Shiloh and Triangle Tina

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas ... big dinner with turkey, ham, cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, rosemary potatoes, fresh cranberry sauce, giblet gravy, broccoli and rolls. Helen and Ed came over and stayed to play with Helen's photos from her digital camera. Some of the pics I'll be posting up here have come from her snapshots over this past year. Its cool to see her becoming comfortable with digital toys :) Yesterday I drove over to the west side of town and went by Rob and Nomi's house. I was thinking to drop off their Christmas box and then continue on my errands, but Nomi was home and Shiloh was napping and then pretty soon Rob came home and Shiloh got up to visit. Ryan and I made dolls for Shiloh and Sadie for Christmas. Shiloh's doll is named Triangle Tina. She's full of 100% cotton to make for good chewing. Her hair is tubes of quilting cotton and as you can see she is quite a hit. I was very pleased :)

And this is an awesome picture :) Shiloh and Dad ...

Shiloh and Santa

Rob says "About 30 seconds after this she looked at him and started crying a little bit. Reminded me of "A Christmas Story", we got pics of that too. I'll put them up as soon as we get them off of the camera."

Snow!

December 17, 2008 ... haven't seen this much snow come down in such a short time in my memory. I heard reports of 2" per hour there for a bit. I was driving across town, of course, and got stuck in various lines of non-moving traffic. Finally took the coats off the dogs and we just visited, caught up on phone calls, and generally enjoyed the views. We were 3 hours driving 20 miles, and I heard worse stories. People leaving downtown at 5pm were 2 hours to drive 10 blocks. It was crazy! Today, two days later, the roads are plowed, we've all shoveled the MOUNTAINS of snow out of our driveways after the plows came by, and life is pretty much back to normal winter. It is beautiful. The kids were scheduled to have today (Friday) be their last day of school before Christmas break, but every school in the area closed on Wednesday and never resumed. In this part of the country, where we expect snow and know how to deal with it, we almost never stop the daily routines with stormy weather. Occasionally though, like yesterday, its so wonderful to just sit back, snowed-in, and remember how awesome it is to live here. Happy Holidays!!

I heard reports of 23", but we got 19" by our yardstick-measuring-method on top of the flatbed trailer. Here's the view looking west out of through the breezeway toward the driveway. Check out the snow on the top of the garage roof on the left. Here's what a demo car looks like under 2' of snow :) Skip is currently being chauffered to work with the SUBARU (!!!) --- not because the truck isn't running just fine, and the Jeep, but just because it means he gets to get into a warm car at night after work. This is Pippy's first encounter with snow. She started off not wanting to go outside, but she loves it now. With 2 coats on, of course :)

The Heart of Christmas At the hearth of hope, in the manger of the humble mind, on the Sabbath of everyday, in the holiness of everywhere, in the evergreen of time no longer, in the whispering praise of stars (one silver shining for each of us), at the eternal moment of divine conception, in the unfolding of continuous creation, the annunciation of abundance, the trumpets of heaven’s windows’ raising, is the end of longing for belonging, the visible beginning of invisible grace. In the gift of the giver, the present of the presence, the outward embrace of indwelling Love, all things become lamb-white and new. We are born over and over in the beauty of perfection, crowned kings and queens, princes and princesses of peace, open unspeakable gifts on the altar of exceeding joy. The child-heart leaps in wonder and welcome, beating with the great heart of Christmas. -Alfred Gemrich Christian Science Sentinel,December 22, 2008

Thanksgiving 2008 and Weekend

OMG!!!! Skip said this afternoon his stomach hurts ... and it is from us laughing so much over the past 24 hours :) We had a terrific Thanksgiving dinner out at Rick and Sandi's ... great marinated turkey that browned and cooked so perfect, ham, sweet potatoes, scalloped potatoes, stuffing, rice-n-artichoke dressing, umpteen salads, lots of pickles and finger foods ... and the best part??? I only took scalloped potatoes and some delicious dill pickle hors 'doeurves:

Take nice-sliced lunch ham, spread with cream cheese, wrap around a great dill pickle. press tight and then with a good sharp knife (... a Sanelli??) slice generous 1/2" wedges. Ryan made ours the night before and they were still great the next day even after slicing and overnight in the fridge.

It was great not to do my usual over-cooking :) And of course there was PLENTY of great food.

