New Year's at the Property

Once again this year we were luck enough to be invited out to the property to spend New Year's with Rich and Sena again. The weeks leading up to New Year's we were wondering if we were going to be able to make it over there with all the crazy weather that had been going on. Some how we lucked out and the trip over was completely clear. No problems at all.

There were a lot more people staying there this year. It was really a packed house. And there were more kids there this year. Not to mention, Rich and Sena just had their second child. Vansee was born on October 27, so she is only a couple months old. We had a lot of fun playing with the kids in the snow. The first day we were there we went up the canyon to the place where they close the roads to car traffic and open it up to snowmobiling. Because there were only 4 snowmobiles people had to take turns ridding. So while they were ridding the rest of us took a little walk up the road. We towed the kids on sleds and Sena had Vansee tucked in her jacket where she was snug and sleeping away.

Then Eric and I got to ride up the canyon on the snowmobiles to Box Canyon where there is a lookout over the river. It was very cool. We are going to have to go back and visit in the spring when the water is all melted because I bet the falls are really raging then.

It was lots of fun and the view was absolutely beautiful. We couldn't have asked for a better day because it was not too cold or windy. There was not any really blinding sun, but it also wasn't snowing. I could have stayed outside all day in those conditions. I could not say the same for the days that followed. Over the next couple of days I think it snowed about a foot or maybe more. It was a lot nicer to look at from inside the warm house. Eric and I played some cribbage and visited with people. It lightened up enough on New year's Eve night for us to have a bonfire outside again. Of course Eric got the fire going because that is what he like to do. We had a pile of stumps and stuff over on our property from the cleanup that had been done in the fall. So we had fire over there on the big pile. It took a while to get it started, but once it got going it melted a huge area of snow all around it. It looked really cool. It left the snow in these crunchy spikes. So we brought in the New Year around the bonfire.

We had plans of heading out on New Year's Day. We had a few other people that we wanted to visit on our way home. So we thought we would just take our time getting home and visit people along the way. But we found out that morning that the pass was closed. We kept checking the reports every couple hours but it remained closed. So we thought we better stay put, wait out the continuing snow, and try again the next morning. By that time there were a few people with cabin fever because the conditions were not really great to go outside. So what do you do when you have cabin fever? Well, Eric, Joey, Ben and I settled in for a very long game of Risk. I think it must have been the first time I had even finished a game of Risk. Usually when I had played someone got bored and ended up throwing the board so that it would be over. The game didn't start off to well for me. I must say I am horrible at rolling dice. I think the only way I was able to stay in the game was the fact that I was so horrible at rolling no one bothered to attack me and I was able to build up my armies. Eric on the other hand was very aggressive. He got a little over aggressive, spread his armies a little thin and ended up only having 2 countries. He was surrounded by Ben. He is 15. By that time we had to be at least 4 hours in, if we had let him throw the board he would of done it. So he wasn't paying to much attention to the fact that he could have knocked Eric out of the game. Somehow Eric battled back, and when he got the cards to add 75 armies it was pretty much over. It was down to just me and him, but with the way I roll I didn't stand a chance. Anyways, it was a lot of fun. The next morning we woke up, the pass was open, so everyone headed out. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was fun to look at the sights as we drove home. When we were driving up Entiat River Road past an orchard we saw a huge group of birds. As we got closer we realized that the were gathered around a carcass, and amongst the birds was a bald eagle. It was pretty cool.

The trip home went really well. We are excited to get back over there as soon as the snow melts to go camping. Thanks for having us over Rich and Sena! 

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Bird Feeder

Now that it has been getting colder out and we had to take our plant inside, we turned Eric's rebar globe into a bird feeder. We have had a lot of birds visiting.

We also set out some woodpecker food. We have had daily visits from Northern Flickers. They are very pretty woodpeckers.

We have also had a visit by a Pileated Woodpecker, or what I like to call Woody Woodpecker.

And there have been lots of birds eating the seeds below the bird feeders. We often see a pack of California Quails. There are about 15 of them that travel together. 

We have had lots of other kinds of birds at our feeders as well. The have especially been hanging around while there has been snow on the ground.

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Hanging Out with Cousins

Since we didn't get to see all of the family on Christmas,

some of the cousins got together at our house

before Rebecca had to go back to med school.

We just had burgers and played pool.

It was good to see everyone.

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Christmas

We had a pretty busy Christmas this year. We went to the Roberts and then the Engels Christmas Eve parties. We got to see a lot of people we hadn't seen in a long time. And the Engels was a white elephant party. We didn't know we were supposed to bring presents, but they had a couple extra. So I ended up with a stuffed animal and Eric ended up with a daily calendar on Africa Wisdom.

Then we spent the night at my parents house. Christmas Day we had lunch at my parents house. It was a seafood feast. Here are some pictures of the kid opening her present from us. It has a little microphone on it. She spent most of the time trying to eat it like it was an ice cream cone. Once she did figure it out all that came out was what sounded like a singer grunting in a heavy metal band. Then we went to my grandparents house for dinner. They had a lot of old family photos there that everyone was looking at. It was fun to hear about the old days. All in all it was a very busy but great Christmas.

