That was nice!

Denis and I just got home from our first memorial service of someone associated with our church. A dear church member, one of the founders, beloved by many went home to be with the Lord in a very unexpected way about two weeks ago. Much of his extended family attend our church, and the pastor is his brother-in-law. Denis and I had occassional interactions with the man over the four years since we started attending Bear Creek Church. Loren was always very attentive and interested in us and our lives. It was a blessing to hear all the stories of how his quiet, supporting, generous and serving attitude touch so many lives - of his family and his friends. It was a hopeful, happy service because everyone knows that Loren's faith was rock-solid. We know that he is in the best possible place now and we will be joining him there one day. It was really nice!

My playlist

I'm sure you have noticed my new music playlist on the sidebar. You can choose which ever song you like to listen to. Just click on the one you want to hear.

Thirteen Flavors

Here is a Thursday thirteen that I have been thinking of all week. Thirteen flavors of ice cream that I want to make with the ice cream maker I got for Christmas:
1. Butter Pecan - done!
2. Coffee chocolate chip - done!
3. Vanilla - done!
4. Raspberry
5. Banana chocolate chip
6. Strawberry yogurt
7. Maple nut
8. Avocado
9. Coconut
10. Date
11. Tea
12. Pumpkin
13. Mixed spices

Thirteen flavors Denis would like me to make:
coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee.

Just kidding, he has enjoyed the three that I made so far, but I don't think he'll be too keen on some of the weird ones I have listed above. I have two ice cream cookbooks that I bought in 1988. One is a Ben and Jerry's book and the other has all the strange recipes in it. I didn't even list the really weird ones (there is one for bread ice cream). I've been wanting to try some of the more bizarre recipes for all these years but never had an ice cream maker. Thank you Denis!

Taking the challenge?

Have you heard of this? I'm thinking that I would like to do it, but I'm a bit nervous about the commitment, since I have not been a very good reader in years. It appeals to me because there is a schedule for reading and some discussion opportunities, so it would be kind of like a book club. I received Valley of Vision as a gift from my church, but I need to get to the book store to look for the first couple of books. Anyone want to join me in this?

Cleaning, or supposed to be...

I've got some of my new music in the CD player and it's nice. Shelby Lynne is kind of bluesy. Bethany Dillon was folk-ish. Now, i think it's Shelby Lynne again and its a nice mellow groovy kind of sound. This music is not motivating me to clean however, which is what I really need to do. Then I need to get some papers in order for a meeting we have next weekend with our financial adviser. Maybe I need to wait until Jonny Lang start playing so he can inspire me to get moving. What about you? Do you listen to music to help you get moving on housework?

Yay!

I ordered some new CDs from Sound and Spirit at the end of December and they finally came! I haven't listened to any of them yet, so I can't give a full report, but here are the titles:
1. Ron Block - Doorway
2. Caedmon's Call - Overdressed
3. Alison Krauss and Union Station - Lonely Runs Both Ways
4. Bethany Dillon - Waking Up
5. Jonny Lang - Turn Around
6. Shelby Lynne - Suit Yourself
7. Shelby Lynne - Identity Crisis
8. Matt Redman - Beautiful News
9. Erin O'Donnell - Christmas Time is Here

Too bad there are not 13 titles - I could have saved it for Thursday... I'm looking forward to having new music. I've been getting tired of listening to the same old stuff.

How nice!

I didn't have an early morning patient scheduled today, so I got to sleep in until 7 AM. The only problem is that I stayed up until almost 1 AM. I'm always doing that to myself!

It turned out to be a long day. I got some new projects from my boss, had a complex note to write to a doctor and didn't get out of there until 6:30 PM. Got to go to bed tonight at a decent hour...

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!

Happy Birthday, Christmas, New Year's, Anniversary!

We get most of our big holidays out of the way in a single two week span of time around here. It's really been too long since I've posted anything, I'm sorry. Thank you all my friends for your Christmas wishes on my last post. Here are some highlights in bulleted points from the last few weeks:

• I ordered Denis' annual carrot cake from Fred Meyer's because I recently had a slice that was great. I was very disappointed to realize that the cake I had tasted came from the store across town. This one was a little strange tasting. But that didn't deter Denis from eating about half of it over a few days.
• One of my Christmas presents was an electric ice cream maker! :o) So far I have made some yummy butter pecan ice cream in it.
• Denis had Christmas Eve and day off for the first time since we were married. We had a nice evening with my mom.
• Joey knocked all the ornaments off the lower branches of our tree and we gave up on putting them back up.
• Phoebe is on just one medication now and is much improved. She has gained weight and is acting like her old self. Her most recent lab results were improved, but one liver value is still a little elevated. We don't really know what caused the trouble or how long the medication with keep helping.
• Our Christmas gift to my brother and his family was a donation to Heifer International. Their gift to us was a donation to Project Chacocente. Great minds think alike, huh? (We had not discussed the ideas with each other.)
• I have started using my Nordic Track and can tell that my stamina is improving. It takes a lot of coordination to use the arm pulley together with the legs. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it. So far, I'm just doing my legs.
• Denis has not yet been able to get a decent shot of espresso out of the new coffee maker. He thinks that our grinder won't grind finely enough. Now we are waiting for our new high quality grinder to arrive by UPS.
• Denis and I are leaving for a short anniversary trip. We're going to the Oregon Coast, starting in Florence (halfway up the state) and then continuing North to the last town before crossing the Columbia River to Washington. It's supposed to be stormy the whole time we are gone, so hopefully what they say about storms at the coast is true - they are supposed to be fun to watch.

I think that's it for now.

Early Christmas

Denis and I are very excited because each of us just acquired a new toy! Here's mine:

I have completely fallen off the exercise bandwagon since about March! After I went through that wonderful 6 week period of going to the gym really regularly, I just haven't been able to get motivated to organize my stuff, drive to the gym and use the equipment. It never seems to be convenient to go during the off peak hours and I find it annoying that I can't watch what I want to on the TV or listen to my own music. SO, I'm very excited to have a piece of equipment that I can use at home. One of my coworkers had this unused and offered it to me for FREE! yay. It obviously takes up a lot of space, but it can be folded up if we need to get it out of the way.

Here is Denis' new toy:

The espresso machine that he has had for several years now seems to be giving up the ghost. So we went to Starbucks and found they had this very last unit of last year's espresso machine. It had a clearance tag on it and then they took even more off because it was not clean at the time... (I think it had something to do with me being a regular customer who they know by name) This machine is so pretty and it is a step up from the old machine. Denis is still working on getting it to give us a perfect shot of espresso, but we have faith that he will. The reviews on coffee lovers' websites are good.