Nov 2 2006:  OK…I know, it’s been just way to long of a time since my last post.  My apologies!  I will try to catch up, but I’m sure I will miss something. 

In August we had a vacation.  I took my mom to  Canada for the NAARA amateur radio retreat.  Jeri couldn’t go.  After getting back from that, we went to Sunriver for 5 days and had a wonderful time.  Went on a 16 mile mountain bike ride which was wonderful.  Had great weather too.

Our little Lily continues to grow.  She is over a 100lbs now.  She was weaned from her mom a couple weeks ago.  We are sorry Cher is gone, but Lily has adjusted well and she has her pen mate, Lady and they get along very well. 

In early October Jeri’s dad designed and built some extensions on the barn to keep the rain and wind out so now Joey and the girls can keep a little dryer as the winter rains come.  Our friends Dino and Cindy helped and also painted the barn for us!  We thank all of them for the time and efforts.

We also went to Jeri’s 30 year reunion at Milo Academy in October.  Just 12 of her classmates were there.  They may have another reunion next spring or late next year as that is the official 30 year time period (1977).

As I write this, we are counting down to another vacation, this one a little more exciting.  We are going to Disney World right after Thanksgiving.  I have always wanted to go there just before Christmas.  It is a cheery time with lights and decorations for the holidays.  Jeri and I are both looking forward to a fun week there.  We will have a trip diary on the web page so you can follow if you like.

Frenchie never did come home.  We are sad with this.  He always had stayed around the house so it was very odd for him to just disappear.  We never have heard or saw anything, so have no knowledge of him suffering an injury.  However, just a few weeks earlier, one of my folks outside cats was found by our neighbor and it appeared the cat had been attacked.  The neighbor said that they had seen some Coyotes and figured they had attacked the cats. 

On July 11 we attended friends, Sara and Mark Bru's wedding.  They had asked Jeri to be their photographer.  We took the day off from work and Jeri took over 1400 pictures.  I also shot video of the wedding ceremony.

Lily, our baby horse is growing quite fast.  She was between 65-70lbs and is almost as tall as our other mare, Lady.  We have spent a lot of time with Lily and so she is very use to being around us.  We have had a great time with her.

No July 16 the Oregon Air show was in town.  No marquee act this year (no Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, etc).  We did not attend.  However around the end of the show, at 4:30pm, one of the show airplanes crashed about a mile or so from our home.  It actually crashed just 3 houses ( a few hundred feet) from our friends Mo & Harry Dexter.  Mo was in their back yard and witnessed the crash right in front of her.  They had no damage to their property.  However, I just found out a couple days ago that our Dental Hygienist, lived in the house right next to where the plane crashed and is having to move out until they clean up the damage and have their home repaired.

Last weekend were were at Sunriver, south of Bend Oregon, with Jeri's Family.  Had a great time riding our bikes and floating the river, thanks to Jeri's brother, Larry who had a couple inflatable canoes.  Jeri's Aunt & Uncle Margaret and Vernon Williamson were there as were two of their daughters, Shirley and Donna.  It was great to see them.  To round out the family, Larry's wife Diana was there as well, along with Jeri's brother Kevin and his family, Amy, Emily, Elliott and Eric.

Will start with the fireplace mantel story.  We have wanted to add a fireplace mantel for some time and finally had a few extra dollars so decided to do so.  I had found a company that constructed mantels that seemed to be very nice looking at a reasonable price.  So on our anversary April 2, I ordered the mantel.  Five weeks later our mantel arrived and it was very nice and we were quite happy with it until we set it up temporarily to see how it fit.  Wouldn't you know it, it didn't fit.  Problem was, that the dimensions listed didn't match what the mantel actually was.  We ended up returning the legs and should get new ones that hopefully will fit this week.

We finally determined that Lady (our mare) is not pregnant, she came into heat.  Though sad, she does need some dental work so we will have that done and then Jeri will take her back to the previous owner to attempt mating with the owners prize stallion.

