Sunset and Full Moon at Paulina Lake:

Last night while we were up at the lake eating leftovers, there was an arson fire south of La Pine that caused 140 homes to be evacuated.  Dang.  They caught the bad guy and are trying to get the fire tamed down, and as far as I know, nobody was hurt.

Sometimes, smoke makes for good pictures.  I started taking some of the sunset, and am pleased with the results.

Cary put up with the flash in his eyes as I snapped a couple of him. He had worked on all of those fishing poles yesterday when I was still at work.  Plus he got the water problems solved, fished a lot from the bank and even watched a DVD movie on t.v. (My Big Fat Greek Wedding).

Hope that you enjoy these:

We are staying home tonight.  I had a staff meeting at work and just got home a bit ago.  I hope that you are all having a great week so far!

~ Kathy M.

At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.
 

Fishing Was Good Yesterday at Paulina Lake:

Yesterday, Cary and our new nephew Cody got up early with plans to get on the boat and go fishing.  Instead, we discovered that we had no power in the 5th wheel (two mornings in a row).  There was not even enough to let the fridge switch to propane, so the carbon monoxide detector began to beep and before we could figure out what was going on, the fumes were awful.  I finally turned the fridge completely off, and Cary drove down to La Pine to buy new batteries.

Meanwhile, Cody fished off of the bank of our campsite, and I tried to keep the dogs quite outside at 5:30 a.m. so that we wouldn't wake anybody else in the campground up.  Not an easy task!

Trailer finally fixed, Cary's brother Larry and his fiance Karla got up and about and eventually the fishing trip began.

Captain Larry.

The lovely Karla.

Fishermen Cary and Cody.

Cary holding a brown trout.  He eventually caught the largest fish of the day,a 20" rainbow trout.

Cody did very well.

Heading back to camp.

The unloading of the boat is also part of the deal.

Cary drags the fish out of the live well.

Score!

It was a group effort.

Dana snuggles with Larry as Cary 

cooks us dinner over the campfire.

Yum!

Johnny enjoys camping.

Now I just need to get some photos of myself!

We came home for the night to relax and watch t.v.  Yesterday was so busy, fun (and hot), that we just wanted to lie around on our couches and sleep in our own bed.  We are heading back up in a little while.

Hope that you are all having a wonderful weekend!  I will be by to visit  you as soon as I can.

Hugs,

Kathy M.

At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.
 

Paulina Lake Bald Eagles

Cary and I were happy to finally get the 5th wheel up to Paulina Lake yesterday.  We lucked out, getting a wonderful spot right along the shore.  We got up and came home this morning so that we could go to work, and that is the beauty of being able to camp 20 minutes from home.

Though only 20 minutes away, it seems that we are in another world.  We went out on the boat yesterday afternoon, and I read as Cary fished.  There were two bald eagles having a great time, and I captured these few shots to share with you guys.

I will be taking many more pictures over the next couple of weeks, so please stop by to visit when you can.  

Have a wonderful week!

~ Kathy M.

At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.
 

Another Day in Paradise ...

Everything seems better in the summertime.  It must be the sun and the warmth and the fact that we can go outside and not freeze to death.

Our nature walks with the kids are certainly something to look forward too, if we can ever get a nice route figured out.  Yesterday, we got sort of lost and went too far.  (We were on a bike trail in a fancy subdivision, so we were not lost, lost, but I estimate that we walked around 3 miles.  It took a couple of hours to complete our excursion.)
 

We stopped for a short break and took pictures before we were all worn out.  My friend/co-worker Amy is so fun and so are the kids.  I forgot how smart that 7-year-olds are. 

Our director, Andria, (who was back making us lunch, and had to keep our fish sticks from drying out because we were 15 minutes late) wears dresses almost everyday.  The rest of us have been following her fashion trend, and I must say, skirts and dresses are very comfortable when you have a bit of a belly.  Even the little girls have upped their dress wearing.

