I'm a Follower

Huh, I just figured out how to follow the blogs of friends and family. There is a place on my blog where I put in my friends blogs and VOILA, all I do is click on them and read the latest post.
I'm not too Internet/blog savvy but every once in a while I get lucky.

Earl's Christmas hat

We have a grandson that loves everything Pirate, sooooo, I made him a winter hat.
Paul was good enough to model it for the picture.
Not bad for a first attempt!

Paul's new Sweater

With all the time we're spending in Las Vegas, you'd think I'd see some shows or Do something else more interesting, NOT so!!!

Paul has only enough energy to go to the doctors office everyday. So, I've gone to the local yarn shop and knit a few items.

Here is the biggest and most time consuming item.

I know it looks like a Fair Isle knit but it's the print of the yarn that makes it look like that. It took 3 weeks of concentrated knitting.

I've also made a sweater for me and a Qiviut yarn cap for Paul to wear in the Alaska winters (that is, if we ever get home). Qiviat is the musk ox yarn that is the warmest wool anywhere.

I'm having trouble with blogger uploading more pictures right now. I'll have to see if I can post the other sweater and smoke ring I made at another time.

Boy, has it been a LONG time

I thought I'd be able to blog our trip to California and Nevada, BUT...
We left Alaska on Sept 7th and started our journey to visit family (12 or 13 of the 14 children) and get a heart check up in La Vegas. Now, it's a long story and the internet access I've had has been slower than molasses or non-existent.

Our first stop was scheduled for Hyder, AK but a flat tire and damaged rim altered that goal. We detoured and search for a new or used rim all the way to Eugene Oregon. Multiple times we called the next several towns and were told they had the right size, only to drive (out of our way) to find they didn't know what they were talking about. We did, however, get to Hyder. Where I did have momentary internet access that allowed me to blog about the few grizzly bears we saw.

Since then we visited Kristi, Bobby, Kimberly, Julie, Kelsey, Dad, Candy, Sara, Chris and made it to Las Vegas. WHERE, internet has been very hard to find. I even brought a list of the Las Vegas free wifi sites along and have tried to use those. The thousand Trails we stay at has wifi but it's so slow, it's worse than dial-up. and those free wifi places are hard to find and use. Boy is Las Vegas a big place.

So, here is the update on Paul's heart check-up. He had a 64-slice CT-ANGIO that showed 3 of the 4 bypasses are still blocked. The options are
1. a second bypass surgery (more difficult for the surgeons, more difficult on the patient, higher mortality rate.)
2. EECP (up to 70% of people see some improvement for 1 to 2 years. It's a non-invasive treatment that encouraged the heart to grow new collateral blood supply to the heart.) The treatment is putting blood-pressure like cuffs on his lower body and extremities. They hook him up to an EKG that tracks his heart beats. The machine pumps pressure on the legs and lower abdomen when the heart is through beating and it released pressure when the heart beats again. That pumps the blood back to the heart and causes pressure to stimulate the heart to grow new blood vessels. They say you feel tired ,like you exercised, for the first week and you start to gain energy for the next 6 weeks .

The treatment is one hour a day, 5 days a week for 7 weeks. That pretty much takes up your life for a couple months! No to mention, it could take 2 to 3 months to get on to one of the machines. I did some fancy footwork and got him on in 2 weeks. It looks like we're a captive audience till Christmas.

There are lots of fun things to do here but Paul hasn't had the energy to do anything. I've found a great yarn shop and they have open knitting Tuesday and Thursday (5-7) and Saturday (10 to 4) so I've knit a sweater for me and 1/2 a sweater for Paul (so far). I've been asked to knit a poncho for Leslie and leg warmers for Julie and I found a fun yarn to make a baby blanket for Kelsey's baby (but only if it's a girl, sorry if it's a boy)

We have also visited Ben, Leslie, Jennifer and Rachel in Las Vegas. I even went to the Beauty School and had Rachel do my hair a couple weeks ago.

Well, I think that brings you up to date. Not much to report for such a long time but right now, no news is good news.

Kim & Richard's Fixer-upper, Sept 08

Kim and Richard are working to make this a home, it's in nasty shape to start but they have good plans and a good start.

Front door and living room window. 2 bedroom windows past fireplace bricks.







