New Project

John brought home some pictures from work he wants me to scan so he can have a big poster printed out. They are a series of photos pasted together to make panoramas showing the progress of the construction of the power plant from 1981 to 2002. The originals have been hanging on a wall at the plant and are getting faded and worn and soon they will be too faded to see. I spent the day scanning them in and cleaning up and erasing the joints where the photos join. Lots of work!

Old Trucks

Our neighbors have a cool old truck on their property and I braved the freezing temperatures to walk over and snap a few pictures of it this afternoon. The sky is overcast and it looks like a storm is coming in, wish it would warm up a bit! The guys still haven't come to fix the ETS heater and it's getting cold in here!

The Annual Saddle Exchange

Every other year we have custody of a saddle that belonged to John's grandpa. We figure it must be over 100 years old. Tonight we had our annual get-together with the cousins that have the saddle during the time we don't to exchange it. It's always fun to get together with them and catch up on what they've been doing. We took them to the new restaurant in town, where we all tried the enchiladas. They were okay, but not as good as Booga Reds.

Bye Bye Rat Poison!

Yea, John has been released by the doctor. Doc says he is doing great, the last x-ray showed that the infarcted area of his lung is healing and clearing up and all signs of the blood clots are gone! So, he doesn't need to take Coumadin anymore! (Coumadin is basically the same thing that's in rat poison, it stops the blood from clotting) He had to stop taking it a week ago so he could have his dental crown replaced, and we were hoping the doc would tell him he didn't need to start up again.

Sunday

Jessie and I had fun today. We went shopping for some earbuds for my MP3, the ones that came with it were hurting my ears. Then we got pizza at Safeway and made a pie and had a yummy lunch. We played with our cameras and took some goofy pictures of us. Here's one Jessie took.

She had so much fun taking pictures of her napping Pa, she says he's so cute when he's asleep.

LOL, bet you thought it was going to be a photo of his face! (She was playing ring toss with the pillows, throwing them at his legs.)

On the way to take her home, she took this mug shot of her elephant, she said he'd been bad, so she had to get some police shots of him.


It was a fun weekend! All pictures here were taken by Jessie, I haven't downloaded mine from the camera yet.

Here's a poem Jessie wrote this weekend. She learned about acrostic poems in in school recently and wanted to share with us. We would write the word for her and she came up with the poem. She even talked me into writing a few, it was fun!

How I love horses, they're always
Of beauty. Horses aren't
Rare. They can be
Skittish because they are scared. They
Eat hay and horse treats. I
Still love horses even if they are expensive.

She does love horses and was so happy that she got to help Sue feed Misty and Santana this weekend.

We saw these antelope (pronghorns) on the way to Vernon and stopped on the way home to take their picture.

Visitors

Andy and Jessie came over today, Andy to help John work on the camper and Jessie to spend the night with us.

While the guys were busy Jessie and I had fun taking photos. At least two of my granddaughters take after me, they love to take pictures, what fun for me when they come to visit!

Here's one of Jessie's pictures, she arranged the vegetables and fruit and decided on the photo angle herself, I love it!

Wishes

For a long time now, all winter long and every spring when the winds start howling, I've wished for a dome to cover our property to keep us nice and snug. Just before Christmas I checked out a book by Stephen King from the library that has made me rethink this! The name of the book is Under The Dome and it's the story of a town that had this happen. Of course, they can't get out and my dome was going to have doors, but still, things I'd never thought of, pollution, no fresh air coming in, no moisture, all kinds of things that hadn't entered my rosy dome thoughts. So . . . maybe I'll stop wishing for a dome! Or, maybe I'll just make mine a magic dome that takes care of all that stuff! I finished the book last night, it's over 1,000 pages, whew!

New glasses and Gas Prices

I finally got my new glasses! It's so hard to get the prescription right for me, RK surgery years ago has made my eyes fluctuate and so my prescription and vision aren't stable. Every year, I get the new glasses and have to go back and have the prescription redone. This year, when the prescription didn't work, the doctor went about it more scientifically. He had me come back several times, in the afternoon as well as the morning. He discovered that my eyes are worst in the mornings and if I get my eyes checked then, the prescription isn't going to work the rest of the day. And of course I usually make my appointments early in the morning! He told the receptionist not to let me do that anymore, LOL, so hopefully next year we won't have to go through this!

