Special Month of February

The month starts off with Barb and Teresa having a birthday. Sadly we don't get to celebrate it together. Barb and Teresa use to before Barb retired spend the day together shop tell we dropped and then have lunch.

Jill Wilson (Barb and Jerry's hair dresser) come to AZ to surprise her father on his birthday. She agreed to come to the house and color and cut hair bless her she brought all her stuff with her. Well in the process of putting the color on Barbs hair the towl the bowl of color was sitting on, at the table slid off and guess what half of the color is on the floor. Jill is frantically scooping up the color as this is all she has with her, Barb is frantically getting wet paper towels to wipe up what is left on the floor. Guess what the two guys are doing in the picture below NO they are not praying they are frantically wiping up the floor. It was one of those group efforts. All in all you see in the one picture Barb still has her hair colored and a new cut so all turned out ok. Barb cooked dinner and a good time was had by all.

Also this month Jerry and Barb decided to take the window out of the garage and put in a golf cart garage door and drive way and make better use of the garage. Many others have done that with this model home. It turned out great. But then come the decision what to do about the paint as the painter said the new garage door would look different than the original because of the age of the paint so we might want to paint them both. Then we really like the new concept which is to access the trim around the doors and the window and arch way by the front door with a different color. Now the decision is to do we paint the whole house or just the new addition part. Fianally after a couple days a decision was to paint the whole house especially when the plan was to do it in a year or two anyway.

Also we made a decision to take out a tangerine tree in the back yard as they were not good eating and very messy so a landscaper come by and took it out. Well for a cost of course. But it all worked out well as we had extra dirt that had to be put someplace because of the new drive way in front so made use of it by making a mound in back where the tree was and we put some new small catus in there. The picture below is our new area where the tree was.

Here is the finished product of our house. All in all we are very pleased with the outcome. One more thing has to be done and that is the coating on the drive way and side walk to the back yard. It can't be done for 30 days as the cement has to cure.

Also this month Barb joined a new golf group of 12 ladies that golf on Thursday afternoon. The group is called Giggles and Hit and we have a lot of fun. We are all out their to have fun and try and improve our score but if it happens great if it don't well we will try harder next time. Then we go to the club house restaurant and have a beverage of choice and free pop corn. They also call it their meeting which it consists of as a lot of laughing and finding out who can play the next week.

Jerry and Barb played in their first golf tournament it was a invitational by a group here called the Bandits and Jerry's cousin Lydle & Jill invited us to be their guests. We had a great time playing golf with them. Then afterwards it was dinner on the patio of the club house. Lydle fixed 7 prime ribs and the group served prime rib sandwiches and etc for dinner.

That wraps up the month and a busy one it was oh I forgot to mention we have had WA weather down here for the month also. I guess they need the rain but we heard that Flagstaff, AZ had the most snow of all the large citys in the US.

Bye Bye January 2010

Wow a month has already flew by in the new year. Guess that means we are keeping busy. We have had interesting weather this month. We had the worst storm that AZ has seen since in the 1970's. Rain, Snow, winds and tornado watch has been what our month of January has been.

We managed to hit one Friday that was sunny and warm and have 4 couples over for a get together. We all had a lot of fun chatting and drinking strawberry Margarita's .

Barb is doing the usual, bowling, and golfing. Jerry and Barb golf on a couples group every other Sunday which helps to meet new people where we live.

Jerry had the opportunity to work security for the Barrett Jackson collectors car auction in Scottsdale, AZ. It was a tiring task as he worked 8, 10 hour days and one 14 hour day. However he was inside the tents so he did not have to work out in the worst weather we had. He had to drive in it but at least he stayed dry.

Barb helped her sister Diselle paint one Saturday and it was a great success. Barb and her two nieces and her sister covered alot of wall space.

Until next month hope this finds family and friends well and happy?

Family Get Togethers During The 2009 Holidays

The following pictures are times we spent with the childrens while we were in Auburn for the Christmas holidays.



Kim and Noelani at Pappy and Nana's house on Christmas Eve Day.

This is at Steve and Holly's house on Christmas Eve, Pappy, Kaven (Great Grandson,) Noelani Granddaughter and Kim. Pappy is guarding the stair way where the little ones wanted to play.

