Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

At last!!! It's been a long time since we added to our blog and we'll try to do better in the future. We'll be in Green Valley, AZ for the winter where we are finding there is a lot to do. Then, in the late spring, we'll put Sea Tern back in the water for a month or so of sailing in the Sea of Cortez, if she hasn't sold by then. After that we'll drive back to Oregon for a couple of months with our family whom we miss a lot.

Our phone numbers are:
home 520 269 6693
cell 503 805 9954

We have a guest room, so give us a call and come for a visit in the sun!

Herm and Nancy

cold, br-r-r

At 7 AM it has been cold here in Green Valley, AZ where being at 3000 ft makes a difference. Not like in Puerto Vallarta where the winter days and nights differ little, the days here often are in the 70's or even 80's and the sun is hot! But the nights are cold - good for sleeping.

first attempt at quilting

Nancy started putting this together while we were in Bend in September. Here it is on our patio table where I attached the batting and bottom layer using a can of sticky spray which worked very well. All that needs to be done now is miles (!!) of sewing, the actual "quilting". The new sewing machine (Janome) will make that job easier, I hope!

Marge and Ernie Petitmermet

Ernie was born in Gresham 94 years ago. He and Marge have been married nearly 70 years. They have lived in Green Valley since before we hauled our McGregor to Mexico in 1989 or so. Always they have been dear and generous friends, very busy doing all sorts of things and fun to be with. Last year Marge finished the family history on which she had been working for many years. It's the reason she got and learned to use a computer while in her 80's. Our mentors indeed!

our house,east side

There's a big mesquite tree on the morning sun side of our house. Our brick wall enclosing the patio is in the back on the south side so it's sunny all day there, every day (almost)! Santa rode to the pool with me on my bike. The pool is very close, about a 5 minute ride.

Thanksgiving dinner at Fords'

Pat and Susan visited us on their way to Mazatlan and their trimarran, Perpetua. The feast was great!

Kim's door

What to do with the murals made by Kim to celebrate our 75th birthdays? We put them on the door! They are much too clever to bury in a box so here they are!

visit

When Pat and Susan were here at Thanksgiving, we visited Gene and Jo in their new place near Tucson. More and more cruisers are settling near Tucson every year. We are happy to welcome all of them!

Beep Beep

The roadrunner hopped up on our patio wall to see what was inside but he decided not to come in.

new garden and fountain

Here's our new garden on Christmas 2009. I like it much better after we removed an ugly plant that was there when we bought the house last year! See the cement quail with her 2 babies. It's still too cold at night to plant tomatoes so we'll wait a month and hope to plant them then.

plant to go!

This huge plant is just where I wanted to plant my garden so it has to go - but how? It has millions of roots that anchor it into the gravel and sand so it would not budge even when we used a pickax. Finally we were able to tie a rope to it and the car. While one of us used the pickax, the other one drove the car. It barely came out even then! We dumped it outside our wall and hoped some animal would eat it but, a month later, none has!

Brent and Molly Forsberg

Such good and generous friends! After Herm injured his leg he could not unload the truck so Brent and Molly drove all the way from Mesa and did it for us. The truck is empty but the house and garage are full of boxes - plenty to keep us busy for awhile!

unloading the truck

Here's Brent with the last box! We drove this U-Haul truck from Gresham to Green Valley. It was loaded with the stuff we had stored in a locker in Troutdale for the past 5 years - or what was left of the stuff after giving a lot of it away! The distance was 1600 miles which we drove in 4 days.

Scenery

In northern Arizona the sediments are still horizontal and in many colors near the "Painted Desert".

scenery along our route

The mountains rise up nearly straight from the flat plain here in northern Utah. Some already had snow on top in early November.

Alice's painting

Alice had just finished painting this picture and hung it over her fireplace.

Alice' birthday party

Alice's girls gave a wonderful party to celebrate her birthday on our last day on Oregon.

October

Back in Troutdale, we said "Good bye" to our swimming friends at breakfast at Heidi's restaurant. It's getting chilly in the motorhome - time to go south!

at Pilot Butte Oregon State Park

Here's our camp in September.

Pilot Butte in Bend, OR

September found us in Bend at Pilot Butte Oregon State Park. We lived in our motorhome in the park. Every day we hiked to the summit, rode our bicycles and kept an eye on everything happening in the park. We enjoyed being there. The weather was clear and sunny most of the month but got pretty cold for the last few days so we were glad to return to Troutdale for October.

Paul cooking on the BBQ

Paul is being supervised by Grace and Ella. Dinner was great!

at Elk Lake

Grace and Herm enjoyed a nice sunny day at camp on Elk Lake, near Bend, OR

Elk Lake visit to Grace and Paul's camp

Grace and Nancy went for a paddle around Elk Lake on Labor Day weekend.

oops!

It was not a good idea to try changing from sitting to kneeling in this canoe! Nancy does not like to sit in canoes but ----

annual visit to the Oregon State Fair

Susan and I enjoyed the fair as usual . This black sheep wanted to join us!