Jonathan carved the turkey

 
 

Teresa shows off her quilt on Thanksgiving

 
 

Hurray for days off of work.

Monday was spent catching up at home and trying to clean up the multiple piles everywhere. The biggest goal was to clean out the office a.k.a. Jonathan’s old room so that Laura has a place to sleep when she comes home. We actually found the floor and uncovered the futon so Laura we are ready for you now. We also sorted through stacked up mail and renewed our yearly health and life insurance benefits through Kaiser. After multiple loads of both dishes and laundry we are getting more presentable.
About 8:00 pm we decided to head out to Winco to pick up a few things. Teresa has decided this is a cool store. She was disappointed I didn’t let her make her own peanut butter but I told her someday I would and she would just have to look forward to it. She says that is now one of her many goals. Lol We were only buying a “few things” so I didn’t think I would spend enough to get the turkey for $.18 a pound but at the check out counter I realized I qualified so went running back to get yet another turkey for my freezer. (I now have three so far.) We then headed over to Ross to check out a few items I had previously scoped out. That is another of my favorite stores in town. Of course you all know how I love a bargain. Lest you think I have totally switched loyalties I did also support Safeway earlier this week and also got some good deals.
Longview Surgical Group had a staff meeting at 5:30. We had pizza and had a pretty good meeting. Two doctors came this time for the first part. Usually it has just been the staff so it was good to have them there. Longview Surgical is in the midst of starting a satellite station in Vancouver. It has been going on for about 6-8 months. It is a complicated process but seems to be going well. We hope to recruit two new surgeons just to work in Vancouver at the new Legacy hospital by summer of next year. So there is lots of room for growth. So far our doctors are going down there on a rotating basis. We will also be getting a new Physician’s Assistant in January. They do a lot of assisting in the OR and are a big help to the group as a whole. We currently have one PA.
Today our home group is serving a meal for about 35 people that are taking a parenting class through the city of Longview. We are providing cakes that Teresa made and some pop. The group is serving a baked potato bar and salad and fruit and cake. There will also be about 10-15 of us that will eat. There is no kitchen so it was more of a challenge to decide what could be transported easily. We have two new couples that have joined our group in the past two weeks so that is exciting. One couple is older but plays in a Christian band out of Gresham in a similar style that Chris’s old band did. He is going to spend some time with them this Thursday. They also collect antique cars so he shares a few interests with them.

Happy Birthday Chris

We are coming to and end of the festival of Chris’s birthday. We have had lots of celebrating. It started last week in Renton with JonTon and Laura. We continued yesterday with a party at the Cathlamet Fergusons. Linda and Ruth and Larry also joined the fun. We of course enjoyed a fabulous dinner with everyone contributing something. The traditional gift giving included a neat little chest for Chris to put his stuff in by his chair in the living room. Chris also received some spending money which he spent this morning on a surround sound system from Wal-Mart for the living room. At this very moment Chris and Teresa are trying to hook it up. It is a much more complicated procedure since Chris can only use one arm and the entertainment unit is against the wall. Teresa is doing her best to follow directions and Chris is not so successfully trying not to use his right hand. I am hearing such things as “You said to do this…” and “I don’t care what I said put it in this one….” And “this is not gray it is white” “ no it is definitely not gray.” There are a lot of other colors being shouted too such as red, blue, and black. I am trying to say far away.

Today we went garage saling in the morning and then drove to Long Beach to see a quilt show and some interactive Lewis and Clark bicentennial exhibits. We saw people from the Corp that have traveled together reenacting the expedition since 2003. They have been sleeping in tents and riding in boats etc. We listened to a talk through a hand held radio while going through a large tent that had murals on the walls of the tents. And we saw lots of displays. Many were in tents, others were in an Elks building which was much warmer. They reenacted the men lining up for their daily ration of whiskey. They received apx. 4 ounces in order of their rank and number and had to show that they had drunk it all and prove they hadn’t saved any for later (to add to other rations thus getting more of a buzz from it.) It was very interesting. We ended the trip with a dinner at Doogers in Long Beach. It was delicious. Now we are home safe and sound.

A scary drive home

We spent the night and all day Saturday with Jonathan and Tonia and Laura this weekend. We celebrated Chris's birthday and mostly hung out. We did go shopping a little also and got some christmas shopping done. We were a little bit later leaving the mall than we had hoped and started the drive in the pouring rain. It was hard to drive in the rain but it was okay. After stopping at the rest stop it actually stopped raining and I was glad. Suddenly we came to a halt on the freeway. We were 4 miles north of Centralia. We eventually saw a tow truck and two police cars go by as we for about an hour. Finally as we were slowly moving we saw a very large tow truck. We realized several trees had fallen along the side of the road and partially across the road. For the next 30 miles there was a lot of debris on the road and mostly on the sides of the road. It even smelled like fresh cut trees. Evidently there had been quite a storm. We were thankful we didn't have to drive through the storm and that God had kept us safe.

