Happy 4th Birthday Ian! 12-29

Today is Ian’s 4th birthday. He is growing up soooo fast!

This is Ian’s first day.

This is Ian on his first birthday mucking around in his cake.

Ian at almost 2.

Ian at almost 3.

And here is our boy today! Happy Birthday! I was having trouble getting the words to line up correctly with the pictures, so if this didn't work you all will just have to guess. They are in succession.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas! Not too much very exciting going on and with Larry on the computer scanning as many photos as he can before we hit the road again I haven't blogged. We had a lovely family gathering with Larry's side of the family today and there were tons of pictures but these are all I am taking time with now...time to hit the feathers and wait for Santa! Hugs for you all! Have a wonderful day!

Happy Birthday Michelle! 12-16

Twenty three years ago today Michelle Marie Moniz made her appearance into our world! Wasn't she precious? Sadly for her Larry has scanned in a lot more pictures then we had scanned in when Andrea's last birthday came around! I had soooo many choices!
Happy Birthday Michelle, we love you!

CA rest area 12-14

For all the miles we have put on, we really haven’t seen too many people doing funny things. And by funny I mean out of the ordinary.

Today we were stopped at a rest area in California, I say this because you might think this was taken in Mississippi or Alabama or somewhere back there.

I like to stand and look out the window when I am eating my cereal at our rest stops. Sometimes the scenery is pretty and sometimes not. This trucker caught my attention because he was rinsing out bottles and pouring stuff on the ground with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I thought maybe it was cleaning solvents or something for his truck and the cigarette was a concern. Larry said one of the bottles looked like mouthwash and by now the guy was scrubbing something in his hand very vigorously and just as I had the thought that, Nooooo, those aren’t his teeth in his hand,... sure enough. It just struck us funny and weird. Out in the parking lot?! Why not in the bathroom, or at least in a bucket or something? Zoom in if you don't believe me.

last Albany day 12/12

Today is our last day in Albany…this time. Yesterday we spent the day at Seth’s. He was modeling his Mother’s toe socks.















Yesterday also Larry was trying to see under our bed in the slideout to see how bad the water was…we had a pond under there that was growing things. This is the longest time we have been in rainy/cold conditions and we have discovered that our bedroom slide out has a design flaw and funnels water inside. Now we just have to fix it. We would rather do it ourselves…we’ll know it was done right. It is hard leaving all your belongings in a shop. I’ll take pictures and post them in a couple days so those of you that are curious can see what I am talking about.

Larry is getting ready to take the satellite down before it starts raining again. We pull out tomorrow morning and head back to California. Seth is going to miss us! We’ll see him in a week.

This last picture is the scarf I knit for Michelle's birthday. It was neat the way the colors fell! We just got back from taking her out to dinner for her birthday. She turns 23 on Saturday!

Day on the Coast 12-9

Yesterday we got wild and crazy. We got up, saw on the internet that it would be the last rain-free day for at least a week and we skipped exercise and went to the coast! It was foggy and cold here at home, never reached 40 and on the coast it was cloudy but at least 15 degrees warmer. We are only an hour and a half away and a pretty drive. It was high tide and the waves were very large. Not much beach walking was done as there was no beach in most places. After awhile an offshore wind came up and was blowing against the waves, it made them look very interesting. We had lunch at a harbor restaurant that had entertainment. We got to watch the harbor seals fight for a place on the docks. I had the best fish and chips I think I have ever had. It was cooked in Canola oil and they were very light, Larry had a sandwich and clam chowder. The waiter was like a used car salesman with the dessert, but we resisted. Then we walked the harbor and then drove out to one more beach. Then it was a stop at Starbucks and head back home. We stopped for a visit with Seth on the way home. It was still cold and foggy! Rained last night and it warmed up. It felt positively balmy today! Seth is spending the evening and night with us, so this has taken several hours to get pieced together!

Foggy & cold

Today was cold and foggy all day. Our low was 35 and our high was 39…BRRRRRR. When I say foggy, I mean the floaty ground fog type. We went over to Michelle’s this evening for dinner and she even baked us a cake…we had to have a piece…couldn’t insult her hard work…tee hee. We’ll eat nothing but water tomorrow…yeah, right. I captured this picture of a muskrat out of our window yesterday, wish it was better. This other picture is of the pretty sunset we had last night at 4:30.


