The Cabin May 2009

Don and I went up to our cabin on Thursday morning. It was beautiful. We played and we worked. On Thursday we drove around the lake and did a couple of short walks. Friday morning was lots of yard works. Then, in the afternoon we took our small boat to the lake. The weather was so perfect, I just wanted to enjoy the Great Outdoors. With a bottle of wine (soda for DB) and a few snacks, my camera and a fishing rod, we set out to enjoy the lake before volumes of people came up for the weekend. The lake a glassy and the temperature was perfect. While Don fished I kicked back and enjoyed myself.

Check out the photo of the local Eagle. I was so excited to find it flying into the tree. I managed to take pictures of other birds (ducks, geese and heron), but none as exciting as the eagle.

While I sipped wine and took pictures, Don managed to catch a trout, a bass and a crappie. When he caught the trout, he seemed a bit irritated because he said that he was fishing for crappie. I guess the fish is supposed to know what he wants to catch. We actually had the crappie for breakfast on Saturday. It was delicious.

On Saturday, Don worked in the yard in the morning. I resisted doing too much because I become driven when I go outside with a chain saw. We did lots of trimming and the outdoors is really coming together. After lunch we headed off to hike to Fresno Dome. It is a long drive on some pretty bad roads. We had never gone there before, so it was our adventure. When we got there, we started hiking, but we actually started hiking the wrong way. So, the first 45 minutes go us no where. Once we figured out what we had done wrong, the hike was fairly easy. The end of it was steep, but old slow and steady did just fine. The altitude at Fresno Dome is 8000 feet, so we did have snow and slush deal with, but it was dry at the top of the Dome.

Rachel and Andy came up on Saturday. They plan to marry at Yosemite in May 2010. I'm looking forward to that event. It was nice to visit with them.

Here are some of the pictures from our weekend. I'm sorry I didn't take any of us grooming the forest. We did a really good job of that too. Enjoy!

Birds on the Lake

The Eagle

Trout

Crappie

Bass

A Day on the Bay

Another beautiful day on the bay today. It was 80 degrees by 10 AM. So, Debbie and Rachel came into town for a visit and Captain DB said he would take us on a tour of the bay. The pictures speak for themselves. The water was glassy.

Don't the girls look great!

Here is a picture of DB. I had to show that he did take a fishing rod out for a quick try durning our lunch break. Speaking of our lunch break, we had wonderful cheese that cousin Krystin gave us last weekend and we had fruit left over from the shower. Yum. I do love food and it was a perfect combo. Oh, we had a few cookies left from the shower too.

Bridal Shower for Laurel's Roommate - Erica

Laurel and Katie gave Erica a bridal shower. Here are the three of them looking great together. The shower was at my house and we had a lot of fun. It was good to see all of their friends. The big day is July 11th.
Here is the yummy tea that Laurel and Katie put together. It was wonderful.

Here is Erica with her mother who came out from Minnesota for the shower.

The Book of John

Today was the last day of bible study. We studied the book of John this year. John's objective was to share information about the ministry of Jesus in order that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing this we may have eternal life. I like this study because it focuses on the bottom line that Jesus is our Savior and he loves us.

I took two pictures at CBS today. The first one is of my dear friend Matilda who at 97 comes to bible study every week and inspires so many of us. What a great attitude she has. I hope I can be as inspirational as she is when I'm 97.

This is a picture of our teaching director Chris, a volunteer with a heart for Jesus. Every week she puts in many hours of time researching information for a lecture based on the scripture that we studied that day. She has endless energy and I appreciate all that she gives to the 120+ women that do bible study.

We are now on break for the summer. We will return in September and dig into the book of Genesis. Let me know if you want to join us.

Walking in San Francisco. Hot! Hot! Hot!

Jeanie and I planned to walk in the city before we knew that it would be 95 degrees today. But, we picked a perfect spot to walk. You start at Sutro Baths (that is the picture below) and you walk over to China Beach. It is all part to Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA). The trail along the coast is wonderful. The last picture (featuring Jeanie) was taken at China Beach. There were young mothers frolicing with their children in the water. Now when does that happen in San Francisco? When we arrived we noticed a hawk pearched in a tree. Since I only had my pocket camera, I didn't get a real close up, but I liked seeing a hawk at the seashore. Jeanie and I finished off our 2 hour walk with lunch at the Beach Chalet. What a nice day. We cruised in SF in the convertible and then I actually decided to do top down all the way home. I really don't love hot weather, but every once in a while, it is just fine. What a delightful day! We wish you could have joined us.

