Dry Spell

Daniel commented on my Facebook that I haven't posted a blog entry in five weeks.  I hadn't noticed.  I've been dealing with some un-fun stuff at work, and its been taking a toll on me.  Hopefully I've turned a corner now, and I'll be able to get back to my regular stuff.

Like clearing 2010 out of file cabinet, and setting aside what I need for taxes so my kids can do their FAFSA stuff.

Like getting all the Christmas stuff back down in to the basement where it lives the rest of the year.

Like organizing the closet and doing the sewing/mending stuff that's gotten backed up.

Like posting to my blog :)

I have photos & such to put up for the last few weeks, and then I'll start in on the new stuff.  We have Division Winners coming up next month in my TOPS club, so as the leader, I need to prep for that.  Also, Connor & I are doing the Special Olympics Cross Country skiing again this year, and this time we'll compete at the Regionals in Bend near the end of February.

Yep - plenty to do!!

Stay tuned...

Big K Ranch & Murder Mystery Dinner

Every day on my way to work, I listen to the AM radio news station, because the FM cuts out pretty soon after leaving Roseburg (mountains & stuff).  They do a contest every week called "Know Your News."  If you email in the topic they say everyday, you're entered into a chance to win something on Friday.  Usually it's dinner for two at a local restaurant.  THIS time, however, the Big K Ranch was hosting a Murder Mystery Dinner, and I think if they offer a prize they might get a discount on the advertising.  Anyway, I emailed every day, and Friday before last, while I was home prepping for Open House, the radio station called & I'd won!

I had driven past the sign for the Big K on Hwy 138 on the way to the coast many times.  I kind of knew where it was.  I got home from work a little early since it was the day before the break, and we waited for Connor to get home so we could go to Costco for fittings for new glasses for Connor & Diana.  I have my eye appointment today & I'll get glasses too.  Lee has a voucher for each of us that allows us all to get another pair for free (well, Connor is getting TWO pairs for $4.00).

We wound up leaving for the ranch around 4:45, which meant it was dark by the time we got to where it was.  It has a long, windy packed dirt road to get out there & it was DARK.  2,000 acres of ranch land with no lights till you reach the lodge!  It was an adventure!

Once we got there, it was obvious this is a really nice well-kept family-run place.  The cabins look like log cabins from the outside, but inside they are more like studio apartments.  There was no TV, but we had entertainment at the lodge anyway :)  Normally there's a game room in the lower level of the lodge with pool tables & arcade games, but the cast of the show was using that for their staging area.

I really want to go back.  Especially in the daytime so I can see the 8 miles of riverfront property.  They do boat floats & horseback riding and all kinds of ranchy stuff here.  They also do big brunches for special holidays like Mother's Day, Thanksgiving, etc.  They do package deals with the brunches so you can combine an overnight at the same time (although for us, we are close enough we could just do the brunch).  They also do corporate retreats, weddings, and family reunions.  The cabins are $129 - $179 depending on the season.  They do package deals that include meals.  And the cook was GOOD.  We had called ahead because of the vegetarian thing, and she'd made this wonderful portabello mushroom/spinach Greek thingamabob that was outstanding.

The Murder Mystery would have been $45 each, so we got this little romantic deal worth $230ish for free because I listen to the radio.  Good stuff!!!

The Big K Ranch, Elkton, OR  They have videos & stuff on this website, if you're interested.

Lee got a "role" as the mayor, although he didn't have to do much.   They had a lovely Portabello mushroom layered dish for us for dinner.  It was great!!

The cast of "Dead in the Sled - Ho, ho, ho.... Oh No!  It reminded me of the Birdcage Theater @ Knott's.

The murderess & her latin lover.

The cabin we got had a queen bed & hide-a-bed.  And a huge bathroom.

I think it's easier to photobomb a digital camera, because I really tried to avoid letting him do this.

Open House

Donna & Jim, their friends the Sacketts, and Kraig & Nancy.

