So far, this has been a quiet year. January was a lot drier than year's past and we actually got out to play golf two times in weather that would be considered great here in the summer - no wind, sunny and mid 60's. I won some money in the football pool and Janet did what I did last year - went 0 for 21. Better luck next year!
Like most of our friends, we were thrilled to see the inaugaration of President Obama. The economy is in the toilet, but we have high hopes that he will be able to make inroads to repairing the damage of the Bush years. It will be an uphill battle for him. We are lucky in that our income seems to be secure and our house is ours. I continue to volunteer at Community Action and help out in the Housing and Energy Assistance programs. We both volunteer at the Egyptian Theater and have fun selling refreshments a couple of times a month.
February 1st we hosted our 5th Annual Super Bowl - White Elephant party. It was a smaller group this year - only 7 and we didn't get any photos, but we had a nice time and it was a good game with the Steelers pulling out a win in the last 49 seconds from the Arizona Cardinals. We went to see a local production of "The King and I" on the 12th and to the Annual Crab Feed on the 14th. That was the local kick off event for Oregon's 150th year as a state. Is that the sesquicentennial? I'm not sure.
Sandy and Buddy are continuing to adjust to one another and Sandy seems to think Max is OK. So now we leave the gate up in the guestroom door, but we leave the door open. Max likes it better but he still has to be careful of Buddy. Actually so does Sandy as Buddy has gone after him a few times and nipped him. Buddy just liked being an only dog better.
On February 25th June received word that her guardian/mom, Mildred, passed away. She had reached her 100th birthday in October of 2008. She will be missed.
March brought June's 59th birthday and a relatively quiet celebration. Janet gave me a bass guitar, something I always thought would be fun to learn to play. It's a bit trickier than I thought, but I can do a simple bass line in a number of folk songs. I'll never be a virtuoso, but it is fun. We went out to dinner and the following weekend we went up to Portland to see "Wicked" again. We stayed at Tom's in Hillsboro and got to visit with him and his wife, LeAnn. It was nice to see them again as it had been about 2 years. We love the music from the show and have been singing it ever since. We even bought the music from the show and our hoping to use it in a hootenanny at some point.
Janet celebrated her 70th in April with a nice dinner on her birthday eve with friends at our favorite restaurant, the Coach House. We had planned to play golf on her birthday, but the weather didn't cooperate so we went to the movies instead. That evening some other friends came over for dessert and games. She said it was the nicest birthday she could remember.
In May we went to see "Spamalot" in Eugene. We had 2nd row center seats and had a very enjoyable time. It is a fun show and we would love to see it again if it came back. We went with our friends, Tully and Linda, and then went to a new (for us) restaurant called the Oregon Electric Train. It's made up of a bunch of old train cars side by side - really interesting.
In June we made a journey to Reedsport for the Annual Chainsaw Carving Festival. This year the theme was supposed to be the 150th birthday of the state or something relating to state history. It was hard to figure out the artist's intent with some of the carvings, but they are incredible works of art no matter what the theme is.
This piece was the first we saw. It's a wall hanging and I wish we had the money and space to afford it. I love the way the grain of the wood was used in framing the design. Not sure, but it might be Myrtlewood which is very hard.
This was one of my favorites and I think did a good job of following the theme. It shows how they moved the logs prior to the use of trucks.
We attended the show on Saturday afternoon and the carvers had until Sunday at 2:00 to finish their work so some of these pieces are still pretty rough.
I love the whimsicalness of this piece.
Every day during the competition they have a timed carving that is then auctioned off that evening at 5:30. This was one of the pieces that was to be auctioned. It was completed in about 2 hours - truly amazing. We don't know what it sold for, but we don't think it was cheap!
And for the first time, we bought a small piece ourselves. This lighthouse welcome just caught our eye. It was done by a carver who signs his work Thor. We think his name is Thorenson. We bought this from the carver and think we got a real deal. He told us he was glad it was going to a good home. We love it!
In mid August we took a trip to California so Janet could attend a reunion for the junior high she taught at back in the late 80's. We'd never heard of a junior high reunion before, but it was quite well attended with over 200 people signed up. We left for CA on Thursday and arrived at Janet's brother's on Friday where we got a chance to visit with him and Sherry. On Saturday we went to Oakland and met up with a former ESL student of Janet's for lunch. That was a nice reunion for both of them. Then Janet drove me around Oakland to show me where she lived and worked.
We arrived at the reunion location a few minutes early so found a place to sit while we waited to go in. The reunion was at a dance place with a mixer from 6 to 9 and then the place opened to the public for the rest of the evening. Janet was the only faculty member who signed up in advance to attend, but we heard that one of the PE teacher's came later in the evening. She did have a chance to see one former student and she was also thanked for coming by two of the gals that put the reunion togther. It gave her a nice chance to bring closure to that particular part of her teaching career. We left for home on Sunday after buying some knives from Janet's nephew, Trevor. He now sells Cutco Cutlery.
