a place to stay during the week, then go home on the weekends. An unforeseen expense as he thought he would be able to get BOQ type housing during the week.

I started back to work. Sort of. I have been on the Citizen's Advisory Council for our local transit agency (SKAT) for a year and a half. It seemed to be a natural fit for a volunteer opportunity for me, what with my background in transit. Last month I was asked if I would be a passenger count surveyor over the year 2011. It is a paid position although just barely. I told them that I would as long as it was not enough of a job to make me fail retirement. I was assured it would be no more than ten hours or so a month, so I said I'd do it. I went on a test ride early this month and since then have done three on my own and it seems to be going pretty well. I will sure learn the local system this way!

Pat and I both bought Internet Tablets last month. We are not Apple people so bought two that run on the Android operating system. It has been interesting learning how they work. Pat asked the other day what they will do that our desktop and netbook PCs won't do and I said nothing. But they are easy to carry and fun to play with. Mine is a 10.1" by View Sonic, hers is a 7" by Archos. She thought the 7" would work better for her as it will fit in her purse. We don't have smart (Android) cell phones but that may end up finding its way to our house before too long. But again the question, Why?

I am ready for summer. We were told in the summer that this was to be a La Nina weather pattern year and it was supposed to be worse than the last one two years ago. That one brought us about two feet of snow around Christmas time and we usually don't have any snow. So far we have had the stuff three times but a lot less than 2' and none of them have lasted as long as it did then. Right now we are having way tooooooooo much rain and that has caused some river flooding as well as hillsides sliding down in places. Our Skagit River went about three feet over flood stage last week which caused minor flooding but it looks like cooler temps in the mountains (less snow melt) and less rain now have them receding. By Wednesday we are supposed to have sunshine and 50 degree temps although with the clear skies that temp will drop a little below freezing overnight. Sounds good to me. And when we look at what is happening weather wise in other parts of the world, we sure can't complain.

Labels: Christmas, Computers, Family, Pat and I, Weather

Wow, we are already a week into the month of December! That doesn't seem possible. Although since I am not fond of winter I'll be glad when the weather improves and we start getting more daylight hours. But right now, we are in for some cold times. Tonight in Mt. Vernon it is predicted to get down to 27 degrees and tomorrow's high only 30. Those brutal temperatures are things that we are not used to.

Thanksgiving this year was good for us. We enjoyed two separate dinners, one on the Monday before and the other actually on Thanksgiving Day. The first was at the home of my youngest son and held that day due to the fact that he had to work on the actual holiday. The other was at Pat's youngest daughter's home. Both were good.

The day after Thanksgiving Day has been known for some years now as "Black Friday" because it is supposedly the day in the year when retail business' turn a good profit (a day definitely with the books "in the black") and start the run to Christmas which for some is the busiest season of the year. A couple of times in the past I participated in those early morning (middle of the night?) sale starts but this year I slept in. I drug myself out of bed about the usual time and arrived at Best Buy at the crack of 08:15. Pat did even better, arriving at Fred Meyer about 10:30. But, we both got what we were after at those special prices for the day.

Since then I have bought some more gift things online but didn't participate in the so called Cyber-Monday sales as I didn't see anything that really struck me as needing enough to turn loose my credit card number. I have been able to buy things far enough ahead of Christmas to take advantage of free shipping on most items. That is the big bugaboo for me with online buying. I hate to pay shipping charges and on small things the shipping can be as much or more than the cost of the item you have bought. That is especially a problem with eBay purchases.

I have been kind of holding back on purchases for myself. I keep hearing from She Who Should Be Obeyed that I do that too often, thus making it hard for others to buy gifts for me. So, I am still holding out in my torn, holey gloves, even in these brutally cold temperatures, as some of us walk for exercise three times a week to the hospital for coffee in the cafeteria, then back home. Now only three weeks to go.

Labels: Christmas, Family, Holidays, Weather

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US and I'd like to wish you all a happy one. A year ago my older son was serving with the Navy Seals in Afghanistan and it is sure a relief to know that he is home this year. Our holiday has been good. We actually have had two Thanksgiving dinners, today at Pat's daughter's home and last Monday at my younger son's home. M & his family decided to do it on Monday as M has to work today. We enjoyed them both and thank our kids for the opportunity to enjoy the holiday with them.

