Heavy rain and wind that slammed into Oregon and Southwest Washington caused a lot of damage and flooding in the Willamette Valley this week.
Some Portland-area roads flooded because of the Yamhill and Hood Rivers overflowing which even caused landslides in some hilly neighborhoods.

At the Park we found out where the low spots were; Sadie and I had to wade through some overnight developed lakes on our walks

During one of the storms one of the clamps we use to keep our awning from flapping broke and one of the Velcro straps got ripped off.

The wind gusts are pretty bad at times but the awning is kept firmly in place so far by the 2 pull straps we attached to the corners which are secured to the ground by heavy duty screw anchors. I know it’s a little risky but I do like it to have a dry ‘porch’ in front of the RV.

Saturday brought us once again to Doug for brunch. This time to celebrate Sarah’s and Bethany’s Birthdays which are both coming up this week.
As usual the food was delicious, leave it to the Hess’s to bring it on big time, and the girls had requested Blueberry Buckle to be the ‘birthday-cake’ afterwards.

We were all pretty much stuffed in the end!

                        

For Sunday we had planned a perfect rainy-day activity.

James is looking into doing some part-time work as a computer repair ‘geek’ so we had to move some stuff around in the RV to make room for him to set up ‘shop’.
We spent the whole day going through several of our cabinets to throw out things we had not touched in a year, scan more papers and throw them away afterwards and we also changed my work area into James’s and his into mine to give him a little more storage space that will put things behind doors and out of sight.

James is looking forward to a nice and dry ‘inside’ job after weeks of Oregon rain and mud.

Since practically everybody has a computer these days and almost everybody seems to run into problems with them on a regular base this seems to be a job with a future!
A local repair guy has agreed to take him under his wing for a while to ‘show him the ropes’ and advise him on what to get and what to read and study.
It looks like you don’t need too much equipment to do the basic repairs so it all will fit in the RV (with some pushing and shoving) and we can probably find clients wherever we go.

We’ll see how it will work out!



Easier said than done...

Yesterday morning we woke up to snow! They had predicted some on the Valley floor, and much more in the hills off course, but hey, they said that before and nothing came from it so I didn’t really believe it would.

Sure enough we had a thin dusting and it even snowed some more off and on over the morning. The temperature rose too though so it all melted pretty fast to a soggy mess.
James quickly tried to snap some pictures only to find out that the battery went dead after making only one! Great! One of these days we’ll get us a second one (if only they weren’t so ridiculously pricy!). Fortunately his Blackberry makes fairly decent ones if you don’t need to zoom in to much; the colors were a little off though.

                 

Merlin slept through all of it.

We forgot to bring the awning in the night before so it started to sag under the weight of the snow! All these things you have to think about! James went out to freeze his butt off by knocking the snow down and bringing the awning in while I made a sunday morning 'grand slam' to warm him up when he came back!

We also got some great news this week.

Since our plan is to go to Alaska this summer we had started to look for a workamping position since after Christmas.
On Monday we got a phone call from a hotel near the Denali Park in Alaska that saw our resume on Workampers.com and wanted to know if we would be interested in helping them over the summer.
In return for 60 hours a month, split however we want between the 2 of us, we get a free sight plus utilities and a $500 bonus if we stay for 3 months!
They need us for the office /front desk, driving a shuttle to the Park entrance and maybe some maintenance work. If we want we can work more for $10/hr but we’re not required to. They’ve hired one more couple.

Well, 60 hrs a month comes to only 7.5 per person per week, the work seems quite easy, the people sounded very nice and claim to be easy and laid back, the hotel is apparently a little away from the hectic of the park in a quiet and rural area and we’re right in the middle of the most beautiful nature in Alaska. Seems like a no brainer to me!

Alaska, here we come! (and yes, we will all sign a carefully detailed contract!)
It’s nice to have a place secured so we don’t have to worry about it anymore. So far we haven’t had any problems getting a job, something we weren’t completely sure about when we started this RV-adventure but it has worked out fine so far.

Now it became a lot more ‘real’ I immediately spent a couple of hours on the web to find out what we should see while we’re up there!

 

I also crossed off another item I had to do off my list this week. I’m on a roll here!

