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Showing posts from 2007
And a Happy Holiday to all out there in blogland. It is Christmas Eve. The weather here in San Antonio is actually kind of nice, for a change. Its been warm - high 70's, just not Christmas weather to me. Today is supposed to stay in the mid to low 60's. Much better weather. We finished all our shopping. The only thing I need is a couple of potatoes for dinner tonight. I'm planning on making rock cornish game hens for the two of us. That, some risotto, and veggies. The potatoes I have probably shouldn't be used, and I'm thinking of just doing without them. Risotto should be enough. Tomorrow is Christmas day. We will be going to see family. We're going out to eat which should be easier. Then we'll go to one of the relatives to "open presents". Not really my favorite part. I really kind of prefer to buy myself my own. I know that sounds horrible to most people. But part of the problem is I don't really want much of anything and n
Well, I am proud to say I made it through Thanksgiving. It was a success. My small turkey (looked like an oversized chicken) was just enough. No mashed potatoes but roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes did fine. Made a bit too much dressing, but that was all. And now on to Xmas. I started my list of what to do for people. I haven't finished it, but at least I have a starting point. This Xmas I think family will get together and go out to a buffet. That would be easier. And I don't think anybody would mind. We had to have thinning done on our trees once again. We had it done last year here in San Antonio. That was fortuitous since we had an ice storm last year. Many neighbors had tree limbs break, but we didn't. But we knew more work needed to be done. Well, we had it done. They look better, and the yard is getting more sunlight. But today is just typical San Antonio - 68 and a bit of sprinkles (more rain possible). I wish it was cooler, but no such luck. We
Well its almost Thanksgiving. We made it to San Antonio and unfortunately had a relative pass away shortly after we got here. That was sad. But we also went on a cruise to the Panama Canal and that was good. I have pictures located here under MacMania 7 (http://web.mac.com/catsdance/iWeb/Home.html). The cruise was on Holland America Cruise Lines. We left out of Ft. Lauderdale for the 10 day cruise. We stopped in Aruba, Curacao, the canal, Costa Rica then home we came. Aruba was different from what I expected. I always hear about it being a place for spring break so I expected it to be a bit larger, lots of beaches, etc. It was a bit smaller than I thought, and it had lots of beaches but it had a lot more too. We did and excursion to a butterfly farm which was great. We also went to an aloe farm, not quite as fun as the butterfly farm, then we went to the natural arches section of the island. I didn't know about the natural arches area before going. We drove through a v

Time flies when you're having fun

Its hard to believe its almost Oct. Were does the time go. We've been busy. Its been a cool summer here in Seattle, at least a bit cooler then usual. But I think that's better than sweating all summer. We did go spend a week in San Antonio and I'll take a cooler climate happily. What I do love is the first weekend in Oct. is Issaquah Salmon Days. Its a fun street fair kind of thing. Its all about the salmon that come up the creek into Issaquah. The town also has its own salmon hatchery so its a fun event to go to. It really only lasts the weekend, but its fun. So I'm looking forward to going to it. Also this Oct. we are going to Las Vegas for a few days. We are meeting some of my family there. We're got reservations for dinner and a show so that should be fun. I don't do Vegas often so I'm looking forward to it. And we're going to the Seattle Opera for a Sunday matinee. That should be fun too. I'm looking forward to Oct.

We're back

We just spent two weeks out of the country. We did a cruise out of Copenhagen, Denmark. It was a 10 day cruise on Holland America. I enjoyed myself...A LOT! We flew into Copenhagen about 2 days before the cruise, then stayed 3 days after the cruise. We were lucky enough to find a direct flight from our area straight to Copenhagen. That made the trip a bit easier - no worry about connecting flights. But it was also harder - 9 hour flight. At least we could sleep through part of it. And I must say SAS business class (expensive) was worth it. We actually did the cruise with a group of people all interested in Opera. It was a group of about 75 people, that was just our small group within the cruise ship. We met lots of people. It was a lot of fun. We had a couple of group meetings and learned about "divas". We also had a couple of group excursions - in St. Petersburg, Russia to the Hermitage and to the Marinsky Opera house to see Tosca and an excursion in Helsinki,

