New Year's at the Property

We have never been to our property in the winter because I just can't bring myself to sleep in a tent in the snow. So when Rich and Sena (our neighbors over in Entiat) asked us to come stay with them for New Year's we were very excited.

We had heard what it was like but weren't exactly sure what to expect. So we packed a lot of warm closes, bought some chains for the CRV and headed out over the pass. It was supposed to snow a couple feet in the mountains that day but it wasn't really that bad. It was very beautiful in the mountains.

Blue enjoyed the ride from the back and was very excited to be able to get out and play. The buffaloes that are along the road to Wenatchee were enjoying the snow as well. But as we got closer to Wenatchee the snow began to diminish. We were starting to wonder how much snow there was actually going to be at the property. Here is a picture of Rocky Reach Dam and Lake Entiat. As you can see there was only a dusting in most areas. But as we turned up Entiat River road we saw that the delta where Entiat River flows into Entiat Lake was actually frozen over.

And as we drove further up the river the snow began to accumulate more and we also saw a strange occurrence in the river. The river was flowing but it had an green color too it and there were large chunks of ice in the middle. After doing some research I found out that they call this Anchor Ice.

After looking for a long time on the Internet I found a lot of debate as to whether a river can actual freeze from the bottom up, but here is a source that seemed reliable and what they said about Anchor Ice:



In streams and other turbulent water bodies the water can supercool
(i.e. cool below the freezing point).
When this occurs, frazil forms in the water column and anchor ice may form on the stream bed. Formation of anchor ice and its subsequent release from the bed results in sediment transport by the released anchor ice (i.e. ice rafting).

You can find out more about Anchor Ice at the following website as well as video showing how it forms.

http://faculty.gg.uwyo.edu/kempema/vidtour.html

We kept traveling up river, it was pretty smooth going till we give to about the 15 mile mark. The snow began to get a lot deeper and the road was still plowed but had ice on it. We pulled into our driveway and could see that there was about 3 feet of snow.

Here is a picture of Eric standing out our Riverwood Gate on the bridge.

And looking from the bridge the river looked very calm but very cold. There was not going to be any swimming on this trip, not even for Blue.

Fortunately Rich & Sena had been paying to have the driveway plowed so that we could drive all the way up to the house. It looked amazing. The house was wonderful and there were huge icicles hanging off the roof. The house was all finished inside and furnished. We stayed in one of the bedrooms in the downstairs.

You can see the window looking out from the room on the walk up to the porch. Even the view from that window had an amazing view of the mountains.

By the time we arrived on Sunday it was a bit late to go exploring, so we stayed inside and visited with Rich, Sena, their son Hugh and their other family that were staying for the New Year's.

The next morning Eric and I decided to drive up river to see what it was like up there. Of course there was more accumulation, and the trees were covered in snow. You couldn't really see the river very well because the snow plow created a huge pile along the side of the road. We did discover one thing though, about 5 miles up from our driveway they no longer plowed the roads. They stopped at the gravel pit area that is along side the road. From there you could see a narrow path along were the road is. This was for snowmobiles. There were a number of people parked there and enjoying the trail.

When we got back to the house we decided to go out and enjoy the snow while there was daylight. We borrowed Rich & Sena's snow shoes and took a little walk through our property and around the area. Sena had already made the track so that made wading through 3 feet of snow a lot easier for Eric and I. Of course Blue didn't quite understand the idea of the path and preferred to go hopping jumping almost swimming through the snow drifts.

Eric dared me to make a snow angel. I got a lot of snow in my face but it was pretty fun.

For the New Year's Celebration we had a bon fire. It sounds a little crazy to have a bonfire in the snow when it is 10 degrees outside, but it was actually pretty fun. And as long as you stayed near the fire it wasn't too cold. In fact it was such a big fire that most of the time my knees were burning. We had a lot of fun and are glad we finally got to see the property during the winter.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/7aDpEo5YrJBZVVF37

Blue in the Snow

I think out of all of us Blue had the most fun going over to the property.





