Christmas in Utah

We've been here almost a week and had a very nice, low-key Christmas with my brothers. Most of our days play out like this:

We wake up late (about 9:30 or 10:00) due to what happens at the end of the day and wander upstairs to rouse Carl from his futon/living room bed. Paul usually sits in front of the TV/computer and does his daily internet searches while Keith makes us all an espresso. We then take our bowls of cereal (or eggs or pancakes if someone got ambitious) to the couches while a round or two of Far Cry* is played. Then the boys move out to the garage and work on the van, I stay in and clean up the kitchen and then wander out to see if I can help. When I get bored of trying to help (or get too cold), I might head in and fix lunch or do some drywall work for Paul, or go for a walk. Then it's everybody in for lunch and a "Far Cry break". Back to the garage, or to the parts store, or even more exciting....a test drive around the block. Then I make dinner, and they all come back in and we eat. After which, maybe we'll watch a TV show or two to appease me, then it's back to Far Cry. They are playing it now, and they swear they've almost got it licked. Yeah, right. One night I had to come upstairs and retrieve Keith at 3:00AM! Thus, the waking up late. Unfortunately for me, Heidi, Paul's girlfriend, and Tory, Carl's fiance spent the holidays with their respective families, leaving me as the sole female to nag/gripe/complain/make fun of the vast amounts of time spent on the game.

*Far Cry is the video game of the year. See, the Bauers don't have many traditions, but almost every year during Christmas a new video game is purchased (or in the old days, given as a gift), and large portions of the remaining holiday are spent mastering the game. They are inevitably long, convoluted games with ever-thickening plots that therefore take FOREVER to finish. It becomes a bit of a sickness/obsession with the younger males of the family.

A typical scene around the 'center of the living room universe':


Carl and I got out for a short bike ride from Paul's. Paul gets to look at these mountains every single day.


Progress on the van is going well. Paul and Keith are doing an excellent job troubleshooting some minor problems, but of course in the process find a few more things wrong. Today was a milestone, in that we drove down to the emissions office for the big exam. We failed. So close. We did pass the safety inspection which we were a bit worried about due to a temperamental fuse, but the actual emissions part was a no go. We have two more tries to get it fixed, or else we have to pay again.

Are they happy to be in that ice box of a garage? Hard to tell. Keith did have a good idea in aiming the heaters at a row of tools. The hardest part about working on the car is lying on cold pavement and handling cold tools. Have I mentioned it is cold here?


It's out of the garage and the top is popped! Our home for the next 3 months or so.


Christmas was nice. Gift giving for us has gotten pretty low key. Pretty much nonexistent this year except for a few cute things my mom sent us. I cooked a yummy turkey dinner for Christmas Eve and we shared it with a friend and co-worker of Paul's, Jake, which was followed by, of course, some more "Far Cry". They were excited to have Jake here because he is in the Army and he could tell them all about the different kinds of guns they were using in their game. Great.

It's always exciting to get a Burts Bees product!


I am trying a new feature with the blog now. Video! The easiest way was to use the ever popular You Tube as my medium. Here are some not so interesting videos.

Typical fun for us (well, mostly my brothers) has been things like building rockets out of 2 liter pop bottles and lighting things on fire. This year it was fire:


Ahhhh....Far Cry.....

Storms, Cars, Jobs and More Storms

We’re back online. I can hardly believe that it is almost the end of the year. I don’t know how many times I said to myself, “I should go type up a quick blog, or post some pictures”. Apparently it never happened, and here we are coming rapidly up on Christmas. I am writing this on my old rickety laptop sitting in our new (to us) Honda Civic barreling along highway 20 (where the radio stations are getting very marginal) on our way to Ogden, Utah to spend some time with my brothers. What have we done with ourselves the past two months other than mooching off people? Well, let’s see….

After doing a lot of running around and visiting with friends and family, we actually grew a bit weary of house hopping so we both settled in with our respective parents for a while. Keith stayed down in Coos Bay and spent the next two weeks working like crazy with his parents to tile the kitchen of their small rental house. They did a fabulous job, and were so sweet to have it all done and ready for my family to use for Thanksgiving. I on the other hand, went to my parents’ place in Gig Harbor and didn’t do anything nearly as ambitious. I did get some more quality time with my long lost friends and their new children as well as with my parents.

While we were both in Eugene, we took Corrine and the kids on a well-deserved weekend away to Belknap Hotsprings just an hour outside of Eugene. While the weather wasn't great, the cabin was cozy and the springs were hot!

Look at these two rugrats. They had a great time running around the amazing grounds of this place:


This photo cracks me up because it looks like Keith and Corrine are trying to sneak off with the kids. They look hurried and guilty.


Kiel circling the fountains at Belknap:

Celebrating Sarah's birthday at her home in Cle Elm:

Hanging out with Amy and her new son, Jacob. What a cutie!

Thanksgiving is generally spent down with Keith’s family and is usually a large, crowded, and lively affair. This year, it was going to be a much smaller gathering, so my parents agreed to come down and spend it with us (coming from a VERY small family, my side tends to shy away from other families’ large gatherings). That then prompted my brothers to drive out for the occasion. So the families were officially merging for a holiday. Even though the weather absolutely did NOT cooperate, we still had a great time. After hearing stories of Keith’s day out crabbing and catching 43 crab(!) my brothers (coming from landlocked Utah and Colorado) were quite excited to get out on the bay and catch some crab of their own.