Diana & her crowd :)

Rocky & Melly by our tree (isn't it pretty?)

Lee's folks - Bill & Rita.  I'm so glad the weather cooperated so they could join us :)

Our Spread:  Spinach dip & sourdough, regular & cranberry salsa & strips, chips & onion dip, sliced apples (thanks Nancy), soft cheese & crackers, Trevor's fudge, Diana's Linzer & Gingerbread cookies, Connor's Juicy Lemon Cake, Rice Krispie Treats, Stollen & chocolate truffles.  There was also hot spiced cider, coffee, tea & hot chocolate.  YUM!

Still lots to do

I wish more readers of my blog could actually attend this little event...  Maybe after we retire?

I have an Open House again tomorrow.  This is our annual 'gift' to our friends & family to come & spend some time & snackies with us.  We invite pretty much everyone we know and can have 20-40 people show up.  The parking is a bit tricky, but people seem to come in waves so usually we don't block the street with cars all at once.

I have a plan I follow to get the house ready.  It's pretty thorough, and at the end, I have a clean house that lasts through Christmas.  All the decorating is done, and I can focus on my family after Open House is done.  I really like that part.

Today I still have an enormous of stuff to do - the living room is the only room that's actually "ready" right now.  But it looks really good :)  I'll be working mostly on the kitchen, my room & prepping food today.

Diana is home from college & Trevor is done with his finals too.  I have to remember to delegate stuff to them :)

I'm off to make their lists of what to do today, as well as mine!  Next blog entry should be photos from Open House :)

Violin Scholarship

Connor gets a little fixated on things, being the kid he is.

A while back, he assigned everyone in the family a color.  He also assigned the Holy Family colors, because, you know, they need to have them too.  He is green, and Trevor is red, by the way.  Trevor doesn't like being red - but that's how it goes :)

Once all the colors were assigned, Connor moved on to musical instruments.  We coached him to let the people who actually play a specific instrument to have that instrument assigned to them.  So I have guitar, and Diana has flute, etc.  Connor chose the violin for himself.

I think Lee & I have both posted in the past about Connor's enjoyment of classical music on YouTube, specifically Brahms, Bach and Beethoven.  Something about the "B's" - I don't know.  In any case, he especially loves pieces with violins.

This last year, he started doing choir at school as well (last year it was art).  He has an assistant with him in choir class who is very impressed with Connor's ability to learn notes & sing.  He did really well at his Fall Concert with the choir - better than I'd hoped.  It was great :)  What impressed the assistant was that Connor would sing the harmony, while the rest of the class sang the melody.  It's not that he knew the songs (we don't go around singing "Shenandoah" around here), he just read the notes and figured it out.  Because we explained this to Connor's teacher & aide, they realized he has a bit of a gift when it comes to music.

There's a local Arts Center here that likes to sponsor students in music, among other things.  Connor's assistant found out about a scholarship available to kids his age, and sent home the application form for Connor.  When I filled it out, I obviously made mention of Connor's autism, and then his love for classical music.  I never know how people will take in that information.  On the one hand, there are some pretty dang cool autistic savants in music.  On the other hand, he may have already gotten what he wanted out of violin, and is ready to move on.  It's really hard to tell.

One thing is for sure, though.  We were not intending to spend a lot of time & effort trying to teach him violin.  Neither Lee or I knows anything about it, and we don't know how well Connor would take to it.  We don't have a budget that includes music lessons or instruments at this time.

After we filled out the paperwork, Connor's choir teacher decided to loan Connor a violin.  Wow.  That's pretty brave :)  I'd been looking on craigslist for something that it wouldn't matter if it got ruined.  He has actually been very good about putting it away carefully.  He has no clue how to play it, but he likes trying to 'serenade' me when I take an afternoon nap (NOT helping!!!).

