The Specal Chair

We're back home and here is Max waving from his very special "lift" chair. This chair was my dear Aunt Dottie's. When Dottie passed away, her daughter Shirley said her mother would be thrilled to know Max was using her chair.
-Carol

Three Sisters Mountains

Here is a picture of Max at one of the golf courses in the Redmond area. The main reason for taking this photo was to capture the Three Sisters Mountains in the background. You cab click on the image to enlarge it and get a better view of the mountains.

The weather was so hot during our visit, Jim & Kathy drove us around in the air conditioned car and showed us the area.
-Carol

Jim & Kathy in Redmond, Oregon

Here are our friends, Kathy & Jim, in front of the new home they're having built in Redmond, Oregon. I can't remember the name of the community but it's an "active senior adult" community with clubhouses, pools, tennis courts, exercise centers, etc. Kathy & Jim have been in a temporary rental, so they are looking forward to the permanent move in late July.

We stayed with Jim & Kathy Monday night. They drove us all around the local area which was interesting. They relocated to Redmond from Mill Creek, Washington for their (semi) retirement and seem to really be enjoying getting to know the area and the people.
-Carol

My Cousin Shirley

This picture (taken Monday at the Springfield, Oregon Carl's Jr. restaurant) is of: My cousin Shirley St.Clair, Max, and me. Notice Shirley is wearing a t-shirt we bought for her in Palm Springs.

The trip to Oregon centered around taking an antique icebox to Shirley and picking up a chair for Max. Shirley was kind enough to entrust her late Mother's "lift" chair to us. This will help Max get out of his chair when I am not around to help him.

We left home Sunday afternoon, with an appointment in Shoreline, Washington at 2:00 p.m. to pick-up the antique icebox from another cousin of Shirley's. The icebox was Shirley's mother's mother's and she has very fond memories of this icebox from her childhood.

We stayed in Tigard, Oregon on Sunday night then headed to Springfield Monday morning to deliver the icebox. We went out to lunch with Shirley, had a nice chat, then headed over to Redmond, Oregon to visit our friends Kathy and Jim.

The bad news is we picked the hottest days of the year to take this excursion. Whew!

Stay tuned...
Carol

Monster Cake

Here are a couple pictures of a monster piece of cake Max & I just had to try when we went out to eat in Tigard on Sunday night. You can click on the images to see them in an even larger version.

For dinner, we each had only a bowl of clam chowder and still could not eat the entire piece of this 5-layer cake between the two of us. It was really good, though!

Wildflowers in Bloom

The wildflowers in the forest were in full bloom during out quick trip to Oregon. I'm not an expert in wildflowers, but my cousin Shirley St. Clair says these are FoxGloves. These, and all the other wildflowers and prolific ferns, made for a pleasant drive.
-Carol

Lunch Time At Country Boys

Here is Max outside of Country Boys BBQ in Cashmere, WA yesterday. We like to plan our trips to Cashmere around a meal time, because we love the food here! It's not inexpensives but it IS, literally, finger-lickin good.

- Carol

Amy & Troy's Trail Ride

Our Friends, Amy & Troy, who we met when they were searching for a home, have been having fun exploring the countryside on their new trail bikes. They moved here from Sparks, Nevada last year so they're enjoying the beautiful scenery in the back roads of North Central Washington. Here are some pictures they sent from a recent trip. They're not exactly sure where they were... but it was beautiful and a good time was had!

I think this is THE way to utilize a motorcycle... stay off the roads with all the traffic and enjoy the scenery!

The Cowboy Boots

Today I took the van up to the Monitor area to get the air conditioning recharged. I stumbled onto Custom Auto Repair as a recommend from another mechanic acquaintance of ours. It's located just behind Tom, Dick & Harry's hamburger restaurant.

Custom Auto Repair is owned and operated by Joe Taft and he literally runs the cleanest auto repair shopt I have ever seen in my life. His tool box looked as clean and organized as any operating room surgical tray. His desk was totally organized and there was a mop and bucket in the corner of the room which he obviously uses on a regular basis.

