A couple of weeks ago I showed you a picture of the "contraption" that I put together to get more heat our of our wood fireplace insert.  And I pointed out the looks of disapproval that I got from Judy Lynn... enough that I decided that I should do something about it.

For those of you with short memories, this is "the contraption"

I got on the Internet, did some engineering and some shopping and came up with this.
It is a small box-fan and then I engineered a vent out the back to force the air under the insert

And this is what the finished product looks like. 

Still looks a little dumb sticking out there, but it works and really doesn't look that bad... and Judy Lynn looked at it and said it was better (I think just comparative thinking for her).  The only other option we had was to replace the entire insert with a new one that would have a built-in fan and neither one of us wanted that at this point.  This fan even has a variable speed on it's fan, so that will cut down on the fan noise when a lot of air movement is not required.

A related issue:

Much Better forcast

So we are back to our "normal" temperatures, "warmer" weather, but lots of rain during November and December.  And for those of you that don't like rainy weather too well... remember that you do not have to shovel rain!

Christmas decorations are mostly done.  As I told you in an earlier blog, I was able to get the outside lights up Thanksgiving weekend.  I have added a few more lights that has helped the small bushes, but may add some more because they are still pretty dim compared to the other lighting around the house.

The light Mossytree (Park) light off to the right kind of messed up this picture,
But you get the idea.

Judy Lynn working on the tree

Finished product with natural light. (not using a flash)

Finished product
(Using Flash)

Left:  Decorations in our bookcase
Right:  Closeup of village and nativity sceen

More closeups (Village is lighted but could not get a good picture with natural light)

These three pictures are looking in through our front room window.
These little villages are lit so as you walk towards our front door,
you can look in and see them and the tree in the background.
GOOD JOB Judy Lynn.  You are so good at this stuff!

Quinn showing Gwen how to play the drums of the 360 X-Box that Jay and Heather have.
They have the game/program
"Beatles Rock Band"
and they play the drums, a guitar, and sing and are "graded"
as the play along with the Beatles' songs.  Kids love it! (Especially the big kid, Jay)

Now we are turning our attention to our Christmas Cards.  Judy Lynn makes all the cards that we send out, so she is working on that and I have almost finished the "Annual" family Christmas letter.  Need to get them in the mail soon.

I can hear you folks in Idaho and Utah saying "WHAAA" to this post, but for us that are usually having low to mid 40 degree weather in the evening and low to mid 50 degree weather in the daytime, it is DARN cold up here right now.  It did not even get above freezing today. 

This was the temperature at 6:30 yesterday morning

This was the temperature at 6:30 this morning

Time to bring out "that thing" that Judy Lynn HATES. 

I needed more air blowing under and around the insert in our fireplace, so I installed a fan that sits under that stool and the ducting takes the air over and up under the insert.  The air then blows under and up around the stove and the hot air then comes out over the top of the stove into the room.  Since I installed the "contraption" several years ago, we have been able to heat the whole house with the insert.  Last Saturday when I pulled it out of storage, Judy Lynn's look gave me her usual "message" so I have been trying to find a blower that will mount right under the front of the stove.  I spent a lot of time on the Internet looking and found all kids of fans/blowers, but they are too expensive to purchase just to try them to see if they will work.  But I will keep trying to find something.

At the beginning of this cold spell I installed as axillary 22.5 gallon propane tank at the side of our nice motorhome parked out at Todd's.  Last night Todd called me and told me that he thought the tank was getting pretty empty.  So this morning I went out early to check.  I disconnected the big tank and temporarily hooked up a small tank to keep heat going while I took the big tank in to town to refill.  When I filled it, it took 29 gallons, so there was only 2.5 gallons left, so the dumb tank lasted less than a week.  If the weather were to stay this cold, this could get pretty expensive.  Hopefully this cold spell will be over here soon and I can turn the heat off until the next cold spell if we have one.  They said on the news today that it has been since 1998 that we have been this cold.  Last year we had a pretty long cold/wintery spell right at Christmas which provided us with our first "White Christmas" since we have been living up here.  We are hoping that this cold spell will be the last, but we do sometimes get one in January.

After in reinstalled the large propane tank, I went in to check everything out inside the MH and was dismayed to find that I had cold water but no hot water.  I went out and looked, thinking that the hot water tank was housed inside the MH, only to find that a lot of it is exposed to the outside.  I turned on the water heater and let the water heat, and luckily the hot water started to run.  That was a relief.  Don't know what I would have done if a pipe had frozen.  I can't even see them let along get to them!  So I left the water heater turned on and cranked the heat inside up from 45 to 50 degrees to see if that will keep things working.  I think that maybe I will winterize that motorhome too next year.  Keeping heat in it all the time is too expensive and too much of a worry.

Weather forecast says we are in a warming trend, so we will look forward to that.