Yesterday dawned with kind of an overcast, but since we tend to get up early I was looking out the kitchen window to the east shortly before the sun rose and saw that we were going to have a beautiful sunrise. I got my camera and proceeded to take some photos and I'll post a few of them here.


This first one is looking to the east and a bit south. The sun will come up in that area where the bright spot is behind the house across the street from us, but the sky was lit all along the horizon from far north to the south behind Little Mountain. You can just see the beginning of Little Mountain rising at the far right side of this photo.


This view is also to the east but looking almost north. The base of Mt. Baker is just visible at the horizon if you look at it over the back end of our Prius. This photo shows what I meant about the horizon being lit all the way from the far north to the south. The pink clouds are low but there is a full cloud cover above them and we didn't actually see the sun as the view of it was totally blocked by clouds.


In moving around to get different views of the sunrise I happened to look to the west between our house and the one to the south of ours. This is what I saw. Those are also low level clouds with the sunlight just breaking across them. Again, that is not blue sky above but the full cloud cover. This was amazing to me in that there was actually almost more exciting light in the sky to the west than there was to the east!


I went out into our back yard beside the sunroom and this was the view from there. The lighting is changing very rapidly. Our fence is across the bottom of the photo with the fronds and blooms of the pampas grass rising to the right side of the photo. Across the common ground behind the house is our neighbor's home and beyond it, across the street and the other houses that cannot be seen from here, is the background of fir trees. But look at the way those clouds are lit by the sun rising on the opposite side of the sky!


This view is close to the last one- see the pampas grass blooms, but here the camera is looking a bit farther to the north. You can see the arbor that rises above our back gate that goes out to the common yard.

I do not particularly like winter but we occasionally get some pretty phenomenal sunrises during this season and yesterday sure was a good example. I sent these photos to our morning DJ, Joe Flood, on our local Oldies radio station, KBRC, and will hop from here to their web site to see if he posted them there. Joe lives a bit to the east of us up in Eaglemont but he was already at work when this painting in the sky occurred. I still don't understand just how that light to the west happens, but I'll enjoy looking at it whenever it does.

Labels: Family, Holidays, Photos, Sunrises and Sunsets

So far it doesn't feel bad, what with it getting light earlier in the morning. That means on Mon, Wed & Fri when I go walking with the guys from my park it will be an hour warmer when we start at 08:30. But I know that at the other end of the "day" it will get dark an hour earlier and that is the part I am not fond of. The two things I liked best about Snowbirding was the warmer temperatures and more hours of daylight. In the north during summer our days are longer than they are down south but it is the opposite in the winter. And the winter difference between here and southern Arizona is about an hour, or the difference between having Daylight Savings Time and not having it. Oh well, in two more months the timing will start back the other way toward longer days.

We did go on a road trip last month in the Prius. We left home on Monday Oct. 12th and drove to Spokane, WA on the far Eastern side of the state. It is about 340 miles and most of the trip over was via I-90 with 70mph speed limits. I did set the cruise control for 70 and we averaged about 47 miles per gallon (mpg) going over. That is not bad but not as good as what I've heard these cars can do. I didn't do any extraordinary things like trying to draft behind semi-trucks or anything like that. Just driving at a pretty constant speed.

For our return trip we came west via US-2 which is a 60mph road most of the way, with some slowdowns for small towns. We didn't go quite as far as we stopped in Manson to visit friends but it was long enough to give a pretty good test. This leg didn't have us crossing any mountain passes (there is one on I-90 of about 3000 feet) but we did drop down to the Columbia River and climb back up. Our mileage average for this leg was about 53mpg. It does make a difference when you slow down a bit- 60 as compared to 70.

The last leg, home from Manson, had us on 60mph roads but also crossing two mountain passes, one over 5000 feet and the other just below that at 4800+, then dropping down to sea level. Out mileage for this leg was about 51.5mpg which I figure is very good, especially when considering the elevations we climbed to. To be fair, the area between the two passes is all at high elevation so the climb up to the second pass is probably less than 1500'.