Gale force winds did not stop us from going out every single day in a ROW boat and trying to trap a few innocent crustaceans in a wire box. We didn’t come close to getting 43, but after 3 attempts and lots of soaking wet clothes and numb phalanges, I think we landed about 10 total. They were very much enjoyed and Paul and Carl split the granddaddy and took him home to share with their significant others. Other activities for the week included scaling an eroding cliff in the pitch black to gather 5-gallon buckets full of muscles, walking on the sand dunes, digging for clams at 11:00 PM, and enjoying walks along the Shore Acres cliffs in between and during rain storms. And of course we also enjoyed lots of good conversation, laughs and thanks to Melody lots of good food.

There were three digital cameras in use full time during Thanksgiving, so it was well documented. There were so many good photos, I had a hard time refraining from putting up too many....

The first day all the Bauers were there, we took a long walk down the beach to the New Carissa. We came across huge piles of kelp such as this one. It turned into hours of entertainment as we walked.


You always need a good shot of the dog fetching.


Nice lighting. Notice the mysterious piece of kelp far above our heads. How come no one is looking at it?


Me and Gracie in the back of Dwayne's pickup:

The whole family together again:


Too much wind and rain, so we had a go at the crab from the docks. Not much in that basket...


A walk along the Shore Acre cliffs:


The boat (and rowers) that took a beating out in the weather.


A cold day. And the water really was a lot rougher than it looks.


The big one.


Gracie attacking:


Circles in the sand.


Descending into the abyss in search of muscles:


A bounty of muscles:


Cleaning the muscles:

Then it was to Eugene, where Keith spent the next 20 days laying a flagstone path for a friend (and getting paid for it, which is kind of a foreign concept for us). I spent some more quality time with Corrine and the kids and John and Jenn while starting the search for a car. A word of advice – it is much easier to shop for a used car via private party when you have a) a phone and b) a home. In other words, it wasn’t a very productive search.

So I left Keith to his work and went back up to Gig Harbor, where I spent my time painting about half of the walls in my parents’ house and continuing the car search. After some long days at the lots and meeting with some less than admirable people, I did finally buy a car. And then the storm hit. Everyone in the NW was felt the impact, and Gig Harbor was no exception. As I write this on Dec 20, my parents are still without power. We think this might be the reason:

It kind of put a cramp in all of our plans. It’s always kind of fun and exciting to lie awake all night listening to branches hit the roof, wondering if a tree is going to land on the car you brought home yesterday (actually I slept through it all, but I would have marveled at the irony of walking out to a smashed car and no collision insurance the next day) and have the power go out for a day. But after day 4 of no shower and trying to stay warm and having to make the most of the daylight, you start to get a little grumpy. When you add that to the fact that you are trying to pack for 1) a wedding in LA 2) two weeks in snow-covered and freezing Utah and 3) 2-3 months in Central America for not only yourself but for your absent husband, fix things your dad is finding wrong with your car, and do all those other things you had tons of time to do earlier but decided to save for when there is no power and no time left, you start to get even grumpier. I didn’t get to buy a new bathing suit or a dress for the wedding, but after two solid days in the driveway with my dad, we did get the car fixed and I did manage to get everything packed and crammed into a very small car (including the dog) and was off back south (only one day later than planned) to reunite with Keith, leaving my parents huddled in their one lighted room (thanks to a generator).

More images from the storm:
You can see how many trees fell on the road overnight. By the time we got up and out to the road, people had already come and cleared them.....lots of firewood gatherers.


Dad felt bad that he got up so late and missed out on the major action, but he still found some choice logs that he was happy with.


Resulting in one of two nice loads:


Our own yard is a mess, but no major trees down or damage done.

I have no idea how, but we managed to get not only Keith but also his two suitcases into the car (Gracie wasn’t too happy with her drastically shrunken space) and got to Coos Bay last night. We rounded up a few more necessities for the trip and sadly (oh, so sadly) left Gracie behind again (why is that so hard for me? She’s just a dog, right?) this morning as we work our way over to Utah.

And just what the heck are doing and packing for? Well, we haven’t completely figured it out yet, but here’s what we’re thinking. My brother, Paul (the one in Utah), owns a 1980 VW vanagon. We are going to Utah to not only spend Christmas and New Years with Paul and Heidi and Carl, but also to get the Vanagon up and running. Why? Well, we’re going to drive to Costa Rica. We’ll stop in LA for Carl’s wedding then just carry on south from there and see how far we get. Nothing is final as we are running into some logistical problems with border crossing technicalities and ownership of vehicles, so we’ll see how the next week pans out.

Here's a fun fact. Keith’s cousin, Keri is going to be on the show “What Not to Wear”. She just got back from filming and it should air in March sometime. Pretty funny – she is going to be a riot on that show. We'll let you know a date when we find out.

That’s it for now. We’ll be at Paul’s for about two weeks, where technology reigns, so maybe I’ll at least get some more pictures up in the next week or so.