Betseebee, that's me!

Allie the ham!

Allie is 5, almost 6 and she is a ham.  She will play for the camera, always has and she loves an audience.  Christmas Eve is one example.  Someone had mentioned Toby Keith's song "Red Cup" and started playing it on either their phone or Ipod.  Allie and Josh both love this song and love to sing along.  Although it's not exactly a kids song and not one you'd want them to sing at the school talent show, in this family setting it was fine, not only fine but fun. They don't know what it means, they just love the tune and that it's easy to sing along to.  Well Allie was sitting up on the counter and had the attention of her older girl cousins when the song came on.  She started singing along and when she realized everyone was watching her, she really "came on".  Take a look and you'll see what I mean.  I love this girl!  Enjoy and thanks for looking.

 

Last little bit of Christmas

No story here, just my beautiful family.  Enjoy and thanks for looking.

 

 

And one last one that will make you laugh.

Playing at the Park

Every time we go see the grandkids, a trip to the park is a given.  Even with all of the holiday festivities, the kids kept asking "when are we going to the park?"  It didn't help matters that they knew Kay had been stockpiling stale bread, so not only did they get to go to the playground, they were going to get to feed the ducks.  This activity surprises me a little because my daughter is not a fan of birds.  She thinks they are filthy creatures, not quite on the par of roaches, but filthy nontheless, so the fact that she is going to let her children feed them is a quite monumental thing(sorry Kay, had to share that bit).  So we headed out to Dos Picos Park in Ramona, it's a favorite of the kids because it has a playground, walking trails and a pond, great for fishing or feeding the ducks or throwing rocks, all favorite activities. 

I love the fact that all of my grandkids still love the park, even at 14, Taylor still comes with us to the park.  We played for a good long time at the playground and then headed over and fed the ducks and then took a short hike and found a perfect spot to take some portrait style photos.  Take a look at the pics, enjoy and thanks for looking.  Tomorrow I'll finish off the Christmas posts with some family photos.

 

Caroling at the Hotel Del Coronado

The title is a little misleading, we didn't carol at the Hotel Del, we watched.  My daughter, Kay, has a friend Lori who sings in a quartet for the holidays.  One of the locales is the Hotel Del so it was a great opportunity to listen to Lori and experience the hotel all lit up.  (A caveat here, I did NOT get a picture of the Del all lit up - don't know where my head was at - so you'll have to take my word for it, it was gorgeous).  Anyhow, Jim and I, along with Kay, Shon, Josh and Allie, went out to dinner and then over to the Del for a fun evening.  We met up at the hotel with Chris and Sharon and two of our longtime couple friends, Barb and Bob Loveland and Sandy and Del Hood.  Will, Paige and the kids had a previous engagement, we missed them but they had fun at Matt's birthday party. 

Anyhow, Kay's friend Lori does this every year and it was quite fun.  The quartet dresses up in period costumes and we listened for about an hour.  I think they were scheduled from 6-8, we made the 7-8 stint.  As you'll be able to tell by the pics, the kids were enthralled (well most of the time, for a bit someone's cell phone/game playing captivated Josh) and Allie even got to get up there with the group and perform, she rang bells and sang, what a ham! Here are some pics - enjoy and thanks for looking.  Tomorrow we'll go to the park and feed the ducks and pose for some portraits - boy oh boy - what fun!

 

Baking and Crafting for Christmas

There are certain Christmas traditions that would be very hard for me to give up - one of them is baking.   Now that we live in Oregon and the kids all live in the San Diego area, each December I dedicate a weekend to baking their favorites and sending them goody boxes.  Well, this year, there were no goody boxes because we were there for Christmas, yippee!!!  It's funny though while we were there Trenton asked me when I was going to mail them their cookies, silly goof!!! I guess that's a tradition he holds by as well.  I scaled down my baking a bit because this year, other stuff got in the way, but still managed to make spritz, pecan sandies, rice krispie treats and fudge.  And then of course we had to make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning.  This year the kids only helped with the cinnamon rolls, so much was going on that I squeezed in the cookies when I could and they weren't around to help.  They did all help with the eating of course.  I think Trent and Allie would have had fudge for breakfast lunch and dinner if I'd have let them, just like their Grandma, they love that chocolate.

We also did some crafty things.  We made spice drop trees and a gingerbread village.  The village came in a kit - there was no way I could have made the forms and icing and then helped the kids decorate, the kit was definitely the way to go.  The kids really had fun with those and weren't ready to be done but the icing was drying up and it was time to clean up for dinner, so we had to announce the village complete.  Just a side note, Taylor was missing from the gingerbread construction because she had soccer practice that day - sucks growing up!

So, the pics are below, enjoy and thanks for looking.  Tomorrow we'll go watch caroling at the Hotel Del Coronado.

