Winter has arrived!

We were beginning to wonder if winter would ever come to Bend. With temps in the 60's & 70's the week before Thanksgiving then still staying in the 50's thru the beginning of December, it was questionable. Then, just as we wanted to make the trek to Portland it hit! Last weekend Bend saw it's 1st snowfall. The mountain pass by Mt. Hood looked like a whiteout via webcam so we took an alternate/longer route to Portland and arrived back in Bend to a dusting of the white stuff.
On Sunday afternoon we went with some friends to cut our Christmas tree in the Deschutes National Forest. You just buy a $5 permit and go hunting... Luckily our friends had experience and 2 SUV's. It was truly a 'Winter Wonderland'.
We hope to make it an annual tradition! Fresh air, snowball fights, the beauty of God's world, excellent exercise, hot chocolate, fun with friends and a $5 tree! What could be better?

"The Nutcracker" by the Central Oregon School of Ballet

Last weekend Amy participated in her 1st production of 'The Nutcracker'. She was thrilled with her parts as a rat and in 'Waltz of the Flowers'. Her only regret was that they couldn't do it more than the 3 scheduled performances. Unfortunately we did not get any pictures of her as a 'rat' but I honestly could not tell which one she was as the costume hid her face so....
With the exception of the last picture in the slide show, all the pictures were taken by our neighbor, Darren. He and his wife, Heather, were sitting in the last row but he has a good camera and got these wonderful shots.

We have just returned from Portland where we saw the Oregon Ballet Theater's production of 'The Nutcracker' on Friday night. It was lovely and we all enjoyed it but, I must say, on our way home there was a lot of comparisons/discussion of who was better... the professionals or the school production.
The other highlight of this weekend was having breakfast with my niece, Nancy, at our hotel in Portland. It was great to see her and she is having a terrific week visiting with friends. She promised to be back in July '09 and visit us here in Bend.
Booking reservations now! We'd love to see you....

Dan's Summer Job

This was Dans BIG job.... Transforming dirt and rock into a desert oasis!

You may wonder what a chemist does in retirement... other than doing the majority of the grocery shopping, preparing delicious dinners & making yummy bread in his new lab oops!, I mean kitchen.
We knew we wanted a garden so Dan created this 3 tiered space and then planted lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, swiss chard and various herbs. We enjoyed its bounty right thru the fall.
Then the real work began. One objective was to have no grass that would require a in ground sprinkler system. Remember, we now live in a desert! I really can't recall any rainfall between May and October. So, if you want grass the automatic sprinklers are essential.
Yards & yards of topsoil, mulch & stone were dumped on our driveway. The wheelbarrow and lots of muscle were needed to transport it to it's designated space.
Many trips to the various garden shops resulted in drought tolerant flowers/bushes/plants that will hopefully grow into our desert oasis. Dan did a terrific job and Amy & I are grateful for all his hard work!

Ahhhh... A job well done!

Thanksgiving and so much more...

First things first, we had a different Thanksgiving this year - our 1st Thanksgiving in Oregon. As far as my memory will take me, I believe this was the 1st time in 51 years that I did not spend the day visiting, laughing and feasting with my extended family.
We wanted the day to be memorable and so a few weeks ago we (mainly me) started to brainstorm different scenarios. Should we go to the coast for a few days (Amy had a 10 day school break!?!), fly to Las Vegas (absurdly cheap airfare from here), drive to the Bay Area to visit with Daniel and some of Dan's transplanted GE friends, stay home and volunteer at a Mission/Soup Kitchen or stay home and open our home to friends and neighbors? Well, we ended up picking the final choice and we are glad we did.

Our neighbors, the Deenik's, moved here 2 years ago from South Africa and as they were "familyless" they joined us. Then we invited a transplanted family from California who we know from our church small group. They are facing some tough financial times and shared at our last meeting that they were not sure they could afford the expense of a Thanksgiving dinner... so our group numbered 10. Dan's turkey was scrumptious, once again, and we enjoyed getting to know these special people. We are grateful for our family, our health, and all that God has given us. Hardly a day goes by that Dan and I don't express amazement and wonder at the fabulous natural beauty of our surroundings. Even Amy is coming around to appreciating our new hometown and all that it affords us. She is especially loving her ballet studies. This coming weekend she will perform in her 1st Nutcracker Ballet. She will dance in the "Waltz of the Flowers" and dance the part of a rat, as well. It should be very exciting!

The next major event that occurred Thanksgiving weekend involved the green and the orange. The 112th Civil War! I'll let Dan fill you in on that exciting event: This year the "hated" Beavers needed to beat my beloved Ducks in order to go to the Rosebowl. They had beaten USC earlier, their defense was ranked just out of the top 10 in the country, and the game was in Corvallis so there was a lot of trepidation on the part of Ducks fans. Well, we scored 65 points to beat them in a rout. Long runs and lots of TD passes made it really exciting to watch. What fun!

Well, I went against my better judgment and got the house decorated for Christmas before December 1st. I usually wait until the 1st weekend in December but this year we will be busy with 3 performances of the Nutcracker. So, Amy and I decked the halls and rejoiced in seeing our beloved Christmas decorations. As some of you may remember, we arrived in OR last year on December 19th and our plan was to bring only the essential tree ornaments and Christmas stockings in the car with us. So that, even if we didn't have furniture we could still get a tree and hang our stockings by the fireplace. Well, we left that carefully packed box in the basement and the new homeowners had to ship it to us by UPS. Needless to say, it didn't reach us until January. Anyway, Amy was especially anxious to decorate this year and we had great fun. Here's Amy on her way out the door for school putting the 1st ornament on our advent tree calendar.