He loves swimming in the river during the summer and we now know that he loves the snow too.







He jumped into the snow drifts, tunneled around looking for his ball, and just had a blast.

Happy Holidays

Eric and I were excited to spend a real first Christmas at our house this year. Last year was our first Christmas at the house, but because we had just gotten married and he had just gotten surgery we did not do a whole lot of Christmas celebrating. We did not have a tree last year and in fact Eric and I have never really had a tree. When we were living at the cabin it was way too small to have a tree. One year I did get about a one-foot tall live tree and set it on out the kitchen table.

So this year was our first real Christmas tree. We saw some signs by our house for a Christmas tree farm so we thought we would give it a try. It was not that far from our house and it was a really cool place. They had a lot of different types of trees. We wanted a Blue Spruce but they were all out so we decided on a Norwegian Spruce.

It was a very nice tree, and although we hate to kill trees, we knew it was grown for that purpose. I think the thing I love most about a real tree is the smell that it brings into your house. I have missed that so much over the last couple of years. The one funny thing about finally having a tree was realizing that I did not have very many ornaments. So our tree did not have that much decoration this year, but it was still very beautiful.

This year for the holidays my Mom's side of the family decided to get together the weekend before Christmas. Unfortunately Eric and I went to his company Christmas party so we missed seeing everyone. On Christmas Eve we went to Jack & Mary Anne's house. Like always there was tons of food and good friends to send time with. That night we stayed at my parents' house. Tony, Susan and the baby were also there. So it was kind of a full house. We also spent Christmas Day at my parents' house. We had a lot of good food.

There was one very special thing about Christmas year. It was a White Christmas. Pretty special for the baby's first Christmas. This is the first time in 17 years there has been an official White Christmas in Seattle. It melted pretty fast, but it was fun while it lasted. All in all we had a very Happy Holidays. We hope that you all did as well.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/5CtaMXdx5i7MDsJt6

Working on the Yard

Well, the Saturday before Christmas we had a little surprise. I woke up around 7:00 AM and looked out the window to see a backhoe in the the back yard. I had no idea that it was going to be there and wasn't quite sure what was going on. Eric and I have been talking for about a year about doing some work in our back yard but we had not discussed when we were going to do it or the particulars.

It turns out that Eric's friend Jake was able to come over to do some work on a trade and he jumped at the chance to get it done. So before it was even light out they began tearing up the back yard.

The first thing we wanted to do was clean-up was the area behind the shop. The previous owner had down some work on the driveway in recent years. When he did so he had pushed the extra dirt behind the shop in mounds as well as a bunch of garbage. What resulted was mounds pushed up against trees almost 3 feet high in some places and the low spots in others. And then there were blackberry bushes and weeds growing over these mounds. So the area was not only an eye sore be completely unusable. So we had Jake level it out and clear the bushes and a couple of trees that were dead or leaning. It looks so wonderful now. Eric is going to build me big compost bin back there so that we don't have to look at the compost pile any more. 

After all that clearing we had a huge fire. You know Eric loved that.

The next task was to dig a trench along the garden in the back yard. We dug up a bunch of plants and put them in pots and then dug a 2-3 foot deep trench right were the front row of the garden was. Eric is going to build a retaining wall in the trench.

Once that is done we are going to level the back wall in try to straiten up the garden. We want it to be mostly just bushes behind the retaining wall so that we don't have to do to much careful weeding back there because the forest just creeps into that garden. Then if we still have time money and energy we will build smaller raised beds in front of the retaining wall where we can put our flowers. There will be steps going up in at least one spot. We haven't worked all of the particulars with the design and dimensions yet so the back yard may look like a mess for a while. We also plan to get rid of the pool (I know we have been saying that forever) and that portion of the deck will probably go as well. There are portions of the deck that are rotting and I don't think we really need that big of a deck. We are probably going to put in a smaller patio, and redo the area where the hot tub is in there. Sounds like a lot of work. I am sure it is. I guess we won't really know until we get there. It is nice to at least have it started so there is some incentive to get it finished.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/3ZuxwR8tYKeLdTk96

First Anniversary

Eric and I celebrated our first Anniversary.
He surprised me by taking me downtown for dinner.
We got to see the Christmas lights and walk around.