Think Warm!

Well, I need to get busy and get caught up.  The last time I posted was showing my Christmas lights.  I did post a couple of pictures of Thanksgiving-day at our home.  I took a whole bunch of pictures while the family was all here, but choosing which ones to post is a problem because there are too many, so I have just chosen a few to post to bring out the highlights.

One of the BIG events was the blessing of little Finn in Sacrament meeting on November 29th (Aaron John's 38th birthday coincidentally).  Leslie and Josh wanted to do it while most of the family was here, so Jenn, Taurean, Bentley, Jaidyn & Shauna did not leave to go back to Utah until after the blessing.  Josh gave Finn a very nice blessing and we had three full center benches full of family and friends that came to be there with us.  After Leslie had some pictures taken of their little family so I decided that I would post a few of those pictures.

Leslie, Josh, Sawyer and little Finn
Handsome Family!!

One "incident" of interest that happened while the cousins were together that was of note.  Leslie has been trying to train Sawyer to use the bathroom and her success is somewhat spotty.  One time over the weekend though, Sawyer got some help.

  
Bentley says, "Need some help Sawyer"?

Sawyer, "Sure"
Bentley, "Let's see, what do I do back here.  Mom does something
I should be able to figure this out."

Sawyer, "I think you will need some more paper!  Get some while I pick my nose."

Bentley, "Do you think this will be enough"?
(Grandma to the rescue by the way!)

While the cousins were here, Heather crocheted some hats for each of them.
Here is one that was for Gwen.  Looks pretty warm!

All the family left later on Sunday, so things quieted down in a hurry.  We had a fast week, with Judy Lynn starting to put up her Christmas decorations.  I will take some pictures of her little villeages and post them when she gets them all done.  We have the tree here but it is not decorated.  Shauna has always been good to help, but with her gone, that leave most of it to Judy Lynn (I don't do it right).

Friday night was our Ward Christmas Party and it was done with a theme of Bethlehem.  Each auxillary had to put up a booth that sold something that resembled "stuff" from that era and we were supposed to come dressed up with clothing of that era also.  I am not a dress-up person at all, but the Madrigal Singers that I am in was on the program, so I had to.  I just wore dark pants, white shirt and a robe over the top, so it was not very original.  They did not set up tables, but we each had to bring a blanket and we sat and ate on the floor (hard for some of us "old folks").

Left:  Sawyer, Leslie & Teri Lynn
Right:  Quinn, Jacki and Todd
(Note the blankets.  They are a couple of Dad's old railroad blankets)

Sawyer and Cort in their dress-up.

Quinn and Sawyer in a hug & Quinn eating on the floor

Sawyer and his Dad, Quinn & Sawyer

It was fun to be there with so many of our family
 
Even got a picture of Kirk's Kyle here talking with Todd

A couple more random pictures

Sawyer and Bentley watching a Goofy cartoon

Gwen puts everything she gets hold of in her mouth.
Caught her here contemplating whether she could get another one in there

Enuf for today

One of the jobs at Christmas time that I really dislike is putting up the outside Christmas lights.  This year while Taurean was here for Thanksgiving, he offered to help me and I took him up on it, so Friday wild most of the rest of the family was "playing", Taurean and I were putting the lights up.  We got all up that I had lights for.  I need to go out and buy a few more little lights to cover the bushes, but the BIG job was done.  Thank you very much Taurean.  I will knock the one day off of your 7 years you owe me... well... maybe even two days (Jay... Pay Attention!)

From the front
(Both Heather's and Jay's cars are parked in the driveway and Aaron's is out front)
Notice the moon coming up over the east end of the house

Some of the bushes I covered this year with the "little" type
lights and they don't show up too well. 
There is where I may just pile on some more lights.

I took a lot of pictures over Thanksgiving, but choosing which ones to post is overwhelming right now, so I will put it off for another day.
So... enuf for today

So, here we go again.  When I left you last Saturday, the lawn was all cleaned up and looking really nice.

After Saturday's work

This is what it looked like on Monday, not too bad,
but I decided it was bad enough to warrant the bringing out of the
"Big Guns"
for the clean-up this time.

Out with the JOHN DEERE
I had Todd's tractor here so that I could mow the 5-acres of lawn of the common area,
 so I decided to make this clean-up of my front yard "fun"!

A couple of trips around the lawn and it was DONE!

While I was at it I decided to rake the leaves from the flower bed in front.
I raked all the leaves into the street and the Bentley and Quinn had a blast playing in the leaves.
Bentley loves the tractor and had to ride with Grandpa.  Quinn gets to ride with her Dad (Todd) all the time,
so riding with Grandpa is not that big of a treat.  She did ride with me for a few minutes yesterday though.

