Photo Book: Christmas 2011

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March-ing Onward

Well, I give up.  I keep thinking I'm going to get around to blogging about the things that have happened in the several months since I blogged last (Christmas, etc.).  But obviously that's not going to happen, so I guess I'll just try a few pictures from March.

It's sure been a weird month as far as the weather goes.  We've had some beautiful warm days, some cold rainy days, a small snowstorm, and a large snowstorm (I mean large for Eugene, of course).

We've had some pruning projects in the backyard that needed to be done, and one nice warm day early in the month, Melissa and Danica decided to tackle them.  A couple of butterfly bushes had taken over one corner of the yard, and a juniper bush was out of control by the back door to the garage.  The girls definitely showed those bushes who's the boss!

Here is Danica going after the butterfly bushes with the handsaw. 

I wish I had a "before" picture of the juniper bush, because the "after" picture is kinda sad. I'm not sure this can be classified as "pruning."

This is what used to be part of the juniper bush.

We had a slight snowstorm early in the month, so of course that calls for snow angels. I assume the bigger angel was Melissa's. I notice that it's easier to see snow angels from a light snowfall than from a heavier one.

Danica somehow managed to gather enough snow to make a small snowman.  She was rather devastated when the sun came out the next day and melted it.  If she knew what was coming later in the month, it probably wouldn't have bothered her so much when this one was gone!

A picture of the girls one day after church.

Some recent art projects of Danica's.

Mandi's final project at the University of Oregon. The architecture students worked with the City of Springfield and each came up with their own design for a new school the city is going to build sometime in the future. It's a good partnership because the city ends up with lots of ideas to consider when working with their own architect in the future, plus it gives the students a "real" project to work on instead of a "fake" one, so to speak.

We asked Mandi to show us her workspace after she gave her presentation, just so we'd know where she has been spending so much time the past few months.

As we walked across the U of O campus after seeing Mandi's project, I stopped to take a picture of the beautiful tree blossoms. This young woman apologized for interfering with my picture, but I think her colorful umbrella added some fun to the photo.

Lots of daffodils were appearing all over town.

Mira put together her Lego set (a girl with a little vehicle and a bunny). She then amused herself for quite some time by making up stories of what the bunny was doing. Our granddaughters have wonderful imaginations, probably thanks to Melissa not allowing them to sit in front of the TV for hours and hours (except when she's trying to take a nap!)

Melissa was making an apple crisp one evening, and the girls were totally fascinated with the apple peeling machine. The peeling often comes off in one long skinny continuous strip, and they got quite a kick out of that.

On Wednesday, March 21st, we woke up to a winter wonderland. It set a record for Eugene for this late in the season (7.5 inches). I know that doesn't sound like much to our friends and family who live in areas that regularly get much more snow, but that really is a lot for this area, and basically shuts everything down.  The schools declared a snow day on Wednesday and Thursday.

Clay decided to take the bus to work and leave his precious truck at home because he was afraid of somebody running into him (people in this area do NOT know how to drive in snow!). A couple hours after he left, a boy from across the street came to our door and said we'd better move our vehicles because our neighbor's tree was coming down. But before Rob could get dressed and get out there to move the truck, the tree had fallen. Luckily it missed Clay's truck, but only by a few inches!  The snow was so wet and heavy that there were trees and branches down all over town, including causing power outages and crushing a few vehicles (no one was hurt though).

I felt sorry for the crocus and tulip plants that were covered with snow. I looked at them today, though, and they look all right.

Danica was anxious to get out there and build a snowman (she's in her pajamas).

Her snowman didn't get very big. I don't think she understands the concept of "rolling" a snowball since she hasn't had much experience with it.  Plus, it was pretty cold out there.

At least Mira had a snowsuit on over her pajamas.

Later on, they had fun pretending they were eating ice cream cones. When I asked Danica what flavor they were, she said "Vanilla." (Of course! That was a silly question!) Notice that by that time, Mira was borrowing Uncle Neil's gloves because her mittens were all wet.

The next day I saw Danica laying out in the snow apparently doing some kind of exercises because she would lift one leg and then the other, then her arms, then sit up and lay back down and start over again. Hmmm, is exercising in the snow any easier? Maybe I should try that.

Because It's Been Way Too Long Since I Blogged.....

It appears I've gotten way too lazy with blogging, and I forget that not all of my friends and family are on Facebook.  Not that I've been much better with posting on Facebook.....

So here are a few pictures to get things caught up a little (September, October, November):

Mandi tried a sewing project.  I think she got a little frustrated, but persevered and finished up her dress.

Danica and Melissa love building their Lego houses, vehicles, etc.  They are very good at following the instruction booklets that tell how to make various projects from the same set of Legos.

Cute R.V.  (and cute granddaughter!)

Dewsnup Family.

We like to try planting different varieties of tomatoes each year.  Many of this variety came out with this weird "appendage" which I found amusing because it was somewhat obscene if you look at it from certain directions.  (I hope nobody is offended by this picture!)

This text to me from Melissa regarding Mira's "protest" was from earlier this year, but I'm not sure when.