Easter 2009

We spent Easter at our cabin. This year was special because Rachel (our niece) just got engaged to Andy who joined us at Cascadel. They drove up to Yosemite to look at wedding venues. Laurel joined them and took great pictures. Debbie and I went for lots of walks and Steve and DB went to the lake to kill trout. And they did a fine job at it too.

Here we are for our traditional pose in the back yard. Aren't we a fine looking group?

Turkeys are taking over the world and it is no different at our cabin. Joe and Karen, across the street from us, have lots of turkeys in their back yard. Turkey's are really beautiful! This one had lots of girl turkeys following him around.

Here we are on one of our walks. This is the top of the falls.

I had to include a picture of Rachel and Andy in Yosemite. Aren't they an adorable couple?They are in front of the little chapel here. This is such a beautiful place for a wedding.

I love this location so I had to include this great pictures of cousins!

Don and I stayed at the cabin until Monday night and contributed to the air pollution , which we figure adds to Don job security. We burned a forest of pine needles. At least it seemed like a forest of pine needles. We both went home with sore muscles. Racking pine needles is tough work.
What a lovely Easter.

No Wildflowers but a found Green Jacket

Don and I joined Paula and Chet to view the spectacular wildflowers that should be in full bloom at this time of year out of San Jose, over the Mt Hamilton Road, past Junction and down into the Livermore Valley. Since the rains have been great this year, we figured the wildflowers would be great too. Well, that really didn’t happen. In fact, the wildflowers were better last year (a drought year) than this year. Four years ago, the flowers were really outstanding. So, the flowers from 4 years ago are the pictures that I am posting, because I want you to see what they should have been. Even without great flowers, we had a beautiful tour.

Now on to the most interesting part of our “wildflower” tour. Last year we stopped in the Junction Cafe for lunch during our wildflower tour. I left a favorite green jacket there and didn’t realize it until we were 15 miles away. I decide I could live without it and just decided to forget about the jacket. When we stopped at the Junction Café for a break today, Paula decided to ask if they had the green jacket in the lost and found. Now keep in mind that this Café, is a very small, biker bar, café and post office. The woman Paula asked tends bar, takes food orders and is probably the postmaster. She knew about the jacket as soon as Paula asked. She said that they had kept the green jacket for a long time. She knew exactly who had left it, stating that she knew we weren’t regulars. But, when we didn’t come back, she had taken it home. She was so apologetic. She loves the jacket and didn’t think we would ever come back. I told her she shouldn’t worry about it and should keep wearing it. I was so glad that this woman liked my favorite green jacket so much that she would take it home. What a happy ending to a lost jacket story. My green jacket is happy and alive and living in the country. I’m glad we went to find wildflowers. They weren’t there, but we found the lost jacket and it lived happily ever after.

I'm home, but a few more Portland pictures!

Grandma is now back from Portland. I had such a wonderful time visiting, playing, reading books, playing computer games with the girls and helping with moving. Maryn and Lucy are constantly busy and so adorable.

This picture is the first day in the house. The girls are using their new water play toy in the kitchen. These next two pictures are of Maryn. She just fell asleep. I sometimes felt like this. She just got so tired that she stopped and closed her eye.

I love this picture because Maryn feel asleep on the computer while playing a video. She was such a tired girl. The move was exhausting for everyone, even the kids.

Here are Jess and her mother painting. Now they should have been the ones that were sleeping. They worked really hard. By the way, I saw the finished room on Skype today. Jess even installed new closet kits. She is claiming this house as her home.

I love this picture taken in their kitchen. When Jess first arrived, she hung 3 of my mother dish towels on her oven. They were embroidered by my mother. That was a nice touch.

Grandma having fun with the girls

This has been a very busy week. Chris & Jess moved into a house today. Here are some of the things we have done with Maryn and Lucy this week. They don't seemed to be phased at all by the move. In fact, they love the new house. We all do.

Here they are in the play area at the mall. Nothing seems to slow them down. Here they are playing in their water play toy in their new back yard.

Maryn got new in-line skates and took to them right away.

Now this is the amazing picture. Lucy put on Maryn's skates by herself and just stood up and skated on her own. She is 19 months, weights just under 20 lbs., had open heart surgery 1 year ago and is such a go getter.

This video just cracks me up. Lucy is just starting to say words. She loves to sing. So listen to

her sing and dance "Deep and Wide" with sissy as she calls her.

During the move we haven't always had the perfectly balanced meals that we would have liked, but here is proof that we really did remember to feed Lucy. I would show pictures of Maryn eating, but she doesn't eat very much and she certainly isn't willing to pose very much.