Some attempts at art

Here are some pictures that I have taken in the last year. They were all taken around the Rogue River which is a world0-class fishing and rafting river here in Southern Oregon.

Five Years Ago

Five years ago today, I was getting a manicure/pedicure with my matron-of-honor.

Five years ago today, Philip put a million bobby pins in my hair to keep the pretty flowers in place.Five years ago today, we had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends, some we had not seen in many years.

Five years ago today, I was this happy.

Five years ago today, Denis was this relieved that it was all over.

Five years ago today, we took vows to love and cherish each other, in good and bad, sickness and health, a serious covenant we were reminded of this week when we attended the beautiful wedding of our pastor's oldest son.

Five years ago today, we were pronounced husband and wife.

It's almost Christmas!

Well, it's Christmas Eve. The presents are all bought and (almost) all wrapped and under the tree. The cats are waiting for all the action to begin... I thought I'd put up a bit of Christmas music on the blog to get us all in the mood. These are all from Sufjan Steven's 5 disc set that we own. I love his sound - it's a nice change from the usual stuff. I hope you're having a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones around you.

Two weeks ago, we went to get our trees along with my mom.

Denis didn't have to work and it was so nice to have him along to man the saw. He's much stronger than my mom and I. We were very impressed with how quickly he muscled right through our little trees.

Here we are with our tree.

And here it is all decorated. Joey has not been messing with the tree as much this year. But he seems to really enjoy pine-scented water to drink... And a few ornaments have "fallen" off during the nights.

What I did on my winter vacation

Well, as was promised by the weather forecasts, we did have stormy weather for just about our entire trip. Because of that (and poor planning), the camera didn't come out except for a couple of days. At any rate, we started out in Florence on the central Oregon coast and had a rainy evening looking around the old town of Florence. We had dinner reservations at a place recommended by the hosts of our B and B, but we drove around aimlessly in the dark to kill some time before hand. The hosts were very friendly and we'd love to go back to explore old town Florence when the weather is decent.

Day two was traveling from Florence to Cannon Beach and stopping to see anything of interest on the way. It was quite a long drive on historic Hwy 101 with windy and rain most of the way. Wind gusts reached 85 mph that day along the coast and we felt some of them when we stopped at the Sea Lion Caves. The visitor's center is up on top of a bluff, so the full force of the wind propelled us across the parking lot and into the building. Since neither of us had ever been down into the cave, we paid the $ to see it. I found it a bit disconcerting to be in a cave at sea level on a stormy day, but it was worth seeing. The scariest driving for me came after dark on the last stretch of road. It was really pouring and the road is very curvy and in need of repair on that stretch. There always seemed to be a car behind me wishing that I would speed up, but we finally made it.

We stayed two nights in Cannon Beach, so there was enough time to catch some pictures in between rain clouds:

Cannon Beach is known for having large rocks just off shore, the most famous of which is called Haystack Rock.

This picture of the Tillamook Rock lighthouse is the best one showing the wind-blown white caps coming in on the beach. The lighthouse is only accessible by boat and during it's operation was very difficult to maintain. Some waves actually crash over the entire lighthouse and would extinguish the light. It was decommissioned at some point and is now used to store cremated remains.
The obligatory photos of us... :o)

So, our final coastal drive was the short distance from Cannon Beach to Astoria. Astoria is the oldest permanent city west of the Mississippi! We didn't make it to the Fort Clatsop reconstruction due to the weather, so this is also on our list of places to return to. It promptly started to snow right after we checked into our hotel.


The weather was nicer the next day, allowing for this scenic photo.

We did explore the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria which documents the history of the precarious waters where the Columbia River meets with the Pacific Ocean ("the graveyard of the pacific") We read fascinating stories of the Coast Guard activities and rescues. Also very interesting is that specially trained ship pilots guide all of the ships the pass through here - one group to navigate the river and another group navigates the "Columbia Bar", the area where river meets ocean. The bar pilot must board and leave the ship via a ladder - climbing from and descending onto a pilot boat. This is a very hazardous line of work - it's amazing that they do that!!
This retired lightship is permanently docked at the maritime museum. It used to be anchored beyond the river in the Pacific.

We ended up by driving to Portland and staying one night there before we headed back home. The highlight in Portland was dessert at Pix Patisserie - Yummo!

New Haircut

My hair was getting pretty long and it was frazzled at the ends, so I decided it was time for a big change. I went darker with the color and got it cut much shorter. Here it is still styled by my hair stylist. I really like how nice and smoothly straight she gets it. Fortunately, Denis actually prefers it the way I do it, which is without much effort put in! It took me several attempts at self-portraiture to get one I was satisfied with.