Also, our Frenchie cat has been missing for the last 48 hours.  He normally stays around our house so it is very strange that he has not been around.  The scary thing is that about a week ago one of my folks cats disappeared as well and our neighbor had found that cat dead of an apparent attack.  They indicated that coyotes had been involved.  Hope Frenchie shows up.

Also learned that we had some divine leading last week related to this.  Of course as you know, last Monday, April 24, our baby horse, Lily was born.  That resulted in my meeting Jeri at the horse hospital Monday evening.  When we got home, there was voicemail from Beng that there was a problem with the 3ABN satellite dish at George and Josephine's.  Unfortunately it was too late for me to do anything about it Monday night.  This resulted in Darrell going over there Tuesday morning to fix it which he did.  However that also resulted in his seeing his father that morning, before he passed away in the evening.  If we hadn't had the baby the day before I would have been home Monday evening and probably would have gone over to fix the dish and Darrell would not have needed to go the next morning. 

Lily was a week old yesterday and she is doing just great.  Will get some new video soon of her running about the pen.  She is a hoot!

Then this evening, our baby horse arrived home.  Here is the picture posting for today!

Saturday afternoon, Jeri and I had lunch with Bhagyam and Franklin Moses, two members of our church who have a mission project in their homeland, India.  It's called FETCH International.  FETCH stands for Feed the hungry, Educate, Teach self sufficiency, Clothe the needy and Heal the sick.  They have led mission trips to India the last 3 years and all of the trips have been quite successful.  Out meeting was basically a result of exchanged emails where I offered to sponsor and manage a webpage for FETCH International.   That page has been started, www.fetchinternational.org.   I hope to provide them a communication site to for what FETCH is doing and how people can help.

Sunday, Jeri and I worked between showers to clean out the muck in the pasture area near the barn.  For some reason that area was a water collection point for the entire pasture.  So of course, it was a combination of mud, water, horse manure and hay.  Jeri dug it and I hauled it and we got it cleaned up.  Then we laid down some landscape barrier material and Jeri covered that with wood chips.  Hopefully it will keep it from getting mucky again! 

Still waiting on the baby horse.  Cher is very pregnant, but not showing any signs of immanent birthing.

In today's paper, there is a comment that Portland Trailblazer owner Paul Allen may have the team declare bankruptcy.  When I read that, I was appalled that Mr. Allen would consider such action.  Bankruptcy, usually indicates that an entity doesn't have the funds to pay it's bills.  However, though technically that may be correct in this case, that being the Trailblazers having financial problems, the fact that Mr. Allen is the owner, he could fix this problem quite quickly without effecting his personal financial position very much if at all.  The last I heard Mr. Allen's worth was in the 20-30 billion dollar range.  He could buy back the Rose Garden, pay off any debt incurred by the team and resolve this issue for maybe 1% of his net work.  That is not someone that needs to go into bankruptcy to protect themselves.  I have enjoyed the Blazers of the years.  As long as they are in Portland I will continue to support them as I can.  However, I will not support providing them tax revenue to keep them here.  Hopefully, someone or a group will seize this opportunity to buy the Team and the Rose Garden and return this Franchise to the respectability it use to have.

Now having said that, don't misunderstand me.  Mr. Allen can do as he wishes, he is the owner...until he sells the club.  However I do believe he should take responsibility for this and clear all debt before he sells the team.  Who ever buys the team should not be penalized with the debt for the choices Mr. Allen made in trying to win a championship.

We are expecting a baby horse anytime.  Cher is at the hospital and has been there just about two weeks now.  Check out our Horse Baby page for more info on that!

We had the rest of the week off from work.  Had no special plans.  We have been working around the house.  Jeri painted the kitchen.  I am replacing some damaged spots in the floor and also doing some finish work on some molding here and there.  Things that need to be done, but we never seem to find the time to do them during normal working days.  Tuesday, we picked up debris from the winter storms (fallen branches and such) and had a big bonfire.

