Just felt like putting on a couple of pictures of sunsets. The picture on the left is a picture I took when I was at Donna and Laif's house in Sequim last Summer. I took this from their deck. It was already starting to get dark. The picture on the right is a Sunset that I took from the deck at Debbie and Kent's house a couple of months ago. Mother Nature paints beautiful scenes.

This is a picture of Dan and Darrell when they were in Grade School. The house was one we were renting. It was an old two story house with a full basement. It was right on Auburn Way South across from Market Foods. Behind us was Les Gove park and the Library. We spent lots of time at the Park and the Library.

You can see the fireplace in the front room. One of the boys got a Parakeet in a cage from a friend. His mother didn't want it anymore. We had the cage hanging from the ceiling fairly close to the fireplace. We had a cat. The cat was always getting on the fireplace mantel and would jump and swing on the cage trying to get the bird. We were forever after the cat about it. One day we had gone somewhere and when we came back, the cage was empty and there were just a couple of feathers on the floor. Everyone was very sad. We didn't get another bird, which was probably just as well.

Later, Darrell got a white rat. He kept it in a cage in his bedroom. He had it for quite awhile. He would let it out of the cage and let it run around in his room. I never wanted to touch it and Darrell was always trying to get me to pet it. Finally, one day I did pet it. It wasn't that bad. He was a nice friendly, clean rat. One morning when Darrell woke up the rat was dead. I don't know what happened. Darrell, Dan and Richard were all big pet lovers.

While we were still living there, I finally had to have a Hysterectomy. The doctor discovered I had a Fibroid Tumor after I had Darrell. I refused to have anything done for years. Finally the doctor said it was growing so large, I just had to have it removed. I was in the hospital on the Fourth of July. Every Fourth of July there was a big Celebration at Les Gove Park. There was always a band there. Dave went to the park and recorded the music. He brought the tape recorder to the hospital so I could hear the music.

Your dad was in Ketchikan, Alaska at that time. We sent Darrell and Dan to stay with him for a couple of weeks. Your dad decided to get both of the boys haircuts. The barber managed to nick both of Dan's ears. Before they went to Alaska, Dan was never crazy about getting his hair cut. After they came back, I could not get Dan to get his hair cut. Anyway, it was beginning to be the time a lot of boys were letting their hair grow long. Dan let his hair grow long for several years. In the picture I have on the blog with us in the Convertible, you can see his hair is still long.

This is a picture of my mother and Dave Thompson and that is me standing. This picture was taken at Dan and Michelle's wedding. Michelle was Dan's first wife and they had Daniel together. I don't know how I talked my mother into coming. It was very rare to see my mother outside of her apt.

Your dad and I were married 23 years before we got divorced. At the time you get divorced, you think that it will magically solve all your problems. Divorces rarely solve problems. Usually divorces make more problems.

Dave Thompson and I got married July 14, 1969 and he died September 3, 1994. We were married 25 years. Our best period was when we were managing the Harkey Apts.. We both liked doing that very much. Dave started having health problems. He was a smoker and also got Adult Onset Diabetes. The last few years of his life, he was tired a lot and eventually had very little strength. The doctors kept blaming everything on his Diabetes and smoking. We did not realize how sick he was. Little did we know that a fatal disease was taking over his body. He died of Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS). The disease wasn't diagonased until nearly the end.

Dave was in the Auburn Hospital on our 25th Wedding Anniversary. Diane brought us an Anniversary Card. Dave read it and then looked up at me and said "The last 25 years of my life have been the happiest." I will always remember that. (That day I did not know that he would be dead in two months.)

Dave was a very intelligent person. He was a Techinal Illustrator for Boeing for 17 years. Dave loved going to the Library. He would spend so much time there. He would bring home books I couldn't begin to comprehend.

Dave had been married once before to Rosemary. They had three children together. Brian, Laurlie and Bruce.

The other picture is of me on a Moped. One year while we were still managing the Harkey Apts., Dave and I went to Victoria on the ferry for the weekend. We rented Mopeds and rode all over. It was fun. I don't remember what month it was. It must have been summer because it was warm and sunny.