These last two pictures are of Seth in his Dad’s lunch cooler and playing hide his toys under his shirt from Grandpa.

Quackers 12-5

We have had a few days of sunshine. It has been cold, but with our hats, scarves and gloves we get in a walk most days. The creek picture is the creek that runs right behind us and has calmed down now that we have had a few dry days. All the rest of the pictures are of the park that we walk to and of the wildlife. We saw a couple large muskrats on the bank a few days ago and of course I did not have my camera with me. This weekend the fairgrounds was hosting a Christmas Bazaar so we checked that out at the end of our walk on Sunday. It was inside and had quite a few booths and some wonderful new things that we hadn’t ever seen anywhere before. People are always thinking and creating! Yesterday we did some Grandson-sitting so his Mom could study for an exam. Now that the “new” has worn off, our angel has shown us a few less than angelic moments, but what a character! We are in our last week here already…amazing.

The Wall 11-29

A remark was made to me a few weeks ago that has stuck with me. I wanted to respond at the time, but couldn’t formulate my scattered thoughts into words. It wasn’t necessarily shocking from the person that said it, but it made everything in me stand up and say, “No, No, don’t quit now!”

We were talking about ageing and health and my friend said how he has hit “the wall”. Meaning that he’s old, not feeling like he used to and that his time is up. He said I would understand when I was as old as he. He is in his late 60’s and I am 20 years younger.

All I heard was THE WALL!

His wall is the aging process, which we all face. What I want to say to him and to all with the same views, is how we go through the ageing process is all about ATTITIDE and our own thought processes.

This man is in good health, just the usual glitches; blood pressure and prostate trouble. He used to keep reasonably fit and watched what he ate, but he has let that go in response to his, “I am in the last few years of my life” attitude. He is right too, as long as he keeps believing that he WILL die in the next couple years, he will.

I wish I had thought to count how many references to “old” he had made in an hour and not just about himself but his wife too. He was starting to make ME give up!

I want to say to him that we hit walls all of our lives! Why are you letting this one stop you? We hit financial walls, health walls, death of loved ones walls, natural disaster walls, job loss walls, and walls of our own making.

What do we do? We stumble along the wall until we find the door and if not the door, at least the window to crawl through the wall. The strongest and most determined claw, cling and drag themselves right up and over the wall!

This person has had a great life and has overcome many obstacles to be where he is today. He is healthy and comfortable financially, two things a lot of younger people are lacking today. AND HE IS GIVING UP!

WHY is my question? Changing your mind about living your life isn’t an option in most people’s book.

I write this for myself as well as you. I want to be able to be this determined 20 years from now, 40 years from now and only through my OWN determination will I succeed. Who knows, I could be dead in 5 years and my friend will still be here moaning about being “old”. What a waste. Like the saying goes, old beats the alternative! So we aren’t as agile of body or mind, ADJUST!

This is my inspiration. This photo is of my Gram at 83 years playing on the monkey bars with my oldest daughter who was 3 at the time. My grandmother was still working and was ageless. She worked at staying healthy, active and informed.

When I compare her life to my friend’s of “THE WALL”, they both had their trials and their tribulations, but the difference between the two was attitude.

Gram was never an age. I’m amazed when I think back over my life with her and remember she was 59 when I was born, 12 years older than I am now. I never thought of her as “old”.

People would ask Gram her age and she wouldn’t tell them. She would say it was only a number. I understand her reasoning now that I am older and see how we love to put people in boxes. We are more patronizing and solicitous of older people and we do treat them differently if we know their age. We don’t even do it consciously, but it happens.

My Grandmother worked until she was 91 and even though she was diagnosed with liver cancer she stilled amazed her doctors and those around her with her “live life to the fullest” attitude right until the end.

Genetics had nothing to do with her longevity. She lived longer than anyone in her family and it was attitude and how she chose to live and view her life that got her that far.

So to my friend with the wall I am saying, “Find the window, turn around and change your perspective,…quit this defeatist attitude!”.

I have come to believe that negativity is the true devil in our lives and hell is of our own making. My Gram taught me not to dwell in the negative and that there is good in everything, we just have to be willing to see it!

