Christmas in California

I guess it is time to finally accept that the Christmas season is over. I just need to post the photos and start the new year. We were really bad a taking pics the last few weeks but luckily mom was on top of it when I was in California. So, the following is my trip home, brought to you by mom's camera! :-)

We had Christmas Eve dinner at Meg's house this year. It was wonderful.

A 17.5 year high school reunion at Starbucks!

Good times with the fam...PF Changs and shopping.

We celebrated mom's birthday at the ceramic painting shoppe. Each of us painted a cupcake plate for mom and she painted a cupcake jar. There were, of course, cupcakes, Special K bars, and mimosas. Loads of fun!!

We baked Christmas cookies and got silly with Mama Mia dancing and a Barry Manilow sing along.

We partook in the Palkie tradition of Palkieville house painting and a Christmas facial.

The dogs both enjoyed their Christmas presents and were knocked out cold with exhaustion!

When the Cat's Away...

Sara is home in Iowa for the week visiting her family for their pre-holiday tradition. I thought I would put together a blog of WWMD, that's "What Would Mia Do" just in case you have never been to the Midwest or South.

Well here it goes:


First things first! I put the finishing touches on Palkieville. Since this is one of my favorite parts of the holiday season, I needed to get that done first.



It snowed Friday night so the girls had some fun playing in it. Mostly, they just wanted to eat it and tackle each other in it. After about 10 minutes they were freezing and trembling and crashed hard in front of the fire in a snuggle.

Sara ordered a half of a side of beef with Darryl and it needed to be picked up. Luckily it fit in my trunk. Who knew that a side of beef was just that...1/2 of a cow!

So, naturally, I made a beef vegetable soup...holy delicious!!

I chatted on the phone with my mom while making great progress with my knitting project. It's actually starting to look like a hat!

Sunday morning was spent prepping for a review that I have on Wednesday. The forecast is calling for a great deal of snow with possible power outages. Since my computer has about 18 minutes of battery power I thought I better get that done while I still had the chance. Of course I spent some time chatting on Facebook as well.

I finished grandma's Christmas present...no peaking grandma! :-)

I watched football and ate popcorn!

I folded laundry...

So, after all that, the question is answered...I would do the same things I always do. I did have to learn how to use the timer on the camera! :-)

Lots to Catch Up On...

This is a very busy week or two in photos. So let's get right to it...

The siding on the guest house is done. No more larger than life beer cooler in the front lawn.

John and Sherry were finally ready to have some real counter tops in their house. Bye Bye plywood and hello georgous black concrete in the kitchen, the island, and the bathroom. John built the forms and we all helped fill and smooth. Sherry was in charge of the custom vibrator (if you have ever done concrete before you know that you have to get all of the air out).

Sara and I spent last weekend at Big Blue, our floating paradise in Portland. The girls and I mostly vaccuumed, sat on the stairs, and snuggled on the lazy boy eating bon bons and watched Sara get stuff done. The garbage dispsosal crapped out on me a few weeks back. Luckily I know a very handy person. Notice the new garbage disposal and the newly installed, steal of a deal, stove that Sara found on Craigs List. We didn't get a photo of the new bathroom faucet but it too is georgous! She was very busy!

While in Portland we got to spend a day with Adam and Susie. We helped do some electrical and made delicious soup.

This weekend was momentus for me as I FINALLY finished a four year quilting project.

It was also time to get the decorations out (something I look forward to and Sara dreads). We had to compromise on the Christmas tree this year. Sara was going to cut one down for me. After scouting the property inch by inch she couldn't find one that she had the heart to cut down. So, off to the lot we went with our five dollar bill. We ended up with this beauty!

Visitors from Minnesota!

Beth and Lesley visited this last week and we had a ton of fun catching up with our friends from Minnesota.



This is us, unsuccessfully doing some crabbing in Florence, Oregon. Sara reverted to her childhood ways and chased me with an angry crab. She and Lesley had the only two permits so they spent their time doing all the work while Beth and I cheered them on.

This is a photo of my new gangsta boyfriend in the blue who was also crabbing with his friends. We were invited to his pajama party but respectfully declined as our focus was the crabs we wanted to catch from the dock and boil for dinner. He was relentless and even made me some art as seen in the second photo below. It's a red heart made of zip ties. I am still not completely sure why he was hitting on me since I never showed any more of myself than my green "stay puffed" outfit. He must be the kind of guy who buys mystery grab bags.

This is Sara working very hard at getting those traps out to sea. Nice form huh?

Our one keeper for the day, a blue bungie cord.

For those of you who haven't done crabbing yourself here is a quick tutorial. You bait your traps with the stinkiest and most disgusting thing you can find and then throw them out in the river. After pulling them up you have to measure each crab that may be big enough. You can only keep the boys so flipping them over to analyze the markings is the next step.

Then you stop and pose for some photos to show the world how much fun you're having.

Finally when you have figured out that you just spent 5 hours in the cold and haven't pulled up a single crab big enough to keep, you go to the local crap shop and pick up a couple REALLY big delicious ones for dinner.

The next photos are of our wine tasting excursion at King Estate Winery. We had a lovely lunch and did some yummy tasting.

Lesley was amazed by the berries we grow here on trees in Oregon. We told her they taste just like apples.

The final 10 photos are of the Eugene Holiday Market. Can you spot a theme?

Now it's clear that you can tie dye anything!