Thank you for being patient!

Well we have been in our new home for 1-1/2 months and I am ashamed to admit I have not posted any photos! It was my intent to do it today. But it won't happen until next week. I was on the clean up brigade all day today because Kirsten has been throwing up! She either got exposed to some bug yesterday between school, her appt with the Dr. or our errands after school. I kind of think it was just taking her in and out of the car for a few errands and it was a little cold. On the other hand, she's not usually sick this long. She gets over it in a half a day, but this has gone on all day and not much change.

Dad and I were scheduled to talk in our new ward in Sacrament tomorrow, but it will only be me. (I'm farther ahead on my talk. He graciously volunteered to stay home with Kirsten, although he gives 'great talks!) Kirsten is in no shape to leave the house tomorrow.

David and Angela were here today. David helped dad shingle the roof of his shed and hang the door and a few other things. Dad and I propped up the walls on the floor this morning and dad finished nailing them together and put the roof on. The shed matches the house. It was actually a beautiful day today and sunny and about 62 degrees. Perfect weather to get a jump on putting up his shed. While the guys were outside, I was showing Angela some new crafts and we worked on a few things and I so much enjoyed her company!

We've had some nasty rain. You may have heard our area had flooding. We did not in the area we live, but farther out the Puyallup River flooded and took out 100 feet of the dike. We had an enormous abundance of rain over the past few days. We have flood insurance, a requisite of mine before we moved here.

We have an attorney now and are under way filing for legal guardianship to be our daughter Kirsten's Co-guardians. Imagine that! We are the parents but have to file for legal guardianship because Kirsten in handicapped! The process takes about 2 to 3months. So hopefully by February it's a done deal!

I promise to post pictures of both the inside and outside of the house next week. Thanks for being so patient! :o)

When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #46

46-The ride to the sawmill – someone falls out of the car!

My dad built a trailer to haul wood and other stuff. It had high sides, which were made from about one-inch pipe he welded together. The trailer was big enough to hold about three cords of wood. We had a fireplace in the living room and a coal oil stove in the kitchen. These were our primary sources of heat until years later when my dad had gas heat installed. In Alamogordo they had Prestrige Saw Mill. They cut tree logs into lumber. The lumber was hauled down from the mountains in Cloudcroft above Alamogordo. They would have long rows of slag and log ends, etc. left over after cutting the logs into lumber. Sometimes they burnt this stuff but mostly they let the public come down and buy this slag, etc.

My dad would hitch the trailer to the back of his car and off we went to load wood. I can’t remember how much he paid for a trailer load. It was cheap and you had to load it yourself. We wore gloves. There is nothing that hurt worse that getting jabbed with a piece of wood and having a big fat splinter in your hand or fingers. It was rough cut so it was jagged and you had to be careful. I was somewhere between eight to ten years old at the time. My dad would have all four of his kids help him load the lumber. I liked going as it was an adventure and it fun to explore and climb around on these piles and throw the wood into the trailer and my dad would stack it so he could get in as much as he could. The not so fun part was when we got back home and had to ‘unload’ the wood and stack it into piles. I always hated to go get wood for the fireplace because spiders like to hide in that cozy woodpile. Yuck!

One Saturday we were on our way down to Alamogordo hauling the trailer to get another load of wood and we were about half way there. My dad had a Studebaker. It was a light bluish green car. The back doors were call suicide doors because they opened backwards. The doors did not open and swing out to toward the front; they opened from the middle post and back toward the back of the car. We all had seat belts on. My mom gave specific instructions that Gayle, my twin brother, was to sit ‘in the middle’ and ‘not’ near the doors. He had a fascination about opening car doors while the car was moving. Well dad was driving and we were chatting and somehow Gayle reached past his brother (I can’t remember if it was Geoffrey or Douglas-I was sitting near the door on the right side) and got the door ‘open’ while we were going down the road. Well surprise of all surprises when Gayle opened the back left door, the door opened and it ‘took him with it!’

I screamed, “Gayle fell out of the car!’ I immediately looked out the back window, as I was horrified that he would get thrown under the trailer and get run over and to see if other cars were behind us and they might run over him. Well, God was watching over Gayle that day. He did not get thrown under the trailer and no cars were behind us. We watched him roll like a log down the highway. Dad stopped the car. He had to stop carefully as he did not want the trailer to jackknife or fishtail. We saw Gayle get up and he started running toward the car. He was so afraid we were going to leave him behind. When he was rolling he had brought his arms up (like you were go to lift weights) and that protected his face. When we got him he was crying and his arms were badly burned from rolling on the asphalt highway. Instead of coming right home, dad cleaned him up and asked if he was all right and Gayle said that he was and off we drove to the sawmill! He was just so glad we didn’t forget him! We loaded up the trailer with wood and home we went. We took Gayle into the house and told my mom the whole story and she was horrified and upset that dad did not turn around and bring him home!