The car was very comfortable and easy to drive. We both like it, other than Pat often getting a static shock when she gets out. I don't know why it doesn't affect me the way it does her. I keep telling her that she is an electrifying woman. I don't think that helps.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet my younger son and my youngest granddaughter and go watch K play in a soccer game with her team. They are in a U-10 league and I think all the girls on her team are age 9. The other team sure has some tall girls for only being 9 but the two teams were actually fairly well matched. Our team lost but the score was 4 - 3 and it really could have gone either way. Of course it was raining- isn't it supposed to when the kids are playing soccer? I took some photos of the game and after a quick look through them, I setup one to post here:


My granddaughter likes to play defender which means that her position is to hang out in front of their own goal to help the goal keeper defend it. But K is quite fast and her coach has been working with her to move the ball forward when she has it and to even go as far as taking a shot at the other teams goal. Here she is moving the ball against a much taller opponent and staying in front of the other girl. K's team are wearing the gray jerseys. I think she might develop into quite a good player if she stays with the game.

Labels: Cars, Family, Photos, Weather

My son who has been in Afghanistan assigned to a joint Army/Navy thing there arrived back home in Washington State yesterday! How is that for a neat Father's Day gift? Now he can go back to being a Navy guy on shore duty for the rest of his assignment here before going to sea again. That should be for the next year and a half or so that he'll be home every night and on weekends.

Labels: Family

My son left Afghanistan Sunday and is on his way home! He will probably arrive in the states sometime tomorrow and spend 14 days or so in out processing before finally returning to his home here in the northwest. I am so thankful that he is finished there and has left in good condition. Now wouldn't it be great if we could somehow get the rest of our armed forces home with no need for them to stay there?

Labels: Family

Last Sunday Pat and I drove south to Auburn to attend a birthday party to celebrate the 12th birthday of my oldest granddaughter, K. I can't believe that she is almost a teenager already. She was born while my older son was on his first deployment in his Navy career so she was about three and a half months old when he first was able to hold her. The Navy lets those sailors who's wives have delivered babies while they were deployed be the first off the ship, and B was about the second of the bunch of a dozen or so.

K is now 12 and I guess that makes her kind of still a kid but not yet quite a teenager (I know teenagers all think they are adults but we know better.) I have no idea what a girl of that age wants in the way of birthday presents so I took the easy way out and got her a gift certificate for a store where I know she likes to shop. She did get quite a few gifts and I think mine was the only gift certificate, but much of the rest of the family lives closer so were able to know more about what she would want. I did take a few photos-


Here's the birthday girl looking through a bag with a number of gifts inside. Yep, she is still enjoying this opening gifts thing.


This is the card from Pat and I. It is a funny one. She is still young enough that funny birthday cards work, but she is young enough that they are not "aren't you getting old" themed. It was fun picking it out.


She sat across the table from Pat and I for awhile and I got what I think is a pretty cute photo of her snuggled against the shoulder of her other Grandpa. When she was a small baby until when Annie & I moved to Mount Vernon, K would spend most Saturday nights with us and go to sleep on my lap in my recliner chair. She was so cute and sweet then. She is still cute and sweet, but not small enough to go to sleep sitting on Grandpa's lap in a recliner. One more year and she will be a teenager.

I guess wonderful memories like that is a part of the fun side of growing older.

Labels: Birthdays, Family, Grandkids, Photos, Reminiscing

There is a great miniature golf course at Ponderosa Falls RV Resort and my brother and I played all 18 holes there on Wednesday of last week. That was the day the temperature reached 84 degrees in Spokane in the afternoon and of course that was when we were out there playing golf. This RV park used to be in the Yogi Bear Campground chain and there are still some left overs from that era, including the golf course. The course has a man-made river that flows through it, starting with a water fall that is about 25 feet high. There are foot bridges that cross the river in a few places through the golf course, and at one point there is a rapids that drops probably about 6 feet.


Here my brother, L, has just taken a shot and you can see the ball moving toward the camera on the carpet. As you can see there are lights and the course is playable until about 22:30 hours at night. The RV you see in the background is ours- we were right beside the 15th hole. This is about the only place that I can say that I "live" on a golf course!


One thing about just playing alone this way is that you can kind of make up your own rules. We would sometimes have the ball end up against one of the bricks at the side of the course and we determined that it was proper to move the ball up to 6 inches out into the course so that you could hit it with the putter. Here L is doing just that.


This view is looking down over the rapids toward the 15th hole, with our RV in the background. I hadn't taken my camera along but, thanks to cell phones, I called Pat who carried it out to me, handing it across the fence. Otherwise I'd have had to walk all the way back to the start and to the RV, then back to where we were playing. Alright, it wasn't all that far, but it was pretty hot!

