Christmas House

I finally got the decorations up. So if you want to know how it looks around here...here you go! We actually found a 13ft tree on the property that didn't look too "Charlie Brown-ish".



Because our nobles are trimmed for boughs, the only decent part of our noble firs start about 20ft up. The pickings can get interesting! Sometimes we find the perfect one we think might work - Dan get's the ladder and chain saw and down comes our tree. We pray the branches don't break off from such a height. Sometimes they do, and we have to hunt for another.
Dan hates that....:-)


There is a lot of space above our kitchen cupboards - so it's fun to put some big things up there.

Our poor old Christmas calendar has seen over 30 years of use - but when the grandkids come down, it's fun for them to pull an ornament out and put it on the old felt tree.

Here's a couple of granddaughters...Rebecca and Kim. It's so fun to have them come down to the house and visit. We like to get crafty at grandmas house...making ornaments or making "pudge fudge".

Halloween Suckers

Every Halloween for years I've liked to make ghost suckers with the grandkids. So last Sunday after church - we rounded up a few of them and had a giant white chocolate melt-down! Even the oldest ones decided they weren't too old for it and came down to the house to make their treat.
Here's the younger ones having a puppet show behind grandma's couch.
Rebecca, our oldest granddaughter (who is turning 12 next month! Ahh!) is having fun with the chocolate chips.

Daniel, our oldest grandchild isn't too cool to have fun at grandma's house.

Aunt Emily admires his work... and he obviously thinks his is the coolest!

Little Eli thought the chocolate was mighty-fine to play with as edible finger paint. And yes...I am wearing pumpkins on my head. It's OK to be a silly grandma sometimes, isn't it?

Pumpkins & Huntin'

I just love the fall - the colors are really great this year. It's hard for me to drive to work because I keep looking at all the trees! We went to a pumpkin patch with Emily and her two boys a couple of weeks ago (before the rains hit). Eli and Jonah had fun on all the farm equipment and riding on the hay ride.

Hunting is the other thing that happens in October. Dan and Danny and Emily took most of the kids to a new hunting area by LaGrande, OR. It was lots of fun - got snowed on, and rode 4 wheelers all over. But no sign of any kind of deer worth shooting. Daniel is showing his bravery trying to eat a flaming burnt offering of a hot dog!

The campfire was the warmest place around - apart from the RV's. Dan is standing with Jonah and James. Those two cousins are inseparatable!

Summers End

The weather has been great this summer. But you never know what you are going to get on the Oregon Coast! Believe it or not, the ocean is behind these grandkids. The fog rolled in! They were having fun burying two of Emily's kids up to their necks in sand. In August my brother Wayne brought his family out from Utah for their first vacation since their son Jessie almost died from a WalMart prescription mis-fil a year ago. Oh yeah...it was horrible. A lot of his brain was destroyed, and it's a miracle that he can talk. To WalMart's credit, they have given my nephew a nice settlement that should take care of him for the rest of his life. They brought their Jessie-rigged motorhome out to Oregon. Jessie is the one laying back in the wheelchair. His mom, Laurie is behind him and is a SAINT, who has devoted her life to bringing Jessie back from the dead and helping him regain whatever he can. His big brother Cory, who just got back from his mission this year is standing next to Laurie and is helping a lot with the caregiving as well. Jessie's two sisters are in the foreground. We are all hanging out in Seaside, taking up a large portion of the sidewalk!
The Hood to Coast Relay race was the end of August and once more Dan, son Danny and our daughter Emily were in it. Here they are after the race, at the beach house in Seaside. I'm surprised they can stand upright! Dan and Danny race with some Doctors from Willamette Falls hospital, and they call their team "Back to the Suture". Here's Emily's team. Would you believe one of her best friends is her female gynecologist? Yep...and her husband is a dentist and sponsored their team for "360 Dental".

