And Now it is almost Thanksgiving!

So I had an excuse in August for not posting since spring and that was that we were so busy - I am going with that excuse one more time and then if I do not do better you can publish rude comments.

First off, I have been busy at work and then doing extracurricular activities like baking these cupcakes to celebrate testing of our 700th home duct system (A million and a half square feet) as part of a grant program.  I also made the same cupcakes the next week for our Sunday School class.

I was chair for the welcoming event of a national conference held in Portland the third week in October as well as I had two sponsorships to promote Clark County (where I work) and our Planet Clark program.  You can see more about those if you go to PlanetClark.com.  The welcome event held at the World Forestry Center was a great success.   We had three venues with food cart food, voodoo doughnuts, ruby jewel handmade ice cream sandwiches, a 17-piece band called "Five Guys Named Moe," and more positive comments about it being the best welcome event they had ever attended than you could count.  Our sponsorship booth in the industry expo at the Oregon Convention Center was a whopping success as well; we gave out back packs, ceramic travel mugs, thumb drives, and info to at least a 1000 people.  It was great seeing everyone tote our bags around for the week!

Before that event could take place I had a committee meeting in Ft. Worth and since it was fairly close, I flew back thru Tulsa and visited my Mom and Dakota in Springdale AR.  I had never been there and got to put names and views to people and places in the almost three days I had there.  Dakota had just returned from his mission and we even went and found a car that he bought.

Ft. Worth

Me and Mom

 We visited and had a good time and no trip would be complete with my Mom without a visit to the mall.  We each bought the other birthday presents.  Mom got a new bead (baseball mitt) for her Pandora bracelet and I got a new Yankee cap with "Joe DiMaggio #5" embroidered on the side.  You really did not think one of my blog posts would be without a baseball reference did you?


Then back to the ongoing saga of busy, there was Halloween in there too.  Why do clowns get such a bad rap?  I had fun being a crazy clown?  My hidden squirt gun tie nailed several folks...I was surprised they were so surprised - I was a clown for gosh sakes!

Well then that brings us up to November and Karen and I spent the Veterans Day weekend raking and trucking stuff from our yard.   Then this weekend, our 21st wedding anniversary on the 16th fell on Friday and we used a gift certificate that Karen got as a gift at work to a fancy 6 course meal restaurant and it was delicious!  All the courses came out individually with full plate decor and detailed description of the many unusual ingredients (my main course was braised venison with a chocolate sauce and Karen's was skate with a cream butter sauce with details I have forgot (you can google Genoa if you want to see what the menu looks like).  But, this will actually be a very memorable anniversary as, after dinner, Karen was having chest and back pains that persisted when we had been home for a while so we called the advice nurse and then were instructed to go to the emergency room!  They got Karen right in, did all the tests, then had us wait for a doctor all to be told there was no detectable problem.  We got home about 2:30 in the morning.  We don't get ill often and so this was more than we wanted to experience, but better safe etc., and we will always recall the 21st!


Our newest granddaughter is just a couple of weeks from entering the world.  We will go down in early December!  Well, another blog or two this week to report on the rest of November and Thanksgiving.