Portland Christmas Tree Lighting

Yesterday evening, we surprised my mom and took her to see the lighting of the tree at Pioneer Square in Portland. We were about 40 minutes early for the festivities to begin so we decided to grab a bite at Pita Pit. Little did we know just how many people were going to be there!

#1 - It wasn't raining and it was pretty mild out.

#2 - I personally think more people need cheering up this Christmas and this is typically a cheerful event.

So, what that means is...a lot of people showed up! 25,000 from what I heard!

We got a great parking spot in a nearby garage, so that was nice. We started walking toward Pioneer Square and the amount of people grew and grew. There was no way we were going to get into the lower part of the square itself, but that was OK. This was a BIG tree, so you could see it from a distance quite nicely. So, we decided to just start walking around the square until we saw an opening to stand and wait. Well, there were no openings, so we did as everyone else did. We started mooching our way up to as close as we could get ourselves....which ended up being on the outer edge of the square just below Starbucks, so, not very close. If it wasn't for the columns that are everywhere in that corner, we would have had a clear shot. But, that's OK too. As we were packed in like sardines listening to the Christmas music and watching people trying to do the same thing, we just waited until it was time.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....tada! Merry Christmas!

The tree was beautiful. The crowds were friendly and my mom loved the adventure.

I couldn't get a good shot because there was no way that we could get the tripod set up anywhere, so these pictures are blurry. But, I'll share them anyways. Oh, and by the way, these shots were taken way after the crowds were already starting to go home, so the picture of my mom standing there...10 minutes earlier, we could hardly move, let alone turn around and take a picture. The bottom picture was taken on our way back to the parking garage. I just thought it was a neat shot of the city with the tree in the background. There weren't very many people around at that point because we had to make a potty stop at Macy's. That took another 1/2 hour because of the lines in there...ladies restroom, of course! :-)

'Tis the season...I hope we don't get too caught up in all that goes on to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I promised my mom that we'd have Thanksgiving over our house this year. So, Lamar, Brittany and I cooked the turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, and rolls. Everyone else brought a part of the meal with them which was great. Andy came over around 11:00, the grandkids came over at 11:30, mom came at noon and everyone else came at 12:30. We really had a great day. I wish I could have got some better pictures of the day, but with everything going on and me in the middle of getting everyone fed, that was pretty much impossible. But, I guess that's OK!

Saying Good-bye

 

Today, my family went to the memorial service of a dear family friend who passed away after a too-long battle with Alzheimers. Josephine, (we all knew her as just Jo) Koennecke built a house on the land next to my parents. I was a teenager, so we have known her for many years. She and Clarence got married the same year as Lamar and I did. We always thought that was a fun connection between us. She watched as each of us started our own families. Our kids grew up knowing her. She was a very special lady who touched many, many lives in her 83 years of life. She was hilarious, she was generous, she had spunk. She was special and we will miss her dearly.

Busy

Rile' and Hunter were over tonight and boy, were they busy beavers. They just went from one toy to another. Hunter is walking all over the place and he totally gets the concept that he can go anywhere on his own! That definitely keeps us running!
I picked up a Step 2 Desk at a garage sale down the road for $6.00. Rile' loved it, which made me feel especially happy of my find! The first thing she did was plop herself down and announced that she was now going to do her homework. Makes you smile, doesn't it?!





Andy came over and had a busy time with them too, but he loved every minute of it!

It's Star Wars This Halloween

We look forward to seeing our grandkids on Halloween, just to see them in their little costumes. This year, Star Wars seemed to be the theme with Rile' being Princess Leah and Hunter, Yoda. I had to work at the Rose Garden for SHS, so I missed out, but Lamar was home and he tried his best to get some pictures. Although, it seems to get harder and harder to get anything on "film", here are a couple for your viewing pleasure.

Maple Gold

In the last week, our big Maple in our backyard went from not showing any color to exploding with gold. And of course, there's plenty on the ground and everywhere else. Guess it's time for the rake to come out...Brittany!



And our showiest of maples, sadly to say, lost all it's 2008 leaves and is now bare. 'Tis a sad day, indeed.

Dripping Colors

The leaves continue to fall, dripping colors onto the ground. The wind the other night stripped at least half the leaves off our assorted young maples in our secret garden. Sad, I must say. I don't look forward to the bare trees of the coming winter. But, hopefully, we'll have a little snow to make everything beautiful in a new way and I'll have another reason to go outside and walk around with my camera in hand...


We'll wait and see as the colors of fall slowly fade.