This RV park is beautiful, with many Ponderosa pine trees all through it. Central Washington State is more of a desert with very few plants other than sage brush but about 20 miles west of Spokane you start back into the trees. Here they are the long needle Ponderosa pine rather than the predominant fir, spruce and cedar trees found on the west (wetter) side of the Cascade Mountains.


Here is the rapids as seen from below, with the fairway of the 15th hole at the left side of the photo. Those lights turn off at 22:30 so we could go to sleep at night but the water runs all night. At first we wondered if being so close to the rapids would be a problem but it turned out to just be a pleasant background sound, kind of like being near the ocean where the surf is breaking on the beach.


As I said, this place used to be a Yogi Bear Campground and here is Yogi's little friend, BooBoo, atop about the 5th hole on a large piece of driftwood. The driftwood really isn't green but with strong sunlight reflecting up on the bottom of the driftwood arch, it does give it a very green color. You can also see the waterfall that marks the start of the river. Of course the hole you had to sink the ball into is under that arch BooBoo is on.


I didn't have my macro lens along on this trip but my standard 18 - 200mm zoom lens will focus fairly close, so I was able to get a pretty good photo of this dragon fly who had lighted on a fir tree branch. This is a bit of an enlargement from the original image as it tended to fly off if I tried to get any closer.

The park has a lot of other activities available including an indoor swimming pool, weights room, pickleball court, volleyball, plus some neat things for kids.

Here my Grand Daughter, K, is enjoying one of the paddle boats in the kids lagoon at the park. K wasn't there with us this year- this photo was taken in July, 2006.

I really enjoy visiting Ponderosa Falls RV Resort. As I said earlier, it is one of the parks owned by the group I belong to, K/M Resorts, and it is one of those that I have spent the most time in. This one and Ocean Mist on the Washington coast where Pat & I visited back in August.

I have a few other miscellaneous photos from the trip that I'll post at another time. Now that we are home I have the faster Internet connection and posting of photos seems to work much better. But I did get these six edited in Photoshop Elements and uploaded to my Flickr site from my laptop computer with the WiFi connection in the park. So it wasn't all a failure.

Labels: Family, Grandkids, Photos, RVing, Trips to see things

My youngest grand daughter, K, celebrated her 7th birthday just three days after my XXth birthday this month. Since all the kids are now back in school, her party was held on a Saturday at their house. Pat and I attended along with her other grand parents, many aunts and uncles (her mom is child number 14 in a family of 16 children) and many of her friends and neighbors. Since the party started at 1:30 in the afternoon, they started with pizza for anyone who wanted a little more lunch. Then it was time to move on to the cake for desert.


Here is the table with the cake and many of the kids plus a few of the adults gathered around, including Mom & Dad. The birthday girl is on the right side of the photo, wearing the hat.


This one looks like she is saying blowing out seven candles is no problem. She did it fine.


Now it is time to start opening the gifts. This bag was from Pat & I and contained about half a dozen gifts. No, I wouldn't spoil my Grand Daughter!


This gift is one of those from us that was inside the big bag that she was holding in the previous photo. It is a notebook with a photo of K on the cover. The photo was taken in 2004, of K wearing one of Grandma Ann's Red Hatter hats.


I think all kids like money. Someone gave her a stack of seven dollar bills and they were a big hit with K, as you can tell from her expression.


Grandma Annie was real good at picking gifts for the grandkids. She would buy them when she found them, sometimes saving them for months before the event they were needed for occurred. Sometimes they were forgotten at the time they should have been given. These sticker books were a couple of things that Annie had picked out for one of our two grand daughters, before her death in 2005 and they were safely put away. I found them this spring while cleaning out the house to get it ready to sell. So, these sticker books and a couple of small books about Kochina dolls that were with them are some of the last gifts for K from her Grandma Ann.

The birthday party was fun. It doesn't seem possible to me this little girl is already seven years old. She was born just four months after the death of my Mother and K's Grandma Ann died while K was four years old, a month & a half before her fifth birthday. In many ways it doesn't seem possible that it has been over two years since we lost Annie, either. I know I sure am a lot happier this year than I was last year. I have Pat to thank for that.

Labels: Annie, Birthdays, Family, Grandkids, Pat and I, Photos

The birthdays of my older son, myself and my youngest grand daughter all fall within a week of each other in September. For quite a few years I've celebrated them by doing coffee hour at church on the nearest weekend to my birthday. This year was no exception except that this year I had Pat to help grand daughter K and I. Son B is out at sea on his ship so wasn't able to be there. K's Dad is working today but her Mom brought her up and that gave Mom a chance to go do some birthday shopping without K being along.

