Look it is another new year 2008!

Well I have to say I have not been blogging at all this year! I guess that is obvious! Gina is going to give me lessons...but until then I will just make this little post. Happy New Year to all of you!
James and I are getting ready to fly to Hawaii to the island of Maui for a week! We have been looking forward to this trip for 6 or so months! James has not yet been to Hawaii and it will be my second adventure there, allthough my first to Maui. Both my sister and James have just turned 50 so we plan to live it up there to celebrate! We will be meeting the Malcolm Bentz family (including Jonathan from Austrailia) and two of Malcolm's brothers (Ken and Dan) and Malcolm's sister (Alice) for the whole week! Other trips we have taken back in 2007 include places like Angelscamp, Redmond/Bend Oregon, Depot Bay Oregon, Monteray Bay Aquarium, and Donald Oregon (when we went to convention at Boring I). Our digital camera needs to be fixed...might just need a new battery...so no pictures to post...Hope everyone is having a great New Year so far...ours has been rather exciting with the big wind and rain storm that has knocked out the power in Butte county for in some areas 6 days so far!! (ours was only out for 31 and 1/2 hours...but who was counting?)

New Year New Blog Comment...been at this one year now!

Well everyone Happy New Year!! I want to thank everyone who faithfully or semi-faithfully updates their blog with lovely photos and stories about their adorable children...I love being able to keep up with the growth and progress of families that live far away! Last night we went to Rachel and Kevin's for a New Years Eve Party...there were a lot of people there from the field and a lot of visitors...We have been fortunate enough to have Susanna here for the last week or two... She was present...there was a family visiting from Washington and Rachels parents from down by disneyland and Candi Leen's brother Chuck and family from the bay area...so it was very festive...I didn't take my camera so don't have a pic to prove it all...I was scheduled for work this morning so we didn't stay until midnight as many others would have...(seeing as how it was a New Years Eve Party*grin*)...I ended up not going into work today since I woke up with a flu virus that has been coming on and I have been ignoring..(the respiratory kind) anyway this is in danger of getting boring so I will just say I hope everyone has a year full of progress toward the most important goals...and vision that keeps their hearts warm and full of love....and families safe and prosperous!

Ok so I admit this betablogger thing has me confused!!1

So I tried to go to the beta blogger thing...and sign up...and now it is having a hard time recognizing me when I sign in...says I don't exist then says on another page that I am signed on....and well I am pulling out my hair...do I HAVE to read the instructions here....???? why can't it be intuitive....??? tell me that one!!!!!

Mount Shasta with freeway lights!

The Mountain was so pretty as we were driving near Medford. I got the shot about a mile too late (hense we see freeway lights), but it was very beautiful anyway!

Hope All had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

James and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We drove up to Donald Oregon to spend it with the Bentz family. All went smoothly. We even managed to travel on the days when it wasn't snowing on the passes (this being a big deal to me as I hate to drive in the snow!). I will now post a pic here of Jonathan, Jacquena and Chevelle(my nephew 20 years old now and my neices Jacquena 9 and Chevelle 8..also the dog Maggie and the cat Jasmine)

How Refreshing!

How can one look at this and not feel joy and amusement? I have always loved watermelon, but wouldn't this make a great ad for the fruit industry!

This is in the Statue Park in Loveland

I really liked this picture of James and his brother Scott...we were having fun and taking pictures by all the statues...they were really good..Amy probably already knows this.. :)

At last an experimental picture posting.

Experimenting here...here is one picture from our trip to Montana and Colorado.

This summer James and I took a little trip.

We went to Montana and Colorado to visit James' siblings there...In Laurel Montana, James has a sister Barb and her husband Cletus! Laurel is near Billings MT. It is really a cozy community with lots of cool things to see and do. We toured a new Bed and Breakfast that will be opening on this ranch...it was well designed with lots of pine wood and home made furniture including a very cool pool table...I guess they are pretty tricky to build do to the need for balance and such...anyway this ladies husband had built it and had succeeded in achieving that tricky balance ..we were borrowing Barb's car to drive back and forth from the hotel to their house (since we had flown up there by plane) and one night on the way home from their house I got a ticket...Rambo cop on a motorcycle pulled me over for going 35 in a 25..
I was just trying to get some air conditioning as it was about 100 degrees out and they don't have air conditioning in their homes or cars up there...while he was writing up our ticket...we hear this yell..and the cop is pulling out his radio(my dramatic husband thought he was pulling out his gun) while waving this other car off to the side so he could write him a ticket too....it was really pretty scarey....I did not love it..
We were there four days and off to Loveland Colorado where his brother Scott and his wife Jodi lives with their two kids and a dog...Loveland is not far from Fort Collins or Denver or from Estes Park...which is a little tourist town that sits at the base of the Rocky Mountains the town itself sits at 7500 feet or so...I rode through the Rocky Mountains with Jodi and Scott...we stopped at the peak which is 11,300 ft above sea level...I had to keep taking a deep breath as it felt as though I wasn't getting any air...very thin on Oxygen at that height...Very beautiful scenery there as well...allthough I have found that there is beauty where ever you go....you just have to look for it harder in some areas... :) We also took some pictures in this park in Loveland called the statue park...it is just full of really cool statues ...we tried to make the pictures interactive...I will include a few...if I can figure it out!