One Year

Happy Anniversary Alicia and Justin. A year ago today we were in Anchorage at the temple. Congratulations on your first year. We love you. MOM and DAD

busy, busy, busy

Sorry I don't have a picture to blog today. If you have forgotten what we look like, please look thru our past blogs. hehehe

Brian got a call a couple weeks ago from some guy who was looking for someone who could weld and since Brian is off work for the summer, he said he'd do it. Turns out they are preparing to lay some kind of cable in the inlet. They bought a bridge in Florida and trucked it up here in pieces and they are welding it together to make a barge to use to lay the cable. They didn't have any welders on their crew that were used to this kind of welding or used to welding out on the spit (their workers are from Florida and are freezing out there in that ocean breeze all day).

also they needed another welding machine... so after the first day, Brian took his welder down and gets paid for the use of him and his welder. Justin got in a few hours after his day job a couple times, but now he and Alicia are really sick so he hasn't been down to the spit for a couple days.

It is such an answer to our prayers, I can't even begin to tell you how blessed we are to have this come into our lives at this time. We have a couple projects around the house that HAVE to be done this summer, like putting in a completely new septic system, and we have been scrimping and worried about how to afford it, and now we can get it done. We are all very excited...... yeah, you city folk don't have to worry about where the water goes when you are flushing your toilets - trust me, when you have a 15 year old wooden septic box, you think about stuff like that alot.

Justin sold both of his big burl bowls this week to a lady from Chicago. It was cool - she bought one for a dear friend who was going thru a rough time and when it got there today, she loved it so much so went right to our shop and bought the other one for herself. YAY !!!

It's fun to keep busy and to not have to sit out in the sun in a parking lot or danky old building on holiday weekends hoping for people to buy your crafts. I wish someone had thunk this up years ago.

Happy July - pray for me, I'm supposed to play the organ in church for the entire month. YIKES !!! I don't even really know how to play the organ. I have an electronic keyboard at home and I just push the button that makes it sound like an organ. hehehehe ahhh, small wards are great.

LOVE YOU GUYS, Charlotte

Heather tagged me...

Heather Carlos tagged me and I usually don't do these but . .

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago: 1. working at the mental health center 2. crying every day because Alicia was graduated and leaving for college 3. putting in my gardens 4. building on our house 5. taking care of 8 ducks and 2 geese and a dog and a cat and 24 chickens

5 Things on my to do list: 1. shampoo the carpet 2. plant the garden 3. finish bracelet kits for young women' camp 4. make and design all the stuff for our web shop 5. start Christmas presents 6. weed the flower bed 7. clean up the after winter mess in the yard 8 organize and paint the house 9. Redo the window coverings for the living room. (I know it was only supposed to be 5)

5 Favorite snacks/foods: 1. potato chips 2. Chocolate (I've been on a Whopper kick this summer - yum) 3. Real popcorn, with real butter and salt. 4. Ice Cream 5. strawberries or watermelon

5 Things I would do if I was a billionaire: 1. Build a dream home / artist colony compound where my family could all come to live someplace warm or tropical 2. Shop on etsy and Amazon and lots of other places
3. do Charity work
4. buy cool trucks and cars and computers
5. Help our moms and kids

5 Bad habits: 1. I eat too many treats 2. I never follow through 3. I always plan more than I can accomplish 4. I'm lazy 5. I get nervous and let my phobias get in the way of living my life

5 Places that I have lived: 1. Homer Alaska 2. Pendleton Oregon 3. Medford Oregon 4. Salt Lake City Utah 5. Joseph Oregon

People I tag: 1. Barb 2. Joanna 3 Ted 4. Marilyn 5. Nicole

No pink for me - YAY

We had a couple interesting days of poking and prodding in Anchorage, but in the end, they didn't throw me in the hospital and start chopping me up, so that is a victory. Below is the graphic details if you want them, if you don't just stop reading now and know that I won't be walking around with a Susan G. Komen pink ribbon with my name on it. YAY.

The breast lump is completely gone and there is not any follow-up planned for it. They think it was just ancient scar tissue like from a too tight bra or from pulling and tearing that muscle too many times. It is right on the rib cage and I pull that muscle all the time.

We are waiting on biopsy results for the uterus - but she didn't find anything that looked like cancer. The ultrasound showed lots of thick lining in the uterus, which is what we said all along - a condition I have had treated several times before, and after a lot of pushing and prodding, the ultrasound guy finally found my ovary. The ultrasound girl in Homer couldn't find it - but it turned out she wasn't looking in the right place. They thought it was hidden, but it was just in a different place. It still has a large cyst on it - a little larger than a tangerine, same size as the last CAT scan 5 years ago.

And so there you have it - you know everything that we know at this time. I know that most people keep this scary stuff to themselves, but I think that just perpetuates the fear of the unknown. I am a big advocate of sharing health information with each other so we can support each other in our fears and our struggles. It's just who I am and what I do.

