Where are we?

I am simply astonished I have not written since October. Well not really as I have put my energies into a few other things besides sitting at the computer.

Last you heard from SIT, we were busy with having some fun in the summer. Well it is now the Fall season and we continued to have fun. Well some of you may not think it is fun but we sort-of do!

We had a couple of trees die at our rental properties so we tackled the cutting down and removal of the trees. That part went pretty smooth. The tough part was getting the stumps out since we were going to plant new trees in the same spots. I definitely didn’t need to work out for a few days with this project going on.

I need to keep this short so here goes. We decided to do a little bit of makeover to the house, well the bathroom and kitchen counters that is. We were able to make a decision on the granite countertops we wanted. The demolition was tackled by us, with Izzy supervising. She seems to be pretty good at that job.

The professionals installed the counters for us and then our jobs started again. We took care of the plumbing and then I set out on finding the backsplashes for the kitchen and bathrooms. We decided to take it up to the bottom of the cabinets in the kitchen so I had a bit more tile work to do. While I was busy with the tiling project, Steve tackled rebuilding the back gate he had made in 2008 and refurbishing the garden area.

Hopefully you can see by the pictures that we both completed our projects. Oh and Izzy supervised.

 Before

After

Island before

 After

Hall Bath

Master Bath

Supervision at it's finest

The End Result

I made a trip to southern California to visit my brothers, meet some cousins I had never met before, and surprise my niece at her baby shower. The weather was great and so was the company. It was wonderful to meet Levi Bailey and his family. Rod, Mary and I spent several hours visiting, looking at pictures and getting to know Levi (2nd cousin) and his Aunt Laura (our cousin) and her husband. Pretty sure we will connect in person again.

The visit was short but unfortunately it was at the time when the massive fires were occurring. I felt bad for everybody impacted by them and as I drove from one brother’s to the other.

Thanksgiving has come and gone and now it is time for the SIT Christmas letter. Oh and where are we? Still in Idaho that’s where we are and will be for the winter!

Amazing! So as I usually write, stay tuned!

Quick Trips Are Worth It

Besides Steve having a few adventures on his new motorcycle, I managed an adventure to spend some time with one of my nephews.

Kevin and Annie, married August 1, were able to break away from Corvallis and spend time with their Aunt Tory in Lincoln City.

My drive over there was nice as the scenery was gorgeous. I also saw how much more Bend Oregon has grown since the last time I was through that area.

We spent a few days walking on the beach, eating way too much, drinking nice wine, and playing games. Annie’s Mom came and spent Saturday with us which was very nice.

 

I returned Kevin and Annie to Corvallis on Monday and headed north to visit my dear friends that live in Gig Harbor Washington. Had a great visit and again ate too much and drank nice wine. Seems there is a theme going here doesn’t it?

Kathy and Joel have a wonderful property so I wandered around and took a few pictures of the flowers that hang out there.

The entire trip went extremely fast but I was glad I could get a chance to see them. Izzy stayed with Steve up in Cascade so I know she had a blast.

Now we will be tackling some projects and pretty sure Izzy will be supervising unless she is trying to nap.

Trying Not To Fall Asleep

Stay tuned as I am pretty sure we will have an adventure in the future, if not before the end of the year most likely early in 2019.

Dog Days of Summer

 June-September

Seems summer is going by faster than the tumbleweeds would when I was growing up in the desert.

It is hard to say what we have been doing so far but I do know we have been spending some time playing, hanging out in Cascade, fly fishing, golfing, walking Izzy, running Izzy, and everything in between!

 Walk observations

 Golf Course Residents

Ready for my Walk

Steve decided to sell his motorcycle that traveled all over the country and Canada with us and upgrade to a little bigger one that is more of an adventure bike. He has been having fun outfitting it so he can do short overnight trips in the back country. So far he managed to forget his tent on his maiden camping trip! Quite a bit different than traveling around in the fifth wheel!

