Zen Weekend

This past weekend was my annual "Zen Weekend" with Susie. Once a year we go to Yachats and relax. Our big girls weekend consists of doing puzzles, dumping our "stress closet" (mine was empty), yummy food, reading, garden talk, and watching the ocean.



This trip I discovered the wonderful trailways of Yachats. These trails must be new because I don't remember seeing anything about them before. The trail along the ocean goes from our ocean front house, north past the Adobe and on to the beaches. The view of waves crashing on rocks is beautiful. I can't think of another place in Oregon where you can walk along the rocks and waves so close and easily -- a true gem. This picture is taken from just south of the Adobe, which is the building you see, looking north. Sorry, it's a cell phone photo, so it's not very good.






Two days never sounds like it is going to be enough, but it is and I always leave refreshed and ready to get back to my home, family and garden.

On the way home, I stopped by a gift shop in Yachats and saw this cute driftwood decoration on the side of their wall. I'm going to try this myself this year!

Painted driftwood, pretty cool, huh?!

Gut-Buster Birthday Bash!

Too much food and many good laughs, that's the kind of get together it was at Candi and Joes' tonight. We were celebrating the Birthdays of Derek and Carl with food and merriment. Candi made a feast of a wonderful mexican foods. Yummy appetizers of guacamole, chips and salsa with Margarita's started the party off on the right foot. We watched the basketball civil war, and rooted the Beav's on. They won, Yippee and HA HA Uncle Phil! Present this night, besides our Hosts and honoree's, were Granny, Kris, Randy, Chris and Annie. Annie is Derek's girlfriend, and this was her first introduction to the family. I'd say it went pretty well. She's a beautiful girl and fit in perfectly. I bet we didn't scare her off and I look forward to having her join us again in the future. On to the main course....The three or four different types of enchildada's kept us all busy for dinner, with only a select few able to make it to the taco/burrito bar. Even though we were all full, we gathered our forks up and finished the evening with the choice of cheese cake with fruit or coconut cake. Both YUMMY!! Now I'm too full. Time to sit and let it all digest. Dustin and Brianna, and little E, we missed your presence and look forward to your upcoming visit.

Reincarnation of a King

"The King" had a birthday party, and we had tickets to it. Saturday, January 10th we traveled to Three Rivers Casino to watch Justin Shandor impersonate Elvis. Randy and I stayed at the Casino and Carl and Joe drove over just for the afternoon/evening. We had a great meal at the buffet, I don't think any of us over ate too much. It was seafood night, Yum-o! We did a little gambling before the show, generally not doing bad there either.
As for the show, I will admit that I was sure I wouldn't enjoy it. But I was wrong. Justin did a great job of keeping us entertained while singing songs that we all knew. We were in the third row and had a great view of all the "action". Justin had many visits from ladies in the audience, who came up to get kisses from "Elvis". If the real Elvis was this charismatic, I can see why he was a popular guy. I would highly recommend this concert if you get a chance to see Justin. Here's a sample of Justin, I mean "The King", at work...

After the concert some of us gambled (you know who that was) and some watched football on the big screen in the bar before Carl and Joe headed home.
The next morning Randy and I tried the breakfast buffet and found it to our liking as well (Yeah, surprise). I gambled a little before we made some trips around town and headed home. I ended up with more money in the wallet than when I started, so I call that success.

Do you Synch or Swim?

I synch better than I swim! I'm talking about synchronized swimming of course. Synchronized swimming has taken bad rap and most people think of ladies in pink swimsuits with plastic flowers stuck to their caps. Want to see what I mean? Check out this YouTube clip. The swimming starts at about 1:37

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What synchronized swimming really is, is a wonderful water workout with friends. We work together to perfect our water routine. The moves will tone your abs and your arms, and if you keep moving you will get an aerobic workout as well. I love getting a workout while playing around like kids in the water. It's so much fun, I urge you to give it a try.

If you can make it to Corvallis twice a week, we'd love to have you join us. Our group consists of 5-6 ladies of all ages and abilities. We swim from 10-11am on Mondays and Wednesdays at Osborn Aquatic Center. You can watch our group from the observation deck, or pay the drop-in fee at the front desk and give it a try. We have a great coach and there's no pressure to be perfect, we just want to improve.

For those that laugh at this sport, I urge you to watch the "pro's" do it. How they do what they do is truly athletic and graceful. Check out the inspiration below. These girls are amazing and they are never touching the bottom of the pool.

Our Christmas tree with a view of the backyard. It doesn't look like the snow will stay in time for Christmas.

Snow, snow, snow!!! This is from our backyard, at the back fenceline, looking towards the house. Granted we don't have a lot of snow, but it's enough. The temperatures have been very cold lately. Charlie loves to fetch his ball in the snow. He prances on it until it turns into a snowball. I need to figure out how to post video's to these sites, then I'll show you how cute he is.

Hi! Here's the first post. I started telling people about this site, so I figured I'd better get something up for them to see.

We had only 2-3" of snow on the ground today. I was hoping for more. I have to go to work tomorrow, and other than having a high 0f 27 degrees, it should be good as no precipitation is expected. I like having the snow around. It adds interest to the day, it keeps us busy doing the stuff we like to do. Without new precipitation we won't need to chain up the vehicles. That is a major pain, and then it really slows us down as we try to drive around our district.

The forecast is for more snow on Wednesday, perfect! My day off. I think we are ready for Christmas, with all our shopping done. I still need to get the Christmas cards out however. You haven't been forgotten or ignored, just procrastinated against. Have no fear, they will come.

In the mean time, Lucy says "Meowy Christmas".

Cheers! Chris