Since Suzi worked on Christmas, we celebrated a couple of days late. Ended up we got a white Christmas after all!


We met up with Joe and Carisha.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We had the pets open their presents. We miss Shetara at this time of year, since she really did open the presents. The rest of the herd needs help.

Here is Buggs getting interested in the kitty nip toys:



Sammy really enjoyed her treat, we were worried since she doesn't like a lot of doggie treats like pig ears etc, but she loved her jerky!




I thought Ginger's eyes were going to pop out of her head!



It was a pretty good Christmas. Our Charlie Brown tree is a live cedar tree that we are planning on planting in the yard.

We went to Edmonds to meet Shandi and Beth for lunch. This guy entertained us while we waited for the ferry to arrive.
This bunch seemed to be enjoying the sunshine.
Nice day for a ferry ride.

Been on the nippy side here, caught this doe tucking her nose in for warmth.

We got our power back last night. Cable even came back online. We took a trip just into Monroe last night. The air quality was bad in town, so we went ahead and let our fire die.
This morning the rain started the air quality seemed alot better, so I will probably start the fire back up later. I was surprised to see the epa never put out a burn ban. Guess they were afraid folks would not use them for warmth with the power out??

I took Suzi to the Bus in Monroe this morning, and decided to top off the gas tank, and found a hard time finding a gas station that had gas, the 7th one I checked had gas. So I grabbed the truck and gas cans and topped everything off.

There seems to be a bit of an epidemic of folks making deadly mistakes by not venting their generators, and bringing their charcoal bbq's inside. Evidently part of the problem is in other countries the homes are not sealed as well as here, and they can get away with charcoal inside, not so here.

Still alot of folks without power. Woodinville, North Bend, Carnation, Issaquah, and even Bellevue have been hit particularly hard. They say those ares may not get their power back until after Christmas.

Traffic into/ out of Monroe going towards Seattle is hit hard again. first the floods closed surrounding roads, then the snow closed roads on the steep hills, now the down trees have closed major roads making traffic divert to Hwy 522. Hopfully the new year will bring calmer weather.

Been really nice here. Great sunrises:

And since so many folks have no power and are using their wood stoves/fire places the air quality is not good, driving from Monroe to Seattle makes our throats burn, but the sunsets are great!

We still have no power, our phone was out for a day, but is back and running. It came back on last night. Cable is still out. We found a tv antena mounted in the attic of the garage, so we tried it out and now get a couple of channels. We are glad we have the hobbie of camping with ammenities. This genset is sure coming in handy!

Tonite we had pad thai prawn cooked on the fireplace cooktop, and earlier I had some brown and serve french bread that we browned inside of the fireplace! It was nummy!

Hi, Ginger here. I have been very busy keeping my people in order! I decided it is time for me to go survey the storm damage.


Here I am examining the hole left behind by the uprooted tree. This particular tree is in my yard, and barely missed the neighbors shed.

I went down to the sharp corner at the end of the block to get a look at what stopped us from proceeding, and found 2 down trees and down lines. I am surprised we still have phone service. Our cable is out along with the power.

Here is a shot standing at the corner.

This is another angle at the corner. You can see another tree laying across the road and wires at the other end of the road.



I drove to the other side around the loop. For those of you who have noticed it, I am in front of the Purple house.


I was took the trek back to Seattle to pic Suzi up. The way to town down Florence Acres road is still impassable, so I had to go the back way. The freeway's were fine. I heard on the radio that Hwy 520 just opened up, so I took that route exiting at the Arboretum. I was concerned, but no problems, just a couple of down trees that were cut out of the way, and little traffic.



I arrived at Madison Street at 3:30pm. For those of you who know the neighborhood, I arrived at McDonalds at 4pm. Suzi left the hospital and just walked over to Madison and got into the car as I waited in traffic. We continued down to 6th and took the right turn and hopped on S. bound I5 at 6pm. The roads were fine all the way home from there. whew, what a day.

Here is another shot of the tree that the guy drove under this morning.

First it was the flooding, then the record snow and freezing, now the record winds! Sea-Tac airport had a record 69mph gust, over a million people are without power, including us. But much to our surprise, our phone works, for now.

The night was exciting with the highwinds, torrential rain (over 2 inches). The power went out shortly after 8pm here.
Suzi has to work today. Our radio reception is not so hot, and since we had phone service, we checked the road conditions, figuring the buses would be late. It was amazing at how much of the traffic map was white, which means no information... aka, no power in this instance.
So we warmed out coffee on the cook top of our fireplace insert, and Suzi enjoyed what will probably be her last warm shower for awhile, since out hot water tank is electric.
We went out to the garage, loaded the pups up in the car for the ride to Seattle, and remembered, Garage door openers don't work when the power is out... We pulled the little rope for disengaging the opener, and could not get it pulled, I checked with the other door to see if we were doing it the right way, and yes, so I figured it was just an odd angle since we had to lean over the hood of the car... I ranked hard, and the door popped up! Didn't seem right the way it popped up, as a matter of fact, we could not get the door to close more than 1/2 way, so we put a screwdriver in the little hole on the side to keep it shut... one more thing to do...

The next thing that happened was we drove down the driveway to find a tree blocking our way. So we got out the chain saw (the electric one with our little Honda generator) Got our driveway cleared out.

At the end of the block, the sharp corner, we were greeted by a large down tree and power lines. So we turned around. We drove around the block, and got all the way to Florence Acres Rd... Towards Monroe there was a HUGE tree spanning the roadway, so we turned around. There was a car coming from Sultan, so we waited, as he approached the tree that blocked our way he slammed on his brakes, and skidded his tires. We were worried since it was 4:30am and very dark that he might not stop in time... Whew... he turned around and headed back to Sultan, so we followed him. It wasn't far and there was another tree over the roadway, but the power lines were holding the tree up, and he went under the tree. We like life too much to take such risks, and turned around. Here is a shot in the dark of the tree he drove under.



We went the other way to town, and made it just fine, you could see along the way were trees were attacked by chain saws to make the way clear, at least one lane... The roads from Monroe to Seattle were fine except for the no power to street lights backing things up, and the hwy 520 bridge was still closed...

I better go get my shower in before all hot water is lost. If we still have phone service, I will post some pics later.

Saw this big buck laying in the front yard today. It was nice to see him!

Last October I had a funny thing happen. I got all excited, thinking I saw a bear! I saw the neighbor walking, and asked him if he saw the bear, as he came closer to me I realized what I had actually seen:Madeline Bear...

I have been pondering the problem of removing the 5th wheel hitch from the truck. I used to attach it to the 5th wheel, and just let it hang there. But since we sold the 5th wheel, the hitch needed to be lifted out, and it is HEAVY!

I used a 6' piece of 2"x12" wood as a ramp and slid the hitch down to the awaiting dolly. Then I strapped the hitch to the dolly and was able to roll it to the shed. piece of cake! Course if we ever need to load it again, that is a new problem...

Saw this wierd bike in Seattle. I was surprised at how easily he balanced it going over the curbs.

yet another great sunrise... problem is the photo's don't do it justice!

This is the last of the snow.

Had some sun last weekend. The mountains looked great!



The deer seemed to enjoy it.


The snow is sure melting fast.

Yesterday's sunrise

Snow pics

Here are some of my favorite.

This one is my favorite. It was taken in our back yard.


These are all taken in our front yard.

I took this one 3 days ago at the Seattle Arboretum, near the Japanese Gardens. Even right in the city center there have been problems with icy roads.