So we get home and Ryan and Skip decide to go back to playing FarCry2 ... a game they have been non-stop on since it came out at the end of October. Skip has been talking about wanting to set up a server game since they got it, but never sounded really serious. We all started talking about it and I was fiddling with online info about router settings and such. We made some progress and then decided to get really motivated and figure it out. Several hours later, we had it kicked. Up and running a dedicated server from Skip's machine in the shop, which meant that Ryan and Skip could both connect to 'their own' server from in the house. Most importantly, it meant they could load up some of the player-created maps and could choose which map to plan when.

Once it was working, they were a couple of happy campers and played non-stop from about 8:30 till 5am this morning. Killing each other, hollering, laughing like crazy, and having a wonderful time. We got up this morning, well ... we got up a little after noon and had breakfast at 2:30, and they have been having a great time ever since. We sat down to a delicious dinner at 9pm and they have placed a deadline of 2am for tonight's play.

Pinta's First Trail

Finally got the opportunity and managed to fight down the anxiety of considering a trail ride with unknown new friends and unknown new friends' horses. After seven and a half years I loaded up and went with Pat Richardson's to Joanie Koch's place over off Bigelow Gulch Road. It was awesome! So enjoyable and new friends who have very nice trail horses to boot! What more can a girl ask for???
It was crispy but we all dressed for warmth, and we were blessed with beautiful sun. We went for just under 2 hours which was perfect for Pinta. She was dripping sweaty when we got back ... poor girl had to figure out how to work ... lol.
A very enjoyable day and we sat and visited for lunch after while the horses relaxed a bit. Trailmarkers!

Wynecoop Wood Art 2008

This is a pic of the finished piece of sap wood I got from Tina Wynecoop last fall. The back, which doesn't look too smooth, has 20 coats of clear on it. This front side -- ??? -- who knows how many. I had it on my table in the shop and would just keep adding coats periodically every time I was in the shop all through spring and summer. We decided it was finished and ready about August, then I scrounged some 'found' hardware and made a hook strap out of copper. It was always destined for the contrast with the rich green of our bedroom wall, which of course was in-the-process of being painted. Once the room was 100% green in September, I finished the wood and it now hangs and looks great.

Ryan's Morning Coffee

Ryan enjoyed morning coffee the last day we were in Yakima. Now, in order to appreciate this story you need to know that he does not like coffee, at all. I believe he decided to test out the machine in the hotel room for entertainment. He used every single creamer and sugar available in our two adjoining rooms. Skip likes those International House creamer concoctions so he drank a cup of black with a teaspoon of Ryan's mix. Ryan drank the rest ... He actually wasn't too wired ...

Yakima and the Fall

It is fall and I swear I enjoy the garden winding down as much as spring when it is so exciting and growing. We are just home from 4 days in Yakima visiting Skip's dad and stepmom. We stayed in a motel w/our dogs and Ryan. We all had a blast. We just went out to the folks' place every day, hung out, cooked, made small talk, worked on our computers, then went back to the motel and hung out together. Ate at Shari's four times, which Ryan thought was awesome. He would take 15 min to decide what to order and every single time it was always 3 eggs sunny-side-up easy, wheat toast, and either pancakes or hash browns. It was funny.

Haro Gets A Makeover

Skip and I wanted to test our new IWATA spray paint gun. [www.anestiwata.com] Ryan has been riding his trick bike more lately and it needed some adjustments. We decided it would be a great weekend project.
	Taking the bike apart completely was interesting, but Skip managed. We used 320 grit sandpaper, mostly by hand, before the primer coat. We chose Napa's painted-surface primer because the expert guy says it has the best fill properties and we knew we'd have very little bare metal even after sanding. It was great, but next time we need to put the primer on a bit thicker. We did two coats, but maybe just didn't do them wet enough. Very few drips with this gun, we like it.
sanding
sanding
sanding	Ryan's friends were handy ... helping ???
The Haro emblem is actually engraved into the bike, so it will still be there when it's repainted.	To mix the bondo, we use disposable stuff. The two components are mixed to an even color and then applied. You've got about 4 minutes before it starts to set up and get grainy.
For this brand, one inch of the hardener to one golf-ball-size goo of the other. We didn't need that much at one time, so this is theoretically 1/4 of a golf-ball size of goo and 1/4" of hardener (the brick-red stuff).
painted
Metallic Black	Hugger Orange
	As you can see, we were struggling part way through :)
	Pippy helps too
We're done!
Happy :)