We went to Benihana. I had never gone before so I was really excited.
Not only was the food excellent, but it was quite a show.
My favorite was the flaming Tepee of onions and oil.

Eric had the Special, which was a beef, chicken and shrimp dinner. I went for the Seafood dinner, which included lobster, shrimp and scallops. I must say they were the best scallops I have ever tasted.

And they were so simply prepared. I guess when you start with excellent quality seafood then you get an excellent dinner.

It was also very cool to see him make fried rice right there on the grill. I don't think I had ever see fried rice made so it was really cool.

We also celebrated by bringing out some things from the wedding. We watched our wedding videos. We also tried some of the cake from our wedding. Not really sure why people do that because it is year old cake, but it still tasted OK.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/mr2ZSEw4eX2MNTJbA

Eric's Birthday

Today is Eric's birthday. We didn't really make any huge plans for his birthday. Just a relaxing day at home. We did have a small birthday party yesterday. It turned out to be a very good day.

First of all, we woke up to snow. It was just a light dusting, but by 2:00 it was really coming down. It was beautiful. We enjoyed it while it lasted.

For his birthday dinner Eric wanted Turkey with all the fixings. Eric had bought a couple of 25 pound turkeys on discount because it was after Thanksgiving. And he wanted to try deep frying them because he has a propane deep fryer. So he was going to do the Turkeys and I was in charge of the mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, and the chocolate chip cookies. We had a great dinner and plenty of leftovers.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/46qDX7HXnvkQsTgd7

It's a Girl!

Congrats to Tony & Susan.

They had a beautiful baby girl.

Persephone Helen Puz

Born November 13, 2007 at 7:51 PM

8 lbs 7.6 oz.

20.5 Inches

40 Hours of Labor

20 Hours at the Hospital

Tuesday morning Eric woke up to go to work. I remember him waking up and then I fell back to sleep. Then he woke me up and said "It's time to go." Eric had received the phone call at about Midnight, but he didn't check his messages till about 5 AM. We got ready to go, made a trip to Starbucks, and were on our way to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tacoma to see our niece be born.

We arrived there around 6:00 AM. I would say one of the scariest parts of the day was when we got trapped in the elevator. Look our for Elevator number 4. We got in and were headed up and the power cut off. We weren't sure if it was the whole building that was out of power of just the elevator. I started using the light of my cell phone (which had no reception) to find the emergency button. Eric said "No, just wait". But I pushed the button any way. Within 30 seconds the doors opened and the mechanic was standing there. It was really scary. Probably nothing compared to what Tony and Susan had to go through that day though.

We made it to the room where everyone was pretty much exhausted already. We were there early enough to see the sun rise from the window in their room.

Susan had started having contractions on Monday at 4:00 AM. And they decided to go to the hospital at about Midnight. When we arrived they were working on trying to speed up the process. Here they are taking a walk around the hallway.

After they had been at the hospital for around 8 hours they decided to really speed up the process. After getting an Epidural, they began to induce labor.

After 12 hours of being at the hospital we were asked to leave the room because they felt that Susan had progressed enough to try and deliver the baby. But we all found out that this was one stubborn baby. We sat in the waiting room and waited.

Susan and the baby were very healthy and doing well, but the baby was not positioning her self very well. The tried pushing many times. Then stopped to take a break and push again. But she just wasn't going to come out that way. So they decided that it would be best if the did a C-Section. Then we had to wait for the doctor to arrive because she was at a different location. And then we waited some more. The nurse told us that because they were both doing so well that they had to take care of some other patients first that were in a more dire situation. So waiting isn't so bad when you know that Susan and the baby are healthy. Finally at about 7:00 PM they were all prepped and went into surgery.