When you need a cake for 50 to 60 or more, I think the best place to look around here is at Costco. Plus their cakes are very good and at a good price. My favorite is carrot cake and since it was my birthday and I placed the order, that was what I got.

Here is the cake before we started to cut it. It is one half of a full sheet cake and at our store sold for $18 which seems like a pretty fair price to me. And it sure was good, although I only was allowed one small piece as I am still trying to loose more weight.


Pat is starting to cut the cake while K is asking what do we need to do next. We are almost ready and people will be coming in soon as the church service is nearly over. Annie taught me that we always bring fruit as some people can't or don't eat cake. And there are cookies and punch for the kids but I've been amazed at how many big kids also eat them. I know- I used to.


Pat is finishing up cutting the cake. We managed to have it all eaten so that I didn't have to bring any home to tempt me. I LOVE carrot cake! We finally did get the chance to eat a (small) piece along with some fruit and a cup of coffee. Then it was time to start loading the dish washer and clean things up. We got away just after noon and brought our extra car home as we had driven there from different locations.

Pat then took me out to Cascade Pizza for one of my favorite lunches. We even have enough left for lunch tomorrow! There is a nice steak house here in town called Max Dale's Steak and Chop House. They sent me a coupon for my birthday to get a dinner free so we are going there tonight. It will be steak time. Then tomorrow son M has the day off and we are invited to dinner with he, his wife J and the other birthday person, K. It sounds like a couple of nice eating days to me and a good way to celebrate the 29th anniversary of my 35th birthday.

Labels: Birthdays, Family, Grandkids, Pat and I, Photos

Here are a few more photos from Pat and my wedding. I am a bit slow at getting these posted because I've been working pretty hard on getting the house cleared out, but I do have a few more that will probably finish the set.


This first one is of my two sons, B on the left and M on the right. The photo was taken by M's wife, J, as were most of the photos I have posted. Some were by my long time friend R or his wife D and some by my next door neighbor in the park, D.


This is one by my friend, R, and shows part of the mirror room in the clubhouse, where our guests were able to be seated to eat and visit. He even managed to catch me in the background opening a window for some ventilation.


The outside patio was a popular seating area for some due to the fantastic weather we lucked out and had. This shows one of my grand daughters, K, at a table at the left and my nephew J with his daughter B near the right side of the frame. A long time friend of mine, DS, is seated behind my grand daughter. DS & I started kindergarten together in Spokane, WA in the fall of 1948.


Another view inside the clubhouse, here looking past the kitchen area toward the library. At center left is another of my nephews, another J. My brother and I are in the middle of the photo and at the right is my neighbor, B, whose husband D was the third person taking some of our photos.


We have to sign the paperwork that will be filed to make it all legal. Here is our Priest, Vicki, with Pat signing her part of them.


And here is my turn to sign them. Boy, I sure need more hair!

We left the morning after the wedding to spend a few days east of the Cascade Mountains in the little Bavarian themed town of Leavenworth. I have some photos from there but haven't had the time yet to work on them. I at least reduce the size of the images before uploading them to Flickr where my photos for here are hosted. I'll get them done soon, I promise.

In the meantime, progress is being made on getting my old house cleared out. I have the den piled on one side with things to move to our new house and on the other side to move into storage. The really big pile is in the rest of the house that was going to be in a yard sale, but we had coffee last Thursday with a former neighbor who used a local auction service when he moved. I called them on Friday and have an appointment to deliver my "stuff" Tuesday. I have a rental truck reserved and my son M is coming up to help. We should be able to get it all transfered there in that one day. They will sell it in the next auction, keep 35% and I get the rest. Anything left over they will dispose of. That sure sounds a lot better than going through the problems associated with holding a yard sale! By Wednesday the house should be empty and ready to start the final cleaning. It may be listed for sale by the weekend. Then maybe we can finally take out the new RV on it's maiden voyage!

Labels: Family, Friends, Grandkids, Pat and I, Photos, Wedding

When I logged on tonight at about 20:00 for the first time today, I saw that Statcounter, the program I have monitoring visits to my blog, said there have been 20,001! I have been posting here about a year and a half. I would like to thank those who have been here from the start and any new visitors who happened to find my little corner of the web.

