Week 50 - Oregon City - December12- December 18, 2022

We made Christmas ornaments again this year - actually we painted ceramic ornaments.  Warren found a new place that is off of Sunnybrook road...might be a part of the old Scouter's Mountain. My ornament is an orange snowflake and dad's is an orange truck.  We get them back next week.

The weather forecast showed below freezing mornings this week...meaning...it's time to defrost the freezer.  So much easier when you can put the frozen food outside for the night.

Jessica's 49th birthday (how is that possible???) was on Friday.  We went to PDX Sliders which was actually very tasty and....expensive.

Saturday was the big football game - a bowl Game - in Las Vegas.  OSU played the Florida Gators - I have no idea which Florida university the gators go to.  We won!!!!!! 30 to 3.  I will not mention that the Gators, even though they are SEC teams, hav recently lost about 49 players to the transport portal....for going professional or to another school.  so our vicgtory isn't as sweet as if we were playing their "non-depleted_ team.  It was a good fun game (if you win they are all fun).  We watched it at Warrens.

Saturday evening we had a family recital - encouraged by Dolores who is now teaching Warren's kids, Travis's kids and Clara.  Our neighbor, Patty Foley teaches piano to Jude and Clara. Most everyone who plays anything participated.  I played my guitar.

We celebrated Jessica's birthday Sunday evening.  Warren made a sinfully good brownie.

Sunday December 18th, 2002 was a memorable day.  It was our 55th wedding anniversary.  I can hardly believe it.  Dad can hardly believe it.  We we got married, I couldn't even imagine being 5 years old.  but here we are.  Dad got me two pairs of wonderful insulated gloves so I can work in the wet NS freeze my fingers.

I got him/us a canvas piece of art..  It is by LDA artist, Brent Borup.  It is a modernistic presentation of The First Vision.  It is as I would envision it.  It is hanging in the living room.

 Week 49 - Oregon City - December 5-December 11, 2022

This week will be pretty easy to document - didn't do too  many things.

The main event was the surgery on my left eye to repair an eye muscle that was elongated and scarred by an autoimmune system that made too much thyroid hormone.   I had surgery on Tuesday and then took a photo every day until Sunday morning.   None of the photos are attractive, so it is hard for me to post them.

right after surgery

On Saturday Warren and I and Ruby, Jane, Holland, Coper went to Corvallis for an exhibition match for Women's Gymnastics.  It was fun.  The kids were perfect.  We went to a reception afterwards for a meet and greet....both Warren and I wanted to get a photo with Jade Carey, but I didn't want to be one of "those people".

Saturday evening was the Ward Christmas Party.  It was g=really nice - great food, decorations, and music.  Guess who was Santa?????

Sunday morning Jessica and Bev played beautifully in Sacrament Meeting.....as usual.

 Week 48 - Oregon City - November 28-December 4, 2022

The weeks go by so FAST!

We got our Christmas tree - it's a natural Grand Fir.  If you look at it from the right direction, it looks pretty good.  From the wrong side, it is kind of wonky.

With the decorations, it looks really  nice!

Our angel is --- it's a rabbit --- that is ...Miwok!

Bunnies in the branches.

Bunnies standing guard at the base of the tree.

We went to dinner at Warren's one night and watched as he assembled his tree, and then the kids decorated it.

Warren had purchased supplies to make "winter care packages" for homeless people who are out in the cold.  We helped make ten.  Our assignment is to give one away this holiday season....Warren will do the remaining nine.

My weekly blog wouldn't be complete without photos from the woods.  One perfectly sunny day I used the ATV and trailer and brought us six loads of branches.  In recent walks through the woods, I had gathers branches and made piles all over.  It was pretty easy to drive to the piles, load them up, bring them up, and BURN them.  Burn season, for me, is over!

Another day when it wasn't raining or freezing cold, I went to Bottle Creek and cleaned out under the big fallen log.  It doesn't seem like it should be hard, but it was...supper muddy, bending over, slippery, three layers of buried bottles in the mud.   But I finally broke through, and the water from the spring started to flow under the log.

One day Tyler came over and saved us......he, with Dad holding the ladder, cleaned out the gutters on the barn and brushed off all the debris from the roof.  I did it last year and so really appreciated his help.

Ruby and Jane came over too and wanted to rake.  Got the rakes out, and they went to work....for about five minutes.  But, they did put the rakes away.

On Friday we had Cursive Class again.  This time Tyler joined us.  I had written a short story to each kid.  Each one was different - I told about my bicycle named "Fury", the time I sang "Davy Crockett" at a company picnic - and others.  Then I had short poems from Shel Silverstein for them to copy using cursive.  It was a bit too hard; next time I will make it easier.

On Saturday there were concerts at ACA.  Each group performed and did very nicely.  It's interesting that, while a tiny charter school like ACA has three levels of orchestra, piano, guitar, and band, the city's public school have nothing - they prob have a pep band.

Warren made a Christmas cake for Sunday dinner.  No special occasion - he's just trying out different styles of Christmas cakes.