As I was waiting for the van, I walked next door to a statuary display called "Norma Lee's Statues". They had all kinds of interesting statues... from water fountains to the religious to little munkins.

Here is a picture of some monster cowboy boots. I guess you would use them as some sort of a planter. They're too big for any cowboy I've ever seen (plus they're too darn heavy to actually wear! To give you perspective as to how big these boots are, I set my 12 oz coffee cup in between them. See that little white spot between the boots? That's my coffee cup. These are BIG boots to fill! Below are some other statues in the yard.

You can click on any image to enlarge.

Big Max & Little Max

Max Jr. is now "Big Max", This picture was taken on Monday morning. J.R., as we call him, came up for a quick visit Sunday evening and Monday morning. He helped edge the lawn and do a little silicone sealant job on the van's sky window. The lawn is looking pretty darn good now with my new grass pretty well filled in. There are still some bare spots, but they'll fill in soon enough, I guess. Anyway, J.R. is always a handy guy to have around for odd jobs around the house and, especially, for any jobs involving cars!

I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of Max and Lisa when she was over this week-end planting flowers! Next time.

Lana called from England on Father's Day. They are moving back to California on July 26th, so she's talking about (maybe) coming up for Max's birthday in August. If so, we'll try to get ALL 5 of the kids together at the same time. That will be the first time in many years.

Adding Excitement to Our Lives

Thanks to Max's oldest daughter, Lisa, we now have some new excitement in our lives... the color of 9 newly planted flower pots. Here are just two of the nine. We are so anxious to see how they look in a few weeks when they've filled the pots with even more blooming color!

Lisa seems to have her Dad's "green thumb" and really enjoys flower gardening. I'm going to suggest she make this an annual tradition for a Father's Day gift. :-)

Lisa hadn't been here for several months, so it was good to see her again!

Barb & Leonard Keeler

Here is a picture of our good friends Barb & Leonard Keeler. Barb has been one of the infamous Puttermeister foursome which has been known (and feared) throughout the golf tournament world for many years. :-) This is also an interesting picture because, in the background, you can see greens #5, #13 & #14 at my home course Three Lakes Golf Course.

Leonard retired from Alcoa a couple years ago and Barb retired last week from teaching at Cashmere's Vale Elementary School. Now, sadly, Barb & Leonard are moving to Buckeye, Arizona (this week) and the Puttermeisters will go into the history books. We are so happy for them to have built their retirement home in Arizona, but they will be greatly missed! Max & I will definitely stop to see them when we are in the Phoenix, Arizona area visiting Max's sister, Connie, and her husband Bill.

Babies First Haircut

O.K... I hate to bore you with more pictures of my babies, but I gave them their first haircut today. I've been delaying the mowing because I didn't want my babies to get their roots sucked up into the mower bag! Those bald spots are filling in nicely and they're looking pretty dapper, if I do say so myself!

Yesterday & Today

I am so excited about the baby grass. Look at the difference in just one day. Today on top and yesterday below. Click on the images to enlarge and you can really see the difference. The weather is perfect for growing new grass, PLUS...

I'm such a good Mommy!

The Babies Are Growing

The grass seeds I planted early last week are growing into beautiful little baby grasses. They're just like newborn babies... so small and fragile looking. The weather has been cool and rainy, so not ideal for germination. At least I haven't had to worry about keeping the peet moist to hold the seeds in place while they grow. I'm actually surprised it's done as well as it has considering how cool it's been here. I'm looking forward to some warm weather so it can really take off. We have an auto sprinkler system I can set to moisten them down every few hours, so it's no problem if the weather turns hot. If you click on the image to enlarge, you see the fragile little blades peeking out.