Summer Stuff

Dan and I are so boring this summer..... Just work and home, work and home, with a lot of church stuff in between. But who needs to go anywhere when you live in a vacation house all year round and your kids and grandkids live 1/2 hour away or less? Dan's been making our yard and lawn look beautiful, as always. I love my hydrangea bush in the front yard.

And speaking of green lawns...here's what Dan loves to do. Hang with the dogs and a grandkid or two. That's Emily in his lap - one of Danny and Jana's brood.

Dan and I experimented with a "Square Foot Garden" system this year. It's the coolest!!! No weeding, and sixteen squares to plant things. It's been a great salad garden, with spinach, lettuce, radishes, broccoli, beans, green onions, cucumbers, with a few marigolds thrown in. Can I just say that radishes are NUTS???? You put the seed in the ground and the next day there are green leaves coming out of the ground. It's the fastest growing thing around! We got going a little late in the spring, so our garden is running behind - but we're still having fun with our little experiment.

The Washington County Fair is a big deal to our son Danny and his family. Every year the kids show either pigs, sheep, chickens and sometimes craft items through 4-H. This year our oldest granddaughter, Rebecca competed in horsemanship. So, here's the rooting section watching the action as Rebecca puts Colie, her Welsh pony through her paces. Danny and Emily are there with a few of his kids, Emily's kids and some other friends. You notice the teenagers in the upper left of the picture? Two of them are Danny's (too cool to hang with the little kids :-)

Here's Rebecca back in the stall with Colie after her competition. She got a blue ribbon for showmanship, and a red ribbon for riding skill. Way to go Rebecca!

"Slip-N-Die" on the 4th of July

What can you do if you have a steep hill, lots of black contruction grade plastic, 5 hoses running together, and a jug of liquid soap? Well, apparently lots of red-neck fun called a "Slip-N-Die" waterslide. With the hose at the top running fresh water down the hill, and a teenager squirting liquid soap on the plastic occasionally. You are good to go!

Who needs a waterpark when sliding down a slippery hill into a sludge-filled hole is available for free? Well..I guess we don't!

Dan and I tagged along with our son Danny and his family over to his friends property for a 4th of July barbeque and we got to witness this for ourselves. I have a feeling this used to be part of a motorcycle trail that got a nice rut in it .

Check out the orange construction netting the kids use to climb out of the slippery sludge (notice the soap suds) that is tied to a nearby tree. I don't even want to THINK about what is in that water! The kids had a blast, and I'm praying that their immune systems are intact and fully functioning. Please...don't try this at home. We are trained red-neck professionals...:-)

Seaside & Razor Clams

Now...this is a heck of a way to spend a 38th wedding anniversary. Making my husband slam a clam gun in the ground at every little hole I think looks promising. He's still trying to make me happy after all these years. Dan and I spent the weekend at Seaside at the beach house and decided to join hundreds of others on the beach at low tide. We got 9 big ones, before Dan got pooped out. Poor guy. I could not believe all the people digging for clams...it was nuts!

"OK Jan... we hit pay dirt on this hole! But don't make me dig any more".

After exhausting my husband and cleaning the clams up (thank goodness for the internet and my husband's laptop to teach us the RIGHT way to do it!) We took a drive south to Cannon Beach.

Here's Haystack rock.

And yes...a trip to Seaside would not be complete without Dan getting an Elephant Ear. Hey...he earned it!

I sure love this guy. Glad I haven't killed him off yet with everything I'm always getting him to do.

Hug Point

Dan and I love this place on the coast. Cool caves, waterfalls, and not far from the beach house in Seaside. It was fun to come here on a sunny day and actually catch a few rays! The reason they call it "Hug Point" is because the cars & buggies used to have to hug the cliffs as they traveled up and down the coast - and only at low tide. There is still an old road bed at the base of the cliff behind Dan where you can walk around to the other side.

Here's an artzy photo I took, trying to get a glimpse of the coastline, looking north to Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach and then Tillamook Head jutting out into the ocean behind it all. The other side of Tillamook Head is Seaside.

