01-31DEC18 - Sultan, WA (merry christmas 🎄 & happy new year🎇!!!)

We start the holiday month off on Tuesday, 04 DEC, by decorating are artificial xmas tree; & setting out the many hand crafted xmas items Corrie has made and/or decorated over the years.

As is probably true for most people, most of the month was spent in what seems to be endless preparations for Christmas day.  But we did celebrate our anniversary on Wednesday, 19DEC (37th & going strong!).  Our anniversary dinner was at Café Juanita in Kirkland; ranked in the top ten of Seattle restaurants.  Excellent but not sure about top ten – definitely top 10 in price though!

http://www.cafejuanita.com/

Some of our preparations were assembling two of our gifts for the grandkids.  One was a standalone swing that allows similar motion as a “rope swing” without having a suitable tree.  The other is a “ninja line”; but for this one we needed to find two suitable trees?

Sunday early AM, 23DEC, because of “bad weather” on the ferry run, & the expected xmas holiday ferry lines, we drove around Puget Sound to the kids/grandkids house in Bremerton.  Upon arrival we commenced some of our traditional xmas family activities - making of xmas cookies w/grandkids; decorating ginger bread men (w/opa’s help?); enjoying Grinch drink; etc.

Monday (Christmas eve) is spent making a gingerbread house, jigsaw puzzles, preparing & enjoying an early xmas dinner.

We had the xmas dinner early because on Tuesday morning (xmas) we opened one set of presents here in Bremerton, & then everyone headed to our house to open another set of presents.  

After the last of the presents were opened it was outside to try out the swing & ninja line.  The rest of the day was just relaxing; as Rebecca & Corrie prepared a delicious turkey & sausage gumbo from yesterday’s left overs, a big yule fire in the family fire pit, & the adults playing cribbage while grandkids played with their new toys. 

  

Wednesday, 26DEC, was more cribbage, before Rebecca & Raymond returned to their home & jobs; leaving the grandkids with us.  Saturday back to the ferry terminal to return grandkids to their parents.

A couple of other things accomplished during December were:

= we got a game camera to use around property; so far night pictures of lots of deer, & family of four coyotes (2 adult, 2 juveniles).

= slowly working on garden shed extension – on three separate days we build foundation footing forms, mix & pour concrete, & remove forms.  To be continued in the new year.

= contractor beginning fence installation.  Why a fence?  Because of the dogs!  Neither dog is really trained; & as w/all Jack Russell terriers – if it moves, they will chase it, maybe never to return! So to make life easier for us, we are paying to install about 200 feet of cedar fencing between the house & the shop/RV garage.  18DEC contractor starts post installation, 20DEC completes post installation, 26-28DEC starts installing fence panels (almost done).  To be continued in the new year.

= Dan finally gets to use his season pass twice at Stevens Pass ski areaJ!  To be continued in the new year.

To close out the month Seattle experiences numerous high wind days (three times the normal number) causing lots of tree damage to the alder trees on the property.  And truly showing our age, we did nothing to celebrate the arrival of the new year?

01-30NOV18 - Sultan, WA

Thursday morning, 01NOV, we once again caught the Edmonds/Kingston ferry to babysit the grandkids at their house in East Bremerton, while parents Rebecca & Raymond both worked.  Saturday morning we headed to the US Naval Undersea Museum adjacent to Naval Undersea Warfare Center – Keyport, WA. (See our BLOG from 5-11OCT09, Groton, CT, when Dan visited the US Naval Submarine Force Library & Museum located there.)  Note the Groton museum says it is the only submarine museum operated by the US Navy; whereas the Keyport museum is a US Navy Museum operated by a non-profit foundation.  As the Keyport museum website says:

“The U.S. Naval Undersea Museum was established on July 23, 1979, by the Secretary of the Navy. The following year the Naval Undersea Museum Foundation was formed as a non-profit organization 33333to raise funds to build and outfit a museum facility. Construction of the 68,000 square foot building occurred in stages beginning in 1985 and concluding with completion of the Jack Murdock Auditorium in 1994.”

