Winter 2017/18

NJ Cattans

Snow

Turkeys

Christmas

CA Grandkids

Anne's Trip to Florida

Good Fortune (and Lisa) are ready for Christmas.

Proactively clearing a small sled run in the backyard. Glen even added a rope railing.

Looking over to Ralph's yard, see that topped tree.

The Grinch and Max once again inhabit the lawn.

They're joined by two Christmas dragons this year, along with some tasty candy canes.

Alan models his newly-created mantle and newly-acquired sword.

Samples of Alan's latest hobby: embroidery.

These embroidered chicory blossoms are very true-to-life.

first batch of sourdough pretzels.

The amaryllis I found in my stocking fulfilled its promise and bloomed.

Happy Birthday to Anne! edible bouquet compliments of Shelton & Dot.

Glen made the traditional angel food cake.

The guys 'let' me win Settlers of Cattan on my birthday.

Roger was home for the weekend and we had pizzas ready to go into the oven. While waiting for the oven to preheat, we heard a strange explosive sound, but it took us close to half an hour to figure out that the oven was still trying to preheat, and that maybe it had been the source of the mysterious noise. Strangely enough, the oven was still managing to generate some heat, so we slow-cooked the pizzas - not perfect, but not inedible either.

After the oven cooled down, Glen removed the covering over the coil to see what was going on.

The coil was definitely in bad shape, and broke apart further when Glen detached it.

The control panel was fried, too. Glen swapped in a new coil, and two new boards, and all is well. In fact, it seems to be working even better now.

Since the oven broke the weekend of Alan's birthday, I couldn't bake him a cake.

Luckily, Alan likes cheesecake, so he agreed that the multi-flavor one from Costco would be a good choice.

The large dangling limb that had mostly broken off in the crazy November storm, finally came all the way down. It landed on the steps, happily when no one was out in the yard. We were also pleased that the rope railing didn't need any repair. This is the third major branch to land on the railing with minimal damage. It turned out to be a very resilient design, not just cheap!