Digging out

Well on Saturday we spent the day digging out Jim's truck and the walkways. Clearing the tree with the chain saw was the most difficult. Sunday we were able to clear the driveway so that I can get my car out. And today Monday as you can see in the picture we almost got the extra parking space cleared. We are both really tired of digging..........

The Big Storm!

Well after all our hard work shoveling yesterday this is what we woke up to! Jim opened the back door to get some firewood to start the fire and the snow was about five feet deep.
This is a view out the kitchen window toward the neighbors house. As you can see the snow is about 6 inches from the top of our backyard fence. And the neighbors have about four feet of snow on the roof. I wonder how much it can hold?
This is the sad thing. We lost one of the tops of out trees. The snow load is soooo heavy. This is the walkway to the front door or was the walkway. We were really blessed it was small and didn't hit the garage or house.
Here is the gate on the side of the house to the backyard. Good thing we left it open or it would have been closed until Spring.
Jim started up the snow blower this morning in the garage and he was slowly working his way out to the street. Which I may add is about three feet higher than usual
This is the neighbors house.
Here is Jim finally getting to the street.

Overall we were very blessed not to have a lot more damage here. And we still have plenty of food in the house. Lots of work ahead. Would love to see all of you but I don't think this weekend is good timing. Lots of trees still breaking, lines down and endless shoveling to do. If we can find a place to put the snow.

Love you, Mom

The Wine Garden

Here is our yard about three years ago. That's my best guess looking at Caiden. As you can tell the side of our yard had tall shrubs and lots of bushes between us and the neighbor. Also on the side of the yard it had a split rail fence and the dirt sloped down into the neighbors property.

Here is another view taken about two years ago. As you can see the front yard was full of lots of junnipers. There were lots of scary things living under all that stuff. Now there is such a push on having a healthy forest and trees. They are asking everyone to clean up all the overgrown underbrush and thin out the trees to keep the mountain healthy. So Jim decided to finish the front yard area.

What a hugh difference!!!! First we put up a retaining wall between us and the neighbor so that we wouldn't have so much run off and erosion. Then Jim got to work with his railroad ties. He terraced the whole area. It took about two months of hard work. He did hire a helper to assist with the digging. What an incredible job! He calls it the Wine Garden.

We had the Wine Garden opening last weekend. About fourteen of our neighbors and friends attended. We had wine of course and I served shrimp with cocktail sauce, fresh fruit salad, hot artichoke dip, meats and cheeses, spinach dip and a brie wheel. It was a lot of fun. Next time we will have margaritas with a Mexican food theme.

Our really bad day !!!!!!

We had a hugh storm on Wednesday and the wind was blowing soooo hard.

A tree came down across the street and upon rushing out into the storm we were horrified to find it had landed on a SUV driving on our street.

It was absolutely terrifying to see the tree go down and even though we worked as hard and quickly as we could, our hearts just sunk when we were able to gain access to the vehicle and it was too late.

Dean's Birthday

Alex was a big help decorating and so good with Dean!!!!!
Here is the Birthday boy!  He was having a good time.
He had lots of little friends over including Kiya and Caiden.
He got some really fun toys..........
and enjoyed every bite of his first birthday cake!

Oklahoma and Kansas

We had such a great time in Oklahoma. We had time to visit with Joyce and Verlin and even had a lesson in bull herding! We now just refer to Verlin as the Bull Whisperer. Then in Kansas we were proud to attend the graduation of Adam, Jim's cousins son. He is a great kid and has a wonderful future in front of him. Then we just spent the next few days visiting and just relaxing. It was great!!!!!

Merrills Funeral

Jim's Dad was a wonderful man, we will miss him very much.
Thank you all for attending the funeral it meant the world to Jim and I.

Jim Update

Well it's been a month now since Jim's surgery. He has had his staples and catheter removed. When we had our doctors visit to have the catheter and staples removed our doctor was not there so an associate doctor saw us. He said that his patients had permission at this time to ride in a car and do whatever they were comfortable with. Soooooo we decided drive down the hill and have breakfast with Uncle Mark and Uncle Steve and see Pam and Jake. While we were down Jim got a call from an old fire department buddy and we joined the gang for dinner. The next day we stopped on the way home to Big Bear for a follow up appointment with Jim's regular doctor. Boy did we get a tongue lashing! Jim was grounded for three more weeks and still can't lift more than ten pounds. But I must say that he is getting a lot better. That is physically, I think that he is really anxious to get to go out in the yard and work on the jeep. It's going to be a very long recovery, much longer than even his heart surgery.
Of course I've been busy taking care of Jim. But also Jim's Dad has taken a turn for the worse. The weekend Jim came home from the hospital Merrill fell and broke his hip. We thought he would bounce back OK but that's not the case. He is doing very poorly. We have put him on Hospice and know that he is more comfortable now. I've been going to see him every other day, mostly to help with feeding him, he is eating very little. At least Jim feels better since he can't go too.
I'll keep you all updated on Jim and Merrill and would really appreciate your prayers for them both.

My visit with the Budd's

I had a great time visiting Jeff, Wendy, Micah and Kaia. I had to wait until Jim felt better to have the opportunity to visit them and was so excited when I made the flight reservations. It was a short visit but I got to see the new baby and she is adoreable!
Of course here is the new proud big brother and his new baby sister, Micah is a big helper....
Here is Kaia, look at that head of hair!  So far she is a good baby and a good eater.
We spent some special time at the park just for Micah.  He is full of energy and so smart.
Wendy is amazing! Such a good mom.
Jeff is a big help too. He and Micah spent time reading and building special projects.  And by the way Jeff has started his new census job and it sounds interesting.

I had such a god visit. Thanks Jeff and Wendy!

Jim Update

Well here he is and doing great!
He is sporting the newest in Post Prostectomy attire.
Gown designed by Aunt Joyce, accessories include urine bag by Bard Pharmaceuticals and matching tote purchased at Stater Bros.. only 99 cents.

Can't wait for Monday when they will remove the catheter and maybe the staples.