Here's what gas is costing us now, I wonder how high it will be a year from now?

Go Elks!

When I got up this morning, I was still sore from working out a bit to hard yesterday, so I took today off. It's hard to get up and go to the gym so early in the morning, (between 5 and 5:30) but I think it's doing me some good, I'm getting stronger! I lift weights and do at least a mile on the Elliptical most days, they are closed on the weekends so we take them off. John goes with me on his days off, it's much easier to go when he goes with me! (He warms the car up and turns on the seat heaters, such a sweet guy!)

We had to get the radiator replaced in the Acura, it's been leaking for a while now and making the car run rough, I never would have thought that being low on antifreeze would make a car idle rough, but it did this one! We picked up the car this afternoon and on the way home, I stopped and took this picture of Snoopy and the gang cheering on our Elks. I've been driving past this window for a couple of years now, thinking every time I did that I should stop and take a picture, it makes me smile every time I see it!

Evergeen

I love my evergreen trees! In the summer, I can stand under them and hear the special sound they make as the breeze blows through their needles and smell their wonderful smell and feel I am in the forest. In the winter, their green needles cheer me, a touch of life in a cold dead garden and a reminder that not everything sleeps in the cold winter outdoor world.

Orange Slices

Can't have Christmas without having some Orange Slices around. Yumm! I put the leftover slices in baggies and put them in the freezer today. They'll be waiting until one of us has an Orange Slice attack later on. John had bad luck with them, he was chewing one the other day and it pulled out one of his caps! Luckily the tooth has had a root canal, so there has been no pain. We're still waiting on the dentist to get back from his holiday vacation so I can make an appointment for him. He stopped taking Coumadin today, anticipating that the dentist will have to do some cutting on his gums to put it back in.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom! Carleen Sandy and I helped her celebrate by eating out at China Garden. We were a bit disappointed in the food, it didn't have much flavor. But they did give her a musical birthday card, that was sweet of them!

Andy's family took the quilt we made to her after she got home and she told me that was the perfect end to a great day, she loved it and loved that Andy thought of her and instigated the project.

Holiday Gifts

Jessie gave John and I these cute little animals for Christmas. Santa Bear is John's and Rudolph is mine.

Happy New Year!

It's 2010! I wonder how long it is going to take me to learn to write 2010 and not 2009? I always have a hard time changing.

I have decided to try and complete project 365 this year. Project 365 is taking a photo each and every day of the year! I started last year, but I was late starting and forgot some days, this year I'm going to try and remember!

I took the tree down today, good to have that done, now to get the rest of the Christmas stuff put away!

I saw this beautiful moon shining through my window tonight and had to go out and take a photo. Wow, it was so bright!

New Year's Eve

It's the last day of 2009, this year has flown by so fast. Every year seems a bit shorter to me as we whiz down life's road! We had more snow on the ground this morning when we got up, burr, it looks cold out. Here's a shot of Big Jim with a light covering of snow.


We didn't do much to celebrate the New Year, John had to leave for work at 5 am the next morning, so we ate some chili, watched TV and went to bed early. I didn't hear any fireworks or guns at midnight, maybe I just slept right through it.

The Birds!

John and I took the new pickup (Big Jim) out to check the speedometer and on the way back into town, we stopped to watch some birds. We saw probably at least 50 ravens and a few eagles, flying and landing. We watched an eagle chasing after a raven with food in it's beak, he dropped it and all the birds tried to catch it in mid-air, but they didn't get it and it fell to the ground, pretty cool!

The weather continues to be COLD, this is the coldest December I can remember in a long time. We still have snow on the ground from before Christmas and our ETS heater is having a hard time keeping the house warm. We've had to turn the furnace up to get it warm for the first time since we put in the ETS heater. This is one of the chairs at our sidewalk cafe, burrr!