I don't have any photos to post today but should soon. I have been working on my house and have sorted nearly everything in the place. Except the shed in the carport. I am thinking that I'll be ready for a yard sale on Sat but probably not yet ready on Fri. I'm looking forward to getting this behind me so we can get on with our new life. I should have done more before the wedding to get the place ready.

Pat & I did go visit my son's Navy ship on Memorial Day and it was fun. We took Pat's 13 YO grandson along and he really enjoyed seeing the Navy base and the ship. They didn't have an official open house but since I had a family member who is a crewman we got a very good tour. I had forgotten how step those stairs (I would call them ladders) are when you go from one deck to another. And there are no elevators. I did take some photos and should be able to post a few later, when I can get them reduced in size.

Labels: Boating, Family, Grandkids, Pat and I, Trips to see things

We held our practice fairly early the morning of the wedding day as some of those involved came in from out of town and didn't get here very early Friday night. The day dawned clear, sunny and beautiful, although it was a little cool that early in the morning (9am.)


This first photo shows the guys walking from the clubhouse toward the gazebo where the service would be held. Our park is a senior manufactured home park and it is beautifully maintained. They are from front to rear, my sons M and B, my brother L, Pat's grandson B and me. The part of the clubhouse behind us is the indoor swimming pool which most of the kids would probably rather have been in than out here doing this practice.


Here is our Priest, V, getting the ladies and Pat's escort lined up, talking about spacing, etc. They came from Pat's house and walked up this pathway to the opposite side of the gazebo from where we guys came from. We had my two grand daughters, ages 6 and 10, as flower girls and they did a great job.


Pat was escorted by her older grandson, M.


We all made it to the gazebo and are receiving directions from V as to who stands where, who moves when and to where, etc.


Getting more directions.


It was all finished and Pat & I were walking away toward the clubhouse for the reception. Wait, this was just the practice but it sounded good to maybe just go ahead and sign all the papers and consider it a done deal. Except that we had a lot of guests coming in just a few hours to participate with us.

I'll finish a third post with wedding photos in a few days, that will cover the reception and the amazing cake that Pat's daughter, P, ordered for us. I've never seen anything quite like it. Now I must get back to sorting and packing things. I have to get this house finished.....

Labels: Family, Grandkids, Photos, Wedding

Here are some more photos from our actual wedding ceremony. I have had to work on all of these in Photoshop Elements as they were dark from the camera due to us being under the roof of the gazebo on a sunny day, so it has taken a bit longer than I had planned to get more posted. I have decided to break it down into about three sections and will start with this set which is the middle one, the ceremony itself. Later I'll post some photos from before the service, of the practice and things leading up to this point, then some from the reception after that.


This first photo was taken by our friend, R, who was running the sound system. We decided we didn't want to use traditional music so the bride and her escort, along with the two flower girls, entered to the song, "Truly, Madly, Deeply" by the Australian group, Secret Garden. This photo was shortly after the whole party had arrived "on the scene" in the gazebo. The guests were on the lawn behind the priest and facing us. That was our Priest's suggestion as she said they came to see us, not her, so she wanted to have us facing them. It makes sense when you think about it.


This is a similar scene taken about the same time from the position of the guests by my DIL, J. J was able to move around so she took a lot more photos than R did who was pretty much stuck in place by the sound system behind us. There were the two of us, my brother L and Pat's grand daughter N as Best Man and Maid of Honor, Pat's grand son M who escorted her in and presented her to be married, her grand son B who carried the rings, my two grand daughters K and K who were flower girls and my two sons B & M along with Pat's two daughters C & P as attendants. I think this photo shows at least a glimpse of most of them.

I am skipping over part of the service where there were two bible readings, one by my son M, the other by Pat's daughter C, followed by the song "Love Me Tender" by Elvis. Did I say that Pat is an Elvis fan? Wait until you see the wedding cake in one of the later photos!


I am placing the wedding ring on Pat's ring finger in this photo. We have since taken them back to the jeweler's to have the two soldered together as they wanted to turn independently of each other as they were. They are designed to fit together and look good that way.


Pat is putting my ring on me. She had a hard time getting it over my last knuckle so I ended up pushing it into it's final position and I think that is the reason for her big smile. I was threatened to not tickle her & make her laugh and I didn't do it this time. Honest!


Ah, we are nearly finished. This is the final blessing by the Priest before she presents Mr & Mrs Dick Phillips to the guests.


