This picture is not sharp for some reason. Oh well ... we're starting to fade ...

A very Happy New Year to all and may 2017 be the best so far!

My sister wishes for us to finally win the lottery this year and that sounds like a good plan to me!
But after 'suffering' through 2 weeks of a cold (for both of us) and a terrible migraine a couple of days ago, I'll settle for 'good health', for we are truly nothing without it!

New Years Eve was a quiet one this year. It rained cats and dogs, so we didn't feel the urge to go and look at the bonfire at midnight this year ...
We actually were already asleep around that time although the fireworks woke me up briefly. I was happy to think 'Happy New Year', and turn over to my other side in my warm bed!

The next morning I prepared the dough for the Oliebollen and after an hour of rising, James did an outstanding job, as usual, to bake some especially fine specimen this year!

Normally, we'd watch the Rose-Parade on TV, but since New Year fell on a Sunday this year, it was moved to Monday!
Apparently this custom began in 1893, to avoid riling the horses hitched outside churches and possibly disrupting the services inside.
Very interesting, we never knew about that one!

We had other things to think about though, since due to the excessive rainfall of the last 2 days, the river was rising once again!

There it is creeping up!

After Halloween we had moved to this 'lower' side of the lake since all spaces were booked for the Holidays on the 'high' side.

We actually thought of staying here because we liked having the nicer view of the lake, but when the water started to creep towards the shore we started to rethink this ...

We kept a close eye on the river-stages on the web and when it became obvious we were going to flood, we decided to move our whole shebang to the 'other side' again!

We waited until there was a dry 'window' and managed to pack everything up and set it all up again in about 1 1/2 hours, just before it started to pour again.
We're getting good at this, although it helped of course that we only had to move a short distance and not over the road, so we just threw everything on the back of the truck and didn't have to strap anything down. We even left the awnings out (but down)!

The next day it was dry and I immediately went for a walk to see what 13.7 feet looked like at our 'old' spot ...

Well, ... we would have been floating ....!

The water was still rising and in the end it crested at 15.9 feet!
And since even the high side starts to flood at around 16.5, we were happy to see it finally starting to go down!

Phew, another bullet dodged!

No better time to bake something than after something like this! Well, there's that, and we also ate the last of our Oliebollen ...

I decide to make some Biscotti, one of my favorite coffee-cookies. They are made without butter (good for that New Year's-diet) and are 'twice baked' (as the name says). First you bake the log of dough, than you cut it and bake the slices again.

These were cranberry-white chocolate. M-m good!

 


I'll end with a few pics of the new spot. We've been close to this site before, just a few over, but this one looks to stay the driest when it rains.
There's a path on one side of us, so no one can park there, although at the moment there's nobody here (and probably not for the next few months) and the whole park is very quiet again.

From where I sit behind my computer I overlook several empty spaces, the play-field behind it and the events pavilion in the distance.

As soon as we put down the mat and 'Merl's personal lawn chair', he was in it, and life was good. He's such a trooper!