Finishing the Quilt

Andy and Jessie came over today, Andy helped John put another panel on the camper he is remodeling into an art hauler and Jessie helped me finish up Mom's quilt. We think it turned out pretty fantastic looking! I think Mom is going to love it!

Jessie wore her new pink leather coat over to show us. She looks so cute in it!

Family Dinner and Bowling

Mom invited us down for a last dinner before Trish and Sam go home in the morning. We all had a great time, good food and a fun evening. We played with Sam and Trish's new Wii and had a family bowling tournament. I was surprised that I did well. John even joined in and he and Sam had the highest scores! Here's our WiiMii's, can you guess who is who?

Leaving Day

Charles and Nikki left this morning about 8, photo was taken just before they left. Miss you guys already!

Snow

Dec 26, 2009

The snow is sticking around, it's been so cold it's not melting.

It's Christmas!

We waited until John got home from work, then opened our gifts. We all got some cool stuff! Nikki was our little elf handing out the gifts for us.







Charles and Nikki gave us this cool basket loaded with goodies to eat, yumm, we tried out one of the pancake mixes for breakfast, they were so good!



Nikki made this mug for her Dad, how sweet!




We spent the morning visiting with John until he went to nap, then we went to St. Johns to visit. Wii's were the popular gift and everyone had fun playing! Here's Nikki up to bat.




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Christmas Eve Day

Wheeee!
Nikki and Jessie out skating on the road in front of our house. What a slippery world we woke up to this morning!

Andy and the rest of his family came over after the roads cleared up and we all worked on Grandma's quilt. Everyone worked on it and we got it almost finished! Because it's so small we had to take turns.

Then we took everyone out to lunch at the new resturant in the old Casa Malpais musuem building. I can't remember the name, but it has good food and the prices are great!

We opened our gifts from Andy's family and they opened theirs from us, Mom and Carleen came up to visit and we had a great time!

Nikki opening her Christmas Eve gift. She got the most adorable slippers!

Oh How Many Feet We Meet!

Don't you love Jessie's socks, LOL!




Pa, Nikki and Jessie's feet.



A while back Andy called me with an idea, he wanted to make a quilt for Grandma, she has gifted us all with so many beautiful quilts over the years and he wanted to do one for her. We kicked around several ideas and threw some out due to our limited experience with quilt making and he went shopping and brought the fabric over here because I have the quilting frames. I put the quilt on today and Nikki and Jessie learned the technique so fast! Here they are working on it.

Looks like it's going to be a white Christmas!

We got snow tonight! It had been spitting snow at us off and on all day, then it got serious about 7 pm and really started coming down. The girls bundled up and went out to play. What fun! Charles and Nikki got here just in time, Andy reported it started snowing in ShowLow soon after they would have passed through! Glad they are safely here!

Christmas Lights

We delivered gifts to our Mom's in St. Johns today, then picked up Jessie. She's going to stay for a few days so she can visit with Nikki. The girls always have a good time together. Reminds me of when I was a girl and loved spending time with my cousin.
We drove around town looking at lights this evening. Having Jessie along made it so much fun! She oo'd and aa'd over the lights. Living where she does, she says she doesn't get to see many houses all lit up. One house was playing music and the lights flashed on and off in time. That was our favorite.

Time Flies!

Wow, time has a way of flying by way too fast for me and I haven't posted here in way too long! So finally, here is a new post. Here's a cute photo of Jessie giving Santa a hug. Andy and Jessie were over visiting today and Santa was at the drug! How lucky! I took her down to see him and she loved him. The store photographer got a photo of her with Santa and later when we went back in the cabin while he was outside, he let her hold his reindeer and sit in his chair so I could take her photo and she gave him a hug to thank him. Western Drug has built a one room log cabin inside their store, it's so cute I want to move in!

New Ride

We got a call from Nelson this week saying he'd spotted a pickup like we're looking for at an auction and did we want him to bid on it. We did and this time he won and we got our pickup. We went down to pick it up today. It's a 2007 GMC Sierra 4 x 4, 1 ton, crew cab, long bed and wow, it's huge! We decided not to wait to get the plates to name him, we're going to call him Big Jim. He should pull our rig all loaded up with ease!