So today I got a letter from the Umpqua Valley Arts Association.  They have decided to award Connor $250 for lessons and the use of a violin!  It goes through his teacher, not us, so it's going to be set up and all we have to do is get him to & from lessons!  Wow!  I'm so excited for Connor just to see what will happen!

I really hope he can figure out & put together that holding his fingers in a specific position on the strings makes a specific sound with the bow.  Once he's got that part, I am anxious to see how far he can take it.

Too cool!!  Go Connor!

I'll keep you updated :)

Thanksgiving 2010

The desserts kept in Myrna's bedroom.  Connor made two lemon meringue pies :)

We always called them Stuffing Balls - but Pretzel Dumplings might sound a little better...

Getting ready to say grace.

Myrna's busy kitchen with LOTS of food!

Myrna & Doug hosted Thanksgiving this year.  There were 30 of us in attendance.  Pop brought Mom to join us, and she did really well.  At the end of the evening, she said, "I love you" to Lee, which was unexpected & caught Pop, Lee & Myrna off-guard.  I guess since the Alzheimer's really took hold, she doesn't say that much anymore.

We met Jonathon's girlfriend Erin from Colorado, and Crystal turned 30 (which means Megan is also 30).  Brian also had his girlfriend from California (I can't recall her name at the moment, but she was very nice!).  Tony was there too, and he seems to be doing very well.  Trevor & Diana spent most of their time with Daniel, as usual.

Connor played a lot with Karrie & Shane's oldest & middle son.  They are rather rambunctious, and he had to hide from them now & then :)  He gets so far, and then it's too much :)

Besides the regular visiting & such, I kept tabs on Connor.  He loves the yard at this house, but it's pretty wide open, and I like to know where he is.  The cougar mounted on the wall was killed on the property, after all.  Connor's going to miss the house when it gets sold, but he's been very good about changes lately - including us missing the tree hunt this year.

Lee had to work at 5:00am yesterday (Black Friday) and he's also working today.  In the past we'd spend a couple of nights with someone in Medford and join in on the tree hunt on Saturday.  We are trying to figure out a different time to get our tree now.  There's a U-cut tree farm just outside of town.  They're more expensive than the $5 any-size tree tag to get from the mountains, but that doesn't count the cost of gas, food, etc. when you do that day trip.  And I'm not wanting us to go all alone to get a tree anyway.  Two years ago my co-worker & her husband were doing that, slid off the road & he had to trudge 12 miles to try to find help, while she stayed behind in their truck.  She wound up spending the night alone in the forest and burned the wood flooring and carpet of the truck to stay warm.  Eeek!  That was around the same time the Kim family got lost & Mr. Kim died of exposure trying to find help for his family :(

Anyway - there are plenty of places to get trees around town, even if we don't do the U-cut.  Connor is already more or less resigned to that.  However, we WILL have to take him up to the snow at some point for fun.  Probably some week day during the holiday break we'll go to the "Sno Park" and take him for that.

This coming Saturday I sign him up for Special Olympics Cross-Country Skiing anyway.  :)  I took the kids to see Tangled yesterday & Trevor & Diana will go see Harry Potter either today or tomorrow.  Then we have to get Diana back to Eugene & everyone goes back to school for two weeks (college) or three (Connor & me).

At least it warmed up & driving is safe again :)

Prepping for Open House

Yes, I know it isn't even Thanksgiving yet, but I have to parcel out my weekends so I have everything done that I want done.  There was enough of a break in the weather today to allow me to rip out all the dead wild sweet pea stalks in my front planter.  I went out to put bark mulch around my baby hydrangea to hopefully protect its roots from frost.  I think I read that in a book somewhere.  Anyway, I still had some bark mulch and I had to clear the weeds out of the front planter before I could put it down.  I have a bunch of bulbs in there that will be fine poking up through that, but I'd prefer to not have to yank out a bunch of grass when the daffodils are blooming.

