Rain, rain, more rain and flooding too

Julia told you about the snow. I will tell you about the rain and the floods. The rain rain rain came down down down. The fire station in Turner, where Daniel is a volunteer firefighter, was under water. They had to evacuate the whole town. Salem closed numerous streets because they had become rivers. I'm sure if you go online you can find more pictures and info. The water is receding but more rain is coming. Willamette Falls is officially at flood stage. Fortunately, the Molalla River and Johnson Creek have not reached flood level. We are not in danger but parts of Canby do flood when we get rains like this. Pat's Acres, where Amelia operated the Pineapple Express this summer, is now part of the Pudding River. I drove by it on my way home from work and it's a flowing river. We'll see what happens.

Here's the Turner Fire Station yesterday:

Snow Daze

I'm late getting this up as the snow is melted. But it did snow off and on for 5 days. Clark put some stickers on my window including this one so I got it in the picture. Nothing was interrupted for us as the snow was slight and it rained off and on too which took care of that. Big flakes falling are a nice sight though.

Tea for Three

The three of us just got home from a lovely tea in Niles and we're stuffed! I had ginger peach tea, Franny had apricot and Mom had some of the Earl Grey. Wish you'd been here! I leave very early tomorrow morning and will be home in Kona a little after noon Pacific coast time. Fortunately packing will be easy since I'm carrying two bags back. Mom needed an extra one coming home for all her Christmas presents and acquisitions in Kona. - Jeanie

Rummy Tournament Practice

We decided to practice preparing munchies for an afternoon of rummy. This is the third game we've had time to play and we're hoping for at least one more before I go. We chose to have healthy veg, cheese and crackers in preparation for pigging out at La Casita tonight. By the way, the Franny Convention (FC) has been in full force although one of the times Rick exercised it. Mom started out scoring the first game in hopes of exercising the FC but partway through she turned her scoring responsibilities over to Franny and you KNOW what happened! We will leave it unmentioned that I have won no games. -Jeanie

Yosemite Quilt

Jim Augustus, who was Bob's best man at our wedding had requested that I make a quilt for him to hang over his fireplace. His request was that it be in greens and browns. Since Jim has worked for years at the steam train near Yosemite I decided to use that as inspiration. The quilt is 42"x105" and depicts Yosemite Falls. I created it out of hexagonal blocks all cut from the same fabric and then rearranged to make the picture. Jim and Nichole had shown it off at their Christmas open house party but it didn't really hang right. So I went over on Sunday, sewed a second sleeve on the bottom and slid a piece of rebar into it to weight the quilt enough so that it hangs much straighter. Thanks to Cindy's advice, I also pinned it in a few places to the wallboard behind it. On that same day, Jim and Nichole adopted a neighbor's dog because the neighbor had passed away. They were already well acquainted with Miss Kitty and very fond of her. You can see she's an old dog, maybe 12 or 14, but she has a sweet disposition. She's acquainted with Jim and Nichole's cat, another Miss Kitty, and they got along just fine on her first day in the house. I took a little photo to mark the occasion of the dog's new home. - Jeanie

A "New" Quilt

Mom has discovered an appliqued quilt top that she made "back in the day." The applique is embroidered with some chain stitch, French knots and satin stitch.
So we went to the quilt store (an excellent excuse for it) and found a beautiful backing fabric with a rose design that will compliment the applique on the front. You can see it folded at one corner of the quilt top in the picture.
The really exciting discovery was that the stencil for the quilting is still on the fabric. It's faint (too faint to photograph) but it's plenty adequate to quilt by.
So, I'm taking the quilt to Hawaii and will ask my quilting buddies to help me sandwich and baste it while we're at our Volcano retreat in February.
This will be a loooong process but I'm looking forward to doing it. As you can see, it would go very well in Mom's bedroom and fits her queen size bed perfectly. So that's the goal. -Jeanie

