Our Holidays
Thursday - November 26 Happy Thanksgiving!
Several of our neighbors and we gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving and welcome in the holiday season. It was a gorgeous 80-degree day that allowed us to eat outside.
(l-r Bruce, Charlie & Gay, Dave & Linda, Josh - one of D&L's daughters-in-law's brother, Neoma & Jim)
We ordered a $40 turkey dinner from Safeway and filled in the gaps. The food was delicious, but sharing it with our friends was what made the day. We are blessed to be surrounded by special people when we go to Casa Grande in the winter.
Thursday - December 24
Colleen drove over to spend the Christmas weekend with us. She had the whole weekend off for a change, and we used up every minute of it with her.
Christmas Eve we all had dinner with Dave and Linda and their guests. Jeff and Natalie along with their two young ones, Austen and Gracie, came down from Alaska for about ten days and brought lots of fresh fish from Alaska with them. We had a fish fry that was mmmm, good! One particular way of preparing the fish that we won't forget is salmon rolled in crushed Captain Crunch cereal and fried in oil. Talk about delicious! Who would have thought of doing that? Fresh halibut fried and bar-b-qued were added to the meal. Fabulous! Add a green salad and Striped Delight dessert made with Mint Oreos, and we were all plenty full.
Friday - December 25 Merry Christmas!
Sourdough pancakes with all the fixin's, and a ham and cheese "quiche" the kids call it, is our traditional Christmas morning breakfast. After filling our tummies with that, we opened gifts and enjoyed our time with Colleen before going to the Phoenix Zoo for Zoolights. Colleen had never been to a Zoolights event before, so this was a first for her. She wanted to ride a camel as advertised, and so we did. Geri can testify to the fact that riding on the hump is not a real comfy place to be! No matter how much padding is added to the camel's saddle, it's still a pretty boney place! And the camel was not happy about wandering round and round in a little circle either. Or maybe he wasn't happy about having someone on his hump. LOL
Working our way around and enjoying the lights, we went in to pet the stingrays. Colleen was like a little kid. It was so fun to watch! She was afraid of them, even though their barbs had been removed, and it took several minutes before she finally made the reach and felt a ray. Yea! We were both amazed at how bumpy their backs are. So smooth for the most part but some kind of little bumps.
Being a typical grandpa, Bruce bought four swords that light up and change colors for Austen, Gracie, Kharli and Isaak. He just couldn't resist! LOL A great time was had by all.
Saturday - December 26
We spent the day hanging out at the trailer with Colleen. Since we didn't have a picture of Colleen, she and Geri wandered around the park trying to find the perfect place
Pretty lady, beautiful day, awesome visit!
Monday - December 28
We were on the road about 6:25 this morning. Geri's eyes didn't open for an hour, so she took over the wheel at Gila Bend and drove to Vidal. After having all the fun she could handle, the wheel was given back to Bruce. That is the most boring stretch of road! When one's not totally awake in the first place, it's really not good. :-)
The trip was uneventful all the way to Lost Hills on I-5 when we hit the wall of people. Where did everyone come from? Feeling the urge to relieve oneself, we hit the MickieD's for Geri. The line for the ladies restroom was enough to cause her to get back in the truck and just say, "Go!" Can't, for the life of me, figure out why so many of the rest areas were closed through Arizona and California to this point. But it sure makes for a long wait at the fast food restaurants. Fortunately, the next rest area we came to was open.
Have you ever heard about how much Geri dislikes public bathrooms let alone rest areas? For the life of me, I can't understand why women persist in peeing all over the toilet seat! Mom taught me how to make my own seat liners as soon as I was out of diapers. How difficult is that, ladies? I HATE sitting in someone else's urine even if it has an ass gasket or two over it! Gross!
Anyway, back on the freeway, the back-up started. First it was valley fog, then it was rain. Do Californians not know how to drive in rain or what?! I know - California, a whole 'nother planet. Our thought was to stop for the night at or north of Sacramento. Ha! After bumper-to-bumper traffic for hours, we made it to about an hour south of Sacramento when Bruce pulled off the road and into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express. His fun meter was pegged, and Geri's butt was shot. What a way to start this trip! Sure hope tomorrow is a better day.
Tuesday - December 29
This day will go down in our memories forever - literally! Where to start. We were on the road at 6 a.m. Ugh! I-5 was moving pretty fast, and we made it through Sacramento without a problem even though there was some semi-dense fog most of the way. Yea! Onward! The road was clear and dry all the way past Mt. Shasta. It wasn't until we reached Mt. Ashland that the fun started.