In any case, I went ahead and made up my little invites for Open House that I can pass out at work & stuff.  I won't do that until a couple of weeks before - it's on Sunday, December 12th this year, so I still have some time.  I'm also composing the Christmas letter so I don't wind up sending it in January as has happened a couple of times :(  We will take the family photo at Thanksgiving at Myrna's house.  Lee is working on the following Saturday, so we won't be able to do the mountain & tree one this year.  That's okay, I think it's been a few of those in a row again anyway.  I'll order the photo cards & should be able to get those out on time :)

I also worked on the menu for Open House today.  Usually we make everything pretty much, but dang - Costco sure has a lot of great pre-done stuff!  I have to see what the cost difference is.  Like I'd usually make the spinach dip, but the one at Costco looks pretty inexpensive.  After I add up the ingredients, if it's a push - I'm getting it at Costco!  I know the chips are cheaper there too.  I had Lee take a photo of the regular price at the store on the crackers the other night to see how they compare to Costco as well.  I'll be pricing things as I go & get the stuff I need to make my share of the Thanksgiving food - probably tomorrow.

Obviously, some things will be homemade still.  Trevor's fudge, Diana's (she hasn't decided yet), Connor's Rice Krispie treats, my Stollen.  Lee usually preps the veggies & dip, but he will probably be working through some of Open House.  We'll ask to have him be scheduled as early as possible - he never has Sunday off because it's time & a half.

The cleaning part is pretty much on schedule.  I am procrastinating on clearing the dressers in my room right now, but they'll be done by the weekend.  I'm working on some knitting & intend to do some sewing too.  The knitting is easiest, because I can work on it during my lunch break at school.  The sewing shouldn't take too long if it goes the way I hope (you never know).

As for Thanksgiving, at this point Lee has Wed-Thur-Fri off, but we're not sure that's right as Lee  has heard EVERYONE works Black Friday.  We will head down to Myrna's on Thursday, and we don't know yet if we have to drive home the same night, or if we might crash at Pop's and leave in the morning.  I'm not a fan of mountain passes in the dark with winter weather.  As I said, we will have to miss the tree hunt this year though.  I'm going to have to figure out a different time to get Connor up into the snow to play.  He's already looking forward to it.

Elephant Car Wash (my footage)

Video from German TV on the "Elefanten Car Wash"

My cousin, Heiner, contacted me today thru Facebook - he saw us on TV!  So here's the link :)

German TV station RTL Elephant Car Wash

Click the link!

Elephant Car Wash

Life is funny.  I was home on Friday because our school opted to use the day after Veterans Day for conferences.  Around noon or so I get a call from our neighbors who run the comic book shop downtown.  Our local drive-through style zoo is going to be featured on a German TV morning show.  They wanted to have a family do the "elephant car wash" so they can put that in the clip.  Wildlife Safari called the comic book shop, because they figured they'd know families.  Heh.  Comic book shops know kids who buy comics.  They don't know whole families that shop for comics together.  However, the folks running THIS shop are our neighbors, and they knew we'd done TV stuff before, so they called us.  I got the number of the guy in New York who was planning this out, and called him.  At first I looked at the wrong schedule & thought Lee could join us.  He actually had to work.  However, the fact that I can speak German was very exciting to the New York guy anyway.  So this morning, the boys & I drove out to Wildlife Safari for the elephant car wash :)

Dan, the manager at Wildlife Safari, with Silke, the German reporter.  

Alice the elephant flapped out her ears when spraying.

Lots of water in the trunk!!

Silke & Douglas the camera guy, interviewing the elephant handler.

Alice wipes the window with a sponge.  Connor thought this whole experience was great :)

Connor's How to Make Juicy Lemon Cake

This was last Sunday :)  Sorry I couldn't figure out how to add music like Diana did.  Enjoy folks!