Mom cleaned his burns and put tannic acid powder and salve and bandaged his arms. You cannot buy tannic acid now. Back when I was a little girl, you could buy it. It was a brown cocoa colored powder and you got it from the pharmacist. Now they use it in creams, etc. That helped heal Gayle’s arms and he didn’t have any bad scarring. He never touched the car door ever again. We also watched him like an eagle!

This reminds me---
of another story--- with the same Studebaker.
We were about the same age, around ten. We were washing the Studebaker one morning. Gayle was on the top of the roof cleaning it and I was washing the doors of the car. I can’t remember why I needed to go into the house, but I went to shut the car door and slammed it shut but it didn’t close, so I slammed it again. By this time Gayle let out a blood-curdling cry. I turned around to see what the fuss was about. His foot was hanging over the edge of the car roof and I had slammed the door on his big toe! OUCH! I felt awful. I don’t think his toe was cut but I was worried I broke it. He got down off the roof and mom came out and examined it. I don’t think she took him to the doctor. But Gayle has always had a slightly bent big toe. It doesn’t point straight like his other toes. I’m sure it was because I shut the car door on it!

One last thing this reminds me of---
When we lived in Hawaii---
We had 5 kids and I took them to have their pictures taken at K-Mart. I had a 4:00P.M appointment and was running barely on time by the time we got there. The kids got out of the car and Julie was the last to get out. I can’t remember if she shut the door or someone else shut the door but her fingers got trapped in the door and the door jammed and ‘would not open!’ A security guard came and tried to open the door and he couldn’t get it open either and poor Julie was in tears and her fingers hurt. I got inside the door and kicked that door as hard as I could and it dislodged it just enough that the security guard got the door open. We went into K-Mart and they had a little eatery just inside and I asked for a cup of ice for her fingers. They gave me the ice. Like my father and the ride to the sawmill---I took them into the photo studio and took the pictures. Then I took her over to Kaiser Emergency and they x-rayed her hand and thankfully she did not have any broken bones. Julie was a little mad at me for going through with the pictures being taken. I do remember telling her,'Smile and pretend your hand doesn’t hurt!' She smiled. How awful of me as a mother! My goodness! I did the same thing my dad did, a chip off the old block! I think back on that and can't believe I did that! I just cringe when I think of that incident.

When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #45

45-The hayride - Snipe hunting!

Have you ever been ‘Snipe hunting? I have! It’s a lot of fun!

When I was about 13 years old I had heard about ‘snipe hunting.’ You go out into the wilderness; we called it boondocks or boonies, when it is dark and you take a small gunnysack or bag and a flashlight. You called out into the dark…'here snipe, snipe, snipe’ and shine your flashlight to spot them and then you capture them and put them into your bag. Well I asked my brother Douglas about going snipe hunting and he said, ‘Don’t ever go.’ and then he told me about snipe hunting. I laughed.

Well, our church youth group was having an activity that was a hayride and snipe hunting close to Halloween. It was going to be at a church member’s home. They lived a little ways out of Alamogordo and there was desert and shrub and mesquite, etc., a perfect spot for snipe hunting! I invited my girlfriend Elaine to come with us. I told her how she had to bring a flashlight, and a paper bag. She was exited! I loved going on the hayrides and told her how much fun it was going to be. When everyone had arrived we told them what snipes looked like. They were white and had red eyes and ran quick but if you shined a flashlight at them it would blind them and stun them and they would sit still and you could just scoop them up and put them into your bag. They were quite harmless and about the size of a big rat. The older teenagers took out all the ‘greenies’ to go snipe hunting. The rest of us stayed back on the hay wagon.

We were all so excited for the others to get their snipes. Then after the older kids had led them out about 50 yards from the house, they all quietly snuck back to the hay wagon. You could hear the other kids out there calling, ‘Here snipe, snipe, snipe. Here snipe, snipe, snipe.’ We were all rolling in laughter! Pretty soon I heard my girlfriend calling out, ‘Diana, come and get me, I’m going to die out here! I can’t find any snipes! Where are we?’ We were just howling with laughter! It was so funny! Right about now you are probably thinking, ‘How mean!’ Well, at the time we thought it was pretty funny.