Magnusson Visit

Monday night John, Alexis, Will, Paul and I met with the Magnusson contingent for dinner. Linda came from Omaha where she has lived for 13 years. She is retired from teaching English. She and Jerry (who is also retired) live on the same street as both of their children and grandchildren. Anne came from Montana. She updated us on all 5 of her girls who are spread out across the country. She said while Steve is retired from the day to day work at the university, he represents them on such projects as building parks in Jordan and South Africa so still travels for "work". Anne is a quilter...are you surprised? Linda is a beginning quilter but has been doing art with pictures that Anne's husband has taken of flowers. Kathy is hosting this sister time at her home outside Corvallis. She is off some of the time and works part of the time. They look like they were going to have lots of fun. We had such a good visit. Here are pictures to enjoy. Jeanie, they said they think they can Skype and so I gave them your phone number for easy reference.

Cruise to Panama Canal and then the Nutcracker

Our trip to the Panama Canal started with lunch at Gladstones in Newport Beach. We are here with Joe and Susan and Gladys. Top picture is Joe and Rick eating raw oysters - special of the day.

Franny in our room with champagne, roses and chocolate covered strawberries. Yum Yum- great way to start
Rick on the deck before the sun came up.
This is our big screen TV - watched movies, concerts and of course - football. We had movies under the stars on loungers and the weather was very warm.
Thanksgiving Day decoration - definitely an American holiday - didn't ever see the cake served.
Doing some deck time with Sudoku, reading and just generally doing nothing - pretty warm-notice the jacket on the feet so they don't get burned.
Definite tradition for Thanksgiving Day - football. But this was pretty special - the 49ers played. The coaches were brothers so it was especially fun. And it was actually their parents 50th anniversary. It was also Mom's 92 birthday - which we remembered!
At Costa Rica in a Cloud Forest (similar to rain forest)
A 3 1/2 inch millipede - not getting me to hold it!
Gift shop and bathroom break both on the way to and on the way back from the Cloud Forest.
Our ship - the Coral Princess - we are sailing on a tender to get to shore at Panama City.
The atrium of our ship with marble stairways - very very pretty.
We are at Gatun Lakes in a boat with 18 people and very close to the water. Not a large boat and well, we'll tell you later about the boat. This little snake was very interested in us.
Still on Gatun Lake - there is a sloth in the tree.
The day before we went through the Canal we went to the Gatun Lakes and watched two ships go through. We would go through the same locks the following day.
This is one of the set of gates that opens. There are three sets here. If you look closely you can see one of the workers walking across the top. The yellow fencing folds down when the gate starts to open.
Franny - doing what we did for 10 of the 14 days - nothing.
going through the Panama Canal - this is looking from the top deck of the ship.
of course you had to have your picture taken as you go through the locks.
The Miraflores Locks is the last one to go through to get to the Atlantic side. It took 8 hours total to get to the other side.
still in the locks.
Very colorful buildings in Cartegena, Colombia. Every building is a very different color.
Leaving Cartegena, Colombia
Last stop - Aruba. And guess what Rick found! Or is that a drug lord?
Franny was the recipient of Rick waiting in line for two Frappaccinos - and you had to pay $1 extra for the cream. It was very hot - so no hot drinks this day. Right in front of Franny is the landing for a boat that comes in from the ocean to deliver its guests back to the hotel or to Starbucks.
Sunset on the ocean.
The last two days of the trip they put up Christmas decorations. Funny to be dressed in hot weather clothes next to the tree.
When we returned - Susan fixed our bed so that we felt like we were still cruising. Very nice. It was definitely COLD when we got back.
A few days after we were back Savannah danced in the Nutcracker. She was a snowball and a mouse. Here we are waiting for the show - Carol, Laia (granddaughter), Franny and Sarah and Ray and boys.
This is our little Nutcracker mouse. She did an excellent job and loved it!
We have many more pictures and lots of stories. We would love to tell you. When we see you next we will have our laptop and our stories ready.