As I write this, we just got back from taking Jeri's folks to the airport to catch a flight to Omaha, via Phoenix.  Jeri's mom is attending her 55th year reunion at Union College.  They will be back on Monday, April 10.

Then last week, a week ago today, Cam's mom called and said that her brother, Cam's Uncle Charles passed away.  It was not expected.  He lived alone and apparently had a heart attack.  Neighbors noticed that all of a sudden there was no activity at his home and after a day or two called the police who found him.  He was 76.

Then later that week, Cam's dad's sister Freeda passed away as well.  She was in 91.  Her health had been declining so this was not a surprise.  Though we will miss both of them, we are comforted to know they are at rest.  This world is a crazy and hectic, so to be at rest is a blessing.

A week ago we watched the Super Bowl.  It was fun to see Seattle play in the game, but sad that they lost.  Though there certainly were some suspicious calls by the referees, Seattle didn't play the same game they had played most of the season.  Hopefully, they will bring most of the current players back for next year and be able to put together another outstanding season.  There were many great commercials this year.  Cam's favorite was the FEDEX commercial with the caveman and dinosaurs.  Jeri liked the Budweiser commercial with the young Clydesdale colt pulling the Budweiser wagon, which was being pushed by his parents.  It was cute!

Yesterday afternoon, we had lunch at Alex (Duane) & Kitty Alexenko's home.  After lunch, I set up my PC and projector to share pictures of Alex and Kitty's recent trip to Peru.  They were on a mission trip as well as some sight seeing.  One of the sight seeing places they went is the landmark of Machu Picchu.  Once you see the pictures you will recognize this location.  Alex enjoyed showing the stone work that was done hundreds to thousands of years ago and the precision of that work.

About 6:15 or so, I got a phone call from my mom who with my dad were back home in Hillsboro.  She was quite frantic as three of our 4 horses (two our ours and the other two we board,) had rushed past my dad when he was preparing to feed them and was cleaning their stall and had run off.  It was already dark out and they were not able to find them.  The three horses that had got out, were our two borders and our mare, Lady. Joey was safe in his pen.

First, I'll just say that all is fine.  My mom and some neighbors found the horses across the street from my folks place and were able to corral them until my mom and the neighbors could get halters on them and get them back in the fence.  My dad was quite exasperated and we were concerned for his health, but fortunately, thanks to many prayers by family and friends, he is all right and as I said, the horses are fine too. 

So there were some additional answers to those prayers and here they are.  First miracle was the initial call from my mom.  I got it on my cell phone which wouldn't seem to be that big of thing, except that where Kevin is located, it is in a blind area for cell phone access.  Mom's call got through, but we couldn't call anyone from our cell phone.  We decided to head back home when this happened, because my mom didn't know where the horses were and we were having problem reaching friends that could help.  We went a couple miles away, found cell service and were able to make contact with Steve and Laura who own two of the three horses that escaped.  They were able to head over to my folks.  By the time they got there, the horses had been found and were back in the pen.  When we got the call and decided to leave, the family and friends were praying for horses, my folks and us.  Those prayers were answered in just moments as when we got to where we could get the cell service and were able to contact my mom, she reported that they had found the horses.  That was another miracle as my mom had grabbed her cell phone and had it with her so we could reach her.

We just want to take a moment to thank God for his blessings to us, to thank our family and friends for their prayers during this short time of trauma for all of us.  C&J

Diet requires drinking at least 64oz of water.  At first I found this hard, though not to bad as I had been drinking 48oz of water a day already.  However, I found that adding Crystal Light to the water greatly helped in my intake.  I am now drinking 80oz of water a day with the crystal light.

So far have lost 5lbs.  This was probably the easy part, hope the pounds continue to go at that speed…we shall see.