Today I decided to mention about the trip that Debbie and I took to Washington DC the first week of September 2008. We were there 8 days and it was 90 degrees or more every day we were there. Debbie took lots of pictures and I have them on my computer. It was hard to decide what I wanted to put on my blog. I just picked these pictures because I liked them. Besides walking to museums and other places, we did do four bus tours. The top picture on the left was the last tour we took. It was Colonial Williamsburg. We got caught in the tail-end of a hurricane that was going up the East Coast. Almost every visitor site was closed. So the picture is an empty street. Debbie said she had been there before and there were so many things going on. It was still pouring rain when we got off the bus but it was very warm. There was a huge puddle on one of the streets we had to go across. I am way beyond jumping over puddles, so I just walked right through it. Like I said, the weather was so warm and with the rain I felt like I was walking in a bathroom shower. You don't get chilled like you do in Seattle when you get wet. Eventually it stopped raining and my shoes and socks dried out. It was an interesting experience. The picture on the right is Gettysburg. I think that was probably my favorite tour. There is so much history there that your mind can hardly comprehend it. I loved the towns of both Colonial Williamsburg and Gettysburg. I love small towns as I said before. The picture on the bottom is one that someone took of my beautiful daughter, Debbie, and me.

Debbie had booked us a hotel in Washington DC that was close to the museums and places we wanted to see. By 11:00 AM. in the mornings, it was already hot. I am surprised I was able to walk as much as I did. We took the Metro a few times but ended up taking a Taxi a lot going back to the hotel. I was usually exhausted by late afternoon. Debbie is very patient with me because I can be a whiner if something seems too hard. Sometimes I would ask her if we had to walk much further she would point out a nearby place and say that is where we are going but when we got there, I found out usually we were going further. She did a good job prodding me along. One day I did get very tired and hot. We must have walked about 4 miles.

The hotel we stayed in was an old hotel and had an elevator with an elevator operator. No matter whether we walked to the hotel or got out of a cab, someone was always there to help me up the stairs to the elevator.

I am not going to go into all the things we did and saw. We just had a nice time. I think that the best part of any vacation is just being with family. I will always remember our time in Washington DC. There is so much history in that whole area. You cannot appreciate all there is to see there in just a short trip.

I decided to do a story about Buckley. If you have never been to Buckley you should drive there one of these times. The town itself is pretty much like it was when I lived there but all around it has built out like everywhere else. Moses Lake and Buckley were my two favorite towns. Clayton and I drove our Motorhome through Moses Lake shortly after we were married. I barely recognized it. It has really grown. There is a hospital there even. When we lived there, you had to go to Ephrata to the hospital. Anyway, the photo is a picture of David on a pony in Buckley. I think he was about 4. A photographer used to come through several times to take pictures. He had the pony in a trailer behind his truck. I can't even remember how much he charged. I know he did pretty well. The kids just loved getting on the pony. In Buckley, if nothing else, there were lots of kids. It was a time when people were still having big families. I think Diane was too afraid to get on the pony, so we just had a picture of David. The pony is in our front yard. The photographer just went from house to house.

Today was another lovely February day. It got to 52 degrees today. Richard, my middle son, came over. It was Richard's day off. He works at Lowe's Hardware in Renton. We had a very nice visit. We went to Zuppa's (not sure I spelled that right) by Southcenter for Lunch. In the photo is Richard standing by his truck. Today was the first time I rode in his truck. I barely saw it once before during the snow storm. I know there are many stories about Richard while he was growing up. Richard or one of his younger brothers was always into something. In our house in Bonney Lake all the kids had to take turns carrying in wood. We had two sliding glass doors. One cold day with snow still on the ground Richard had his arms loaded with wood and I was on the phone and didn't quite get to the door to open it for him. The wood slipped and went right through the door. In those days the sliding glass doors were not safety glass. Fortunately, he didn't get cut. We had just barely replaced the door, when Debbie rode her tricycle through the other glass door and broke that and she didn't get cut either. Then another time, Richard was running up to the house and tripped over our dog and cut up both knees. We had a gravel driveway and he had so much gravel in his knees. We were cleaning his knees, probably with alcohol, and picking out gravel. I know whatever we did really hurt. Since hardly anybody had medical insurance you just did what you could at home. I think doctor visits had gone up to $7.00 by that time. Also, because we were still in the process of building, we had boards with nails in them all over the yard. I am sure almost all the kids ran a nail in their foot at least once and I even did once. We did not get an infection but Donna stepped on one of the nails and her foot got infected. We had to take her to the doctor. She has been prone to infections all her life. Another little story about Richard. In our house we had a heating stove made out of a 50 gallon drum. It was set upon cement blocks. Even burning wood, it got glowing hot. Our house was so cold in the winter that everyone hovered around it. One morning Richard got up early and he just had his shorts on and he backed into the heater and burned a big place on his behind. He got a huge blister. He didn't say anything about it at first because he probably thought he would be in trouble because he usually was in some kind of trouble. It did not get infected so we were lucky. So many things happened out there, that I am sure our Guardian Angels were working overtime to keep us safe. I had all seven children in 10 years time so it was pretty hard at times. David, Diane and Donna really helped me a lot with the younger ones. It is amazing what you can do if you have to.