It was great to see everyone yesterday at the birthday party. Hope you enjoy the pictures. Rich and Bev and family were able to take home their desk and they took the old plymoth to fix up for a friend. We are glad someone can use it and that it is now out of our lives. Today I am in the midst of dying Teresa's hair. So I must run and rince it out now. bye.

We went to the lake so Deborah could take some pictures for her photography class and noticed this new statue. 

Chris 

Grandma Ruth 

Bev 

Rich 

Deborah and Gloria 

Teresa 

Grandpa Larry 

Happy Birthday Gloria and Rich 

Chris is getting along pretty well. He has learned to do most things by himself although is it still hard to open the bottle of pain meds. We did get new slip on shoes so he can go for a walk easier. Teh days are sometimes long for him but he hopes to do more walking next week.

We are enjoying having Laura home for the weekend. She has a consult for her wisdom teeth on Monday and she also hopes to get a flu shot and a chiro adjustment. She is currentlly out with her friends.

We enjoyed visiting Grandad and Grandma Theo in Cathlamet on Saturday and Grandpa Larry and Grandma Ruth today. Laura, Teresa and I also made some homemade cards on Saturday. And of course we watched way too many movies since Laura was home. LOL. We liked the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It is a real tearjerker.

The next week looks to be busy with trips to Portland, home group, worship practice for Jan, class on Wednesday for Jan and Chris, Jan working Wednesday-Friday and a birthday celebration on Saturday for Rich and Gloria. It will be good to see them.

Have a good week. Jan

Surgery day

We left home around 6:00 and made good time. We stopped for gas and still made it to the hospital by 7:20. We sucessfully found parking and the same day surgery waiting room and proceeded to wait.... Finally we were taken back to the inner room and given lovely new clothes to wear and hooked up to an IV. They were sucessful on the first try which is always nice. We shared a room with three or four others that seemed in worse shape than Chris. Chris watched a show on building a fifty five story dam in Europe but he didn't get to finish the building project as we were taken to another room. Here They called over the walkie talkie asking for a volunteer to come shave a male patient's upper extremity. After the shaving Chris noticed his arm was much colder. He was also hooked up to compression leggings to squeeze his legs every few seconds. And the Doctor came in and became pretty ticked off because his paperwork hadn't arrived from his office. Not a good sign. But the paperwork was redone and the H and P found and the surgery was still on. They kept assuring us this would not compromise his care in any way.... After meeting the anesthesist and nurse Chris was wheeled off and I headed to the waiting room... for more waiting... three hours later I followed Chris to yet another room. Now he was in a cast and sling. He was hot instead of cold and very thirsty. After about two hours we were headed home. The first stop was a Starbucks for a carmel frapachino and the second stop was to Kaiser in Longview for his pain meds. Then blessed home.

Thanks for all your prayers.

We are glad that Mom is home from the hospital and are still praying for healing of symptoms but she is much stronger.

Chris had his pre-op appointment today and everything is set for next Tuesday the 18th. The surgery is at SW Washington Medical Center in Vancouver.

Teresa has a retreat in Portland tomorrow night and Saturday. They will drive back to Longview and spend the night at Northlake Baptist church.

I have several sewing jobs this weekend to do for three different people. I don’t think I will have much or any e-team sewing this year so it is nice to have some jobs for other people.

We will be praying for Tonia Friday as she has her wisdom teeth out, Hope is goes as smoothly as possible and she will have a speedy recovery.

I’m glad tomorrow is Friday, I am tired of this week!

The week in review

Tuesday we had life group at Kia and Khang’s house. We had a visiting couple join us which was nice. We enjoy having home group at our house but it is nice when it is at other people’s homes also.

Wednesday I had a tooth pulled. I had not expected it to be as difficult a procedure as it seemed to be but I survived. It has definitely reaffirmed to me that wisdom teeth need to be removed under anesthesia! I had the option of laughing gas with mine but have had negative experiences with that in the past so opted for just the Novocain. They had to give me several more shots as we went along so I felt like a wimp. But it is over.

Because of my tooth I missed the class I am taking on Wednesday night that Chris is helping to facilitate. The class is on DVD and is basically on home groups. I need to make up the DVD today I guess.

