March, 2011

Dear Family,

I swear that the 10^th of the month comes around more than once a month.  It seems I just finish one update and then it is time to do it again.  And the days are going by about 30 times faster than that.

First our congratulations to Doug and Darci on their new addition.  Brent put some pictures on Xanga, so we can see the little guy.  We are glad that things went well.  Speaking of babies, our Jacki is due later this month and we are all anxious to get their little girl (Avie… not sure of exact spelling yet) to arrive… but we are probably not as anxious for her arrival as Jacki is.  We have delayed our annual trip to Idaho/Utah until after Avie gets here.  We will take off as soon after as practical (depending on how soon Grandma Arnell can pull herself away from the new little one).  I am pretty sure we will be down there by the time the next family letter is due, so I will just have to update everyone on Xanga or something.

We are sandwiching our Utah/Idaho/AZ visit between Jacki’s Avie coming and Leslie’s little girl’s arrival (no name yet).  Leslie is due the middle of May, so Judy Lynn wants to be back here for that.  We are quite worried about the fuel cost and what that will do to our trip in our motorhome.  At nearly $4.00 a gallon, I just might have to get a loan from the bank to make the trip.  It is so sad the way the fuel price is skyrocketing and it doing that right at the time we are planning to take our trip.  Brent, I wish that our oil wells would start sending some “fruits” our way!

The Rickers and Rickters took off for Idaho/Utah this morning.  They got off at a little before 7:00 AM and that surprised me somewhat.  The two gals are now known for early morning commitments.  Josh and Jay got today, tomorrow and Monday off, so they will spend a long weekend down there, then they fly back on Monday and the girls and kids will stay for most of the rest of that week. 

Gwen, Sawyer & Finn all loaded in the back of the Denali & Oscar in his car-seat ready for the 12-hour trip

Last Monday evening Judy Lynn and I attended one of Chad’s choir performances.  All of the Barlow School District choirs got together (several middle schools and two high schools) and each put on a couple of numbers.  Chad is both in the Choir and also the Barlow Sound which is a group you have to try-out for.  The performance was LONG, but quite good.  They finished the program with all of the singers, about 400 of them all up on stage and scattered all around singing a song.  It was not a song I liked to well, but the kids seemed to enjoy singing it, so I guess that is what counts.  Then Tuesday night was Chase’s band presentation.  We were proud of the both of them.  Chase has been playing in a BB league this winter and Judy Lynn and I wish that we enjoyed sports more.  We did attend one of his games at Christmas time, but should have made it to more of them.

Both Heather (2^nd Counselor & Beehives) and Leslie (Sports) have callings in the Young Women organization and Josh is the Young Men President in our ward and last night they had a YM-YW combined activity.  One of our best friends (cousin and from St. Charles) Colleen (Hirschi) Widmer is the YW President, so Judy Lynn and I really have an “in” in those organizations.  Their activity last night was “Finding Waldo”.  There is a relatively new shopping center right near downtown Gresham and all of the youth of our ward were divided into groups (with a leader in each group) and dumped off at that center.  Colleen had arranged for some other adults to put on some Waldo socks and walk around in various stores and the job of the “groups” was to “find Waldo”.  Judy Lynn loves books and was stationed in a Boarders store, but I lucked out even better and was to hang-out in a Best Buy store there.  I just go in that store periodically and just look around at all of the technology that they have there.  So this suited me just fine.  My only fear was that I would come away from the store from that assignment and having it “cost me”.  But you can all be proud of me.  I spent 45 minutes in that store and did not purchase anything, (but the IPad sure does look inviting).  I have posted a picture of Judy Lynn and our socks on Xanga if you care to go take a look.

Judy Lynn and I with our Waldo socks and Gwen just could not be left out of the picture

Little Gwen turned 2 on February 28^th, so of course we could not let an occasion like that go without the family that live up here getting together.  I will post some pictures of that on Xanga also for those that want to see some current pictures of some of the family.

Gwen and her Birthday Cake

Gwen with her tricycle and her boots

Left-Heather, Leslie, Josh, John, Chad, Chummy, Randy, Sawyer & Gwen on her tricycle

Right:  Teri Lynn and Finn

Roger with Oscar & Gwen -  Josh Finn, Heather and Kelly

Now some more just pictures I threw in

Gwen and Quinn (and their "girlie" purses

Sawyer & Quinn

Gwen trying to get in to this play ma-gig (don't know the name of it) the wrong way

Is she frustrated or just having fun?