And we are leaving the gazebo to head into the clubhouse to great our guests at the reception. The music we left to was "I'm So Excited" by The Pointer Sisters, followed by "From This Moment On" by Shania Twain. You can see our two flower girls starting to follow us. They still had flower petals left and had so much fun dropping them as we came in that they did it again as we left!

As you can see from the photos the weather couldn't have been better. The day before was overcast with showers and we were really thinking it was going to happen inside but the day dawned clear and stayed that way. There were tables and chairs set up inside in the Mirror Room and outside on one of the patios so guests had their choice of where they wanted to sit. As to the service itself, I think it went very well.

I have cropped these photos to a 4 X 3 format as I just bought a digital photo frame to display them in and that is it's format. I figured I would have more control over how they look by doing the cropping myself rather than just letting it cut them. I've had too many heads partially cut off that way!

Now I've got to get back to work on my house. I've still got to sort & pack more things in order to get it listed for sale. I want to go out and use our new motorhome and Pat says she doesn't want to do that until I have finished with the house. I think she knows I am a procrastinator. More later.

Labels: Family, Friends, Grandkids, Pat and I, Photos, Wedding

We enjoyed our trip to Federal Way for K's birthday party last Saturday. We went down early and met friends in Fife for lunch before the party, and then to the party. I thought I knew where the place was but couldn't find it where I thought it should have been. So I cheated and went into a gas station and asked. I thought it was on Pacific Highway South but it actually was on S 320th. So we were a bit later than planned but still made it.

On our way home we stopped at a big outlet mall in Marysville to look for a dress shirt for Pat's grandson to wear in the wedding. It is real hard to find anything in a dress shirt in the color we want in children's sizes, so we took a chance and bought the smallest adult one we could find. He is 13 so it might fit. We hope. When we left there the traffic was terrible, just trying to get to the freeway. An hour & a half later we stopped for dinner at a Chinese place at Smokey Point (4 miles away) in Arlington. From there on home was no problem. You ought to see rush hour on weekdays! It is nice to be retired.

I have gone over my house with both sons & M's wife looking at what things they want. I have been making pretty good progress on getting stuff to store packed and they are both taking some of what they want away now. I need to keep the house with beds, etc until after the wedding as family from out of town will be using them. We will go away for a short trip, just Pat and I, after the wedding but when we are back will then really get into cleaning out the place. I am allowed to hold a yard sale here in our park when you are moving so we will do that, then get everything cleaned up and list the house for sale. Some houses here have sold in just a few days and I kind of hope mine will go fast like that. You never know.

Nine days to go.

Labels: Family, Grandkids, Wedding

My life has been good the last few weeks, and Pat is the main reason for that. My neighbor took this photo of us with my camera and I want to share it with all of you. Here is Pat and I:



My area (the Pacific Northwest) has been having a lot of rain recently but the rivers are finally receeding and we have had a couple days with little rain to add to it. My house is located at over 200' elevation so I have had no problems from flooding. The next storm is due to arrive tonight, but there are also cooler temperatures so much of what falls in the mountains should be in the form of snow. That will reduce the volume of water that reaches the rivers and streams right away. The offical amount of rainfall in two days in Seattle was nearly 9 inches. November is usually the rainiest month of the year here but the normal average is less than 6 inches, for the whole month. So in two days we exceeded by about 50% what we normally have for the month.

My older son should be back soon from his boating trip on his Navy ship. It will be good to see him again. He missed his son's 13th birthday party but should be able to spend time with him again soon.

I am still going to the YMCA at least three times a week for my exercise class and watching my diet. So far since starting into this about two months ago I have lost 15 pounds and feel like I am in better condition. Pat also watches what she eats and is now helping me to do the same. A couple of times I have suggested we share a desert and she gently points out that neither of us really needs one. She is good for me in so many ways. I am very lucky.

Labels: Family, Pat and I, Photos, Weather

My friend SW had some pretty heavy duty dental surgery last Wednesday and wasn't feeling very good after it. I drove to her town very early last Friday and spent a few days there helping her. I am glad to say that she is doing much better now. I enjoyed the time we spent together and think she did, too. I took the Saturn rather than the Miata and left Huggy home in the care of my neighbors. My furry friend fix came with Sami, SW's Yorkshire Terrier, who seems to like me pretty well. I also managed to avoid getting any speeding tickets this time!

