New Year's Eve Dance

For the first time in a number of years, Dave didn't have any New Year's Eve church assignments with the youth. So we took advantage of the situation and found a semi-formal dance to go to in Portland at the Oak Parks Dance Pavilion. When we arrived at the dance, we found out that it was mostly a Christian Singles Network dance. To make a long story short, we only stayed a short while (we were the only ones with wedding rings on). We quickly headed over to another semi-formal dance being held in Tigard. We had a wonderful time dancing for 3 1/2 hours, watching floor shows, and eating tasty food. We also enjoyed watching, in one of the ballrooms, people dancing the West Coast Swing. What a neat dance! We are hoping to take some beginning WCS group lessons soon.

Our Holiday Snow - Dec. 29. 2009

We had some unforecasted snow the week after Christmas. Aubrey and I were driving down to Woodburn to the outlet mall when we were hit by freezing rain. We hurriedly turned around and headed for home because we did not want to get stranded. As we were getting closer to home, large snowflakes were falling and sticking to the ground! By the time it stopped snowing we had a good 4" of snow.

Marissa brought Mylee over for some fun in the snow.

Aubrey loves it when it snows!

Looking out towards the northwest from our house.

Red Christmas lights look lovely under a few inches of snow.

Our snow covered driveway.

Blaine pulling Mylee and Marissa on the sled with our snow dog, Benson, frolicking with a hurt front leg.

Christmas 2009

This Christmas was different than last year's because Melinda was actually with us on Christmas and we didn't have two weeks of snow to deal with. We had a late leisurely Christmas morning with Melinda and Aubrey and Blaine's family. After opening gifts, we had our traditional homemade blueberry waffles. Thanks to Dave, we have a new Belgium waffle maker to add to our collection. In the afternoon we took a walk on a country road for some exercise and to enjoy the sunshine but the wind was blowing hard and it was freezing and so after a short walk we did a u-turn and headed back to the car. In the evening we enjoyed watching "The Blind Side" and eating popcorn at one of the local theaters.

Dave checking out what Santa left in his stocking.

Blaine helping Mylee with her new vacuum.

Mylee is going to be such a great helper to her mom with her new home cleaning appliance. Check out the jewelry she is wearing while vacuuming (reminds me of June Cleaver from "Leave it to Beaver").

Mylee and Grammy checking out the goods in Mylee's stocking. She got some tasty dried strawberries and peaches.

Aubrey polishing off a mug of hot chocolate with whip cream.

Melinda, Marissa and Mylee opening up some new clothes.

The Saturday after Christmas we had a homemade pizza party at our house. Blaine and Marissa brought over the fixings for barbecued chicken pizza--it was delicious! We had a few other pizza choices too and homemade mango sorbet with crisp ginger cookies. We had a fun time dancing to some tunes with Mylee leading the show.

Mary Ann's Birthday

When Dave asked me what I would like him to fix for my birthday feast this year, I told him that a roast beef dinner with lemon meringue pie for dessert sounded great. It was a wonderful meal with Aubrey, Blaine, Marissa and Mylee here with us to celebrate.

The pie was tasty thanks to Shari's Restaurant and Aubrey for picking it up for us.

Melinda sent me this lovely floral arrangement of sweet smelling flowers including my favorite flower--carnations. Evan and Driel sent me a gift card from Amazon which I am looking forward to using for a new book. Aubrey gave me an ITunes gift card--she knows I love music.

Opening a neat can opener gift and also receiving a darling framed photo of Mylee from Blaine & Marissa's family.

Mylee is trying to figure out how to take a picture from an "antique" camera that her Granddad let her play with.

Blaine and Mylee having fun with Aubrey's set of MarbleWorks that she won when she was in grade school.

Our decorated Christmas tree smelled so good this year.

Quilt for Emily Miller

Melinda Miller, a member of our ward, died recently of melanoma--a battle she had been fighting for the past three years. She was only in her early 40's and left a husband and three children. I had the privilege of sewing together quilt squares that had been cut into 4" squares from her clothing to make this quilt for her youngest daughter Emily who is 14 years old. Two more quilts were made by other ward members--one for her daughter, Erica, and one for her son, Jacob. It took me a couple of weeks to organize the squares and sew them together and during that time I thought a lot about Melinda and her family and how important and wonderful my family is to me.