Roger playing with Gwen on my feet.

(Do any of you kids remember me doing that with you when you were younger?)

Just one more picture of Quinn

Not much else has gone on.  The MH business is very slow this time of year.  I have lost a few motorhomes that were getting to old or the owner’s have sold, from what we had available last year, so I need to find just a couple or three more to rent for the summer, but have not been able to find any.  My usual sources for getting them seems to have dried up.  With the economy the way it is, just not as many folks purchasing them as has been in the past.  We are all fine.  The grandkids have all had colds, sniffles, and other cold-related symptoms (don’t want to get too gross here), but other than that we are doing just fine.

I hope this letter finds you all well and happy.  Also please know… that As Always, we love you.

Judy Lynn & Roger

Well, the holidays are over and now it is time to get caught up on things that I have let slide... and also try to get back to a semblance of a routine.  We had a great Christmas and enjoyed getting together as a family for most of the week between Christmas and New Year.  Jenn, Taurean, Bentley & Jaidyn came up from Utah on the day-after Christmas, so everyone was here but Aaron, Jeff and Becky.  Of course, we missed so much the ones that were not here, but certainly did enjoy the ones that were. 

Time-wise, our morning went pretty well as other years.  Both Ricker families went to the “Ricker’s place first and made it to our place at about 10:30 AM.  Todd and Jacki made it a little later.  Todd was smoking a salmon for us to pick on and was waiting for it to get finished.  Before everyone got here I took a few pictures around the house.

Left is a small little tree on our kitchen table with all these miniature decorations.  Really cute.

Right is a new nativity set that Judy Lynn got this year (Christmas card basket on left).

“The Stockings were all hung”

(Too many for the fireplace so I made this post to hang the rest)

Santa has been there.

Gwen’s “play-box w/slide” covered

Just a couple of “after” pictures to show contrast.

Les in picture on Right is talking (conference call) to Josh and Jay’s brother on his mission in AZ.

I don’t suppose there is any reason to go into any more detail than that… only to say that everyone received lots of nice gifts.  It was good to be together and enjoy the rest of the day.  As planned, we “grazed” all day and then had the fondue for dinner late in the day.

Teri Lynn with fondue “set up”

We need all four pots to crowd us all around the bar.

Now let's fast forward a week to New Years Eve.  We had all of the family here and just picked at tons of food all night long. There was lots of visiting and other stuff (football, movies, etc.).  So, if you did not like one location you would just need to move to another.

 
The family room had the visiting & /Dick Clark on the Tele

If you did not want to visit, the X-Box 360 was in the Living Room

If you did not like that you could go in the Craft Room and watch "Snow White"
with Quinn and Cort

And if you really wanted to relax, you went into our bedroom and watched
"The Incredibles" with Bentley & Sawyer

So, there was something for everyone.  However, as the New Year approached, we all gathered in the Family Room for a "Sparkling" cider toast to bring in the new year... also hugs and kisses for everyone.  It is really hard to believe that another year is history.  It has been a good one.  Here is wishing everyone the very best for this new year.

Now a few pictures just for fun.

We spend tons of money on toys, but the kids like the cabinets at the end of the hallway just fine.

Chase's BB team got to play a game down at the Rose Garden and we went to watch.

I spent a lot of time doing this. 
Gwen and Bentley with Grandpa

And last for this post, we had to say goodbye to Jenn, Taurean & kids Sunday afternoon.
We hated to have them leave.  What a precious car-load!

Heather and Jay blessed little Oscar on Sunday while family were all here.  I will post some pictures later.

Happy New Year
to you all!

Those of you that know Judy Lynn know how she goes to a lot of work to make our home feel like it is Christmas.  It starts with the way that she decorates the home starting with the tree and then to her little villages that she has collected over the years.  I thought I would post some of the pictures so she can share her work with you.

The Christmas tree is in the living room in front of the large bay-window.

 
Close-up of some of the decorations on the trees. 
Note the lighted balls.  They light up and also change colors.


Close-up of tree with natural light


Decorations in the bookcase in the family room


Family room villages.  Lighted houses do not show so very well.


