These are some of my favorite ornaments. I like the Bumble from Rudolph because, unlike me, when Bumbles fall, they just bounce. The angel has been on the tree for at least 35 years. The eggshell ornament my mom made at church. The wooden ornaments are just funny (sort of) because the bear is saluting like a WWII German soldier while the bear in the VW is driving by....hmm.

Well, here it is.....our tree. Kind of a sad little tree, but nice. It looks better with the lights, but they are tiny lights and don't show up well in pictures. If you look closely, you will see Brian's favorite ornament, the glass brown cigar from the country club.

LOOK INTO MY EYES......You WILL have a Merry Christmas!!

I was looking through pictures from last Christmas and found this scary one of our cat, Poptart. Just don't stare at the picture too long..... :-)

These are a couple of the definitely unique nativities. I can understand the Eskimo nativity, but the hippie frogs? Where do people find something like that!

Our church has a Festival of Nativities every year. There are hundreds of different nativities from all around the world. They have rooms setup for children to do nativity crafts and dress up and take pictures in a lifesize stable. These are a couple of my favorite nativities this year. The one on the left is carved out of a single piece of knotted wood.

Either the ice machine has gone wild or someone has been making sure that we have our emergency supply of snowballs (iceballs now). Luckily, I found these before someone wanted ice out of the refrigerater and these got jammed in the mechanism.

Snow and ice always bring out the best in Brian ...... That snowball looks painful! We didn't get much snow and it must have taken a long time to scrape up enough snow to make a snowball that big. As long as Brian and the neighbor's kids are around, I'll probably not have to worry about clearing off the driveway or my car from snow.

Oh, and I got my hair cut shorter again....
I like it, but by the time we took a few pictures, the all day cooking fest had made it go flat.

Brian's First Turkey

Brian, being the chef that he is, wanted to do the main part of the cooking for Thanksgiving this year. He did a wonderful job. The turkey was seasoned with rosemary, he made a mashed potato blend with sweet potatoes and seasonings, steamed vegetable medley and turkey gravy with white roux. Of course, he said I could cook the pumpkin pie and stuffing (because he really doesn't like either one of those).

Sorry it's taken me awhile to get back online.....This is the new grandbaby (our first one!) born 10-3-06, Odin. He's a really good baby and of course, really cute!

This is the chipmunk who lives at the top of the mountain. It is really good at begging.

This is the view from the top. Glad we survived to see it. You can see Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens from here. We saw two bald eagles hunting, but I didn't get a picture before they moved on. The elevation is 2488 feet.

This is Hamilton Mountain.....a good mountain to hike after some good conditioning. It's about 4 miles up to the top. We thought we were ready to hike it.

Apparently this is going to be a great year for pears. In case anyone wants to know, they usually get ripe about the first week of school. (Just in time for kids to leave a trail of half-eaten pears on the way to school.)

When I was out riding my bike today, guess who I ran into at the intersection......

This is Brian's broken hand. He broke it this weekend getting his bike back from someone stealing it. It would have been cheaper to replace the bike.

Cheri and me on the log bridge. No, this is not a new fashion statement for me......the strap on my overalls broke on the way. Good thing it had two.

Cheri taking a dip in Opal Creek. It was HOT and even though the water was cold, it was nice to cool down.

We HAD to get a picture of this.... It's the porch light at the lodge in Jawbone Flats.

This is one of the buildings in the old mining camp at Jawbone Flats along the Opal Creek hike. (Solar panel on roof and picnic table obviously not historical)

This is Opal Pool along the Opal Creek hike. Pictures don't do it justice. This was the most amazing hike I have been on.

This is the bridge I made for Michael. I have a lot more respect for woodworking. I didn't realize that the store sold green wood. Lots and lots of fun.....

We have seen a lot of dragonflies in our pond, but this one was SO pretty. If you enlarge the picture, you can see the color better. It's the same color as the bright red koi.

A word of warning....If you're expecting company, don't steam beets in the microwave. What a bloody mess!

Brian looks quite regal today. You can tell that he was just loving the attention.

Me and Cheri at graduation. We both had funny looks on our face because it took Michael forever to figure out the camera. Cheri looks like she is thinking, "What are you doing, man?", and I was thinking, "Are you ready yet?"

Cheri on her graduation day. Sorry the picture is sideways....I'm still working on my computer savvy. Go Cheri!

It's graduation day! We were so proud that Brian made it! Brian has his usual smile, of course.