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December 30, 2005

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Boy, have we had the storms this past week! I have never seen it rain so much; over two inches a day and with wind gusts up to 45 mph! It rained all week and there was quite a bit of wind damage. We developed a leak in one of our skylights and we have this constant drip going on. Luckily the drip is landing in the kitchen sink. By the time it showed up, we were getting ready to be gone for a week, so we haven't had time to make arrangements to get it fixed. Anyway, by the end of this stormy week, we had cabin fever so bad that we were anxious to go anywhere! To make it even worse, Dave has had a really bad cold and hasn't felt like himself. He's been sleeping on and off all day and just generally moping around, and I've been trying to stay away from him so I don't catch the thing! One thing about all of these storms is that you can just curl up with a good book and watch it storm. I have really gotten a lot of books read so far this winter!

Christmas this year was really different. For one thing, it was just the two of us, and it felt really strange not to have our family around. In all of our forty years of marriage, we have never been by ourselves for Christmas. Even when we were first married and Dave was overseas a lot, he was always back for Christmas, and we were able to go home to be with family. The reason we were alone this year was because of everyone's schedule. Leslie's husband, Jason had to work till 8AM Christmas morning. He usually gets done by 3AM, but there was a police emergency, and he was called back to work. So their time was limited with his family. Lara and Greg went over to her in-laws for Christmas brunch, so Dave and I decided to go out for Christmas dinner. Since there were only two places open for Christmas along that part of the coast, we really didn't have much choice for dinner. We settled on the Shilo Inn in Tillamook. The food was okay, but it sure can't beat a good home-cooked meal with your loved ones around. As it turned out, we all got together at Leslie's on the day after Christmas and she had prepared a wonderful turkey dinner. It felt like Christmas even though we were a day late! It was so much fun to see the grandchildren's excitement of opening their gifts.

Tuesday night, we were invited to our friends, the Kahrs for dinner. I don't know how they do it. Des and Donna had just returned from a three-week trip to China on Monday night and invited us over the following evening for dinner! I would have still been in another time zone and dead to the world! Their trip was a continuation of Devin and Pinki's wedding. After the big celebration in the fall down here at their place, it was time to go to Hong Kong for another celebration with her friends and family. Pinki's parents put on a great party and afterward, took them to Beijing for five days. It was interesting to listen to all their adventures, but they were very glad to get home for a while.

It was back to the big city on Wednesday for a few Blazer games. There were games on Wednesday, tonight and then on Sunday. Again, we will be heading back to the Coast after the game on Sunday and then we will have the whole week off! We hope to make it back up to Everett, Washington to check on the Captain Bell, as we had to cancel our last trip because of the weather. We are anxious to see the progress on the boat.

We don't have any plans for any New Year's Eve celebration. Usually we don't even stay up until midnight. I hope that everyone else has a happy and healthy 2006!