 
When they were through playing in the leaves, I used the tractor and mower to just pick up
and mulch all the leaves and then hauled them to my garden.

I guess that you can tell from the pictures that our family has started to arrive for Thanksgiving.  Jenn, Taurean and their two children Bentley and Jaidyn got here early last Saturday morning and Shauna rode up with them.  Jay and Heather's friend Annie and her two boys arrived late yesterday afternoon, so we are all here.  Sadly, Jeff and Becky (live in Phoenix) were not able to come this year, so we will truly miss having them here.  I hope they plan better two years from now when it is "our turn" for Thanksgiving again.  Aaron is still here.  Usually he has to leave to go back to Big Sky for the big Thanksgiving weekend, but for some reason that I am not sure of, he is still here and we are so happy to have him here.  This is the first Thanksgiving that he has been here for several years.

I will post more pictures of our weekend, but here are a few that I have taken while I was working and also just with the family here.

Bentley, Quinn and Grandpa on Todd's John Deere Tractor

Grandpa and little Jaidyn

Kevin and Haley stopped in yesterday for a nice visit.  Kevin is here from N. Carolina
Left:  Judy Lynn holding Carter James (Kevin and Haley's little one I posted about last Aug-Sep)
Right:  Haley, Kevin and Jay 
(Kevin is my brother Douglas' Grandson... Kirk's oldest)


Jenn & Jaidyn catching a few ZZZZs from their long trip up.


Kids playing -- Annie and her twins are in the middle of things


We got a smile out of Jaidyn


Cort spent the night here last night.  First time for a very long time.
We love having you here Cort.  Need to do it more often!

Well, enuf for today.  More to come after T-day dinner tomorrow.

Hope you all have a thankful Thanksgiving,
We plan to!

November, 2009

Dear Family,

For those of you who have been following my almost daily updated on my blog, you already know what we have been doing up here this past month, so I am a little at a loss to know what else I can add.  In last month’s letter I told you about our trip to Canada with Mom, and the day that I wrote my October letter, we were planning on having family over to Richmond that Sunday for little Jaidyn’s blessing.  That all happened, we had a lot of family come over to be there and share the day with us and we want them all to know how much we appreciated their being there.  We often feel left out being clear up here in the NW and having to watch all of the family-goings-on from a distance, but this time we were there and so were lots of you.  Thanks!

We have been home for about three weeks and are still very much in the catch-up mode.  I left the business in the capable hands of Leslie and was able to enjoy the trip for the first time without worrying about the business.  But, there were a lot of things that need my input that I have had to take care of, so that has given me plenty to do.  I have some more repair work to do on the little B+ unit and then will need to winterize all of them before the first frost.  Up here, a good frost usually doesn’t come until in January, but we have had one as early as Thanksgiving time, so I usually don’t wait to have to do it in the COLD.  We don’t have any rentals yet scheduled for Christmas/New Years, but we had had some calls for units to go to Canada for the Winter Olympics, but nothing definite yet.  We worry a lot about having the motorhome go up into that cold weather and have them freeze.  Anyway, other than that, the business has really shut down for the season.

Of course the latest “event” was the birth on November 2nd of Leslie and Josh’s little Finn Campbell.  For details and pictures go to our blogs and also to Josh and Leslie’s Facebook pages.  Heather has posted a lot of pictures of Gwen on Facebook , so you can look at them too (Leslie Arnell Ricker, Josh Ricker & Heather Arnell Ricker).  I think Brent adds links to all the blog sites to the bottom of the family letter, so just click on them and away you go into cyberspace where the pictures on the blogs are stored. 

Leslie came home from the hospital on Thursday and we had a welcoming home party for little Finn, but little Finn did not seem like he much cared… lots of attention though.  Leslie and Finn had doctor appointments today (Monday)and everything seems to be okay.  Little Finn birth made three additions to our family this year, and Judy Lynn and I now have nine grandchildren.  Yes I know we are slow getting going, but over time I am sure (hope) that there will be a few more.

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving because it is “our” year to have all the family here.  Last year it was Christmas and you may remember the cold and snowy welcome that we gave to the Utah travelers.  This year we should have everyone here but Aaron and Jeff and Becky.  Jeff is still looking for work and Becky has to work on Thanksgiving, so it does not look like they will be able to make it this year.  The holidays (both Thanksgiving and between Christmas and New Years) are the busiest time for Aaron in his business, so he has not been able to join us for several years.  We hope to find a time and get together with Kirk, Vynette and family and have our traditional meal of Chinese Sundays.  I will report on all this stuff next month.

Well, that’s it.  I hope this letter finds all of you well.  We know that some of you have not been feeling well and Maxine and (Dallas’) Jennifer have had operations.  Please know that our prayers are always with you.

Love to you all.  Have a festive Thanksgiving.  Judy Lynn & Roger