“The museum opened as a preview center in 1991 while building construction and exhibit development continued. In 1994, the museum transitioned from a preview center to a fully operational museum.”

We were extremely lucky that this Saturday was a STEM day (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) & there were numerous hand-on exhibits that kept both grandkids interested for hours.  In fact they didn’t want to leave.  The two exhibits they enjoyed the most were –

1) Operating remote controlled submersibles made out of PVC pipe & small electric propellers (all items you can easily buy & assemble) to dive to bottom of pool, retrieve a plastic ring, & return to surface.

2) Assembling different colored 1-1/2 inch by 1-1/2 inch cubes (marketed as CUBELETS) to make robots capable of many different activities.  The color of the cube indicates what it does – blacks are power, red inverts, silvers rotate, & so on, & so on.  The cubes connect via magnets & can be assembled in any fashion as long as the sides connect evenly.  So you can have a long linear contraption; or something that is 3 cubes wide, 4 cubes long, by 3 cubes high.  But the trick is to assemble them such that every cube is of use in you creation, & doesn’t work against other cubes.  One young girl created something that was 2 cubes by 2 cubes by 4 cubes that moved forward by rolling around it long axis?  Dan checked out the price of these cubes on line as potential xmas gifts; we will have to wait for our lotto numbers to come up before purchasing anytime soonJ!

Besides the STEM activities, the museum also has many interesting submariner exhibits (many of them hands on).

From there we proceeded to the small town of Keyport for a late lunch.  We dined at the Keyport Mercantile & Diner.  Half diner, half store – pretty good.  Sunday morning back on the ferry & home.

http://www.navalunderseamuseum.org/

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2009/10/05-11oct09-old-mystic-ct.html

Tuesday, 06NOV, & Wednesday Frank Morse Tractor Service shows up for several small jobs on the property that are beyond the capability of our tractor.  It seems like every year we have the need for either a trac-hoe or tractor with back-hoe.  This year’s projects included gravel pad seating area around the family fire pit, preparing foundation for garden shed extension, gravel “patio” outside shop building, & several small & large improvements to our gravel driveway/parking area.

Thursday AM, 08NOV, it was off to Evergreen Hospital for a heart stress test on Dan.  We won’t bore you with all the medical history; but starting when Dan entered the Coast Guard different doctors have not “liked” his EKG and/or sound of his heartbeat.  This has resulted in stress tests over the decades.  As detailed in our last month's BLOG, our GP didn’t like the sound of his heartbeat either, resulting in a detailed ultrasound & this stress test.

Turns out that today’s modern stress test does not involve running on an inclined tread mill?  Instead you sit in a chair, they inject radioactive dye, then inject the chemical stimulant, & when the stimulant kicks in – they take pictures of the heart.  Dan thought this would be easier than running on tread mill until you almost collapse.  Not!  When the stimulate takes effect, it feels like you are running a marathon & you don’t want to sit still, but you have to remain seated!  All you are allowed to do is furiously pound your feet on the floor.  After that it was home for a real heart stress test – mowing, leaf blowing, shoveling & smoothing gravel w/rake, chain saw, pruning, power trimmer, etcJ  Eventual diagnosis was that Dan does not have a “clean sounding” heartbeat, but no discernible problem(s)?

Early evening on Tuesday, 21NOV, we head to the kids/gandkids to have early turkey day dinner since daughter Rebecca works Thursday/Friday/Sunday.  So on Wednesday we had an early turkey day family dinner (ham for main course), followed by family games.  Thursday (turkey day) morning it was back on the ferry back to our house w/grandkids.  We babysat them for a few days while their parents worked, & returned them via the ferry Saturday AM.

Not much else happened, other than xmas preps, for the rest of the month.