Today has been a beautiful February day. I know the Groundhog probably saw his shadow today but today made me feel that Spring will come as it always does. I love the sun. I know all my children know I would love to live in a nice warm place all year around but I would not like to live there without my family. All in all this is a good place. The weather is usually mild. Of course, that was a little hard to remember when we had all that snow in December. So the picture I posted was another lovely Spring day. In the picture the driver is Dan, my youngest son, I am in the passenger seat. Dave Thompson, my second husband and Bruce, his son are in the back. This picture was taken in front of the Green River Village Apts. (Harkey Apts). Actually, you can't see our apt. from here. The picture was taken from our yard so you see the duplexes across the street. We managed 164 units. We were the managers there for over10 years. The complex was in the North end of Auburn. The units were all duplexes on J, K, L, & M Sts. NE and on M Place NE was the adult section which was all four-plexes. Managing apts. is a lot of work. I did all the bookkeeping and showed apts. Dave did all the maintenance. It is hard to believe now, but Dave and I used to ride our bikes on the Bike trail from Auburn to Kent. We both had single speed bikes. I had a wonderful little Schwinn bike that just rolled right along. We just took our time riding and it was so relaxing. I took care of Dan's boy, Daniel, when he was little. I had a basket on the front of my bike. Even though I had a car, I just loved riding up to Albertson's. After I started taking care of Daniel, I got a baby seat for the back. I used to ride all over town with him. Sometimes, I would ride clear to the Southend to the Library. This is before anyone thought about helmets. I never tipped him over once. Diane said she tipped Karyl over once when he was little.

I told you things wouldn't be in any particular order. I just wanted to write about my day today. I know all this must be exciting. I seem to come alive when the sun is out and it is warm. It got to 50 today here. I did my laundry this morning then decided to go to the store. When I came back, I decided to go get a Pedicure and Manicure. If I could have thought of anywhere else to go I probably would have. But I went through the Taco-Time Drive through and got me some lunch. I sat out in my lounge chair and read my book for about a half-hour so I could soak up some Vitamin D from the sun. I still had my sandals on from getting my feet done. When my feet started getting cold, I decided to come in. I feel like I am living the life of luxury Living over here with Debbie, Kent and Erik.

One story I am going to add is about our first winter at the Harkey Apts. The Duplexes on J and K street had no insulation around the pipes. (We didn't know that yet, but we were going to find that out very soon.) We had a snow storm and then the arctic air came in and it was bitterly cold. The majority of people on J and K and a few on L and M sts ended up with frozen pipes. It was New Year's Eve and the temperature warmed up just enough for the pipes to burst. We had water running everywhere. I called everywhere to try to get a plumber but every plumber already had so many calls they couldn't handle them all. So all Dave could do was shut the water off and we lost a lot of water before he could get around to all of them. People were so mad that they didn't have water that we got calls way into the night. Diane was over that weekend. It was getting so ridiculous we were almost laughing from Hysteria. One tenant came to our apt. and was so mad. He said how was he going to wash his hands after he went to the bathroom. (Diane will remember that. He didn't say it quite that politely.) Diane and I were playing Scrabble because there was no way we were getting to bed. We ended up giving him a big pitcher of water. The next day there was still no hope for a plumber for days, so Laif came down and helped Dave repair pipes. Bless his heart. I am so lucky to have such a good family.