I have sent a few email notes to ladies on the Yahoo Personals site recently. I got an answer back from one over the weekend and I think we are going to get together for a mocha and to talk. SW says to meet as many different folks as I can and try to enjoy just meeting people. If the right one comes along, then I'll hopefully be able to recognize it. I have to try to not get too invested too soon again.

My Navy son drove up after work today to spend the night here, rather than sleeping on his ship. Nice to have him around.

Labels: Family, Trips to see things

After son M & his family arrived last Sunday, we went on a walk around Yogi Bear Campground. None of them had been here before so they were interested in what the place offered for people, especially little people like my grand daughter, to do. M found a large, dead but in good shape dragonfly floating in the swimming pool. We took it outside & placed it into the strawberry plant garden where I took the following photo:


One thing K really wanted to try was the paddle boats in the lagoon. They are for children up to 60 pounds so she, at 44 pounds, was perfect. She caught on to getting around in them right away. Two years ago my other grand daughter also enjoyed the same boats. Here is K out on the lagoon (it is about 1 foot deep):


This day was the one year anniversary of the death of my Annie and I wanted to go to church. After looking around the campground, the kids headed for their hotel to see if they could get checked in early while I drove to St. Paul's Episcopal Church that is on the campus in Cheney. It is a small church but nice and with some great people, including the parents of a couple of ladies who we attended church with at St. Matthew, Auburn! Isn't it a small world. Here is an interior view of the sanctuary:


After church we met back at the RV, then drove back to Cheney for lunch at the Zip's Drivein there. I took a photo of the time/temperature sign as we were leaving to show what the temperature was that afternoon:


Later that day there was a beautiful sunset. I often feel that Annie is sending these to me occasionally to enjoy, especially when they come on a special day. My DIL & I grabbed our cameras and walked over to the edge of the park to take some photos of the sun as it was setting over the golf course that is beside the RV park. Here is one of those I took:


M, J & K headed off to their hotel to go to bed as they had a long day, leaving home a bit after 04:00 to get over here to surprise me. I read, checked blogs & email & cuddled Huggy until time for bed myself. It was a pretty good day for me, considering who I have lost in my life.

Labels: Family, Photos

This photo of Annie was taken the day before her 61st birthday on 19 Dec 2003. It was just eleven days before I retired and was one of the first photos I took with my then new Sony DSC-10 digital camera. It was taken in the living room of a long time friend and former neighbor of ours from Auburn. It's one of my favorites of the recent photos of Annie and is the one we used on the cover of the booklet for her Memorial Service last Aug 3rd.

After more than 37 1/2 years of marriage, my Annie died while I was holding her in my arms at 10:40am a year ago today at Skagit Valley Hospital, Mount Vernon WA. We hadn't expected her to die. She was just there to have some wounds that opened up over pressure points in her body treated. It looked like it might be a long hospital stay but she had been through long stays before. However, this time, she caught pneumonia on the 21st and couldn't fight that off along with all the other things that seemed to start going wrong at once.

On Valentine's Day this year I found a wonderful poem that had been posted on Susan's blog by emob called, "Within You", written by S. Hancock. It seemed to me as though that poem had been written by Annie for me & was somehow put in a place where I would find it on that day for lovers. I love it and thought I'd post it again today as there are people reading here now that were not back then.

Within You

If I be the first of us to die,
Let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving.
There is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is part of life,
The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey,
The moments shared, the mysteries explored,
The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing,
Each giving and each taking,
These are not flowers that fade,
Nor trees that fall and crumble,
Nor are they stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand
And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.
What we were, we are.
What we had, we have.
A conjoined past imperishably present.
So when you walk the wood where once we walked together
And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,
And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,
Be still.
Close your eyes.
Breathe.
Listen for my footfall in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you.

S. Hancock

I was getting ready this morning to leave to drive to church at St Paul's in Cheney, when I looked out the RV window & here were my son M, J & K walking up to the rig! They had gotten up early, left home at 04:30 and driven over to surprise me. They are staying the night in a motel about two miles away & we will have tomorrow together before they leave for home in the late afternoon. I also got the chance to talk with my other son, B, tonight on the phone. I guess after today I will not have so many firsts to face without my Annie as most of them will already have happened. There was a fantastic sunset tonight that I feel was sent to us to enjoy by Annie. I took some photos but want to post this now so will have to do those photos at a later date.

Labels: Annie, Family, Photos