Ready to Load

I think I have Everything

 Ready to Load

Not Too Shabby

We did make it northern Idaho to visit family friends of Steve’s. We were in Kingston and Kellogg for several days and I got to meet the guy who hooked Steve on fishing. Randy was fun to meet and his wife Carol and they enjoyed catching up. Marilyn, Randy’s Mom, lives at the place where Steve went when he was a little boy for vacations during the summer. I can see why the family moved from Riverside California to here as it is gorgeous country.

 Randy and Steve

 Steve and his Dad

The View from our ATV Ride

We managed to get in one float trip to dust off our fly fishing rods. The day was bright and sunny and fishing a bit slow, although Steve did manage to catch several fish along with George. I decided to simply practice my casting until we were almost done. I proceeded to catch the biggest fish of the day. Granted it was the only fish I caught!

We have played golf a couple of times and took in a car show. Some pretty cool looking cars and a motorcycle caught our attention. Of course it would have been hard to choose which car to take home so we decided to not buy any of the ones for sale!

 1939 Lincoln Zephyr

 Classy

 This beauty goes up and down

Now it is October! Fall colors are all around us and the weather has certainly turned from the dog days of summer to the cooler temperatures at night. We did sell our beach bungalow in Florida so we will see if we can manage to stick out the colder weather as the season progresses to winter.

We have a few projects planned to keep our skills refreshed. I won’t go into details here as that would ruin the surprise of the next update from SIT! So you better stay tuned!

Marching Into April

April 2018

SIT continued to have fun in Vero Beach after visiting the McKee Gardens.

We managed to play some golf and between swinging the clubs, Steve built a display case for the ship we bought last summer. He is quite the talented guy and he made little boxes for me to paint like crates. With the lighting effect and sand it looks pretty cool.

 Not worried about the golfers

 The Duck Family hanging out near the green

 Too Bad We Weren't Their to Swim

The Ship and the Display

We took a short trip to the west coast of Florida to visit Uncle Al and Pat. While we were there, Izzy got to have her runs using their pretty cool golf cart. Steve was pretty impressed with it as it traveled at a fairly good pace!

We did receive some bad news while we there from Steve’s Dad that his wife had passed away. Karen had been battling Dementia for quite some time. We finished our visit and headed back to Vero so Steve could catch a flight home in a couple of days.

The IT of SIT stayed in Vero and did things around the house as well as got to keep Izzy’s buddy Manny for a couple of days. They were good for each other but pretty sure Izzy wanted to hang out on my lap too. I think she came out of that okay as she got her treats!

Thanks for the treats Mom

Hello!

On one of my morning walks Izzy and I stopped in the open grass area along the river in our park. As I was admiring a catamaran anchored not too far from our place there was a loud explosion and fire. I was shocked and called 911. Luckily no one was on board, but the boat was pretty much a total loss.

Quite A Shock to Witness

I spent a wonderful evening with great friends including a nice dinner by the ocean. Of course we wanted a picture and the wind wouldn’t cooperate with us so we have that great wind-blown look about us!

Linda and Barb 

I also decided to get my oil paints out and paint a picture. Since we were heading back to Idaho soon, it gave me motivation to be sure and have it done in enough time so it would be completely dry. The picture I chose is from an old Model A flatbed truck that was out in the middle of the desert in Arizona. I decided to give it to our friend (and neighbor) Tom as a gift for his birthday. We figured we could make a frame for it once we got back home.

The Finished Product

When Steve got back from Idaho we decided to go ahead and put our beach bungalow up for sale. At that same time Uncle Al called and decided to give us the golf cart. So we bought a trailer to haul the golf cart from my Uncle’s to Vero and then to Meridian. Since we are selling our place we bought a large enough trailer to bring our personal things we wanted to keep with us.

I think you could say we were almost the Beverly Hillbillies and would have been if I had ridden in the golf cart! We did have a fast trip back to Meridian in terms of pretty much just driving, eating, and sleeping. No site-seeing for SIT this go around.

 On The Road

Ready to ride

Once we got home life got busy so you’ll just have to stay tuned and read the next installment of the Life and Times of SIT!