Merry Christmas Day!

Patrick drove me down to the visitors center to post this. He's out walking Hootie now while I try to get this done with Baby Rocket Dog breathing down my neck! We had a lovely Christmas. Went to 11pm Christmas Eve service with our friend Marilyn, and got home around 1230a.m."ish". The service was different from any candlelight services I have ever attended. Our pastor is a real evangelist and explained why we all need a saviour and why God had to send His only Son. Quite powerful. Four people asked to have Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Wow!! I do wish we had sung a few more Christmas carols though. We made up for it at home though, as I've played Christmas cd's for the past 2 weeks.

Had a leisurely brunch of (blog friend Carolyn's) Savory Incredible Pie, bagels and our homemade huckleberry jam. Yum. After I cleaned up the dishes I lite the final candle on our Advent wreath and Patrick read from God's Word. I'm glad I took some photos of him reading. Doesn't he look handsome?

After that, we played a lo00nnng game of Scrabble and Patrick creamed me. 229 to ... not even gonna tell you my score. The fire roared and I'm thinking we better head back home now to get warmed up again. It's about 20 degrees F. right now.

Merry Christmas to all my friends, old and new. Jesus is the reason for the season. What an awesome God we have!!

love, Cassie

A to Z Mondays ~ The Letter W

Western Tanager.

This morning I was awakened by a loud [[thud]] that came from downstairs. Unfortunately I have come to recognize this sound and knew that another bird had most probably bit the dust by flying into our bay window. Sure enough, there on the deck lay an adult breeding male Western Tanager. (I looked him up in Patrick’s Birds of the Inland Northwest and Northern Rockies.) He didn’t just have the wind knocked out of him; he was dead. What a shame too. He had a beautiful orange-red head and bright yellow body…just a lovely specimen of a bird. After reading about him I felt even worse, as these little guys not only are song birds, but they really help us out. Here’s what the book said about their behavior: “Gleans insects with sluggish movements through foliage, often high in trees; also sallies after flying insects.” I picked him up and he’s now in the back of the car going to a burial sight at the local landfill. Glad Hootie didn’t see him first, or I’d be running around in the rain trying to get him out of the little poop’s mouth!

My second W word for today is Wellness. Patrick was in an accident down in Phoenix with his motor scooter last Friday and dislocated and broke his R. collar bone. They scheduled an OR for him for tomorrow to get it set. They needed to wait until the swelling went down. His oldest sister (who is a nurse) went over yesterday and took the dressing off his back (road burn) and said he didn’t need that. Ginny called me from our place and said he was doing well, all things considered. Pat told me not to come down there (when it happened), as all he is doing is taking pain meds and sleeping. Ginny agreed and said I can baby him when he gets up here. I’ll let you all know how he’s doing, as I find out myself. Will appreciate your prayers for his wellness. Thanks all.

love, Cassie

ps-Don’t forget to check out Jen’s blog for more A to Z Mondays!!

pss-I'll post about the run at a little later date. We did better this year than last!

A to Z Mondays ~ The Letter U

Uncommonly handsome man with Undeniably happy, Unusually beautiful pooches!

There is no photo to go with this one, but wanted to pass along a funny story...At least Patrick, Jessica & I laughed about it. When we took Jessica to Issaquah, Washington for her freshman year in college the three of us trooped over to Pier One Imports to look for an area rug for her dorm room floor. She has allergies, so we always made sure to check the content labels before buying anything like that for her. She saw a pretty rug she liked and here is what the label read:

100% Undetermined Fiber.

Not only did it have a little undetermined material in it, they were unsure of 100% of it!! Ha! We then made suggestions as to what it could be...rodent fur perhaps? (BTW, we didn't purchase that one!)

Happy A to Z Monday to ya'all!! Why not go on over to see more A to Z's at Jen's?!

Blessings & love, Cassie

Explanations To Follow...

Patrick sanitizing the sink after cutting up the Montana free-range turkey for in the crockpot.

Jessica in the bay window making a feather hair ornament. Hootie had to jump up to help her.

Snowman bell that my cousin Ivy sent me...Minus his nose.

Snowman's (found) nose. This is a good story that I'll tell you all after I get to Phoenix.

Snowman with his nose reattached.

The owl on our deck actually had his original pile of snow knocked off. This was a new pile! We got over 5 feet of snow before we left on Jan.2nd. Patrick and David stayed busy shoveling snow. We had to have our (800ft) driveway plowed 5 times and it could have been done more, but we were paying someone to do it & he was a busy man!! Pat can hardly wait to be up here full time so he can get his own little snowplow. Man toys ya know. ;<)

Jessica & Patrick getting the dogs ready for snowshoeing with Jess & David.

Jessie said the dogs got used to wearing their booties once they got into the deep snow. Jessica & David with the dogs leaving for their snowshoe adventure.