I bought a ticket to Holland for February where I’m going to visit my family and attend the wedding of my oldest niece in the meantime!
I’m excited to go, only a couple of weeks left! I’ll fly out of Portland on the 7^th and will come back on the 22^nd.  I fly with KLM, the Dutch Royal Airlines, which I really like and it is a direct flight so no layovers and hanging around for hours on an airport somewhere.
It’s insanely expensive these days to fly but there’s no alternative so what do you do? At least I earned the money for it myself this time by working for Doug so I feel a little less guilty to spend so much.

James is staying here and will finish the job at his brother and take care of the animals while I’m gone. I wish we both could go but we just cannot afford 2 tickets and still have enough for our drive to Alaska this spring. Oh well, we’ll survive!

Talking about work, he tiled the top of the outside kitchen-counters with help from Doug this Saturday. Very pretty!

Our first outing of 2012 was to Mt Hood this week. We had been admiring it from our back window ever since we arrived here in October and saw it getting whiter every week after each storm that hit us! 

We borrowed Doug’s 4x4 Jeep with the chains, just to be prepared, and took of on a beautiful clear morning. We didn't want to hit any ugly weather while we were up there!
It took us about 2 hours to get to Government Camp at an elevation of 3950 feet where we had a cup of coffee at the ’high mountain café’. Sadie got to stretch her legs and roll in the snow which she loves!

I’m always nervous when things get anywhere close to slippery, whether it be water, snow or heaven forbid, ice, so I started to feel a little uncomfortable during the last half an hour or so when snow started to build up in the side berms.

On our way to our ‘highest’ destination (5960 feet), Timberline Lodge, the road was covered with snow but also graveled and fairly easy to drive if you took it slow.

Timberline Lodge is a National Historic Landmark constructed between 1936 and 1938 as a ‘Works Progress Administration’ project during the Great Depression.

It was built completely by hand from large timbers and local stone, and workers placed intricately carved decorative elements throughout the building.It is a popular tourist attraction, drawing more than a million visitors annually. It is noted in film for serving as the exterior of the Overlook Hotel in ‘The Shining’.                                                            

I remember that movie; utterly scary!

In the height of winter, the ground floor of the lodge is typically fully buried in snow, with entry through a snow tunnel, or directly into the second floor.

 

We had a delicious lunch at the lodge; cheese fondue accompanied by some good beer!
We had a great view of the ski slope and for most of the time the sun was out. It was absolutely beautiful!

Mount Hood, I learned, is considered the Oregon volcano most likely to erupt, though based on its history, an explosive eruption is unlikely. It is Oregon's highest mountain at 11,249 feet and the peak is home to twelve glaciers.

We descended via the North slope ending up in the  Hood River Valley below which is one the largest fruit-growing regions in Oregon with apricots, apples, blueberries, pears—even wine grapes.

We took a left at the Columbia River and followed the ‘Gorge’ towards Portland and home.

After a couple of nice and dry days the rest of the week was pretty nasty again, just dreary, wet and cold.

James managed to stay dry enough under some plastic sheets he hang over the side walk of Dougs house so he could weld some custom made frames for the BBQ and kitchen area together.

The guy is pretty handy, don't you think?

                                                                                                                                                       

We had such a busy week this last week that I didn’t even have time to update my blog!

First of course there was Christmas. Not that I had much work to do because we were invited by Doug to come over for brunch at their place again around 9 am.

We made some Russian Tea or ‘brew’ for the occasion which was a recipe from James’ Mom. It’s a delicious fruity and spicy drink, served hot, made with several (fresh) juices, rinds and cinnamon. Perfect for any ‘wintery’ occasion.

The food was delicious, especially Brenda’s French toast made from home made cinnamon bread!

The pics were taking with my cell phone since we managed to forget the camera again, and they came out looking terrible. I 'doctored' them as good as I could in Picassa but they're still pretty lousy.

The week leading up to Old Years I was working my butt off at the office. No slowing down this year around the holidays!

The computer connection between mine and the one at Doug’s still has problems. To say it’s driving me nuts is an understatement. I’m ready to blast the bloody things into a thousand pieces! I don’t know what it is but computers bring out the worst in me.
Or maybe it’s because I’m not sleeping very well since I’ve started to ‘enjoy’ some of the ‘perks’ that come with hitting 50 if you know what I mean? Think ‘night sweats’ or ‘hot flashes’. I wake up 5 to 10 times a night and don’t always fall back to sleep that easy.
No more monthly 'inconveniences' but I don’t know what’s worse?!