Friday we had Jim and Janis Harvey and Jeanne and Steve Nortness over for dessert and talking. It was nice and mostly relaxing. We didn’t actually get any games played but that is okay. I had a cake in the freezer that I unthawed but also tried a recipe from the paper for Green tomato pie which is supposed to taste like apple pie. It sounds terrible but actually tasted pretty good if you could get past knowing what is in it. I am not sure what possessed me to make it really except I hate to see anything wasted and every once in a while I like to try something new. We are trying to invite new people over every once in a while on Fridays especially. This week we are thinking of our neighbors. The worst part is actually doing the inviting. Ugh. We’ll see if we get brave enough. Lol

Saturday we went garage saling. We are sad to see the end of the season coming quickly. Teresa and I went to Wal-Mart and I visited with Mom and Dad. Mom has had a hard week but we hope she will continue to get better this week.

Sunday we went to church. Teresa is now helping with the 1st and 2nd graders. I got a little orientation regarding doing the overhead projecting which I am now doing every so often. I am scheduled twice this month. They use the same program as New Horizons but run it differently. I should be able to pick it up. Tonight is worship practice so Chris and I will both be going since it is my week for the overhead.

Have a good week. Jan

We have enjoyed a great visit with Jonathan and Tonia this weekend. All the family in this neck of the woods come for lunch on Saturday and we had fun looking at old photo albums and catching up with each other. Later that night we went to see the movie Serenity which continues the same story line as the series Firefly. We enjoyed the movie and it filled in a lot of the blanks in the story. If you haven’t seen Firefly it would be harder to know the characters.

Today Chris helped on the worship team for the first time. It sounded good and was good to see him doing that again as he always looks like he is having so much fun. Teresa started helping with the 1st and 2nd grade class. I start helping with the overhead on the 16th and the 30th and the nursery on 11/6/05 so we are gradually getting plugged in. Our home group has changed its night to Tuesday so Chris can do worship practice. Teresa’s home group changed back to Mondays so Jim could take a class on Tuesdays which is probably more than you really wanted to know.

After church we watched a couple of netflicks and took naps and I did a tape for HealthWorks and Teresa did some homework. Chris is cleaning his old office and setting up the computer again. We had moved it to Laura’s room when our other one was getting serviced so Teresa could print out her homework. Everything is getting back to its rightful place now that Laura is back at school.

Have a good week everyone.

Chris had a doctor’s appointment on Thursday with Dr. Greene in Vancouver. He thought he was going to get a shot in his arm to test for radial nerve damage. However after some discussion it was decided to just go ahead and set a surgery date for epichondylitis on 10/18/05. He is relieved to finally have a surgery date set. It will be done in Vancouver.

Teresa had a Cornerstone retreat on Friday and Saturday. She had a good time. They had bus trouble on the way home and all had to crowd into one bus but they made it home safely although about an hour or more late. The camp was camp Bethel near Aberdeen.

We found a TV at a garage sale yesterday to replace our broken one. We were quite pleased. We were not sure God would answer a prayer for a different TV but He provided and we are grateful. Especially with the surgery coming up it will be useful for distraction.

We went over to Mom and Dad’s on Saturday night and had a good visit. We were able to share some of our many tomatoes we finally got around to picking. I think I might have to cook some up because we have so many.

I have been kind of lazy reading and napping the last couple of days. It’s hard to get too motivated. Teresa and Chris also got a nap in today. We ate dinner at the church. It was a baked potato bar to raise money for the Uganda trip coming up on 10/10/05. It was very tasty and nice not to have to cook

This has been a busy week. Monday Teresa started college and Chris and I worked. I had a staff meeting at 5:30 but came home and made a potato casserole for our home group potluck which Chris took to home group. I joined them after our staff meeting at apx 7:15.

Tuesday we worked. Chris tried tearing apart our TV to see if he could fix it since it had mysteriously died while we were in Seattle. :( But no luck, it is still dead. Teresa had a short school day but did homework and took a nap. She has been very tired lately. She had a blood test taken on Monday but her hmt is about 28.6 which is still pretty good for her. .

Today I was off so I did two little HealthWorks Northwest tapes, did a lot of laundry, changed Laura’s bed, collected garage sale items to sell if Grandpa Larry still has his garage sale Saturday and mowed the lawn and gave our stinky dog a bath. I also took Teresa to the doctor for any advice on Teresa’s tiredness. She took some different blood tests for mono and thyroid deficiency just to be sure. We are not planning a transfusion at this point although Teresa would kind of like one so she has more energy. She has been doing a lot of reading for her political science class. She keeps falling asleep though.