S.O. Swim Meet 2010 Freestyle 25m

S.O. Swim Meet 2010 Backstroke

Bunch of Stuff

I have the day off today.  Connor had Friday off because our town did the inservice day then.  I'm working in a different town, and they chose to have their inservice day AFTER Halloween - which I actually thought was pretty smart :)

Anyway - I'm home today since I had no inservice to attend (yay), and trying to get stuff done that typically escapes me during the week.  My list grew to 18 items.  So far, I've gotten eight done.  I'm currently heating the iron to do Lee's shirts.

Granted, some of these things are fun (like dropping off a travel bug for geocaching), but others are pretty menial, like finishing the laundry.  Others just need time, like sorting out Connor's clothes he's outgrown.  Still others will be moved to tomorrow's list when they don't get accomplished today.

I have been productive - I got a document notarized, talked with Financial Aid about Trevor's account (they are very slow & he still hasn't gotten his award letter), and I did my physical therapy exercises twice of three times so far today.  I only have one laundry load left (but then I need to sort & fold - I may delegate that to Trevor after he reads his assignments).

I still have my Girl Scout Leader meeting tonight, and some sewing I'd like to get done, although I did get some things sewn yesterday afternoon, too.  It's a good day for this sort of thing; overcast & windy.  I'm not missing out on great weather by doing chores & running errands.

Iron's hot now, so off I go.

Halloween 2010 more

This was at school on Thursday - I had made this costume a LONG time ago for Diana at her request.  It was just stuck in a tub under the house for years, so I pulled it out to bring in to school.  I figured if one of the Jr. High kids didn't have a costume, I could give it to them.  Turns out one kiddo thought it was pretty dang cool, so he wore it to school on Friday :)  I was happy to get rid of an oversized pillow, but I kept the wig.  

Saturday  morning we had our TOPS workshop at the library.  Different clubs bring a raffle basket, and this was ours.  Our "trick" to getting lots of tickets sold is to have real money as part of the basket.  This year it was $25 in cash.  Tickets are a dollar each, or 6 for $5.  I had to go bring Connor to Special Olympics, so I don't know yet who won our basket.

This was my treat from Lee.  Costco has these chocolate-covered caramel apples for $4.99 in the bakery dept.  They are massive though, and even cutting it into quarters took three days to eat!  Really tasty tho - I love caramel apples :)

Halloween 2010

Connor drew on the design, and then I did the gutting & carving.

It came out pretty cute, right?  His name is "Jack."

Cute Cowboy Connor.  He had to wear my cowboy boots, since Diana took the pair he'd outgrown.

We have some folks in this town that do a great job with costumes.  This is my favorite this year.  And he was such a nice guy!!  EVERYONE was taking photos with him :)  

After we got home, Connor took off all the costume clothes & wiped off the mascara moustache, and said, "I'm normal again!"  Hee.

Mack the Knife

The first Choir concert

Last night Connor had his first choir concert.  Last year he took art class, and brought home some interesting clay pieces - this year the schedule worked to have him try choir.

When I asked the choir teacher at conference time how he thought Connor would do on stage, he didn't have any idea.  Sometimes Connor sings extra loud, and he's managed to teach himself to read music, so while his class sang the melody, he'd sing the harmony (all by himself!).  So, not always following directions.

Last night, however, he was just so excited to be there and on stage.  Lee & I sat up close in front so if there was any issue, we could snag him quick and get him offstage so he wouldn't affect the rest of the performers too much.

No worries - he stood straight & tall, sang the correct part, and kept his voice level appropriate for the stage :)

Great stuff & a great first effort for him.  He let us know later that night that he wants to sing in the choir in High School -  We really enjoyed watching him up there.  The video below is a clip from "Shenandoah" and the one above is Mack the Knife (which I'm uploading right now).

:)

Connor's 1st Choir Concert

Preparing the eggs

First, you draw faces on the eggs.  They should all be happy.

Use a crayon, because Sharpie goes through the shell.

These eggs are happy eggs.

Until you crack them.  Then they scream (you'll need to make the noise like Connor does).  Then put X's on the eyes, if the shells are still whole enough.  He has an interesting mind, my son :)