Sadie is worrying me too. She’s still very itchy and I’ve thrown anything at her that I could think off or find on-line so far.

She has no fleas, it doesn’t look like ringworm and I finally gave her some Ivermectin (heart worm medicine) that is supposedly taking care of mites that cause mange although I don’t think she has them either.

I’ve sprayed her with peroxide and a peroxide borax mixture, apple cider, used gold bond medicated powder, tea tree oil, Neosporin and a horse wound spray and I bathed her with  oatmeal shampoo.

She also gets benedrin 3 times a day and she still itches, it’s driving all of us nuts!

My last resource is changing her diet so I bought an outrageously expensive brand of dog food for her that contains no corn, no wheat and no soy. Supposedly those cause most allergies.
If this doesn’t help it’s of to the Vet!

Sadie and her Christmas present

                      

James had lots of fun this week in Doug's yard. He was most of the time up to his eyeballs in the mud because of the steady rains and I even found him in the pond one day! He reminded me of the guy in the add for Ocean Spray Cranberry juice!

It’s looking good though:

New Years day we celebrated with our dutch neighbours and as always James baked oliebollen. It’s a dutch treat traditionally eaten on this day and they were delicious this year! Because there’s yeast involved you never know quite how they’ll come out but these were perfect. Well done honey!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Well, we’re back home again, vacation over and back to the grindstone!

Everything in the RV looks so midget size compared to the house we were just in! I opened the dishwasher and couldn’t help but think: “awh, how cute!”

It’s nice to be back though. Being able to find things right away again, I mean, in how many places can things be around here after all, and we missed our ‘own’ festive Christmas decorations.

Merlin went straight to bed, his own little fuzzy one, and Sadie climbed on ‘her’ couch and let out a deep sigh. No more sharing of attention and defending your toys against a strange cat and dog!

Before we left we toured the neighborhood one evening to look for Christmas lights. It’s a beautiful area during the daytime with very nice houses and pretty yards but wait until you see what happens when it gets dark during this time of the year!

People come from around Newberg to see it.

I finally got around to use Picasa to create this picture collage (thanks again for your help on this

Judy! Now if I only could 'live writer' to work!) ).

                                                                              
Now Doug is back again, the office is also back in ‘full’ swing.
Normally it is kind of quiet around this time but apparently not this year (just my luck)! What doesn’t help off course is that ‘log-me-in’, the computer program we set up so I would be able to work from the RV,  has some major glitches, the printer doesn’t work and, oh yea, the Internet of the Park is slower than molasses!

Add to that that I’m still pretty slow in getting things done so needless to say things are a little hectic for me. I’m swimming as fast as I can but am close to drowning at times!

Hopefully next week we’re ‘caught up’ and I will be able to catch my breath.

This is my ‘sweat-house’!

James recuperated enough from his cold so he could get Doug’s waterfall working in the backyard last week. It needs some more work and some nice planting around it but it’s a pretty good ‘fall’ with lots of water and nice sound effects.

It has been quite cold again; a few days ago we woke up to a ‘winter-wonder-land’ after a night of
26 F!

Very 'Christmassy' but the heater goes non-stop so the utility bill probably won’t be pretty this month!

The water line froze but the water in the tanks never does so we’re doing fine.

Oh, I forgot to mention, Katie finally delivered a healthy baby girl. Unfortunately a week overdue and per caesarian but all is well now and that is the most important thing. I bet they’ll have the best Christmas ever!

Laila

Also, the ‘dutchies’ are back! Remember the Dutch guy (Gertjan) and his Mam I talked about a while ago who was looking to buy a farm but couldn’t get a visa and had to go back to Holland since his tourist-visa expired. Well, he’s back and here to stay (for a while) after getting a visa for a year in Amsterdam at the American consulate!

I’ve never seen a guy so happy, he’s practically floating and back at looking at farms to buy and rental places to stay in the meantime.

The fog just didn’t want to lift this week. It started very heavy in the mornings and basically stayed of a pea soup consistency all day.

Everything was wet and grey and it was very cold on top of that. ‘Water-cold’ we say in Holland, the sort of cold that chills you to the marrow. You know!