May

We made it to WA. The weather had been cool which is so much nicer than San Antonio. Today was warmer, and we are expected to have a couple more warm days. But warm here is different. Its warm, 80's but you have a cool feeling breeze along with it so it is so nice to be outside. Though of course you do need your sunscreen so you don't get a sunburn. Today was so nice I grilled chicken for dinner on the deck. When we got back to WA we had one of our decks replaced. It was noisy but worth it. We also replaced our cars, something we knew we needed to do. We also have spoken to a guy who will be replacing our retaining wall. They had hoped to start this week, but they needed to have lines marked. When you dig this kind of way, you have to know where things like underground power lines or water lines are. So we are waiting for them to come and do the marking. So they expect to start the retaining wall early next week. We're also getting ready for our cruise next mo

Lovely spring days, sigh

Its been some lovely spring days here. Today we had over 1" of rain in about 20 minutes. Some thunder and lightning with it. Had a similar day last week. And we expect more of the same around Thursday. Lovely spring weather. At least the plants are getting well watered. And those plants are growing. That's good. But man can it rain. Needless to say, with all this rain we are under flash flood watches. Last week we even had some short power outages. Such is life in San Antonio. Here is a link to some birds in our backyard. I'm not sure what the yellow bird with the black back is, but he enjoys our yard. This is in Quicktime, no sound and lasts about 25 seconds.

Happy Easter

Its been a while since I've posted. We're still in San Antonio though we did get back to Seattle for a week. Everything was fine there. The only not-so-good problem we ran into was my car. I drive a car that is a few years old (10 years old) and I like the car. But I had noticed a while ago (2 years or so) that depending on the weather, condensation builds up on the inside of the car. Not good. With the car in storage over winter we got back to find mold is starting to grow in some places in the car. The seats have a fine layer of mold and they are cloth seats. We are seriously thinking about replacing the car when we return this summer. My hubby and I recently celebrated our first anniversary. Its been a long year but we've made it. Also he got me a Panasonic camcorder for an anniversary present. I've been playing with it. Its fun to play with. I have Final Cut Pro so between the two I should be able to actually make a video (SHORT!) and publish it on thi

Pictures of cruise

The link should take you to some pictures of our cruise to the Caribbean. Just click on the title that says Pictures of cruise. It will take you directly to the page with pictures.

Feb. 2007

We just got back from a cruise to the Caribbean and it was wonderful to get away. Its not that bad here in San Antonio but it was nice to get away. The weather was great. We cruised on Holland America out of Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Our ports of call were Tortola, Grand Turks, St. Thomas (USVI) and Half Moon Cay. I even found some jewelry (small pieces) that I liked in St. Thomas. I don't often buy jewelry but it was nice to find some pieces I liked. I did take my camera with me and I hope to get some pictures up. I'll put up a link as soon as I get those up. We are still working on the house and actually had some work done while we were away. They've been putting up new lighting, molding and painting. Its making a tremendous difference. Before we left we did order a new couch, love seat and coffee table. We also ordered some drapes and carpet. That is why the painting was done while we were gone. They are painting a couple of rooms so furniture has been moved aroun

Jan. 17, 2007

We made it through Christmas and New Year. It wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. Things here at the house are slowly coming along. We got a lot of stuff out to Goodwill. We started working with a decorator to get furniture. We had renovations started. Those we started are now done, but that means we have to get started on more that need to be done. This will be a process that will take some time. We have to do some in stages - the most important ones first. Yesterday and today San Antonio has been in the grips of a small ice storm. Not that any ice storm is really small, but this isn't what I would call huge. It has closed down a lot of the freeways, lots of business, etc. Its now in the afternoon and some things are starting to melt, slowly, very slowly. But I'm not expecting much melt today. Sunset is in a couple of hours and we'll start cooling down again. Since the current temperature here is 32, anything that has melted will get the chance to ref