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Day 30

December 30th, 2015

snowyscooter

We left California yesterday, stayed over in Grants Pass and arrived home today. We cashed in our free night at the La Quinta Inn. Scooter is a tired boy because he went to Mt Hood and played in the snow with Lisa and Clay!

It was hard to say good-bye to Paige, but I think she was ready for calmer days, following the excitement of the holidays.

byepaige

We attended her swimming lesson at the Y. She is resistant to putting her face in the water, but I am sure she will get over it. She was having 4 days of lessons in a row. My son was responsible for taking her as Jayme was doing her pediatrician residency work. She looks so cure in her goggles!

paigeswimlesson

Here is a collage that she made while we were there.

paigecollage

I want to say a few things about my knee. I was in excruciating pain most of the time we were there. It became difficult for me to stand from a sitting position and I had pain during the night while in bed. I had to use my cane all the time.

Then, miraculously, yesterday morning, I woke up without much pain and had slept well all night. I thought the pain I had been having was from sitting in the car for two days in a row, but I have arrived home feeling pretty good. I think the hustle and bustle of the holidays did me in, plus on Sunday, we went to the mall and I had a hard time keeping up with my long legged companions.

Anyway, I am going to try to pace myself. It was very difficult to feel so helpless and I had a several melt downs.

The drive home was very nice – cold, but no difficult road conditions. We did see lots of snow in Northern California and Southern Oregon.

Here is Mt. Shasta:

shastasnowy

And, Southern Oregon looked like a winter wonderland.

winteroregon

We always enjoy seeing what I call the crayon trucks in Northern California.

crayontrucks

It was a mostly enjoyable trip and visit with the very busy Mark and Jayme and their whirling dervish, Paige.

 

Day 27

December 27th, 2015

paigereading

After a lovely Christmas eve and Christmas morning brunch with the Portland peeps, Mr C and I left for sunny California to spend time with Paige and her family in San Mateo.

Our drive to Ashland was uneventful, but we saw the most awesome cloud formations.

clouuds12-25

There was snow in the hills around Ashland and as we headed south the next morning, we were greeted with the lovely site of snow covered trees.

snowytrees

The roads were clear and we made it to San Mateo by mid afternoon yesterday. We gave Paige an American Girl Bitty Baby and she is a great little mommy.

pandbittybaby2

pandbittybaby

We went out for Japanese food last night and this morning hit the mall so Jayme could do some exchanges. Paige dressed as a butterfly for the trip.

_DSC7540

At some point she ran out of energy and sat and rested while Mom and Dad looked at shoes.

pbutterfly

We have had a good time reading to her and doing puzzles.

_DSC7532

Mark has quite the garden in their backyard and brought these in for us to enjoy.

markstomatos

I guess you know you are in CA when you are picking the last of the tomatoes in December.

Day 23

December 23rd, 2015

wrappedgiftsxmas2015

I managed to get some gifts wrapped today. I love the site of beautifully wrapped presents, but I am not very good at it. I love gift bags and tissue!

When I opened my Christmas wrapping storage container, I found two of my angels that were missing from the decorations box. I love these. The one on the right was made by my sister-in-law.

angels

I finished all my shopping and was happy to find fresh dungeness crab which Mia had requested for Christmas eve. We are going to Lisa and Clay’s home for Christmas eve and brunch at Steph’s on Friday, then we are heading south to California for a few days with Paige and her mom and dad.

Not sure if I will check in again until we get there.

Happy holidays to all my faithful readers. Wishing you joy and peace in the New Year.

Day 22

December 22nd, 2015

_DSC7531

Finished this. It was tricky because of the size and the silk. I would like to do this in a larger version. This is about 22 x 17. Maybe do it in cotton.

It is raining again. Our normal here in Portland. It is not our normal kind of rain, however. It is heavy and soaking.

Mr C, my good man, is helping to prepare and serve a Christmas meal to the folks who live in low income housing across the street from Trinity. Tomorrow, he will go back to Trinity and help serve the sit down hot lunch to our homeless and at risk folks.

We are going out to dinner tonight since we have both been working today.

Day 21

December 21st, 2015

Irene Latham winter solstice poem

Oops! I missed two days, but I have good excuses. First, I just had to say that I am always happy when the winter solstice rolls around. We even had some nice sunshine today.

I got a huge amount of SDA work to do on Saturday. We have many institutions, libraries, colleges, etc who have institution accounts with us through a subscription service. I was sent almost 100 of them on Saturday. Since we are coming up on the holidays and the end of the month, I had to get them done and it took all week-end long with some time off for riding the exercycle and walking with Scooter and Mr C. As I finished each one, I scribbled on it with a sharpie and threw it on the floor.

ebscopile

On Saturday, when we took our walk, it was pretty cold and I mentioned that I would like a hat to match the teal scarf Mr C gave me for my birthday. So we went to the store where he bought it and I cam home with this:

newhat

Today, we walked while it was still drizzling and stopped at the pet store and bought Scooter a raincoat. I think he looks quite dapper! And, he won’t be quite as wet after walking in the incessant rain that we have day after day after day.

scooterraincoat

I did manage to get some more quilting done on the lost edges piece. I hope to finish it tomorrow.