 

Merry Christmas....finally

Well, better late than never, right?  Finally getting around to posting some Christmas photos.  Jim and I flew to San Diego on Monday Dec 19 and didn't come home until Wed Dec 28.  We had  a blast!  It was fun having extra time before the actual event - we went shopping and ice skating and watched carolers and baked and made gingerbread houses and played games and went to the park....you get the picture, oh wait, I haven't posted any pictures yet, well here you go. I'll post in a series of days because you know me, I take a lot of pics. Let's start with ice skating. Tomorrow we'll do some baking and crafting, then we'll go caroling and just keep having fun until you are sick to death of me and my pics.

But before we get to the pics, have to tell you a little about the ice skating. There's a casino in Alpine that sets up an outdoor skating rink each year. We had lunch and then hit the ice. It was a first for Allie Paige and myself while everyone else had been before, altho Jim hadn't skated since high school, a long time ago, lol - his words, not mine. It was a beautiful, sunny day which unfortunately made the rink a little sloppy so when you fell you got wet, and yes I fell, twice, and yes there's an "after" photo. It's also a lot of work, my legs and hips were screaming at me by the time we were done. Josh and Taylor got out there and skated like pros, well at least this grandma thought so. Jim, Trent, Allie and myself, stuck pretty close to the wall but I finally got brave and joined Kay and Paige in the middle the ice. Most of us were done before our 90 minutes were up, but we had to drag Josh off of the ice - he was soaking wet, but a very happy skater. I guess I should tell you about my falls. The first time was the worst, left me with a jammed finger and bruised hip but I got up and kept on a going. My second fall was as I was skating off of the ice because I was pooped, so I was done. Like I said, my hips were screaming. I was about 10-12 feet from the opening when I felt myself falling. I just let myself go and to quote my daughter "did a perfect Shamu belly flop". Yep, fell on my belly and slid along the wet ice on with ice schoosing up all over my face and glasses. When I fall, I fall good. Surprisingly enough it looked worse than it was. I didn't hurt myself with that fall, just wet and embarassed. That's the story, now here are the pics.

 

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone is having a healthy New Year so far.  Jim and I have had fun the last week watching the birds feed at the suet we put out each year.  When we "undecorate" the Christmas tree, we put it out on the back deck and add suet feeders.  Unfortunately, starlings discovered a new restaurant here on Darlene Ct last year and I was hoping that wouldn't be the case this year.  No such luck! They are back. I wouldn't mind feeding just a couple, but they can come in droves and can eat a whole suet block in one day. One time I saw 10 starlings at one feeder and they are also noisy and messy, I've gotta do something.   So I put on my "Dick Vogel" (my dad) thinking cap and came up this.

I was walking back into the house after picking up the mail when my eyes landed on these planters (they were upside down on pots to foil the squirrels - yep - that's another story). When I spotted them, I knew they would be perfect, or so I hoped. I brought them around to the back deck and used electrical zip ties (found at Home Depot on clearance in the garden section so they were green, what a score) to form a ball to protect the suet from the starlings. And I kid you not, within minutes of me adding that protection, this is what I saw.

I'll bet you thought you were going to see starlings at the feeder. Nope these little darlings are Thompson warblers and it was like they were saying "thank you, thank you, thank you. We can eat without being bullied away from our food." My one concern was that I would also keep the flickers and varied thrushes away. I don't mind them because they usually feed as singles, so even tho they are big, they don't deplete the suet as quickly as those danged starlings. but as you can see by the pics below, that has not been the case.

The flicker's beak is long enough to reach and the varied thrush was smart enough to come up underneath the cage on the tree. The starlings may figure that one out so will have to keep an eye on that. I did have to add extra zip ties to the ball I made because some of the holes were big enough for the starlings to fit thru and if they still make it in there, I'll resort to duct tape - now that would really be a Dick Vogel fix, lol.

So as you can see, the bird watching continues for us and I'll be sharing some pictures we've taken recently on some jaunts out to Sauvie Island. I also plan on sharing Christmas pics too, so be sure to come back. I'll leave you with this adorable shot of a Thompson warbler. They really are not easily spooked, I was standing within 6 feet of the tree when I took this shot. Thanks and enjoy!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!  Want to play "I Spy With My Little Eye"?

Our Angel

The angel that adorns the top of tree is  about 20 years old and she could tell a few stories .  One year as I took her down I found that spiders had set up housekeeping among the layers in her skirt and 3 years ago I had to replace her string of lights, now that was fun.   She draws rave reviews from everyone that sees our tree - I'll have to be careful that she doesn't get a swelled head and think she needs star billing - oh wait, she's already the top ornament, what more could she want?   Anyhow, here's our pretty angel.

My Kids

Yes, I couldn't write about my Christmas ornaments without including my kids.  I can see them rolling their eyes right now.  But these ornaments are so special to me.  It wouldn't be Christmas without them.  Because Will and Kay had the same kindergarten teacher, they made the same ornaments.  The ones that Chris made were from second grade - although they weren't made in school but after school at the babysitters.  Pretty good painting job for a 7 year old, right?  As you take a look, I hope each of you have one or two homemade ornaments on your tree.