There is a rock out in the ocean we call the "sleeping lady". It really looks like a lady laying down on a rock. So here's my crazy way of showing you where it is. To REALLY see it - double click this picture and you'll see it close up, and my face too!

Saturday Tree-cuttin'

One thing about living in the woods - there are always trees to cut down. This one in our front yard died a year ago and needed to go. Danny came down and he and Dan dropped it right where it wouldn't harm anything! Those guys know their stuff...

Now comes the fun part of cutting all the limbs off and hauling them to the burn pile. Chad brought his son Logan out to help. He is the sweetest boy. Both of Chad's kids are autistic, but Logan is talking better and better and loves to play with his cousins out here. It's so fun to have them out.

Spring finally came to Buxton

Our poor yard took a beating this winter with all the snow. We lost some plants and didn't know if we'd ever see a color other than green and muddy brown! But things are popping out and we have some fun spring color at last. Our flowers and trees are usually 2-3 weeks behind everyone else in town because of our elevation. Yes, we have our own eco-system over here...the temperate rain-forest! (which means cold and damp 6 months of the year :-). But when the trees start popping out, daffodils, hostas and hydrangea start showing signs of life - I know warmer days are coming. I went out around 7:30 this morning and took this shot....Oh, and also to check on the cows. One got out last night and Dan and Rebecca (our granddaughter) had to get him back in the barn. I heard the dogs barking, but I didn't see any big black beast munching on our lawn, so...so far so good! The dogs were only terrorizing a squirrel, thank goodness. Dan is off to his early morning church meeting and I'm afraid the cow would win the battle if I tried to herd him back in! I am a definate wuss when it comes to lifestock.

Where I spend my days

Just in case you were curious about where I spend 8 hours Monday-Friday,well...here I am. Dutifully at my desk at Millennium Graphics, Forms & Apparel. It's been 8 years now, I think. Wow. I'm the first face you see when you walk into the office. Can't believe my son has put up with me that long. It is a little weird at times, having your son be your boss, but we seem to do OK. I still want to tell him to "clean up his room" (office) but I bite my tongue! And he has to get after me about a few things I drop the ball on or forget...But I think he likes having me on board most of the time!

Disney-mania for 17

What started out as a nice vacation for just Dan and I to Florida visiting Dan's sisters and brother, turned into a full-on Jordanian Disney World adventure! Our son Danny caught wind of it, and brought his whole family of nine kids, and our daughter Emily brought her three kids. We made matching shirts just so we could keep track of each other, and it's a good thing we did! The weather was heavenly...80's and not too much humidity. And by the crowds at the parks, you'd never know that there was a recession. Probably most of the people had paid for their tickets months ago, like us! (before their 401K's tanked!)

Dan's sister, Annette brought their deluxe travel trailer for all but Danny's crew to stay in at Ft. Wilderness, a Disney campground we like to stay at. We loved it, and saved some $ eating breakfast there and packing up lunches for a day at the parks. It was good to get to know Annette's husband Robert - finally!



We visited the Magic Kindgom for 2 days, Disney Hollywood Studio's, Animal Kingdom and Typhoon Lagoon.

Dan and his crew stayed off site in a time-share and they'd come and meet us in the morning in their 15 passenger van and we'd take the ferry over from Ft. Wilderness. Here we are at the bus stop to catch the ferry.

Can you tell this is the last day at the parks? My legs are ready to fall off, and the kids are tired. I've got Jonah and Brooklyn (2 of Emily's) on my lap, and "tinkerbell" Emily on my right...complete with binky.

Another picture is of our daily ice cream breaks in the afternoon.

Here's a lovely picture of the inside of Dannys vehicle with 17 people in a 15 passenger van! We traveled to St. Augustine to visit family and enjoy the beach one of the days we were there. Here's Emily and Danny next to Dan's sisters, Joy and Annette on the beach. The kids had fun collecting shells and experiencing the very different east coast!

The very last day, Dan and I got some alone time and rode the monorail around to the resort hotels and ate lunch at the Contemporary resort.