I brought out my hand knitted socks, my warmest and made a promise to myself to finally try to finish another pair that I’m already working on for a year or so.

’Needle-ss’ to say, I’m not the worlds fastest knitter!

I’m knitting both socks at the same time from the toe up on 2 circular needles, something I taught myself to do with instructions from an e-book I bought.

Since I don’t do it often enough I still need the book but the socks come out great! I like the little circles in these cuffs!

These are definitely days to curl up with a good book and a nice pot of tea!

Maybe you remember that I used to have an enormous amount of books and that I sold them all (it still hurts a little) when we were ‘downsizing’.
That Christmas James got me a NOOK which now is my prize possession!
I wanted the Nook for it’s ability to download e-books from the library to save money on buying any since I cannot store or display them any more.
I still have a valid library card from San Bernardino which is a huge county and therefore has lots of e-books and I also found out that the Houston Library sends you a free card if you live in Texas! Since we have our mailing address through Escapees in Livingston I applied and they sent it right away, you don’t need to pick it up in person. Here in Dayton I seem to be able to get one too if I can show them some mail that was delivered to the campsite.
All those cards give me access to their on-line libraries where you can download 5 books at a time and than read them for 2 weeks max after which they just ‘disappear’ from your reader. Some libraries have a huge selection and some are just ‘getting into it’ so the more cards you can get from the larger libraries the better your selection will be.

One other thing I like about a reader is that you can read in the dark! No more fumbling with book-lights or lamps in general which keep James from sleeping.

Since Doug took his family on a cruise for 10 days we moved into his house on Thursday to take care of his dog Bentley and their cat Mercedes. After some initial hissing fits all animals seem to get along fine, there sure is enough space for all of them!

It’s like a vacation for us too; the house feels huge after living in the RV for so long! And those kitchen counters!
We also don’t have to commute to work for a while which is very convenient. James steps out of the backdoor right onto the job site and I don’t even have to leave the house since the office is upstairs.

James got a bad cold over the weekend; I stay away from him as much as possible because it doesn’t look like he’s having fun, which is also much easier to do here than in the RV!
He’s working on placing rocks for the waterfall and steps to the upper tiers in the yard which turns out to be not the easiest of jobs. They’re big rocks and weigh a ton! Fortunately he has a worker since a week or two, Adam, who comes in 2 days a week, but even for the two of them it’s a hack of a job. They’re totally worn out at the end of the day!

I’m in charge of the office now, not that there’s anything happening this week while Doug is gone, but Katie is officially on maternity leave now so I am it!

Speaking of that, her due date is today, I hope she’s OK since I haven’t heard anything yet!

After 10 days of rain they’re now predicting 10 dry and sunny days in a row! Sounds good to us!

It does get a lot colder again though with these clear nights which means we have frozen car windows in the morning and pretty frosty grass.

So far no frozen roads yet but it can be very foggy until around 11 am so we're taken it easy on our daily commute to Newberg.

James works on a pergola in Dougs yard, part of which will be covered.  He put up some massive beams after making a decorative cut at the ends.

It’s time to bring out the Christmas decorations and we hang a string of colored lights on the awning.

We get some Christmas music going to get in the ‘spirit’,  decorate our tiny (but cute) Christmas tree and hang some garlands on the trim around the slides.

Voila, Christmas has arrived, time for some (spiked) eggnog!

We have some freshly baked speculaas with it. This is a special dutch treat that’s eaten on the 5^th of December when we celebrate Sinterklaas!

On the evening of the 5th, Saint Nicolas, who was a spanish bishop in real life and has his birthday on this day, is supposed to drop of a (jute) bag of candy and presents at the homes of kids who have been good (where have I heard that concept before?).
He comes with his helpers, black Petes, and if you were bad, they'll put you in that same bag and take you with them to Spain! Enough to give any child a trauma for life! I mean, who comes up with this stuff?
Anywho, the candies and cookies are good and I never got into that bag so it's nice to remember the good old days when that was basically all you had to worry about.

Traditionally a hearty soup or stew is eaten on the same evening to offset all the sugar that you're going to overdose on later that night so I made a nice pea soup, 'snert', we call it in Holland, in my crockpot.

Over the weekend James re-organized his 'office' again and got rid of more files and a colour printer that we never use.

We also set up our computer so that we can access the one in Dougs office to enable me to work 'from home'. Sweet!