After about 15 minutes the older kids went back out to find the others and brought them all back. We were all very serious and asked how many snipes they all caught? No one had found a single one! Then we let them in on the joke. They didn’t find it very humorous. They are no such things as snipes. However, they couldn’t wait to try it out on their friends later on!

We had doughnuts and cider and sang songs on the hayride and everyone had fun. Then we all went home. What a fun and memorable night! I have never forgotten it!

When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #44

44-Trick or Treat! – Grocery bags of candy – taking some to work - Greedy Little munchkins!

Do you like to go out on Halloween and go trick or treating? I loved it when I was a kid! All that wonderful candy to eat! Yum! Yum!

We didn’t get as many kids that came by our house. Our house set back from the road about 50 feet. I guess they thought it was too far to walk. We had lights on so they could come but they hardly came to our door. We also put candles in paper bags that made luminaries. We would line the top of the house with them and down the driveway. It was very pretty to see all the bags lit.

One year my brothers and I went out to go trick or treating. My twin brother and I didn’t go out quite as late as my two older brothers. They got to stay out later because they were older. I just remember that this one particular year we all made ‘quite a haul of candy!’ It was wonderful! Well my dad got the bright idea that since we ‘had so much candy’ he wanted to take some of it to his office and share with his co-workers. I think our total haul was like a large grocery bag full of candy. We ate a lot that night. We ate till we were almost sick! The next morning when we looked over the loot we had left, we thought it looked a lot ‘smaller’ than it should. We asked what had happened to our candy? My mom told us that since we had so much, dad didn’t think we would mind if he took some of it to work to share.

Share??? Share with adults??? It never occurred to us that adults liked candy as much as kids did! We thought that was just awful! How terrible! He stole our candy! He never even asked us! My mom told dad about our grumblings and both of them told us what ‘greedy little kids’ we were! We had so much and had eaten a lot of candy and it certainly didn’t hurt us to share some. Well, we felt a little guilty for being so greedy. However, the following years he never took anymore of our ‘loot’ to work after that.

Now that I am writing about this I still feel badly that we were so selfish and greedy. But when you are a little kid, possession of candy is sacred!

This reminds me of when my own children went out to trick or treat. We always had them dump out all their candy to look it over to be sure there wasn’t anything harmful in it. Sad to say, but by this time, there were sick people out in the world that liked to put razor blades in apples and drugs in candy and stickers. When our kids poured out all their candy and after we checked it all over they got it all back. I always bought plenty of candy so that if they went out and did not get a lot there was plenty at home. The kids would trade with each other what they liked for what they didn’t like and it usually worked out well. I remember one year they all got a lot of penny Tootsie Rolls. None of them cared for them so I got to be the sole beneficiary of them! Oh Yum! Yum! I loved Tootsie Rolls! I even made a cute little teddy bear and showed them. They thought the teddy bear was cute but still didn’t care too much to eat Tootsie Rolls.

When we were living in Hawaii Douglas had made some cardboard tombstones and I helped him spray paint them gray and wrote epitaphs on them. We had pumpkins out and we had a dummy that hung by the front door and when kids came to ring the doorbell the hand reach out for them and the kids would scream! It was fun! We actually were hiding in the garage and through a window we could see the kids come up and we would work the hand on the dummy like a puppet. We had a lot of kids that came by. I decorated the inside of the house as well and I like to put up angel hair and hang spiders in them. I never bought ugly and freaky posters and characters. I bought cute posters and pumpkins and cats. I liked Halloween but I liked the ‘cute’ things. I did not want my kids having nightmare from the freaky and weird and ugly things.

When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #43

43- The Allen girls at the Mill store

All of us have favorite childhood memories. One of mine was going to the Allen Mill store. The store was in Alamogordo. We lived in Tularosa, about 12 miles away. It was the ‘smell’ and ‘ambiance’ of the store itself. It was an old fashioned store. It was a mill store because they had large sacks of feed and grain for livestock. The Allen girls were two sisters that ran the mill store. They wore faded white aprons over their dresses. I don’t think they ever married.

I was about six years old and what I remember of the Allen girls is that they were ‘old’ with short bobbed ‘gray hair’ and they were friendly and smiled. When you walked into the store it had a wooden floor and they had barrels in front of their counter. Behind the counter were shelves with other food goods. On one side of the store they had wooden bins with lids. On the counter they had a scale to weigh things.