Friday Teresa has a retreat with Cornerstone that goes till Saturday night. This hopefully will be good but cuts down on homework time to finish her report for Political Science.

Chris is off tomorrow but has to go see the Vancouver Dr. Green and get a shot in his arm. He also wants to take our computer in to get it cleaned up and get new virus protection put on. I have to work tomorrow.

Brian made the move but is still getting situated. 

nametags 

Laura has the bottom bunk again. 

All loaded and ready to go 

Moving day...

“I can’t believe we got all that stuff packed and there was still room for the dolly”. We had finished packing and were waiting for Teresa to return from sewing at Aunt Linda’s. When she arrived we headed off to Seattle to take Laura back to SPU. We hit a little traffic but arrived about 5:30. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at Wendy’s before moving in since we couldn’t get in until 6:00. Laura’s room seemed much bigger than last year since it was only a double instead of a triple. We were able to bunk the beds and unpack quite a few boxes before we left.

Then we headed to Jonathan’s and Tonia’s. Watch carefully we told Teresa and we’ll show you the exit to take to Jonathan’s for when you are driving yourself. Laura had said it was exit 154B. We were in the far left lane all set to take the complicated left exit when Chris said this is 154A so he quickly crossed three lanes of traffic to right exit at 154 B and we soon realized we had made a mistake. We shouldn’t have listened to Laura! We headed in the general direction and then took the wrong exit on hwy 167. After another turn around we finally got on the right road in the right direction. We then turned to Teresa and said that is not the best way to get to Jonathan’s!

We saw Jonathan and Tonia pull into the parking lot just as we were rounding the corner carrying all our stuff so we timed things just right. We had a good talk although Teresa and Tonia were bored after awhile and fell asleep. Sunday we slept in until 9:00 (some even later) and watched a movie and played games. It was a relaxing trip.

This turned out fuzzy but is called a Delphinium Pure White / White Bee 

actually this one is the superbena dark blue the other one we didn't get a name on. They might be the same plant different colors. 

white hybiscus 

Cosmos sonata mix (annual) 

Buperbena Dark blue I thinkd it looks purple myself 

peppers 

Dragonwing Begonia 

A Happy Anniversary

To celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary we had planned on going to an arts and craft show at Ocean Parks. When we rechecked the data the morning we were to leave we discovered it was really going to be at Ocean Shores which is much farther than we wanted to drive. Therefore we spent a rather stressful 45 minutes trying to come up with a plan B (which wasn’t made easier by the forecast of possible thunder showers.) We finally decided to go to the Oregon Gardens in Silverton. We have recently discovered an interest in gardening over the past year or two so this sounded like a good plan.

We hurried out the door after saying a quick good bye to Laura and Teresa who were headed up to Jonathan and Tonia’s for the weekend. We were hurrying out the door because we were late for church. Our church has been having special services since Wednesday in honor of Founder’s Week. This year the teaching is on The Judgment Seat of Christ. Saturday’s session was the end of that particular series of teaching although the teacher, Rick Howard, will be preaching Sunday also and we have continued meetings until Tuesday’s love feast to finish off the week. We arrived only slightly late and Linda had saved a seat for us. We enjoyed the teaching and it gave us a lot to ponder and talk about. It’s a subject we probably don’t think enough about.

After feeding the dog and grabbing our lunch we’d made, we headed out. On the way we discovered we had left the directions and camera so we made a quick turnaround by the Monticello hotel. One stop at Kaiser for some meds and we were on our way. We had a good trip down. We do our best talking in the car it seems. We arrived at the gardens about 3:15. We decided to take the tram for a general overview and then walk some. Everything was beautiful. We covered most of the park, both by tram and walking, before it started to pour about 5:45 and we had just reached the gift shop so the timing was good. We felt compassion for the bridal party whose outdoor wedding was to start at 6:00. We were glad we were not the parents of the bride or groom facing the move to inside the pavilion.

We took a few pictures of plants we might want to add to our garden in the future. We then started looking for a place to eat. We ended up at a Thai place in Woodburn that was nice. We ended the night at home watching a Netflick movie Wait until Dark which was suspenseful.

We like three day weekends!

Today Laura woke up at 9:30 to find the house still dark and everyone still asleep, even Wilson. After working the early morning shift I find it is getting harder to sleep in so I enjoyed this morning’s treat. At about 11:15 we headed out the door to visit Grandma and Grandad in Cathlamet. We made a slight detour to feed Susie’s cat on the way. It was a gorgeous day. Theo, as usual, had a delicious lunch for us.