In spite of the new blades, the dead spots in the lawn still look quite tacky, so it's good we have the prolific rose bed to distract attention away from the actual lawn. Since Max is the horticulturist in the family, I haven't done much yard work since we got married (nearly 23 years ago)... but I am enjoying tending the rose garden. Can't say I enjoyed tending the dead grass, although I am proud of my new little baby grasses. Unlike real babies, however, if I'm not happy with the results I can just start over!

Two More Birdhouses

Today, while shopping for some gardening supplies, I found two more birdhouse that "needed" to be added to my small, but growing, collection.

The two newest members of the family are a "Bakery" birdhouse and a "Gone Golfing" birdhouse. What could be better than stopping at the bakery for a cup of coffee and pastry then heading out to the links? Life doesn't get much better than that!

Here is the entire collection now. Click on either image to enlarge.


My gardening supply shopping consisted of getting some grass seed and peet moss to re-seed a bunch of dead spots in the lawn. Max was trying to be helpful earlier in he year by spraying for weeds. Unfortunately, he used something that killed more than the weeds. I finally scraped all the dead grass away, sprinkled in some grass seed and covered it with the peet moss. Now the trick is to keep it watered during the warm weather so it germinates good. Hopefully, within about a week we should see green coming in where the brown has been.

I'm not really used to doing these kinds of jobs, but I'm finding the yard work (including keeping up with the irrigation system) has become my responsibility. It's not that Max doesn't want to do it but neither his brain nor body cooperate like they used to.

More Saturday Pictures

In the previous post, I mentioned we drove to Waterville today. On the way to Waterville, we stopped at Estes Fruit Stand to look at the pretty handging baskets. They open earlier than most of the fruit stands in the area because they sell scads of fabulous hanging baskets. In the summer and fall, when the fruit is in season they sell all kinds of fresh local fruits.

Pictures:
* First: Estes Fruit Stand sign
* Second: Beautiful hanging baskets by: Ladybugs
* Third: "Pig In The Sky"... Can you see the pig formation in the clouds? (click image to enlarge)
* Fourth: Turtle Rock Island in the distance. Can you see why it's called "Turtle Rock"? (click image to enlarge)

I was fascinated by the cloud formations today. I love the big fluffy clouds. I know it indicates stormy conditions, but they sure are pretty.

Saturday Drive To Waterville

Today I took Max for a drive to Waterville. The "excuse" was to look for a historical book on the early days of the Waterville area. My cousin Shirley says her Grandfather (on Dottie's side) and his family spent some time in Waterville but she's not sure what the connection is. So, I bought the book "Beginnings" about the early settler days, hoping there was something in there. We'll see.


The first picture here is a bronze statue of a "water-witcher", which is in front of the local museum. The second photo (with Max in the middle) is the end of the museum building with a mural painted on the end. The third photo is of a painting on the end of a local barn, advertising "Dr. Pierces Golden Medical Discovery".

First Rose Boquets

Max went prowling in the rose garden this afternoon and so here are the first two bouqets of roses this season.

Durn Good Burgers

Today Max & I took the van out for a drive. Since we got the new car, the van has taken a back seat (so to speak) in our car driving preference. It's been sitting all alone for quite a while, so we thought it'd be good to get it out on the road and burn some carbon. We planned the trip to coincide with Tom, Dick & Harry's $3.50 "Burger Bundle" Wednesday. For $3.50 you get a seriously good hamburger, with all the trimmings, a generous portion of fries, and a small fountain drink. We could, literally, share one of these baskets if the hamburgers weren't so darned good and I insist on having a whole one all to myself!

Tom, Dick & Harry's (at the Monitor exit) is a popular spot for old car enthusiasts to gather. That's "old car" enthusiasts... not "old" car enthusiasts. This is especially popular in the summer. And, they have a nice rose garden, too.

Since Max doesn't drive anymore, I try to get him out at least once a day. Sometimes I take him on errands with me and sometimes we make up a place to go just for something for him to do.

Be sure to click on the images to enlarge. In the picture on the left is my man, Max. On the right is a well endowed car-hop. They don't serve you in your car but it's a nice conversation piece prop.

-Carol