Duded up at Jim's House - ready to leave for Oakland
Janet, Jim & Sherry
Lajuana, Janet's former student from King Estates and Janet
Janet and Patrice, the reunion organizer
Janet and Beatriz at lunch
We made our annual trip to the Bandon Wildlife Animal Park on August 19th. It was a nice day and there were loads of tourists there so we didn't stay as long as we sometimes do. We also left petting most of the animals to the other visitors as we can go there another time when it isn't so crowded. This year the exotic babies included a 5 week old lioness, a spotted leopard cub and a year old Siberian Lynx that we saw last year when it was only a few weeks old.
Summer is coming to a close very quickly - or so it seems. We went to a pot luck/fire circle and saw friends we hadn't had a chance to catch up with for several months. It was a very pleasant afternoon - especially since it was supposed to rain and didn't!
Janet used to have a hanging chair in Cambria so she was in heaven when she saw this one.
Boy, do I need
a haircut!
The weekend after Labor Day we went to our first rally with RVing Women - Oregon chapter. A bunch of our friends have been involved with this group for some time and invited us to camp with them as guests when they went to Lakeside which is near Coos Bay. We found out there were some tent sites with electric so we made the reservations. We discovered we're getting too old for camping when it requires sleeping on the ground. We have wonderful, bed-like air mattresses, but you still have to get up off the ground from them and there's the rub! But, we had a wonderful time with these new friends. They enjoy games, pot lucks, sharing and general cameraderie. We also got a chance to FINALLY see Ten Mile Lake. It's a much bigger lake than I had imagined and is quite reminiscent of the Adirondack lakes in NY.
We competed in a new game (for us) called Ladder Golf. You throw these golf ball like slings and try to wrap them around the poles on the stands. You get points depending on which ones you managed to snag. Janet and I were playing Linda and Tully in the first round. They beat us. KT looks on as the referee. She had lots of things up her sleeves for the weekend.
The Friday night get together was sharing snacks. There were so many things to choose from it was rather like a buffet. After that people played games and socialized. The next morning there was a continental breakfast followed by a business meeting. Then the games (above) began. People were free to do as they wanted in the afternoon though the hosts told us what was available. There was a potluck dinner that night followed by more games and Sunday, after the continental breakfast, there were the semi finals and finals in the golf ladder game, and the finals for the bean bag toss. Everyone cheered for all and oohed and aahed over the more spectacuar shots. Then the prizes were awarded.
We enjoyed ourselves so much that the week after we got home we investigated what we might do in the way of a camper and settled on a pop up tent. Then we found one for sale in Coquille for a pretty good price. We also found a 1997 Ford Explorer to pull it and so now, we are proud owners of a 2005 Fleetwood pop-up and the Ford Explorer.
The Tillamook Rally in mid October was our first adventure with our new "Rig". It was a small group, only 12 ladies including us, but it gave us a chance to get to know them a bit better. The rainy season was upon us. We were dry during our setup and knock down, but it rained most of the rest of the weekend. We were snug as bugs in our new home though. The biggest challenge is finding places to stow our gear, but we're working on that and expect to get better at it as we go along.
On Friday night we had a potluck of snacks and then played games. Saturday we visited the Blue Heron Cheese Factory and Tillamook Cheese Factoory. Tillamook makes great cheeses and wonderful ice cream. We got some free samples of cheese and then got ice cream cones for dessert.
Saturday night we had a nice potluck followed by more games and a book exchange for those who were interested. Sunday we went to see Munson Falls which is supposed to be the tallest falls (300 feet) in the Cascades. Sunday night we went out to dinner at a place where they gave you buckets of peanuts while you were waiting and you could throw the shells on the floor. Good food too! Monday we packed up and headed for home once again. We plan on going up to Lincoln City for Thanksgiving though. They bury glass balls (once used as buoys for nets) on the beach and we hope to find one or two. If not, we can always buy one. Should be fun. We'll be at a KOA campground there.
There's lots of moss in Oregon forests. You can't depend on figuring out which way is north from the trees as it is on all 4 sides. We thought this one tree (right) looked like a skinny bear. And the rock formation looked a lot like a turtle with sort of a hump back.
On November 4th-5th we had the first big storm of the season with some pretty high winds and quite a bit of rain. So on the 7th we went out to Shore Acres to see the storm surge hit the rocks there. It was a very impressive show of "Waterworks" as opposed to "Fireworks".
For Thanksgiving, we decided to go camping at a KOA Campground in Lincoln City. Lincoln City is famous for its glass balls - once used as buoys for fishing nets. Now the Chamber of Commerce seeds the 7+ miles of beach with over 3000 glass balls during the months of October - June. We thought we would take a crack at finding one and started out quite hopeful until we realized that they probably only put about 10 balls a day out which made the odds of finding one a lot lower. But, not to fear - most if not all of the gift shops sell them!
