All who wander are not lost....

I got the Garmin Nuvee from Greg for Christmas this year. I am very excited. He got the smaller unit so that I can carry it in my purse when flying or on foot in town. Good job Greg!

Santa's littlest Elf!

The result of a little "photo therapy" by his mom. Jameson has been sick for 6 days with Whooping Cough, so Jennie used photo therapy with Logan to take some of the stress out of her life. Isn't this a darling elf?

More pictures of Brender Valley Farm

Here is the farmhouse in it's winter white coat of snow. The fireplace seating area, easily accomadating 7 in the big cozy sectional.

The midroom seating. Nonni, Kai and Jameson learn about "keeping chickens". Behind us is the custom made table, made from a beam from the 100 year old home taken out when the attiic was converted to a game room. Easily seating 16 people!

Game room ping pong table. What you can't see: 2 couches, a game table cove, a lego cove, two twin beds.

Grandpa and Jameson collecting eggs.

I can hardly wait to go back. I hope that I can experience a different season...one where we can raft, hike, wander through the grapes, maybe ride some horses...

Christmas Rail Adventure

Kevin, Sherry and Marley are headed to Michigan to spend Christmas with her family this year. I know she must be soooooo excited...as are her mom, dad and sis. They decided to go by rail. What a fun adventure! I hope they love it, it might get the rest of us into a new way of seeing America!

Catching Snowflakes

What more can be said..kids know how to celebrate snow better than the rest of us...just look at Jameson.

Mountain Getaway...in Heaven!

Brender Valley Farm in Cashmere Washington. A 100 year old farmhouse that is made available for rental to those of us anchored to crazed metropolitan areas. The family who own it also live in the Seattle area and luckily for us have decided to share it with us. They have done an amazing job of updating some areas and preserving the romance and charm of the amazing home. We spent two nights there in celebration of our family at Christmas time. This house was absolutely ideal. Plenty of room for all 12 of us! The property has chickens and vineyards...the night before we left we got 12 inches of snow and the visit of a herd of elk. I hope to make this a tradition..the gift of "us" for the holidays!

Welcome Logan James Perry

November 11, 2009

Logan James Perry born to Brian and Jennie, his big brother is Jameson.

Isn't this beautiful?

This picture was taken by my very talented daughter in law. Jennie Perry. I think it is specatular!

Look at these cute babies!

That is my baby with his baby!

Yikes, he looks like my dad with a goatee!

How did I get so old?

Cool milk frother...

Look at this! Dena sent me a surprise for my birthday. Now, when we are in the motorhome, we will froth in style. It is beautiful and I really appreciate the thoughtfullness of the gift! Now I have to find a stainless steele espresso maker (one that I can't melt the handles on)!

Uncle Bob

Robert Moyle Platt

1935-2009

I will miss him.

Happy Birthday watch

Here is the darling watch that Greg and the kids got for my birthday! It was so unexpected. Thanks to all of you. We had a shower for baby Marley and ended the day with a BBQ to celebrate my birthday. Present were my mom, Duane, Barb, David, Cheryl, Julie, Bob,Sarah, Justin, Melissa, Addison,Ryan, Jennifer and Alex, Kai and Maya, Brian, Jennie and Jameson, Kevin, Sherry and Marley, Jay, Mark and Kari and their kids (adopted family members)! IT WAS GREAT FUN!!

Baby nirvana

Jennifer, Kai, Maya and Marley enjoying some baby nirvana!

A beautiful moment

This is one of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen. I love the tenderness. Kevin did a good job capturing this special moment.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARLEY MARIE PERRY!

BORN ON AUGUST 16, 2009
5:30 AM
6 lbs 13 oz
18.5 inches long

Day at the beach.

Jennifer snapped this shot yesterday at the beach with the kids. I love the look on Maya's face. It was windy, but under the umbrella, quite pleasant. A fun afternoon.

Cute cousin

This is my darling cousin and her family. This is such a good picture, I love the love!

Lake Tye in Monroe

Today I met Jennifer and the kids and Kerry and her kids at this park in Monroe. It was really windy. I thought it would be too cold to stay, but I ended up hanging out for awhile anyway. Sheltered from the wind, it was lovely!

Off on an adventure...

Sully and I take off in the morning for Long Beach, California. We are going down to the 3 Specialty shows and puppy sweeps. I coerced Dena and Betsy into going along as well..(evil laugh here). We should all have dogs who are competitive...should be fun! We don't care (well, we really do, but it sounds good to say otherwise)...we will have fun together

Jameson has a baby BROTHER!! :-)

We found out yesterday that Jennie, Brian will have another baby boy!