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Mt Rainier

This is a picture that Eric took looking over the Burton Marina on Christmas morning.

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Snow

We did not get nearly as much snow as some other people but we got a pretty significant amount. I think at one point we had 8 inches. Although we didn't get that much precipitation compared to those on Vashon and other places, our snow stuck around a lot longer. It is colder at our house so we had snow on the ground for weeks. We didn't have to do too much driving in it so it was fun to have snow. They plow the roads pretty well around us and actually all the way up to our driveway sometimes. It was a little tough to get my car out of the garage for Christmas after it had been in there for 8 days but we did OK. The coolest thing that we saw during all this snow was the snow drifting off the roof. It looked like ice crystals swirling in the air. I had never seen anything like it. There is a little bit of video of it below but it doesn't really do it justice.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ux2rAFyjNL11iXSV8

Peppers in the Greenhouse

We had really good luck with peppers this year. Our neighbors Kelly and Wanda lent us their grow lights to use for our greenhouse. So we were able to keep all of our plants warm this spring while the weather was not so great. Like pepper plants always do, they took a long time to grow, but we had lots of peppers. We filled the entire greenhouse with pepper plants. And they just continue to grow. As the weather started to get colder Eric put a little heater in there as well to make sure the frost did not effect them. We are still eating peppers today.

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Halloween

We didn't have a whole lot of trick or treaters this year. We were expecting a lot because we had a ton last year. I think it was because the weather was bad this year. But we did decorate the house and had a lot of fun doing it.

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Tomato Tree

We did not have a very good year for tomatoes because of the not so great weather. But we did have an interesting type of new tomato. When we bought our seeds we received a free seed packet of seeds for a tomato tree. It turned out pretty good. It grew a ton of tomatoes and grew about 6 feet tall.

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Working on the Driveway

Eric has been over to the property a number of times this year because he has been doing a lot of work in Chelan. So he coordinated a trip over there while Rich was working on his driveway. Eric was able to use the equipment for a while to get our driveway fixed as well. The driveway got scraped down and had gravel added. And he also had them move some really big rocks moved around.

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Fire Roads at the Property

For Labor Day we went over to the property again. Rich and Sena were over there too. We had lots of fun and did the usual stuff that we do at the property. Eric did get a chance to go up on some of the fire roads across the other side of the river. Here are some pictures from their little adventure.

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Chris & Toliver's Wedding Reception

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Sunflowers

The sunflowers turned out pretty good this year.
They weren't as good as the monster sunflower that we had last year,
but they were very pretty.

The Ocean

Eric and I made our annual trip out to Ocean Shores with my family. We did not have great luck with the weather this year, but if you aren't prepared to battle some wind and rain then you shouldn't visit the Washington Coast. We did the usual stuff. Hang out on the beach, eat food, play botchee ball, have a campfire, and of course every year some one has to get buried. This year Jordan joined Ryan, and it was a Thelma & Louis theme. For the first couple of nights we stayed in the hotel room with Wes' and all of his buddies. Despite all the fun with the boys with the burping and farting, the stinkiest and dirtiest bathroom I have ever seen, and watching them play a video games into the middle of the night, we decided that for Saturday night maybe Eric and I should get a room of our own. Although I must say it was very interesting to watch 4 high school boys play a game for hours that involved walking around looking for a girl, courting her and then buying her a wedding ring. The more wives you had the more points you got. Pretty weird if you ask me. Anyways, Eric and I stopped in at the Casino to play a couple hands of blackjack, some all you can eat buffet, and to rent a room for Saturday night. I didn't do so well at the blackjack, but we did eat them out of crab. Eric however had a reasonable good night at blackjack. He had a lot of money down on the table and somehow convinced to pit boss to give us a room upgrade. So when we showed up Saturday to check into our room we were quite surprised to find out that they had upgraded us to the Grand Suite. We thought that was pretty cool, but had no idea what to expect. We were walking down the hallway toward our room to find that our door was different than all of the rest of them. Instead of a plain door it was a very nice carved door. We opened the door and it was a long hallway. We walked in and the hallway turned to the left. On the left hand side was a huge bathroom with beautiful tile, a jacuzzi tub. On the right there was the master bedroom with a large king sized bed and a TV. At the end of the hallway it opened into a huge living room. There were 6 couches and chairs, a fireplace, a huge flat screen high definition TV, and two sliding doors that opened up to a huge balcony. It was amazing and beautifully decorated with Indian art. I looked on their website and I couldn't even find the price for that room. The Studio suite which is not even as nice is $549 a night. So this room had to be more. We only payed $200. If you go to the following website you can check out the room tours of the Grand Suite. The decorating is a little different in the picture and the pictures show a dinner table rather than what we had which was more couches and a huge TV, but you can see how large it is. All in all it was a pretty fun trip to the ocean.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CJ29HTNwJcF79M8w8