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Christmas at the island

Waited all day for a break in the rain. The dogs didn't even want to go outside!


A much better evening--Chloe even went for a swim! Hard to believe how rough this can get!
Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. We're off to Olympia next weekend!

Christmas Shopping 2009

Randy and I went to Bellevue and stayed the night in order to finish up our Christmas shopping. Think we are all done! Here are a couple of cool things we found though:


Juice pack to extend my Iphone battery and a golf cart heater for those chilly Hat Island golf games and....



The coolest infrared heater for the island - safe to use indoors, in the garage, shop, cabin, or just about anywhere that you want effective, comfortable heat. The heat is not whisked away on a breeze because the light rays are unaffected by the wind.

Anyway--we had a great time Went to Earl's and Ruth Chris for Happy Hour and Joey's for dinner. And the $100 certificate from the Westin was a nice bonus for shopping!

Everglades and Key West

What a great vacation we just returned from. Nothing like leaving 80+ degrees and returning to 1 degree. Oh well, that's why we travel in the winter.

It's really hard to see, but there are two manatees in the picture above. The larger white blob in the Mom and there is a smaller blob to the left of her that is her baby. They were really fun to watch. I think we saw a total of about 8 manatees.

Randy is sneaking up on two Wood Storks in this picture. We saw all kinds of wading birds--Great Egrets, Snowy Egret, Tri-colored Herons, Great Blue Herons, and Roseate Spoonbills. Most just from the window of the car! Its was amazing.

In this picture there are two alligators, a couple of Herons, an Anahinga, and an egret. We noticed a cottonmouth snake in the bushes in front of us as we took the picture.

Our favorite beach (Fort Zachary Taylor State Park), our favorite pastime, and a final sunset. Wish I was still there!

Veteran's Day

On Veteran's Day I decided to look at some of my military pictures. It seems I didn't take a lot of them, but here are a few that document some of my time! In honor of the season, here's one flying Santa into the base for Christmas in Germany. In actuality it was a pretty crappy weather day--so I kinda hovered him in!

Next is a picture when I was Platoon Leader in Ft Rucker Alabama. This is most of the flight company.

FLY ARMY!

Here is one from my Company Change of Command. I was Company Commander of Charlie Company. We taught both Basic and Advanced Combat Skills to future aviators.

And, not to forget Korea, I spent some time with the Neutral Nations Committe (comprised of Swiss, Swedish and Polish Officers). Here I am near the DMZ.

Drag races in Vegas

We had the chance to spend Halloween weekend in Vegas. Randy won a trip through Napa that included dinner, accomodations and hospitality tickets to the Drag Races. travis was even racing the Bullring Saturday night before the other races. Rachel and Travis ended up staying at the Orleans where we were so it was really nice.

Gale and Rachel enjoying their breakfast at the hotel.

Here's a video Ron racing the Napa car--wish it had sound. It's amazing how you can feel 8000 hp right in the middle of your chest!

Fishin!

The Taylors came over this weekend to go fishing.  Randy and Jim went out Friday afternoon to check the gear and came back with two.  Saturday morning they limited at 4 salmon each. They also manged to catch a few crab  Luc and I finished some tiling in the Kitchen.  Sunday we decided to fish on the way home.  Now this is what I call fishing! Even the dogs enjoyed their first fishing trip.

And we put up the beautiful sign that

Becca gave Randy for his birthday--very nice!

Last weekend

Last weekend-- what a weekend it was! Randy and I went over to our friends Mike and Jodi's house to go to a couple of concerts. Friday it was Jackson Browne--I love going to Chateau Ste. Michelle for concerts--everything is so laid back. (pardon the Iphone video!)





The concert was great and the next day we set off for a 15 mile bike ride through North Bend. It was Railroad days and we actually wound up pedaling through town right before the parade. How funny was that. (Faz in the right hand picture, Alex and Jodi in the pic below)

Anyway, after the ride we went back to the house to get ready for a "blind IPA tasting" at the Beveridge Place Pub in West Seattle. I liked most of them, but my top three did not win any prizes. After the tasting we went to Mashiko Sushi restaurant. What a great place. We picked the Chef's choice option and 16 courses later....... Who knew that a roll with catfish, sweet potatoes, avocado wrapped in a soy bean wrap would be good! I would definitely go again.


Sunday we got up to go on a hike near North Bend--Called Rattlesnake something. Faz joined us again along with Mike and Jodi's niece Alex. What a pretty hike--and we gained some elevation!
(Randy, Mike, Ursa and Darby in the pic)







Finally we ended the jam packed weekend with the Elvis Costello concert--picnicked at the wineryWent to our horrible seats--(yes, that's me right next to the stage!)

Made it back to Ellensburg by 12:30 am--Luckily I wasn't expected to work until 10 the next morning!

Update Time

I started this a few years ago! Time to update!