We were aloud to wait in there room to wait for them to come back. The nurse told us it would probably be an hour. And sure enough in about an hour we saw Tony walking down the hallway with a baby girl in his arms. Eric and I were at the hospital for 14 hours, Tony and Susan had been there 20 but it was worth it when we got to see the baby.



Persephone Helen Puz was born at 7:51 PM on November 13, 2007. After Tony held her a while and lots of pictures where taken a nurse came in to measure her. We took bets on how big she was. Eric guessed 8.6 and was the closest. She was 8 lbs 7.6 oz. The measured her and she was 20.5 inches long.


After she was measured and a lot more pictures were taken, Susan was brought back in the room. She was doing great after the surgery. Here is a picture of their first family photo.

Here are a lot more pictures as well as some video from the day.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LpmibvoZxZayxGJc8

Veterans Day

I thought I would post this article that was on the front page of the Seattle Times in case other family members missed it or were not able to find it. The veteran in the photo is Bud Campbell. He is my Great Uncle (My Grandmother, Helen Puz' brother in law). I have included a summary of the article. You can read the full article by going to the Seattle Times Website

When Albert "Bud" Campbell, of Seattle, was getting out of the U.S. Army, a young officer asked him to join the reserves and gave him the paperwork. Campbell tore the papers in two and handed them back.
"I'd seen enough death and destruction," said Campbell, an infantry captain. Until last week, the 89-year-old World War II veteran didn't talk about his war experiences in New Guinea and the Philippines...

...Like many veterans who agreed to be interviewed, Campbell and Bevan broke their self-imposed silence at the urging of friends and family.
For his taping, Bud Campbell sat in a comfortable chair in his North Seattle living room. His wife, Mary, watched from the dining-room table as McHatton set up a small bank of lights, a microphone and a video recorder on a tripod. McHatton used flashcards of questions to prompt Campbell.
He talked about being stationed at Camp Roberts in Northern California on Dec. 7, 1941.
"I was on a weekend pass when Pearl Harbor was bombed," Campbell said. "They kept saying on the radio that all military personnel should return to base immediately. I didn't go back until 2 a.m. because I knew we'd never get off base."
He was 23 years old and overnight his one-year commitment became five. He became an officer and fought in New Guinea and the Philippines...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Well now that I had a tons of gourds I had to put them to use. So I decorated our front bay window with pumpkins, gourds and Indian Corn. Here are some pictures of the decorations. Eric and I went down to the farm near our house that had a huge pumpkin patch and bought some monstrous pumpkins. I carved 6 of them.

My favorites were Gollum and his hand reaching for the ring.

Halloween has now come and gone. I had a softball game that night so I didn't get to hand out candy. But Eric had a lot of fun. Last year we only had about 6 groups of trick or treaters and about 3 huge Costco size bags of candy. So we were still eating candy after Easter. This year I only bought 2 small bags of candy. We ran out of that by 7:30. Eric then searched through the garage and found some Dr. Peppers (which the kids seemed to love) and some Gatorade. That also ran out. So Eric ran to the store and bought some candy and gave away most of that too. I guess we will have to be better prepared next year.

No that my pumpkins have begun to mold and we have thrown them into the compost I had to find something else to do with the gourds. So I decorated the table.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kHTwdCLu4wk9HRiKA

Crazy Cat

Bella has pretty much gotten used to us now that we have had her for a year. She is still a little scared when company is over, but when it is just Eric and I she will sit in your lap or play. Recently we bought her a laser pointer which she loves chasing.

It is also a nightly thing for her to watch TV in the living room with me. And she loves to sleep anywhere. Even in our beanbag.