Recent pics

Well, I'm going to try to make these worth the wait... Here are some scenic and family pictures from the past couple of weeks. We had my brother Jim visit for a week and took him up to Crater Lake. I hadn't been there in a few years. It was a beautiful day, so the lake was reflecting the blue sky. The Mt. Hood pictures are from a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!

Men at Work

No, they didn't sing any songs from down under. While T and I were working on the organization front, our husbands were doing some jobs in the rental house. The main task accomplished was putting on a new screen door. It turned out to be more complicated than they initially thought and Denis was very glad for the help.

Shocking!

As you may have figured out (if you are a regular to my blog and those of my friends...) that T came down for a visit this past weekend. I had teased her that she was welcome to come and organize my house after doing such a good job on her own. Well, T took the challenge. She brought her hubby with her on a rare visit with no kids in tow. GMJ graciously had the kids for the time. Denis and I put them both to work. We shamelessly took advantage of their free labor. And I'm happy to report that a LOT got done and we all had a great time! Here are the "after" shots.
The office (AKA "the red room"), seen in a recent post in it's former state of chaos.

The "guest room" which up till now was in no state to receive guests. This was the room that did not appear in the house tour post last year. Sorry, there are no "before" pictures for this room.


Now we are all ready for YOU to come for a visit. We have a lovely room waiting for you. :o)

Cleaning bug

So, T got me inspired the other day to do some cleaning in my office (AKA "the red room"). She has been a cleaning machine lately. She posted some nice slick "after" pictures of her bedroom and the play room that she cleaned. Everything is all nice and tidy. You can go see them here.

Another inspiration was that I'm having my annual review at work next week and I can't find some of the papers that I need to fill out my paperwork for it. So I shuffled through piles of papers on my floor and threw a bunch of stuff away. Denis was very impressed. The sad thing is, this is my "after" picture...

Manual labor

Well, we have been doing a lot of planning, thinking about and working on the rental house that we are in the process of buying from my brother. We are to sign the final papers this week, so it's almost a done deal. This is the back of the house - the view from my mom's house. The deck needs a new coat of some sort of sealer, but that can wait until a future date for now. This walnut tree is a bit ill and we suspect that it will need to be removed at some point.

The most recent renters were a bit hard on the place and so we are in the process of making the arrangements to have some improvements and repairs done. The most important is to replace the carpet that has been soiled with cat urine. We think that these stairs are the offenders. Once this carpet is removed with padding and the floor sealed, we will be able to sniff out if there are other sections of carpet that are also bad.

We are having the whole place painted, of course. The dining room hard wood floor is badly scratched and worn, so we're having laminate put in. A few light fixture changes are already done. The major work we are having done by a contractor that our property manager recommends. But the bathrooms we are repainting ourselves. They were very dark with teal paint, so we are lightening them up with a lighter teal-ish blue color. The first coat is done now.

My mom provides free labor as well. Here she is cleaning out one of the paint rollers after our hard days' labor. Hopefully is a week or two we will be all set for new renters.

So that's what I've been up to lately. It seems like just one thing after another...

Some more pictures

Here are some random pictures from our vacation that needed a little more explanation. (Keep going for another new post.)

This fence was in Jackson, WY. Every other post is an old ski. A cool fence, but expensive...

Trust me, Dick Cheney is in there somewhere. He was in Jackson on the 4th and we were sitting across the street from him for the parade. This was the crowd gathered to try to shake his hand before the parade started. See the guys in dark glasses facing the wrong way? There is a guy clear on the left hand side of the pic in a cowboy hat and a light colored shirt. There were three guys dressed like that - just like Mr. Cheney.

Here is an out of focus fireworks shot I kept because I thought it looked cool.

Metal Moose greets us in Courdelaine, ID
We read about this place in a Montana tourist guidebook. It's located in a very small town on the Indian reservation. See below for the story behind it.

During the final song of the Fourth of July concert in the park, everyone stood up, cheered and waved flags. I looked to my left and just saw a lot of red, white and blue, so I zoomed in to fill the scene with it.

Cast Your Vote

These four pictures are different compositions of the same view in Teton National Park. Which one do you like the best?

Travels

Here are a bunch of photos from our trip. I made the show go fast since there are a lot of pics there. If you put your cursor over a picture, you will get a brief description. You can also watch it more slowly if you want to by clicking on the button that says "view all images". Enjoy!