July 16-20 Asia Camp & Home Repairs

This week my mom was doing "Grandma Camp" for 4 of the grandkids. The theme this year is Asia. The kids made a variety of crafts, tried new foods and played games from China, Japan, Korea, and several other countries in the Far East. Each day they had a different costume to wear. Here the girls are doing some flower arranging.

While they were busy doing fun activities- Becky, her sisters and brother-in-law did a bunch of house repairs and yard work on our new house. Things look much better now. It has been awhile since the property had been taken care of. There is still work to be done (always), but now it will be more maintenance than "catch-up". I am very grateful for their hard work.

Here is a link to photos of our new house. Any furniture you see belongs to the seller, and wasn't all in the house when I first viewed the home as there is currently a renter living there.
http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa105/r_d_landon/Taylor%20Butte%20House/

Travelling Once Again

My mom and I (and the 2 dogs) left Oregon on Sunday, May 6th. We are travelling in the camping trailer we bought last summer. We arrived in Colorado Springs on Tuesday night. We will leave, along with Naomi, for Georgia on Tuesday, May 15th. We are headed there to see Denise graduate from the dental assistant course on May 23rd. Naomi will be attending the high school graduation on May 26th (this is the school she attended for 2 years while we lived in Georgia) . We will be there for 2 weeks visiting with Denise and good friends. Once we return to Colorado, Naomi will stay there to start summer classes at the community college she has been attending. Mom, Jonathan and I will continue onto Oregon. Once there, Jonathan and I will be signing the papers for the purchase of our retirement home. Jonathan and Naomi will be joining me there within 10 months- we don't have an official retirement date yet.

new house

I signed paperwork today to purchase our retirement home. We will close in June. It is a smaller home that sits on just over 2 acres of beautifully landscaped land. There is also a large shop that I will be able to use part of for my embroidery business. There is even a pool house and large BBQ pit for summer fun.

Birthday Surprise

Grandma decided that we should not miss seeing Naomi on her 18th birthday. So we packed up the van and drove 1500 miles. We arrived about 1 1/2 hours before Naomi got home from class on Wednesday. Boy was she surprised to see us.

We will be here in Colorado for about a week, and then will head back to Oregon. Hopefully the roads and weather will be just as clear as on the trip out.

Washington DC

Jonathan had a conference to attend in Washington DC this past week, so I went with him. I was able to visit Arlington Cemetary, National Catherdral, Smithsonian Muesum of American History, the memorials at Capitol Mall, and Mt Vernon. I wish I had more time.

The hotel had a shuttle to downtown and then I fairly quickly managed to figure out the Metro train system (with only one minor problem). I haven't edited the photos yet- but will post some once I do so.

Tomorrow I head back on the bus to Oregon.

Christmas celebrations

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration. We had new family photos taken on the 23rd, there is one posted on this blog.

Christmas Eve night we attended a candlelight service of lessons and carols. Jonathan worked hard to organize this service with members of 4 or 5 different congregations. It went very well. Christmas morning was another combined worship service. We had our traditional English muffin sandwiches for breakfast and opened stockings before the service.

Gifts were opened when we returned home from church. The biggest surprises were the snowboards to Jon and Naomi. Jon also got a large gift of a mine sweeper game quilt from Naomi. She spent almost 4 whole days getting all of the blocks embroidered for it and then putting them all together.

All 3 of the children and Jonathan's parents have been here this week. So they, and my cousin Lisa and her husband David, were here for the renewal of vows for our 25th anniversary. (We were actually married on Dec 21st, but waited to do the ceremony until the family was all here.) I have to edit the video and hope to post it here sometime soon.

I hope your Christmas celebration was filled with love and joy as well.