We don't know if Jameson is all that excited, but in a few years I am sure they will be having a blast! He is going to have quite a transition from "baby do it" to the role of big brother...

A sad, sad day

I just read on my daughter in laws blog.
She has had to shut her blog down because of the stupidity of some random person she does not know.
Her reputation as a teacher has been tarnished and her spirit has been crushed. It is a very sad world today. She is such a caring, kind person, I am so upset.

Dancing in the sunshine!

Sunshine has come to the northwest...and no words could say it better than this!

Welcome to our clan!

As Merl prepares to go to his forever home (the Bobodzhanov family), we have found a wonderful new addition to join us.

Meet Scotch Broom Thistle the Patriot. We will call him Sully.

He comes to us from Lopez Island and Carol Onstad. I fell in love with his beautiful movement, personality/attitude and fabulous structure. He is big (his only fault), he is the same age as Merl, but got his size early (and is bigger than Merl will ever be)! I was not looking for a dog, but when I saw this dog and learned that he could be mine, that was all it took. I will show him in conformation as well as doing earthdog, agility and obedience. He is a fun dog!

BRIAN IS 34!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

WE LOVE YOU BRIAN...WISHING YOU ALL THE HAPPINESS GOD WANTS FOR YOU!!!

Hold on to your dreams....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

This is amazing! Please take a minute and watch it...have a tissue handy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEVIN!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR KEVIN, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!

LOVE YOU BUNCHES.

Easter 2009

What a fun day! All of the kids were there...plus Sherry's mom and sister, Debbie. There were 14 of us for dinner in Lake Stevens at Kevin and Sherrys house. It was rainy and blustery outside, but perfect inside. We all learned that their baby is a girl..her name Marley Marie. Maya was very excited to learn there will now be another girl in our clan. Kevin and Sherry had the baby room locked until time for the big reveal, what fun! Very cute green and red decor ala Ikea. (yup, no pink to be found!)

Thank you Kevin and Jay!

Look at this beautiful gate that Kevin and Jay built for me. Yesterday working outside with a

cold wind blowing, the boys built this beautiful gate. It swings inward from the center and over to the right in accordian style. I LOVE it! It is a beautiful gate and a wonderful gift of their time and talent. Now I have several more I would like for different areas on the deck! ...in case they are still bored with no job....

Jennifer is 37!

Wow, where did the time go? My oldest child is 37 years old as of yesterday morning at 3:50 am...more or less. Our tradition is to spend the day together if possible. So for this birthday Jennifer and I went to La Conner to one of her favorite restaurants!





The bonus was that two of her brothers got to go with us...Jay and Kevin were available to join us.
We picked Kevin up on our way north and spent the day hanging out together. We had a wonderful lunch at the Calico Cupboard in LaConner and did a tiny bit of "shopping" in the darling shops there...it was VERY cold and blustery, so made that short and sweet.
We then went to check out the site for our family reunion this year. Kevin and Sherry chose Bay View State Park. A really cute park with a nice big wonderful lawn for games and kids space, cabins and access to the beach. Just a very short walk from the cabins and camping area!
We found a gas station/mini mart with gas UNDER $2 a gallon...a bonus for sure. Heading home, it was hard to remember these were grown up people that had once been my babies. It is good to have Jay living on the mainland again...the only thing that would have made our little mini road trip more fun would have been if Brian and Greg had been with us. I should have planned a little better!

Home from California

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11719386?source=rss

Kula, Merl and I are home from our latest adventure. We were down in San Jose for the Northern California Cairn Terrier specialty dog show. Merl and his littermates,Tipsy and Ivy as well as his best friend Padme were entered over the weekend. They were the youngest entered and did a wonderful job in the ring. Confident and well behaved (for the most part). They all placed in the ribbons and we had lots of compliments about them, so I was very pleased with the results (of course, we would have loved to win something .... that will come as they get older).

Pat Gentry and I drove my van down, looking forward to some balmy California skies...DENIED~

We stayed in Yreka the first night with Ivy's family. What a wonderful time we had with them. Yreka is a darling town and Heidi and Mike are such a wonderful couple. Lucky for us too, because the puppies got to run and play hard before starting out for the day. We awoke to two inches of snow...and I had left the chains in the garage!!! No problem, Mike and Heidi led the way to Les Schwab and $90 later, we were on the road. Twenty miles down the road we were required to exit the freeway and put the chains on. (THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU TO MIKE. He insisted on doing the cold dirty deed. THANK YOU AGAIN!) For the next 40 miles or so we poked along safe and sound with our little caravan of Mike and Heidi leading the way.