"It's snowing!," said Geri excitedly. "Yea, this is cool!," she continued. "It ain't cool 'til we're home, Babe," came Bruce's reply. "We've driven in snow before," thought Geri. "No big deal. It'll be fine." That was partially true. All was fine until we reached about mile marker ?? in Oregon. The snow turned from big wet flakes to bigger wet flakes and started sticking. We have four-wheel drive, it'll be fine. The problem is, 85% of the people on the road didn't belong there! They were freaked! Giving them their just due, the storm was not called for and they were unprepared. But, here we were in rush-hour traffic in a crippling snow storm. Traffic came to a screeching halt. Sometimes we got up to two miles an hour! Woo hoo! We're making progress now. LOL One problem - Geri had to go potty. "Can you make it to our normal stop in Washington?," Bruce asked. "I think so, I'll try," said Geri. After half-an-hour and only two miles, Geri came back with a "Nope, this ain't gonna work." Luckily, the Visitors' Info/rest area was only a couple of miles ahead. Half-an-hour more, we pulled into the rest area. Thank God for this place!
Relieved and back on the road, we crept along with everyone else. We turned the radio on to the local news station reporting the nightmare ahead of us. People were abandoning their cars - on the flipping roads! Tow companies were 60 calls behind in some cases, road crews couldn't get to a hill to sand it because of the abandoned cars, semis were jackknifed here and there, and accidents of course. The back-up we were in was now 23 miles long from Portland south. Ashland had been closed shortly after we came over. OMG. "Let's get a motel and go for it in the morning," suggested Geri. "No, we're going home if it takes us all night," said Bruce. Geri shifted to the other side of her butt and prepared for an even longer drive.
I-205 around Portland was the breeze part. We were thankful we were going northbound. Southbound was backed up from the interchange with I-5 on one end to almost the interchange with I-5 on the other end. Gads!
It took us 3 hours to go 44 miles, and 40 minutes of that drives covered 30 miles of the trip. You do the math! Not fun and not something we will do again if given a choice. We had never been in a situation like that and don't plan to be again unless there's an emergency at home. Bruce won't fly, and Geri won't ride like that again for two straight very long days. We'll have to reach a compromise.
The fun didn't end when we arrived home! We pulled in about 10:15 p.m., were going to unload what we absolutely had to and go to bed. However! As Geri was walking in, she heard a funny noise and followed the sound to a broken pipe. Ron had come over earlier in the day and turned the water, hot water and heat on for us. A very nice gesture turned out to be an opportunity in the making. So at 10:30 or so in the dark, Geri's holding a 10-million-watt (or whatever it is) flashlight over the meter at the street so Bruce can turn the water back off. We have a little cabin that was started back in 1953. Things are far from up to code and in most cases, cheaped out during installation of anything. Oh great, no water tonight for the toilet or anything else. Luckily, we had bottles of water for drinking water and brushing teeth, etc. Being as tired as we were, sleep was our only concern and the bed sure felt good. As we were laying there, we noticed how totally quiet it is at our home. No sirens, no boom cars, no traffic noises, no nothing but peace and quiet. Ahhhhhhhhh, zzzzzzzzzzzz...
Wednesday - December 30
Our internal alarms went off about 8:30. Geri crawled out of our nice warm bed and turned the heat on. Brrrrr, cold house. By 9:00, Bruce was up and headed for the hardware store to get necessary pieces to fix the broken pipe. Come to find out, the original pipe was irrigation pipe, not house pipe so we're hoping the parts work. So, here we sit waiting for the glue to do its thing so we can do ours and get the day started. Old cabins and old people don't like freezing temps, and our area has had a lot of freezing temps this month. Oh well, this too shall pass. By noon we had water! Yes! Shower time, laundry time and time for family later! Has your butt ever been so sore that it feels like your muscles feels when over-exercised? Ha! Walking today was a challenge. We are truly getting too old for this stuff.
Thursday - December 31
What an awesome day! Jen brought Kharli and Isaak over for us to spend time with, and we visited with Jen while the kids immediately tore into the toys and spread them all over the living room. Ha ha! What fun. A real treat happened when Ron stopped by for a hug while the others were here. We all had the nicest visit for the first time in two-and-a-half years. It felt so good to have all of them here. We've missed having our family together. This was the best Christmas gift we could have received, and what a wonderful way to start the new year.