Living room window, front door and window next to breezeway and single car garage.








From the corner of the yard this is the back of the house. The kitchen window is behind a roll-up blind and the master bedroom and baby's room windows are seen. The garage has a window and the breezeway has a little fence.

Chico Arts Parade

Julie rode in a parade on Saturday. She was on a most beautiful horse standing over 16 hands high.

Portland and Brookings, Oregon

Hooray, we made it out of Canada.
We got in to Washington and stayed at the Tacoma Elks on Friday night. We called Bob Custer (Baja friend) and he took the ferry from Vashon Island to have dinner with us. It was a nice visit and we loved catching up with our sweet friend. Unfortunately his wife wasn't back from visiting family and we missed her.

We drove to Hillsboro, (suburb of Portland) and spent a few days with Kristi Wise, Karen's daughter. She played indoor soccer Saturday night and cooked dinner for all of us. Monday, Kristi took the whole day off to spend with her mom. We shopped and ate Thai food and talked for hours. It was so good to spent that time alone. We haven't talked that much in years!

Tuesday we planned on driving to Pacific City ( on the Oregon coast) to visit Barb and Craig Stephens but we had to take a little detour for a spare rim (ours broke in Hyder). Unfortunately the salvage yard had the rim mis-catalogued and it was the wrong one. So our detour turned out to be significantly longer. Instead of arriving around 1pm we didn't get there till 9pm. We were both very tired and just said "good night" to our friends and went to bed.

We had the most fun playing Hand-and-Foot Canasta all day for 2 days with Barb and "Wendel Whinner" (that's a joke). Friday we split company and headed for Brookings.

We got here in time to have dinner with Bobby and Katherine and the 3 kids. BOY, are they getting big. Christian is 15 and is a referee for the soccer league. Kaellen is 12 and Kylie is 9 and both play soccer too.

Today we attend church and drive to Red Bluff so I can spend Mon. and Tue. with Joy. More later as I get Internet again.

Grizzly sighting

I know this isn't a very good picture but I expect to get better shots tomorrow.
Paul and I got to Hyder, Alaska this evening and took a quick drive out to the viewing area. There was one bear in the area but we'll head back out tomorrow (after we repair the flat tire on the truck).

Time Out for Women, Anchorage, Alaska

These are most of the women from Homer that went to the women's meeting in Anchorage this last weekend. There were 951 women present, WOW (about 30 from Homer).

There was music and speakers that were so inspiring and uplifting. They spoke of the importance and value of women and their roles.

I went last year and I think this one was better. I look forward to the one next year.

This is the first stained glass thing I have ever made. I took a class last week and finished this in about 4 hours. I picked out the glass and started cutting the pieces to match the pattern. I didn't know you could cut curved pieces without breaking the rest of the glass. I learned how to grind the rough edges and fit the pieces exactly. (the grinder had a diamond studded cylinder) I then wrapped all the edges with copper foil and sealed the edges before soldering.

I was pretty pleased with myself and when I brought it home, Paul checked it out. He paid me the highest compliment. He said it's the best soldering job he's seen (and he's been in metal works for 35 years). I guess you can tell that the colors are ALL ME, purple and pink, my favorites.

Beautiful flowers block tall windows

Up close to these blossoms shows how close they grow on the stalks. It's kind of deceiving but these almost block the windows view of the Kachemak Bay. The lavender stalks are as tall as the windows. They grow bigger in Alaska!

Would you look at those Chives

I can't believe I have my own chive plant in my garden. The first time I saw chives in bloom was in Haines, Alaska in June 2004 and I was so impressed. I had no idea potato topping could be so pretty! Just wait till all those blooms open completely.

Have you ever seen Bleeding Hearts? I didn't know they were a real plant.

These are growing in my back garden, I'm so blessed!

Spring Flowers turn to Summer Flowers

My girls bought me a couple blooming plants for Mother's Day. I was afraid that I killed the blossoms on the lily when I transplanted it to the outside garden because they turned brown.

VOILA, here we have the beautiful orange lilies.

Tucson keeps me company when I go outside. She thought she should be in the picture with the lilies.

Baby Moose is Growing

He's starting to look like a miniature moose now. The grasses are so tall in the yard that you can't see him when he lies down . He's now grazing on horsetail, grass, cow parsnip and raspberry vines.