I was able to find a few blackberries to pick although they were not as plentiful as I would have liked. The elk had picked off the closest ones and many of the rest were either moldy, or too high to reach or guarded by spiders, but thanks to Chris I did get a large tub filled. The girls made an attempt to help but couldn’t handle the spiders and determination required to get to the berries. It is really sad that none of my children find quite the satisfaction in berry picking that their mother does.:) They did enjoy the photo albums inside with Grandma and Grandad. We heard some interesting stories of Grandma’s move from Wyoming.

Last night Chris and I went to Mom and Dad’s and visited a bit and then played a game called Probe that we had picked up at a garage sale. It is a bit like hangman with each player choosing a word the others must guess. We also enjoyed talking to Jonathan and Tonia on the phone. We had a good time. The girls returned from their trip to George Fox to visit Kristin to find an empty house. "I wonder where Mom and Dad are now" We forgot to leave a note not expecting to stay out so late. Oops!

Now it is back to work and school tomorrow. I must go and make our sandwiches so they will be ready for tomorrow.

Hurray for the weekend

Tonight is Friday night and we have been invaded by girls. Teresa is having a “sleep over” (where there is actually very little sleep) to celebrate her friends being ungrounded for the summer. Then Laura’s friends decided to come over also so they are holed up in Laura’s room watching a DVD on her computer since Teresa’s friends were in the living room.

Teresa is very pleased with her teachers this year. She has Mrs. Maldonado for Bible and Mr. Sparks for Spanish. She was dreading Spanish with the other teacher so she is very pleased. Mrs. M. is also teaching all the science classes at Cornerstone this year (but Teresa is not taking science this year).

We have been watching some of the coverage of the disaster from the hurricane. It is very overwhelming. It is hard not to know how to help. I wonder what would happen if every church could sponsor a family to be relocated in their town. Sure makes a person think.

In regards to our battle of the bees we have not won the war only that one battle. Since the battle we have had bees coming into Jonathan's old room through the phone line hole. They are mostly dead or dying so we are cleaning up about a dozen a day. And they stink! So we are still fighting the bees

Jonathan and Tonia gave Chris and Dan tickets to a Mariner's game for Father's Day.  

Enjoying the Mariner's game 

Our seats were by center field. 

Updates

It's Thursday and my only day off this week so I have been catching up on my errands. (sewing, shopping, buying Teresa’s college books, cleaning a little). Each day seems full. Here is a little of what we have been doing:

-Laura has been house-sitting so we have mostly seen her for meals, then she heads off with her friends although we did manage to go shopping together twice.
-Teresa has been quilting with Aunt Linda, spending a last day with Kristin before she goes off to school, school shopping, going to orientation for running start and working and hanging out with Laura.
-Saturday Chris and I went garage saling with Ed and Bev Hilliard and then worked on fixing kitchen cabinets at Frank’s house.
-Sunday we went to church and did errands around the house.
-Monday was work and home group.
-Tuesday Jan went to work and school shopping with the girls. We had great success at Ross. What bargains.
-Wednesday Chris had a meeting after work and Jan did some computer work at home and laundry after work.
-Today we are going to dinner at Mom and Dad’s with Bev and Deborah. They are down for one day.
-Saturday Chris and I are going to Jonathan’s and Tonia’s for a mariner’s game and will spend the night and go to church with them.

The battle of the bees

Our phone was not working. We did not know this at first since we could call out. Then we began to hear that people could not get a hold of us. That is strange. We did a test and we discovered we only had a one way phone. A call to the repairman resulted in a visit (too early in Teresa’s opinion). Thus began the battle of the bees. “I cannot work on your phone line until the bees are gone.” He says. Armed in a long sleeve coat with a hood I sneak up on the swarming bees (all seven or eight of them but is seemed like more in the narrow passage between the hedge and the house.) I spray the hole and they are stunned but rise again to fly away. Again and again I risk shooting the hole with the deadly(?) spray but the bees are unaffected.

So off to Fred’s to arm myself with something more deadly. This time when I shoot the hole with my spray it turns to deadly foam. Now they are trapped! Ha ha. For extra measure I set a trap for those bees away from home with a trusty soda bottle trap. Nothing will stop the repairman tomorrow I say. I arise early and spread more deadly foam before leaving for work. By 4:00 the bees are dead and I am ready for the repairman to fix my phone. He arrives soon and finishes the job after many search and find missions to find all our phone jacks. Why are they all behind desks, dressers and book shelves… even wires coming out of the attic? Alas I hear the ringing of a bell. It is our friendly phone now working again. We are no longer cut off from the world. We can rest safely tonight having won the battle of the bees and restored communication with the world.