My mom would buy cracked wheat from them. She would make cooked cereal from it. She would also buy flour from them. My mom made dishtowels from the flour sacks. One of the girls would use their metal scoop and scoop out the cracked wheat from one of the wooden bins and place it in the dish on the scale to weigh the wheat, then put it in a paper bag. Think of a big metal dinner plate and then on the outer edges pull them in just a little bit, kind of like a big taco shell only not folded up so high.

I remember the store always ‘smelled good’! They had different kinds of grains that smelled good. I think they kept their wooden floor polished. It seemed to have sort of an oily shine. The boards were worn smooth. On one counter they had big glass canisters that held candy. Once in awhile my mom would let me have a candy stick; they looked like peppermint candy sticks only they were different kinds of flavors. If you have ever seen the T.V. show Little House on the Prairie, they had a General Store. The Allen girls’ mill store sort of reminded me of that General Store. It was always a treat to go to their store.

One day the Allen girls sold their store. They were getting too old to manage it. Modernization had taken over and there wasn’t the trade and traffic to their store like in the old days. The store was torn down and a new building went in. I don’t remember what it was, but I was sad that part of ‘history’ was torn down, but it will always be a special memory for me.

Puppy sitting for David and Angela! :o)

We puppy sat for David and Angela this weekend while they were off to Prosser, WA. for hot air ballooning! I wish we had some pics of that! They had an early evening flight and they said it was spectacular! :o)

Meanwhile back at the farm...our house...we took care of their two dogs. Yes, there are two dogs in the pics. Marli is jet black so you really have to look to find her! While we were watching her we had to really look to see if she was on our couch, which is dark chocolate brown leather. She blended so well we had to take a double glance to be sure she was there! Two of the pics I took while they were cozy on G-pa's lap. The first is a scream! I definitely had the camera out of focus! But what a hoot for a Halloween picture! Marli's eyes are glowing and scary! :oO

The other pic of them in G-Pa's lap I love because Marli is licking her lips!
The picture of them in a chair by themselves is cute. Best friends! Nala treats Marli okay. She's definitely not used to sharing the limelight and is very spoiled, good spoiled though. Nala runs circles around Marli but once Marli is feeling better, she will outrun and out jump Nala. But Nala is feisty and won't get left behind!

David and Angela adopted Marli, jet black and mostly Chihuahua. She's twice as big in stature than Nala but was mistreated and underfed. She and other dogs where she was staying over in Moses Lake, WA. were taken away by the Humane Society for neglect. Marli only weighs 6 pounds and for her size should weigh at least 8 more pounds. Her ribs were poking out. David and Angela may not keep her but got her just to give her some needed TLC and fatten her up. They hope to find a good home for her. Marli has a bad cough and somewhat of a runny nose. She's on antibiotics. They seem to be helping. She was feelig much better and more frisky when we took her and Nala back home today. Marli's very sweet and is very submissive. We think she's so submissive due to the fact that it was survival of the fittest and she was half starved. We'd take her but having a fragile daughter is enough for me to take care of at this time. We did enjoy having the two pups and they are so sweet.

Halloween Memorabilia

The very bottom picture---I had Neil put this shelf in and I put a small hook under the shelf so I could hang up other things too. It's in our entry and I really like it! Michelle made the fabric pumpkins for me several years ago. Do you remember these Michelle???

The other pictures are of crafts that we did 10 years ago. We did these at 'Mac's' in Oregon City, Oregon. We had fun doing these. Do you girls remember any of these?

We did the #10 cans at RS and did them with 'sponge painting' and I remember it was fun!

The other image of the cute pumpkins I did not make. A friend of mine did them for a fundraiser for one of her kids' school. She made them from dryer hose. They are still in mint condition! They are about 12 or 13 years old! Neil is finding such treasures as we go through all these boxes we packed over to the new house!

The very top picture is something that I recently bought, the scarecrow with the silk plants. I had the two lantern pumpkins for about 13 plus years. Do you girls remember them???

It's been fun decorating while still unpacking numerous boxes! I've decided I need to purchase some very big tote bins to store my silk flowers and all my seasonal decorations. I have 8 Christmas tubs. I thought, 'hmmm, that would be a good idea to store other seasonal things in too!' Neil slightly groaned with, 'I guess that means you want more space in my garage?' I responded with, "Why of course!' :o)