View looking in the bay window with villages and tree



Lighting outside the home
(Should have moved all the cars)

Wednesday night Judy Lynn and I went back to the Grotto to listen to Chad and the Sam Barlow choir.  I took the video with my cell phone, so it is not to good, but for those of you with patience, you can hear the singing.  They were actually very good.  My singing group gave our performance at the Grotto on Monday night, but I don't have any pictures yet.

Still photo of the choir taken with my cell phone

Before my song practice last night, I took Cort out to Cubs and we worked on his Pinewood Derby.  He designed where to cut and did a great job.  I forgot to take a picture of the wood block for the car, but did get these picture of the little"banana" cars that Cort and I put together.  We had a race after and his beat mine big-time.  Mine went all crooked and did not even make it to the end of the board.

Just a couple of pictures of little Oscar.  He is turning into a "little boy"


Just one more picture of Jay "tending" little Oscar

No, we don't really shoot turkeys, and I do not know why it is called that.  All I do know is that our ward has been holding this event for as long as I can remember.  Sometimes I attend, and sometimes I don't.  It isn't that I don't like to shoot, but sometimes I don't like the weather up here in November.  Yesterday was no exception.  Earlier in the week, I did not want to go very badly because the "weather guessers" up here were predicting rain, yuck.  But, Kelly had been working with his family to get them to there, and got commitments from both Doug (from Hood River) and Kelly's son Ryan (I think lives in Mosier just east of Hood River).  Since family was going to be there, I decided to go and at the last minute, Judy Lynn decided to go also.  It did not really rain on us much, just a slight sprinkle a couple of times, but Josh had put up covers over the tables, I took up our radiant heater and Judy Lynn and I had all put on several layers of warm cloths.  The temperature was only in the high 30s, so it was not really that cold, but with the weight that I have lost, something has gone wrong with my "heater" because I surely do feel the cold more.

Between the Arnells and the Rickers, we had 14 family there.  Pretty good showing for us!  (Don't know the total number of folks that were there.)

 
Ryan, Douglas, Kirk, Kelly (shooting) & Josh (on telephone as usual!)

Left:  Kelly & Kirk  (It was Kirk's birthday Friday and he is wearing his "over the hill" hat from Garna
Right:  Kirk, and cousins, Ryan and Todd

Me shooting - Leslie shooting with Todd and Jay looking on

Judy shooting with me trying to figure out why she was not hitting the clay pigeons so very well!

Doug and me - Kelly, Kirk and Ryan


"Dead Eye(s) Heather and Les during the shootout
(They had tied with another gal for top spot during competition)

The "WINNERS"  (Guess who came in second!)
(Heather's two fingers up does not mean "VICTORY"!)

Kenny won the "Men's" competition with a perfect nine out of nine hits.  Let's just say I did not do so very good during the competition, but in shooting (for fun) after I hit eleven out of eleven.  Fun day.

A week or so ago, the "girls" put on a baby shower for Heather and Oscar.

Left:  Kathy (Jay and Josh's Mom) holding Oscar, Leslie, Heather, Jacki, Ann (Teri Lynn's Sister in law) & Judy Lynn
Right:  Teri Lynn, Ann's Daughter (sorry, can't remember her hame) and Donna (Randy's Mom)


Plenty of food along with decorations - Gwen, Heather, Carolyn Deyong, Oscar, Teri Lynn, Kelly & Kelly.


Kelly & Judy Lynn

Gwen and Oscar

Gwen (Sorry family that there are more pictures of the "Rickter" kids, but they are here SO MUCH!)

And it is that time of year again.  The tree in the yard just south of us continues to dump it's abundance of leaves over on my lawn.  I "mowed" them up earlier this week.  The garden LOVES the leaves.  I don't so very much!

Front yard, after and before "leaf mowing"

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November, 2010

Dear Family,

Well, so what has gone on in our lives this month that would be interesting to ya-ll.  Not much I don’t suppose, but I will write anyway.  I think that it is probably the lull before the storm since this month brings the beginning of the Holiday Season, something that I am NEVER ready for.  This year it our turn to have the kids here for Christmas, so we will look forward to that.  I don’t know for sure how many will be able to be here, but we will enjoy whomever can make it.  I will have more information on that next month.  This year is our “off year” for Thanksgiving, but we will enjoy it with those of us that live close.  Although both Ricker families will be at the Ricker’s for “Dinner”, somehow they always arrange to be with us for part of the time.  We have our dinner really late to allow that to happen!  Two Thanksgiving dinners in one day, talk about being “stuffed!  Right now the plans are to have the dinner out at Todd and Jacki’s.  We have invited Kelly, Doug and Garna, but know that if they have plans to be on their own, we understand… but would love to have them join us.

