Aunt Marcie

Marcie 

December 24, 1933 to June 4, 2013

She was the very best Aunt anyone could ever have.  She was more like a second Mom to us rather than an Aunt.  She live close by during my childhood, so we saw her often. For the last 24 hours I have had so many memories pop into my head.  This picture captures her joyful spirit.  She loved people and "adopted" many and treated them like family.  She had a servant's heart and would do most anything for you.  When my son Ryan was 8 and had to stay overnight in the hospital after an operation, she stayed the entire night with me as we both watched over my son.  She said I was the one you named her "Marcie", because when I started talking Marilyn was too hard to say.  She liked it so much, she became Marcie to everyone.    She faithfully sent birthday and anniversary cards and cards for all the holidays and always signed them "Love you ever, your old ancient auntie Marcie"

We praise the Lord for the gift of having her part of our life.

Central Oregon Sites

This weekend was spent being a tourist in Central Oregon, hiking and seeing the sites with Ryan and Julie and grandkids, Lance, Liam and Shella May.  We went to Newberry National Monument and saw the Obsidian Flow, Paulina lake and Paulina Falls.  Then hiked through the Lava Cast forest and into the Lava River Cave.  The cave is over a mile long and we walked as far as the Forest Service would let us.  At one point we were 81 feet directly below Highway 97.  It was about 42 degrees in the cave.  After that we took another hike on some trails through the Lava Flow below Lava Butte.  The weather was great - overcast with clouds that kept it from getting too hot, but also it never rained on us until we were getting close to home.  It was a fun weekend.

Cascade mountains seen from lava flow below Lava Butte

Lava flow at Lava Cast Forest - it goes for 7 miles.

Side of Obsidian flow and lake created by snow and rain runoff

Twisted tree at Lava Cast Forest

Tree growing on the Obsidian flow

Obsidian rocks

Interesting design in the rock at the Obsidian flow

More Obsidian rocks

Paulina Falls

Paulina  Lake as seen from the top of the Obsidian flow with Mt. Bachelor in the distance

Tourist in Portland

A couple of weeks ago we spent the weekend in Portland hanging out with some of our kids and grandkids. We saw Shella May's softball game, took a short hike in Forest Park (the largest urban park in the country) and went to the Wooden Shoe Tulip festival.  It was fun seeing sites in Portland that we had never been to before.  Here are some pictures of the weekend:

Shella May at bat - she ended up coming in for a run

Lance and Liam sorta watching their sister's game

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm

More tulips

Flowers in Forest Park in Portland OR

Ryan and Liam looking for trolls under the bridge in Forest  Park

Trees in Forest Park

Just working

I have been putting in gobs of hours working on the company's project to move the Distribution's 7 plants to an SAP enterprise database.  My task is to migrate customer, vendors, materials, inventory from the old system to the new one.  There are about 30 people on our project team in several different sub-teams.  I am on the Master Data team.  It is great work and I love what I do but it is getting close to the "go-live" deadline and I have worked around 55-60 hours the last 3 weeks and have about 4 more weeks to go.  So, I look for little successes along the way and other things to give me a positive attitude and take mini-breaks (like looking at the new tiny flowers starting to grow (even though they are probably weeds) and seeing leaves bud on the trees and rose bush!)  See the sunshine peak through the clouds.

I am blessed to get to work several days a week from home and I am getting great help from Bogey and Birdie.  They love it when I am working from home and they take several naps while I am working.  They think that their "power" naps will give me extra brain power.  Here are some pictures of them hard at work:

Ups and downs

DOWN
1) Got up early on a Saturday (instead of sleeping in) so I could get my studded tires off before the big rush next week because of the deadline imposed to get them removed by April 1st.
2) Planned to have to get 2 new tires but they said I needed 4!!! Apparently, if the tread between the old and new tires are too much apart it will ruin something in a 4-wheel drive.
3) They didn't have any tires I needed in stock and would have to order them.
4) I have to go back later next week.
5) Totally frustrated that I have to pay double what I planned.

 UP
1) We have the money we need to get the tires we need. With as much as I drive good tires are important. 2) Terry will be home next week and said he would make the trip to get the tires put on.
3) Having a WONDERFUL husband who can cheer me up and encourage me when I am down.

 DOWN
1) We have had cold weather, rain and snow the first 2 days of spring. Highs in mid-40's and lows in low 20's.

 UP
1) Tiny signs of spring
                     

2) Our grand daughter's birthday

Happy Birthday Christy!!

Getting 'Cabin Fever'

I was looking through some of my old pictures and started getting 'cabin fever'.  Terry and I had so much fun on our trip to Utah and Mesa Verde (the cliff dwellers) in 2005.  Hard to believe that was almost 8 years ago.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from that trip in our RV with 2 cats but they hid under the RV couch most of the time!!

Canyonlands, UT

Mesa Verde

Canyonlands

Arches National Park, UT - My favorite picture!!

Cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde

Zion National Park, UT

Sprint in Utah

Shadow coming out of the shadows

Too late to worry

Have you ever found out something that would have made you quite worried but by the time you were told about the problem - it was resolved, and there was no more reason to worry?  Well, that is what happened yesterday.

When I picked up the dogs from the "dogsitter" (Terry's brother Jim) he told me that Birdie had gotten herself in a stack of wooden pallets and apparently could not figure out how to get back out.  She must have been chasing a rabbit or squirrel.  Jim looked all over for her Thursday night - in all the places they like to dig on his 2 acres.  She did not bark and the tags on her collar did not "jangle".

He said Bogey (Birdie's brother) and Daphne (Jim's dog) went to different areas so they didn't really point out where Birdie might have been.  It got dark and Jim was sick wondering where Birdie was.  It was a long night for him and he dreaded having to tell me and Terry he had lost Birdie.  About every couple hours in the night Bogey would bark.  Jim would go to the door hoping Birdie was on the porch but she was not there.  I wonder if Bogey could hear her bark in the night as both dogs have very good hearing.  The temperature was in the low 30's.

The next morning, Jim called Terry and told him Birdie was lost.  In the meantime, Terry's other brother Tim started looking and listening for Birdie and heard her yipping.  They finally found her in the pallets and rescued her.  It was about 10 minutes after Jim had called Terry and Terry had lifted up a prayer to the Lord that Birdie would be found.

I was traveling home from Fruitland, ID to Prineville and so was oblivious to all the drama.  When I got to Burns, OR and had cell phone service, Terry told me that Birdie had been lost and then found.  Terry thought she had only been lost about an hour that morning.  It wasn't until I got to Prineville and got the dogs that we found out she had been lost all night.

I was so relieved that she was ok and felt so bad for Jim.  I know he must have had a horribly long worrisome night, dreading every minute to have to tell me and Terry.  He loves our puppy dogs as much as we do.  Praise the Lord this story has a happy ending.  The Lord is so good to us!!!