Unlike Blue, who sits at the back door waiting for scraps, Bella usually doesn't get treats. But the other day we were cooking up some Halibut from Alaska that Rich gave us. Bella came down and sat on the couch next to me while we were eating. And then she began to sniff the air. She looked like she was in heaven.

We couldn't help it. She seemed so excited that Eric gave her a little bit. Rich, Bella says thank you for the tasty fish.

Miracle Grow & Gourds Galore

Well, I thought I should probably give you an update on the progress of our garden. Earlier this year we had planted a new garden in the front entry way. You can read about and see pictures of this in our blog by clicking here. All we did was water it but it seemed to grow as if covered in Miracle Grow.

We were worried that the garden wouldn't fill out because it was its first year so I planted a couple of sunflowers. The one above is a Mexican Sunflower. I grew some last year but they didn't do very well. It only had about 5 flowers on it. This year it did quite well. I also planted another sunflower next to it. I thought it was another Mexican Sunflower because it was not very big when I planted it, but I guess I was wrong because it was quite a bit bigger.

12 feet four inches to be exact. It was quite a shock, but it was pretty cool. It was almost a high as our second story window. It turns out that it was from the seeds that I bought that were called American Giant.

Here is Eric, Bella, Blue and I standing next to it. And also a picture of the head once it was fully grown. Somehow after staking it with rebar it still standing with its head on after the first frost in November. That is one strong sunflower.

It wasn't the greatest growing year for some of our vegetables because the spring was quite cold and our starts did not do very well. But we did have one huge surprise. Last year we bought a small bag of ornamental gourds from Costco to decorate for Halloween. After they began to go bad we threw them in the compost. In the spring we noticed a couple of small gourd plants coming out of the compost pile next to the greenhouse. We decided to let them grow and see what happened. We did not actually expect to get any gourds because they were store bought, but it couldn't hurt to see what happened. So we left them in the compost pile and watered them once in a while.

By September it became difficult to walk to the greenhouse (left). By October it became impossible without stepping on the plant (right).

By the time we pulled the plant out to harvest the gourds in October the plant had covered the entire walkway, grown under the deck, climed up the walls of the greenhouse and around the back side, over the fence into the neighbors yards and around the other side of the steps and into the garden next to it. The majority of the gourds were pear shaped yellow and green striped (see right). It took a numbers of hours to pull the entire bush out, harvest the gourds, wash and count them. We ended up with 500 gourds this year. So we then began to give gourds to anyone and everyone we saw. Too bad that they are only decorative.

Here are a couple other pictures of flowers from our garden this year. A single petal dalia that I got from my grandma and another sunflower.

Labor Day at the Property

Going to the property on Labor Day has now kind of become a tradition. What was fun about this Labor Day was that Cara and Daren came with us. It was the first time out to the property and we all had a blast. Of course Eric did some work while he was over there. And the mosquitoes weren't as bad. Although we had a tough time with the bees. Cara had a fun time using the mosquito rackets to zap the bees. The weather was pretty nice so we spent a lot of time down at the park. Eric, Cara, Blue and I went floating down a couple of times.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ok4arr8m3PUHfAeR6

The Ocean

Once again we made our yearly trip to the ocean. The weather wasn't great this year but it was pretty remarkable because we at least 30 people there. That is our largest group ever. Like always we had a BBQ, played games, had a bonfire, flew kites, ate more food, boogie boarded, watched the pelicans, and just hung out together. It did rain quite a bit, but fortunately we had a tent.

We also took Blue of this trip. He was such a good dog. He loves playing in our river at the property but I don't think he had ever been to the ocean before. He tried drinking the salt water and didn't like that too much.

Then I took him wading. He is a really good swimmer but I think he was a little scared of the waves. It was like watching a little kid. He would go out a ways, and then when a wave would come in he would run for the shore. He was exhausted by the end of the trip.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/i29MACgBnKFRdFmf8