Clay and I do some babysitting occasionally for some friends of ours who have 11-month old twins, Charlotte and Henry, known collectively as "Chenry" (which is much more amusing than "the twins").  We decided it was a plot -- Henry is distracting Clay while Charlotte sneaks in to steal his glasses.  It worked!

This is my walking partner, Jody, (with Dolly).  We walk about 3 miles, 3 times a week.  Now that it's cold and dark in the evenings, we have been working out in our garage on the treadmill and stationary bike.

Clay reading to Mira -- don't you love her hairdo!?

The girls are ready for Halloween.

Melissa made her own Cinderella costume. Rob had agreed to dress up as Prince Charming, but Melissa was not able to find the appropriate pieces to his costume, so he went as his old stand-by, "Dead Guy".

Just a recent picture of Nathan.  I caught him in mid-laugh.

One of the ladies I visit teach brought me this lovely flower bouquet in a real pumpkin.  (Yes, I know I"m the one who is supposed to be doing things for them, not the other way around!)

I was watching the girls one sunny fall afternoon, so we walked to a small playground at a nearby church (used to have a school there too).  Mira wasn't sure she wanted to come down the slide, so Danica just grabbed her and slid down.

Danica liked twirling on the swings, and Mira loved swinging -- at least until she lost her balance getting off the swing and sat down in some very damp, almost muddy, wood shavings and freaked out.  She does not like being dirty.  I had to wipe her off with my hands, and carry her most of the way home.

This street sign is kitty-corner to our house.  People get very confused when we try to give them directions to our house because both streets are named Kodiak (they are right angles to each other -- in a "T" shape although the base of the "T" is only a half block and the top part is a couple blocks long, if you can follow my poor description).  When they ask how to find our house, we say "well, you turn on Kodiak and then you turn again on Kodiak".  Luckily we are the only house with a picket fence, so we can at least narrow it down a bit!

Shore Acres State Park

Last Saturday Clay and I finally got away on one of our little daytrips.  For some reason, we just haven't managed to get out of town this summer, at least not since our anniversary at the end of May.  We wanted to go to the coast because it was supposed to get up to 90 degrees in Eugene, and we decided to go south this time instead of straight over to Florence or north of it as we usually do.  We ended up going a little south of Coos Bay to the Shore Acres State Park and Botanical Gardens and a little further beyond that to Cape Arago.

We got to Coos Bay just before noon, and after grabbing a bite to eat, we headed towards the lighthouse and state parks.  It was quite foggy.  We couldn't see very far out on the ocean at all.

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We stopped at the Umpqua River Lighthouse, and toured their museum. We declined the lighthouse tour because it cost money, I think $3 each, or maybe it was $5. But we really enjoyed looking at the museum. We thought it was very well done. My favorite room was the Coast Guard of the1960s (they had 1940s through 1970s in addition to lots of information and artifacts about the lighthouse and the area in general).

This Coast Guard guy was kinda cute, don't you think?

I spent way too long in the gift shop at the museum.  I was tempted by many many things, but only ended up buying a pin for my collection (because I just don't have any place in my house for a bunch of knick-knack type things that I really wanted).  I might have bought this t-shirt if they would have had it in my size.  I think this should be my new philosophy in life:

This is the view from a lookout spot in the Shore Acres State Park which was once the grand estate of pioneer timber baron Louis Simpson, complete with lush gardens and even a tennis court (the gardens have been restored but the house is long gone).  It was still quite foggy when we arrived, but it eventually cleared up in the late afternoon.  There are some really unique geological features to this part of the coastline.

Clay is posing in front of the roots of a tree that had blown over years ago.  There were several of these along the hiking trail.

Here we are in front of the Japanese-style garden.

It really was a very peaceful place.  There weren't too many people there when we were, and it was very relaxing with the sound of the ocean in the background.

The rose garden was surrounded by high trees and bushes on all sides and felt especially tranquil.  And the roses were beautiful!  It wasn't a really big garden, but very well cared for.

They also had big patches of dahlias in other parts of the garden.

A small greenhouse had mostly begonias, which were also beautiful.

Clay likes the monkey puzzle tree.

By late afternoon it was quite sunny, but still a pleasant temperature.

We hiked a little bit north of the gardens because we wanted to see the Cape Arago Lighthouse, which is on an island out a little ways from the coast, and hadn't been visible in the fog earlier.

It was my goal to see all of the lighthouses in Oregon, but I guess this is as close as I can get to this one.

Just south of the botanical gardens is the Cape Arago State Park.  I read that you can hear the sea lions from a mile away, as there are large groups of them out on the rocks in that area.  Here is one that was serenading us.  We could actually hear them more clearly in the parking lot above than we could when we hiked down to where we could see them, since the noise of the ocean hides the sound somewhat when you get down closer to them.  But they were still pretty loud!

On our way home, we stopped for a few minutes at the Dean Creek Elk Preserve which is right off the side of the road a few miles east of Reedsport.  It was just before sunset and there were a lot of elk in the meadows there -- I'm guessing maybe at least a hundred, but I'm not very good at guessing. 

It was a very pleasant trip, and we have vowed that we need to make the effort to do this more often. If we lived closer to the Shore Acres park, I think we'd spend a lot of time there.  It seems like a nice spot for family picnics and activities, and very well taken care of.