You can see that the mother is losing her winter coat and she looks a little ragged.

I love that I have moose in my backyard. I never grow tired of watching them and I'm always disappointed when they move on to another yard. Thankfully they come very often, a couple times a week so far.

Flowers, flowers everywhere

Spring has Sprung, lol.

Purple is my favorite color!!!

We have the most beautiful flowers around the house. It's too bad these pictures don't do them justice.

This last picture is of the west end of the house and you can only see some of the flowers.

The other pictures are close up shots of only a few of the variety.

This is my first attempt at a Square Foot Garden. The logs make a 4' X 4' square with lattice dividing it into 16 squares.

You can't tell but there are tiny plants in 15 of the squares. I've put in corn, zucchini, crook neck squash, cilantro, chives, basil, shallots and in planter pots I've planted tomatoes. (This picture was taken at 10pm, the sun was still shining on the planter)

I'll let you know if I get any vegies off it this year, I'm hoping for beginners luck!

Doll Sweater

Is this a funny thing to blog?
I made this little sweater for an 18 inch doll from a pattern I found on the Internet. It is a replica of an antique sweater.

It's made on size 4 knitting needles with DK weight yarn. This brand had little flecks of blue, gold and brown in an off white yarn (which is the spots you see in these pictures).

New baby moose in my yard

I can't believe my luck. Mama brought her baby down the street and right through our yard. She is now lying in the back yard. This first picture is fuzzy because I took it out my sun room window a 11:10pm.
She tolerated my presence on the deck of my bedroom to take this close up of the baby. They are so tiny and wobbly and such red hair when the mom is dark with white shoulders.

Paul's ongoing health story

Paul has had an eventful spring. After his bout of Congestive Heart Failure (April 2-10) we left Houston and we felt we were in the clear, not so. Houston Doctors forgot to send Paul home with all the prescriptions he needed. Late Thursday night (May 15, 2008) Paul started coughing and wheezing, unable to get enough air. We checked his O2 level and it was 82%, NOT GOOD!!! By 1:30 am he was unable to improve it with his C-PAP so we headed to the local hospital.

He made almost instant improvement and was home Saturday morning, Hooray!!!

This Thursday noon he saw the heart specialist from Anchorage and got all his meds checked and adjusted. Paul is feeling like his "old self" again and is back to working on the property and boat.

As a precautionary measure, June 17th, Paul will have an angiogram to make sure all the bypasses are working properly. That will be with his favorite doctor (Dr. Mayor) in Anchorage. Poor Me, I'll just have to go shopping while we're in Anchorage, lol.

We are planning to make a visit to the Anchorage Temple as long as we have to be in Anchorage, double bonus!

About that picture, it was one of the most vibrant sunsets this winter. Summer is nice here but we prefer the winter in Alaska, who'd have thought...

Yellow Begonia

At church I received this beautiful begonia for Mother' Day. My husband grilled fillet Mignon and sauteed mushrooms and onions for my dinner. I am spoiled but don't tell my family, lol.

Happy Mother's Day to me

My daughters were very clever to find a phone number of my friend in Homer to have her find some flowering plants for my yard. The pink peony is already blooming.

Spring in Homer

This young male gave me the raspberries for being so close.

This is sunset on Turnagain Arm near Anchorage, great reflection on the water.

Same mountain on Turnagain Arm, more light and snow shows up in daytime.

Paul Improves

Paul continues to improve. Saturday his voice came back and he started driving himself around town on Monday afternoon! He had Ruben come help put up 2 vertical blinds on Saturday so he's feeling a little productive. The depression is finally going away, WHEW!!! It has been 6 weeks since the surgery and he's been doing cardiac rehab for 2 weeks, wow. Life is good and the future looks bright again.

Eagles at the dump and at home

Paul and I went to the dump the other day and were amazed at the number of eagles in the trees and on trash containers etc.
At home we startled a youngster and he flew up on to our roof.
Paul put out some chicken and after we went in to the house, he ate it. A few minutes later 2 adult eagles flew by and scared him off. I love Alaska.

visiting moose

This picture is for perspective, it's looking out our sun room window at one of our visiting moose.

this is a close-up of her head and neck.

she's lying in the snow in our backyard, resting. Usually they're out there at night and I can't get a picture.