We made it to the show ground, depositing our gear and then on to the hotel to settle in. It was fun seeing friends we don't normally show with and all the lovely dogs. The weather was HORRID...cold and rainy. Luckily the rings were inside, the grooming however was on a covered breezeway porch...and it was breezy and damp and very, very cold!!! Pretty miserable experience on that front.

It was a very safe and uneventful return trip. We scooted away from the show grounds as fast as we could to try to beat an incoming storm...success! We made it back to Yreka staying with Heidi and Mike again. Greeted by homemade turkey and rice soup and a huge bowl of fresh cut fruit. Puppies racing, racing, tumbling and playing, glad to be free again...if only for the evening. We left early yesterday morning and made the trip with no incident or bad weather, whoray!

I wonder where we will go next...

BIONIC GIRL

The good news is that Kula had her second ACL repair today. She came through the surgery today with flying colors. The doctor was very pleased with how it all went.
It was a really hard wait from December 25th until today...but we made it! Hopefully by the end of the summer we will be back training..my very own bionic girl! My first best girl...

Passion for fiber

Just added to Ravelry (www.ravelry.com) more yarn for my stash. A good thing to do, since I forgot I had some of it! Isn't it beautiful?

A generation gap regarding Facebook.

I have come to the conclusion that facebook is a social network for a different generation. I won't say younger...I refuse to play that card, just different. I don't understand why I would need or want to know that a friend of an acquaintance of my nephew's wife went to coffee (and enjoyed it) with another friend (who she graduated with 15 years ago and hasn't seen or spoken with since). My generation doesn't use it for anything...well, some of us kicking and screaming so that we can know what is going on in our children's lives. Kids like mine really don't use it either though, so there goes that rationale. I got on so that I could be part of the family and know what was going on. I have an incredibly hard time figuring out where things came from or how to get to the place to answer them.

I know I am not the MOST techno savy person on the planet, but neither am I the most dense. I just don't get it. (Now MySpace made sense to me..but everybody left there.)

I have gotten into one really good scrabble game with Jay, but it is so ssssssssssllllllllllllloooooooowwwwwwwww moving I want to pull my hair out. There are no tiles left, I still have 4 and we are tied. We have been playing for a week now. I tried to start another couple, but those pooped out really fast.

So, basically I think I am about to pull the plug on Facebook. It is too frustrating.

Latte foam

I can not make anything like this art. I can however make absolutely beautiful, thick, rich wonderful foam. I love my ancient espresso machine. It is a renovated Starbucks Estro Vapore. I have had it for 11 years! I usually only make one latte a day. Now and then I go crazy and make

two. Sometimes, I take it with me when I travel and make wonderful foam and lattes for my friends. It is crazy how happy it makes me to make foam, makes me even happier to feel it on my lips as I drink the rich lovely espresso it is cloaking and keeping warm. The grand finale is sharing the foam at the bottom of the cup with my dogs!

MORE SNOW!

Enough already!!

It isn't sticking to the roads, they are just wet, but it has fallen all day long! This accumulation is from a different storm, but you get the picture...

Urge to cast on!

500 grams of natural wool from the sheep of a friend!

I am so excited and will begin the gauge swatch tonight...

It is a beautiful warm beige. I will make a sweater for layering...

Greg asked; "What if you don't wear it?" It isn't about wearing it anyway. What it is about is working with the fiber. Wearing it is a bonus. If I don't like what I make, I will take it apart and make something else. Maybe a vest for him! Like he says, I get more knitting out of a skein than anyone he has ever seen.

Beautiful project

I love my latest project! They are Alchemy merino wool and silk. Lovely to work with and oh, so cozy to wear!

What fun!

Jameson was over on Wednesday. He was in a goofy playful mood, so we had fun with my camera. He is giving me a "muss" for the camera.

GOD BLESS AMERICA

What a day. No matter who you voted for in November, the events of today are historic and emotional. I spent most of my youth in the south, the child of parents who worked hard to teach that all of us are created equal. I am glad that the shadow of racism is moving off of the face of America. I am hopeful for the new president, but I am always hopeful on inauguration day. It is like the first day of school, the first day of baseball season, the birth of a child. All the world is waiting for what is to come. GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Not again!

An update on Kula. She had an ACL reconstruction in April which she has fully recovered from. On Christmas day, she was romping in the yard with the other dogs and blew the other one. It was confirmed yesterday by the ortho vet who will do the surgical repair. Dr. Iverson of Evergreen Veterinary Hospital. He was very pleased with the first repair and seems to think that if this goes as well, we may return to agility. In the mean time, I have set up equipment in the rec room above the garage and am going to get busy with the other dogs! I have three who I can begin the basics.