We got to Lincoln City on Thanksgiving Eve after stopping for a Pizza Hut pan pizza in Florence. Of course that made us later getting to our campsite and by the time we got everything put up and our supplies stowed, it was dark. So we stayed put for the night and were glad that the rain held off while we were setting up. It rained almost all day on Thursday so we went to the casino for a lovely buffet. Their casino is a lot bigger than the one in Coos Bay, and it seemed much grander. We had a traditional turkey meal with lots of trimmings and it was very good. We had heard about video arcades in Lincoln City and we thought that might be more fun than gambling, but the arcades were not as grand as we thought they might be so we went to the movies instead. After the show, we thought we'd go to the Stone Cold Creamery for ice cream, but when we finally found out where it was, it was closed. Oh well.
Friday we went to the outlet mall and did a little shopping. What were we thinking - a mall on Black Friday? We must have been having a weak moment. As shoppers, we are wimps - no question. We did find a couple of things in a kitchen store and then had some hot drinks in one of the other shoppes. We were getting hungry in the late afternoon so we found a great restaurant, right on the beach. We enjoyed a wonderful meal and then decided it was time to hit the beach - if we were ever going to find a ball, this was the day. Well, it was cold and windy and there were lots and lots of people on the beach ahead of us so after a few minutes we headed for a gift shop. We found two small balls encased in netting like they really would have been for fishing and got those, along with two tiny seagulls to add to our welcome lighthouse.
Saturday morning we broke camp and got the popup put away just in the nick of time for the 11:00 a.m. checkout. We have to remember that it takes us a little over an hour to do this for the future. It was pretty dry overnight, but we decided to take the popup home and put it up on the street for a day so we could clean it out and mop the floor. That worked out pretty well and we'll probably bring it home to load it before we go on our next trip.
Our big trip for 2009 was three days in Las Vegas. We looked into going to NYC again, but the hotels have gotten so expensive that we decided to look closer to home and came up with Vegas. We stayed at the Orleans which was off the strip, but provided a free shuttle over the the strip every 20 minutes. We really liked the Orleans. It was quiet and our room was really nice. We both think it was the nicest place we have ever stayed in and it was only $32 a night!
Our exploring started on Tuesday with the first order of the day being to pick up tickets for our shows. We were supposed to see Jersey Boys and Phantom of the Opera on Tuesday. The casinos are so large - they must cover hundreds of acres. When we got to the Venetian it felt like we were walking forever to find the ticket booth. I gave the gal my confirmation and she gave me tickets for Jersey Boys which was at the Palazzo, evidently a sister hotel. I asked about my Phantom tickets and was told that tonight's show had been canceled!!!! We had Thursday night free so I was able to purchase tickets for that show instead which gave us time before Jersey Boys to go and see the Freemont Experience. That turned out to be much less than we anticipated with one song of about 5 minutes being the whole show. I guess the song changes every hour, but we didn't want to hang around for another song.
The shows we saw were all excellent. Jersey Boys was first and it was fun to hear the songs that we had heard in years past. We were surprised to learn more of the history of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and thought the show held together very well. Neither of us had ever seen a Cirque du Soleil show before. We went to see Mystere. If there is a story line, we missed that, but we loved the show. We hope to see another one the next time we get to Vegas. Finally, we got to Phantom. This is a shorter version of the Broadway play but it was hard to figure out what was left out. I thought of two scenes and Janet thought of one, but all the music is there. The theater was wondeful and the chandelier - ahh - this one was in 4 pieces and slowly swirled around during the overture as they finally pulled it to the ceiling - magnificent. The actors were all excellent and their voices were superb. Well done!
We gambled a little in various casinos - all on slot machines and mostly with poker games. We lost more than we won, but had fun. Food wise we went to a buffet on Fremont Street our first night and two at the Orleans - once for dinner and the next day for breakfast. We were trying to not overdo too much since we have been working so hard to lose with Nutrisystem. We only ate one big meal the first two days, but the last two we ate more and will now have to deal with that. We had lots of fun though and hope to go to Vegas again in a year or two. We won't buy show tickets ahead though - there are half price places all along the strip so we'll see what we can get for half price once we get there. Vegas is unreal - and three days was plenty. We saw the dancing fountains at the Bellagio, the volcano and the Mirage was broken - go figure. We also went to the "Bodies" exhibit at the Luxor. That was very interesting and made us marvel at how miraculous life truly is.
The rest of the year slid on by quite rapidly. We went out to dinner with friends on Christmas day, to Lord Bennett's in Bandon. Last year they had a turkey plate that we didn't try. It looked yummy so this year we thought we'd have that. It wasn't on the menu! Were we disappointed! I had to settle for prime rib which was very good. Jancy tried a snapper dish which, unfortunately, fell way short of her expectations. We split a cheese cake sampler and vowed to eat light the rest of the day.
New Year's Eve we donated blood. That's a nice way to end the year. It wiped Jancy out for the day though, so I had to go to the potluck for the Egyptian volunteers by myself. I didn't know too many of the people, but had a nice dinner and watched the new Star Trek movie which someone had brought. The second feature was going to be Close Encounters of the Third Kind and since I'd seen that already, I was home by 10:00. The dogs accompanied me to bed and we all watched the ball come down (taped from the live show on the east coast) and called it good. All in all, it was a very good year.