Brrrrrrr 11-28

We are being subjected to an early, pre-winter freezing cold weather snap. Those of you in the south, quit looking so smug! It isn’t like we haven’t dealt with weather like this or worse even, but when you are tucked into a nice, insulated, foundationed home it isn’t hard to deal with. We are staying warm but the condensation of all the windows is a worry. Huge heat loss from the windows and worse with the blinds up, but I HAVE to have light during the day. We have seen some trailers/motorhomes that have their windows all insulated and closed all the time, I wouldn’t like living like that at all.

Really not to bad to deal with though when it means being closer to the kids! We have been having fun. Yesterday we drove through the snowy rain to the neighboring town to shop at Super Walmart.

Today we were busy getting our Son-in-laws truck towed out of the ditch he slid into early this morning. He was fine and got a ride to work and as we didn’t have anything much planned we went down and found the truck and waited for the tow truck. The tow truck yanked it up the hill pretty quickly, and other than the tail pipe being packed full of dirt from being drug backwards up the hill, the truck was fine. Once the blackberry vines were removed from it Larry drove it out of the highway.

After we did that, we picked Seth up from daycare and spent the afternoon with him. That boy is talking and moving at all times! He invents games just so he doesn’t have to slow down.

Larry will be busy scanning photos for the next year or so. Its kinda scary thinking about 32 years worth of photos and all the work involved in digitizing them all. Not to mention the years that I was really into photography so we have more photos than the average person AND I have my Mother’s. Whew. Just grateful that we have the time to do it.

Supposed to get colder tonight and the next couple days! Think warm thoughts for us!!!

Sunny Day Chores 11-25

Today we had SUN! We took a walk to get our dose of Vitamin D. It was cold, but the sun was nice. The county fairgrounds are across the road from us and we go past it to get to the park. Today there were lots of horse trailers packed in. We didn’t check it out because we had to get back for our morning toast and peanut butter.

After breakfast it was time for sunny day chores. I cracked opened the vents and windows so they could dry out. Lots of condensation in the winter. Larry worked on fixing a leak we have in our bedroom slideout and washing the vent covers. Then it was back to pulling photos out of albums, editing, and then scanning. I worked on finishing xmas gifts that I have been crocheting.

As the sun stayed out we took another walk, we were heading to the park but we decided to go into the stadium and see what the horses were up too. It was a big barrel racing event. We watched that for over an hour and then the cold and our growling stomachs said it was time to head back home for lunch.

That was pretty much our day.

Thanksgiving week 11-24

We had a lovely Thanksgiving week. It was gray and rainy all week so we were all pretty much house bound. On Wednesday Andrea, Michelle and I did some Christmas shopping. Granpa Larry watched the boys, they are both house broken which he was very happy about. We were gone about 4 hours and we all got most of our shopping done. Being the day before Thanksgiving the traffic heading out of town towards the highway was bumper to bumper so it took us awhile to get home from shopping. Granpa was in one piece when we got back. Michelle lives in Corvallis and we are in Albany which is 25 minutes from Corvallis. Our trip home was slow going. The 5 miles we had to travel up I-5 took us 20 minutes, crazy traffic and heavy rain.

Yesterday we had a wonderful dinner and today was recovery day. Andrea and Ian headed back home today before the next bad storm came in and to beat the traffic. She beat both and after 10 hours was back home. We all had a good time, but I am sure they are both glad to get back home.

I just noticed that Andrea eluded being photographed yesterday, she was busy taking pictures too, the only reason I'm showing up here is because Michelle picked up my camera.

Hanging with the kids 11-20

I thought I would pop in today. Sorry I haven’t been blogging, been busy with a couple of handsome, short guys.

Last week we settled into our new home for the next month and explored around to get our bearings and find all the important stuff, you know, Costco, the Mall, the coffee places…. We’ve walked a few mornings now, which means we had a few where it wasn’t raining. Shocking. We found a really nice park to walk through with a stream running through it and lots of ducks.

Andrea and Ian got to Michelle’s on Saturday, so we have been over there most everyday. The boys get along for the most part, so do their Mom’s, for the most part…smile.

Larry has started the arduous task of scanning our photos into the computer. Some of them have been stored with Michelle and the bulk is stored at Andrea’s. Larry figures he might burn out a couple of scanners in the process…I have thousands and thousands of photos.

I’ll try and check in more, but hanging with the kids and shopping just doesn’t seem exciting enough to share, maybe I’ll make something up.