Scott and Gabby and the dogs waiting for presents and dinner on Christmas Eve.

Here is Teresa with her niece Nevaeh on Christmas Eve. Very Cute picture.

Here is Teresa with Noelani who is very tired and ends up falling to sleep in aunties lap.

Here is pappy and nana with great grandchildren Kavan and Nevaeh on Christmas Eve.

Here is Barb with her granddaughter and the mother of Kavan and Nevaeh on Christmas Eve.

Dinner at Teresa and Scotts on Tuesday before New Years. Teresa made Rachel Ray's famous french onion soup which Scott and Jerry and Gabby were getting ready to eat.

A family picture after we ate the delicious dinner Teresa made and played Mexican Train Domino's.

This picture is after we played Mexican Train Domino's and Teresa and Barb was winning the game tell the last few rounds and then Jerry took the game that is why he is smiling.

We had a lot of fun with family and friends over the holidays and we wish all our family and friends a Very Prosperous New Year in 2010.

December 2009.

December was a very busy month. Jerry and Barb flew back to Auburn to spend the holidays with the children and grand children and great grand children. This year the weather was much better than 2008.



The first event happened 4 days after Jerry and Barb arrived home and it was the annual Lefsa party. For anyone not knowing what Lefsa is it is mashed potato's mixed with butter and cream and then rolled out with flour and fryed. A lot of lefsa was made and shared with family and friends.

These three pictures is the Lefsa making in progress.

The next event to take place was to start some decorating so the house looks a bit like Christmas

Jerry don't put up all the lights outside like he use to years ago Barb would just as soon as he don't be climbing around on ladders any way.

Jerry and Barb's mothers loved Christmas so the tradition now is to light a candle by their pictures and honor them on Christmas day. Also Jerry's brother loved Christmas so he is included as well.

The third event was to get some shopping done so we have presents under the tree. Ark and Saw was very happy to see Barb and Jerry come back for Christmas and that they got to be in on the big day.

This year Barb did not cook her son Steve volunteered to cook Prime Rib it was delicious. Also he volunteered to have it at their house and in their newly remodeled kitchen very nice and Steve & Holly are very pleased with the improvement.

This is the cooks but it looks like one is having wine and letting Steve do the cooking I think that is a good deal.

We did something different with gift giving this year we did a Secret Santa exchange it was fun and Barb's gift got took by Holly (her daughter - in -law) but Steve her son really encouraged it. The gift was a cutting board that went over the sink and had a vegatable strainer attached. Oh well Barb ended up with a gift card to the Cheescake Factory so it turned out OK. But Barb wil not be forgetting what happen any time soon.

The day after Christmas Jerry and Barb had a little open house for friends and neighbors to come over and have some goodies and drinks. All had a good time and drank a little wine.

The Month To Give Thanks

Another very busy month. Weather has been great sunny and warm every day.


Barb and Diselle (her sister) did the Cancer Relay For Life Walk.

This picture is the ribbon that is luminated with paper bags that is donations given by individuals in memory of or cancer survivors or just donaations to the cancer fund. As you can see there is a break in the ribbon what happen some of the bags started on fire and had to be taken out and set to the side. The bags are made of paper and then sand is put in the bottom and a candle in the sand. It is very pretty when they do the lighting.

This is Nancy and Rich our neighbors next door and they are from Oregon. We golfed with them this month and had a good time. We do a lot of laughing when we go golfing and that is good for us all.

This month there was a Good Guys car show in Scottsdale. These are three of the cars in our neighborhood. This was a guys day out well it ended up being all day Friday and three quarters of the day on Saturday. It is a very huge car show so impossible to see all in one day.
The wives enjoyed a day of shopping or going to lunch or just doing what ever they wanted to do.

We put up a humming bird feeder as we have a lot of humming birds around. So when we don't have any thing else to do we sit and watch the humming birds. Retired life is tough.

Thanksgiving day was a quiet day at home ate a little turkey and watched football. The temperatures was 80 degrees hard to believe it was Thanksgiving Day.

We did venture out on Black Friday but the crowds were not bad but then we did not go out tell 10 am and only to a couple stores and most of the shoppers had went out at 4 am.

That pretty much wraps up another month of fun in the sun. Sorry to keep mentioning that when I know we have family and friends in weather that is not so nice.