The little boy in the blue and white shirt stopped in the middle of the bike trail and was investigating something so I went over to investigate what he had found.  It was a lizard, I thought, though Amy decided that it was really a frog who still had a bit of a tail.

Amy got over her heebie jeebies and picked it up.  She is a pretty tough cookie.  She had to perform a poopy diaper rescue in the middle of my changing it that morning, when I began throwing up.  We all think that Ms. Amy rocks.

He finally got to hold his treasure for a bit, and then we let it go.  We were kind of wanting to take it back to the classroom for a few days, but since it was Friday it just would not have have been fair to the poor lizard/frog at all.

The big girls decided that I rock too, when I showed them their own special things that I had brought for them that day.  I tried to teach them how to knit, but they decided that finger crocheting was more fun.  By the end of the day, they had gotten yards of chain accomplished.  I also brought them Little House Books (they seemed to not even have heard of the t.v. show!), embroidery thread for making friendship bracelets, Puzzle-Mania and Math-Mania books, drawing books, playing cards, and a lot of other things.  I made them each a notebook with new journal books, and they were quite pleased.  So was I.  I think that Amy was happy too, because they were keeping themselves occupied and productive.

Things are so much better at work now.  I am happy.  

To think that I almost quit, and multiple times.  The last time that I made up my mind, I had the impression that God was saying, "I put you there."  That did make me pause and think that perhaps I should see things through; what if I am supposed to be there?  Now I am glad that I stayed, and I enjoy my new friends, young and old.

Well, I hope that you guys have a great weekend.  I think that we are finally going to get the 5th wheel up at the lake this weekend.  It has been another busy week, especially for Cary.  We did have a nice spagetti dinner for Aunt Nona's birthday on Thursday evening.  She is 82 and still doing great.

Hugs,

Kathy M. 

At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.
 

Some more about our 4th of July:

After the parade on Independence Day, Cary and I walked over to the midway in La Pine's Heritage Park and grabbed a bite to eat.  There were many available choices, but this place looked like a really good bet:

We both chose the Paulina Dog, and it was very good.

After visiting with friends and eating our food, we went to find my friend Bunny's booth.
 

This is my friend Bunny.  She is a go-getter, and you may remember her from the post about organizing the drive to purchase pet oxygen masks for the La Pine Fire Department.    

I especially love the purses and pot-holders that she makes.  Bunny recycles jeans for many of her creations.  I like shopping at her booth when I can, to stock up on gifts.  

I took these pictures last year:

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Bunny at "Crafts by Bunny".   If you would like to buy anything that Bunny makes, her crafts email is:  Bunnytale01@aol.com

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

This year, Bunny has come with something new, these cute little purses made out of jean pockets:

  
I bought five of them.  One for each of my co-workers and one for myself.  They are just the right size for cell phones, keys, an ID and some money.  Too cute, and very reasonable, at $9.50 each.

I found these burlap bags last month at the Sunriver Country Store.  They are actually made for wine bottles, and are in the wine section for only $1.99 each.

I wrapped the purses in tissue paper, placed them at the bottom of the bag and then added more tissue paper on top.  Then, I added the red pretty tinsel.

After making the gift tags, I tied them with some more red ribbon at the wooden handles.  A nice little affordable gift of appreciation to my new friends, who are working so hard to create an awesome environment at our little school.  

I hope that they don't read my blog before tomorrow morning!

Yesterday, Cary and I went fishing out on the lake at Paulina with his brother Larry and our soon to be SIL, Karla.  The fish were biting, and the 6 hours of fishing flew by.  I got a lot of sun, but I didn't take one picture.  We sure did have a lot of fun.

This morning, we are going to head up and try to find us a good campsite, and then come back and hook up the 5th wheel.  It will be a fine way to wrap up this 4-day weekend.   I guess that I had better get off of this computer and get to work now though.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I have been posting like crazy this weekend, so please scroll down a bit so that you don't miss a thing.  Lisa Claro, I know that you especially will enjoy my Sepia Saturday post this week.  It is the kind of post that you like!

Bye for now,


~ Kathy M.

At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.