Leslie and I have been trying to wrap up the motorhome rental business for the year, and once again we are finding that we could live pretty well if we did not have to pay expenses!  It has been a fairly good year, but not nearly as good as last year.  We are loosing quite a few of our motorhomes, so I will have to do some recruiting for next year if we are going to have anything to rent.  With the economy the way it is, looks like we will need to stay in business for another year at least.

Here are some pictures taken during the month.  First Halloween

Finn

Gwen and Her Mom (Heather)

Cort with Sawyer and Jay, Heather, Oscar & Gwen

Quinn & Gwen

Cort, Quinn, Finn, Sawyer & Gwen

Quinn, Finn, Sawyer, Gwen & Heather

 Oscar not caring much about it all

Now some pictures of Finn and his Birthday

Birthday boy and his Cake - Opening a present

Josh talking to Sawyer, Gwen (behind the balloon) and Finn - Finn & his Dad

Finn (Grandpa think it is finally time for a haircut!)

Judy Lynn & Roger - Cort (Caught him from hiding his face!)

Quinn and Gwen  -  Josh and Finn (Party at Red Robin)

Heather, Judy Lynn, & Teri Lynn - Jacki, Todd & Josh

Not much else going on.  We had some birthdays and when I post this on my blog, I will include some of those.

Hope this letter finds you all well.

Judy Lynn & Roger

Back when I was Bishop, an extended family (Parents, two daughters, and a son) moved into our ward that I got pretty close to.  They were fairly well-to-do and the father had purchased some acreage with two houses.  The parents moved into the nicer home and one of the daughters moved her family into the other one.  The other daughter purchased a home in the ward, but not on the acreage.  The Son built himself a really nice home on one corner of the property.  Right after I was released as Bishop, the father passed away suddenly with a heart attack, and the mother just recently passed away this past year.  I have stayed fairly close to the family.  Judy Lynn visit-taught the mother until she passed away.

A few years ago, Steve and Paula (his wife) wanted to take their daughter Aerial up to Seattle to the water park up there for her birthday and I let Steve use one of my motorhomes in exchange for some riding time in his airplane.  Yesterday I partially collected on the deal.  I met Steve a little after noon, had lunch with him and Paula (thank you Paula), and then Steve and I went "out" for an afternoon together.

The airplane and I near the hanger getting ready to go.

Taking off from the Troutdale airport and looking up the Columbia River towards Mt. Hood

Approaching Mt. St. Helens that blew it's stack in May of 1980
On the left is Mt. Rainier in the background and Mt. Adams in background on right

Mt. St. Helen's crater looking east and then looking south

Left:  Distant look at crater.  Can you imagine the power it must have take to blow the whole top and the north side off that mountain!
Right:  Beautiful Spirit Lake that was decimated during the eruption.  You can still see logs and debris floating on the left bank of the lake.  Judy Lynn and I camped at a camp ground of Mt. St. Helens and hiked part-way around the lake and climbed part way up the mountain some years before the eruption.

Close looks at the crater with the mound that is slowly rebuilding

Landing in Hood River Valley

We went to Hood River to visit a private museum there.  They have lots of aircraft, cars, motorbikes, old engines and stuff like that.  The steam engine on the left is one like Great Grandpa Hodges had in the Bear Lake valley that he used to power grain threshers.  Because of the sparks from the engine, it had to be located a L O N G way away from the thresher and power to drive the thresher was done with an equally long belt.  I remember once going down to Spring Creek and watching a thresher at work.  Then we had a gasoline tractor that supplied the  power, but have been told about GGrandpa's steam engine.  He was not allowed to cross the bridges over Little Creek and Big Creek there in St. Charles because the bridges were made of wood and not strong enough for the weight of that big thing.  The little Farmall A on the right was one like the one that Ralph Arnell had there in St. Charles.  I remember he had a mower on it mounded in the middle of the tractor and it was much easier to watch for "clogs" than the big one that we had on the back of our Farmall H.  There was lots of stuff there that brought back lots of memories.