Good By October

The month of October we have five birthdays in the family.



We first celebrated our granddaughter's Gabby on October 5th. Kaven our great grandchild has a birthday on October 4 we did not get to celebrate his birhday with him but I am sure he had a great one he was Two. Then Jerry's birthday is on October 17th and Ron's is on October 18th. We went to Bainbridge Island to Kim and Rons to celebrated the guys birthday and we stayed over the night. Jerry got a WII game for his birthday so we played a couple games of bowling and golf in the evening. On Saturday Ron and Kim fixed breakfast and we went back to Auburn. Then that evening we celebrated Jerry's birthday again with Scott and Teresa and Gabby. A Lot of partying for one birthday wouldn't you think. Then on October 30 Steve had a birthday but we were already in AZ so didn't get to celebrate with him on his special day.

Teresa, Scott & Gabby bought a StoneCold Ice Cream cake for Jerry and that is why he has a big smile on his face we are about to cut in to that baby.

Here we are celebrating Gabby's birthday at the Spaghetti Factory in Tukwilla.

Here we are celebrating Jerry's & Ron's birthdays in Bainbridge Island at Kim & Ron's. I am not sure why we don't have the birthday guys in the same picture but they aren't

After all the birthday celebrations on Sunday afternoon October 18th we headed for sunny AZ. We drove as far as Baker City, OR. On Monday we drove to Jack Pot NV and spent the night and invested a little money well I guess Barb invested Jerry boke even. Tuesday we drove to Laughlin, NV and Barb invested a little more money so she is going to be rich some day. Jerry come away with a little cash not much though. On Wednesday we arrived in AZ. Very warm in the 80's and 90's. We have been cleaning up the yard and house.

Barb started bowling and golfing with the niners. Jerry and Barb been out golfing a couple times and found out they weren't as rusty as they had expected after not golfing for 6 months.

That pretty much wraps up the month of October.

Saying Goodby to the Month of September

Another month flew by but it was a fun month.

The month started off with a granddaughters birthday Jenny's B-day was Sept 5th. A new bride on August 22nd and birthday right after.

On September 10th we took our street rod and headed south to Seaside. Our first stop was in Chehalis to have breakfast with some friends (Larry and Sherry) who live at Toledo. They met us at a restuarant in Chehalis and we visited for a couple hours and caught up on what was happening in our lives. We traveled on down to Seaside and then met up with other friends who live in OR. Steve & Judy live in Battleground, WA and Rich and Nancy live in Wilsonville, OR. These two couples are our neighbors in Chandler AZ.

On Friday Sept 11, we all took the street rods and headed out for a 60 mile poker run what a beautiful day and seen a lot of areas we would not have seen had we not been on this scheduled route and the many stops at towns and businesses to get our cards for our poker hand.

This is Steve, Jerry and Rich by the cars at a look out stop which was a beautiful view of the ocean but of course Barb did not take a picture of the view.

On Sunday Sept 13th the car show ended and Jerry and Barb traveled with Rich and Nancy to Willsonville to spend the night at Rich and Nancy's. The picture of the guys on Monday morning waiting for their breakfast. Nancy made scones and coffee they were really good.

Nancy and Barb in their front yard just before Jerry and Barb started back to Auburn.





Jerry is drewling over Rich's Corvette he asked Rich if he could just sit in it to see what it would feel like. Very pretty car it is a 67.


This picture is taken at the same look out point that the one up above was taken where the guys are standing by the cars. A very nice lady offered to take a picture of all of us with the cars Rich & Nan, Jerry & Barb, and Steve & Judy and you can see a bit of the view. Barb could not get this picture to move up with the other one for some reason.

September 18, 19 Teresa and Barb had a garage sale which turned out to be a great success. The garage sale got post poned when Teresa got sick so we both were happy we could get this accomplished this year.

On Thursday September 24th Jerry and Barb decided to do the Puyallup fair. It has been a few years since we had been at the fair. Kim and Noelani (granddaughter) joined us however after 3 hours Noelani was wanting a nap.

On Sunday September 27th Barb fixed dinner for Helen & Ray and Loren & Irene our neighbors who do so much for us while we go south for the winter. We also did a little wine tasting which we try to do once a year.