Thanks for your prayers and support. I'll post again as soon as we hear the test results. Charlotte

HAPPY Birthday, Allison

Happy 4th Birthday Allison. We love you. Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Brian

Happy Father's Day

I have been thinking about fathers and grandfathers this week and I think that I have been singularly blessed with such a great father and grandfather and husband. It is very rare for someone my age to still have a father AND a grandfather in their life and not only am I thankful that they are both still around - I am so thankful that they are such kind, loving, intelligent men. They have taught me so much about how to treat other people and they have taught me how to live life --- with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart. THANKS GUYS - I love you more than you can know.

Brian is such a great father and husband. I think as the kids get older they appreciate more how much he has taught them (it's probably that way for everyone, I guess). He is such a hard worker and a great provider. He was so patient in teaching the kids how to work. He is so kind in taking care of me and no matter how tired he is, he makes sure I am taken care of before he sleeps or before he goes to work. I'm glad I drove that rickety old U-HAUL over those treacherous mountain passes 30 years ago and married this guy. I love you. Char

Cranes

This afternoon, when we were out splitting wood, two cranes lit in the neighbor's yard, and then nine more started circling and circling the house, then they landed also. We had 11 cranes just outside our windows, feeding. It was very cool. Went fishing this morning, salmon are very late getting here, but caught two nice steelhead. Brian

Choke

I have to say that not since Cliff Claven choked on Final Jeopardy have I seen someone go down so quickly and in such flames as poor Richard did tonight on Top Chef. As I was counting the dishes and realized that Stephanie and Lisa were tied I could actually see my blood pressure rising. THEY CAN"T GIVE IT TO HER !!!! I kept yelling over and over. Whew ....... in the end talent and class won out and the best person won. Now on to the Battle Royale - also known as the reunion show and then ON to Project Runway. YAY for summer TV. Char

Chicken Run

Heathcliff lets the turkeys know he is the boss.

Nobody wants anything to do with these grouchy guys - good thing they have each other to hang with.

the solid black ones are black sexlinks like we raised in Joseph. The speckled ones are barred rocks.

Saturday was also the first day of yard time for the chickens and turkeys. Heathcliff, the goose, knows that he is responsible for the safety of all the smaller fowl and takes his duties very seriously. He keeps that big white bucket there next to their gate (he thinks the bucket is a fellow goose, but that's a little personal for a public blog, so we won't go into that)..... to appreciate this story, you just need to know that he has "sacred" areas - the white pole, the fire barrel, the bucket. Nobody is allowed to touch them.

He prefers the chicks to be inside their fenced area where he knows they are safe and he will often sleep outside their pen at night to be sure they are safe. But when they enter the yard, he has trouble letting them explore. So these pictures are of the yard and everybody trying to make their way in the world. In the videos he finally left his bucket and went over to defend his barrel and then some chicks got too close to the bucket and he had to go back over to defend it.

On a funny note that we didn't get recorded, the turkeys are pretty mean this year. Some of the chickens were in Gabby's yard and she was cool with that - the goats and the chickens get along really well. So when the turkeys wondered over to Gabby's fence she went over to meet them and one of the turkeys bit her ear and she pulled back in amazement and then leaned back to the turkey to see why he had done that and then the turkey took a nip at her nose. She didn't care for that at all. So far, the turkeys have bitten everybody, I think. They aren't even afraid of the goose (I'm afraid of the goose, for crying out loud). So I can pretty much guarantee that the turkeys will not make it thru the summer. Nobody likes to get nipped by a turkey.

First canned fish of the season

King salmon are the biggest salmon and are the most tasty fresh, but they have the highest fat content, so they don't freeze well, especially for long periods of time. This year, as part of our goal to be self-suffecient, we decided to can our kings instead of giving them away. We think the high fat content will be good in the canned fish. We always get a good feeling when we think about having a larder full of canned goods and especially in hard times like these, we need to have that security of having food put up for winter.

Cranes on the pond

Yesterday after the fish were caught and canned, Alicia and Justin hauled firewood and Brian worked on somebody's boat. While I was waiting for the canner to cool so I could unload it, I noticed something out on the pond. It turned out to be our cranes. It was so sunny, I couldn't see what the pictures looked like until later in the evening. One is just what the pond looks like from the deck. You can see that it is getting more grown over every year. We don't get to see as much of the pond as we used to, but it is much safer for the ducks to have places of retreat when the eagles attack. Charlotte

We have a pair of wild ducks - maybe 2 - that are nesting on the pond this year. I don't know where the cranes are nesting, but it is somewhere in the neighborhood. On Alicia's blog, you can see closer views of the cranes. My dad asked me which was the male and which the female, and I don't have a clue. I would assume the brighter colored one is the male. In these pictures, they are too far away to tell the difference.

First Kings of the year

Whoo Hoo!!! Spring is here, the Anchor River fishing is great! I caught these two on Saturday morning before work. I am going again in the morning, before work. Alicia and Char canned these up, in jars, and we grilled part of one for lunch. Umm good! Alicia is going to can some moose from last fall tomorrow. Brian