This was a 56 Chrvrolet that looked a lot like the car that Loran Hirschi had.  All of the cars, airplanes, motorcycles were in "running" condition and taken out for a ride/flight every year.  Great placed to visit.

Before we left Hood River we took some pictures of the "air-bush" paintings on the side of the plane.  Steve loves planes (obviously) and knows many of the names, models, etc.  It was fun just watching and listening to him as we walked through the museum.

Me at side of airplane in Hood River and Steve in his airplane.

Close-up of Steve

And last but not least, I took a video with my cell phone of our landing in Troutdale.  The quality is not too good.  We flew down the Columbia River had to approach the airport flying into the sun.  Then we turned 180 degrees to head east and land at the airport.  The streaking you see is the prop on the airplane that must be at about the same frequency as the video camera or something.  Didn't (and don't) know how to get rid of that.

Thanks Steve for the afternoon.  I had a blast!

We are getting the motorhome rental season settled and ready for the lull in business through the winter months, so I am starting to have a little more time to do the things that I need, ought, and like to do.  Should finish most of the rest of the MH stuff this coming week.  Since our trip to Idaho/Utah was cut short this year because we wanted to be back her for the birth of little Oscar, Judy Lynn and I thought that we would take a week or so and go out to the coast and spend some "leisure" time there, but timing is just not with us.  There is always something that comes up that stops us.  Now it is so late and nearing the Thanksgiving holidays, we doubt at this point that we will make it.  Last year we went to the coast in January for our wedding anniversary, so maybe we will have to settle for that again this year.

Life continues here in Gresham.  Life is never dull, especially now with two little children in the house.  Here are a few pictures of the little ones taken over the past few days and weeks.

Little Gwen in her "pen" acting like "casual Charley" in her lounge chair.
(Note on right her playing with her hair.  Wonder where she gets that from?)

After being in her high chair for a time, she thinks she can get down by herself.
Doesn't seem to learn that she can't either.  She does this time and time again.

Gwen getting to know little Oscar

I am trying to get the yard ready for the growth that happens during the winter months up here.  Remember that we do not get many "hard" frosts up here that freezes anything but just a thing crust on the ground, so most things keep growing all winter long, although somewhat slower, but especially WEEDS.  This year I did something different and we will have to wait to see if anything different happens in the "weed" growth.  A farmer friend in our ward told Todd and I that he plants rye grass between his nursery plants and his garden.  He says that the ground cover is so thick that the weeds get crowded out.  The rye grass is also supposed to have a very strong root system that penetrated deep into the ground that helps break up clay etc.  So, I first removed everything in the garden that had been harvested (squash, cucumbers, etc.).  I did something different with some of my tomato plants this year.  Since it does not freeze early up here, we have tomatoes on our vines right up until the rain comes.  When the rain comes, it soaks and weakens the tomato fruit causing the skin to crack and then the tomato spoils very quickly.  I have covered my plants with plastic, covered with a tarp held up by a temporary frame, and that works fine until the first wind storm and then it all comes crashing down.  So this year I did something very simple.  I will tell you how this try works.

On the left you can see that I have hung some of the tomato plants from under the eves.  Most of our storms come from the west and southwest, so this part of the house is quite sheltered from the rain.  You cannot see many of the tomato fruit on the plants, but they are there.  On the right are some tomato plants that I just pulled and staked up next to the house under the eve.  That large board is not there most of the time. I should have moved it before taking the picture.  I have had tomatoes clear until Thanksgiving some years.  We will see how this process goes.  (If it works, you will probably hear me gloat.  If it doesn't, you probably will not hear a word about it .

This is the garden after the rye grass had been planted.
(Onions, lettuce, carrots and beets still in the ground)
(On extreme left, some raspberry canes that have laid down over the garden)

Every year I bore you with this, but I had Chad come over and cut out all of the old raspberry cane.  You can see that piled next to the fence to the right of the picture on the right.  You can also see the blueberry "cage" that contains my four blueberry bushes.  I have not trimmed those bushes yet.  I usually wait until the leaves fall and then take care of that.  The picture of the left shows the two raspberry rows with the new cane laying all over.  I will tie them up after the leaves fall (one of the few jobs that I hate with my little "farm").

Guess that catches you all up for now.