The two big kids left and the two little kids helped us put up our tree and place gifts under it. The tree is a fiber-optic tree that was Geri's mothers. Bruce insisted that we save it after Mom passed away in 2003. Sure glad we did. It look beautiful in our living room, and the strangest part is, there was one of Mom's icicle ornaments left on it. It's as if she's back in our living room with us sharing our family.
My gosh those two have changed since we saw them last in June. They're still our dollies, and our bond with Kharli is a good one. Isaak isn't so sure, but we have only seen him a half-dozen times or so. He's okay 'cause his big sister is, but he's not quite as relaxed around us as she is. We'll work hard to earn his trust and love over time, and to re-establish our strong bond with Kharli.
A game that Kharli and Tymr got into was telling secrets. She's so funny and what an imagination! Do you think her Tymr was having fun, too? Oh ya!
Even though it was way too cold to go swimming, Kharli decided she had to try on her swimsuit to make sure it still fit. She put Isaak's swimsuit on him, as well, but he didn't want any part of after a couple of seconds. Beach baby, beach baby, give me your hand . . . little Miss Hollywood! Whatta ham!
Even though it rained all day while they were here, we did have enough of a break to go feed the ducks. That's always one of their favorite things to do. The ducks like it, too, of course. We took the little ones back home about 5:00 after they requested to go. They'll get comfortable with our home and us again in time, and we'll keep them for sleepovers. Our home was like a second home to Kharli for the first two years of her life. We had her often. But we're not going to push it and make them not want to come see us. We get to see our grandkids and great-grandkids on Sunday morning for breakfast if not before. Fun time!
Friday - January 1, 2010 Happy New Year!
2k10, huh? Who thought of that term? Another year and another decade. Raining and 48 degrees. Yuk! However, the good news is, the "gift" left by doves in Arizona was washed off by all the rain and snow we've had so far. LOL The house needed vacuuming after yesterday's little visitors. There were Cheerios from one end to the other and toys under the couch and sofa and . . . We had such a blast, though, and will be waiting impatiently to do it again!
Linda called from Casa Grande to wish us a happy new year. It was about 70 there and a little breezy. Oh sure! Rub it in! All of our neighbors have arrived from their trips home for the holidays. Al and Mary made their arrival today, and the only ones missing are Chuck and Marlene. We're eager to get back there to see everyone and compare notes in the sunshine, but leaving our family isn't fun.
Sunday - January 3
Yea! Our grandkids and great-grandkids came over for breakfast and to celebrate Christmas with us. As if that weren't enough, Mike and Lyndsey made a grand announcement. They had been waiting to tell us their secret face to face. As Lyndsey put it, we're going to be Tymr and Oma again! How cool is that?! We are so excited to welcome another little one into our lives. The baby is due August 21, and we can't say anything to anyone until they get finished announcing it to their friends and family. Of course, we agree. After all, this is their happy news. Lyndsey's parents were in Cambodia and would be home on January 27. Boy? Girl? Who knows. Healthy is all that counts! Oh, did I mention that Lyndsey was absolutely glowing? Mike's still adjusting to the idea and thinking about all the changes in their lives that will be happening soon. ;-)
Ron came by in the afternoon for one last hug and to share a little bit of Christmas with us. God gave Geri the best gift ever the year he was born We'll miss you, buddy, but we'll see ya in the spring.
Monday, January 4
We battened down the hatches of our little cabin and headed south again. The trip was uneventful but Geri told Bruce that if he ever wanted to drive for two days like that again, he was welcome to do so. Just pick her up at the airport on his way to the house! She ain't doin' that again and he won't fly, so there's the compromise and this isn't Let's Make a Deal! LOL
Monday - January 25
We received this picture of our newest great-grandchild who was about ten weeks old at the time of the ultrasound. The baby's daddy said he/she looks like a Gummi Bear. LOL Hi, little one! We can't wait to meet you in person! We'll be home waiting for your arrival. We have this picture taped above the TV in the trailer along with all of our other family and extended family members so we can look at them all the time.
Of course, our main topic of discussion at happy hour on this day was our news. All the ladies happily visited our wall of fame and saw not only this picture but pictures of our whole family. How cool! And so ends our holidays for this season. We are very blessed to have so many friends and family to love and who love us.
