We now have an office!!!! After getting some new bedroom furniture for the master bedroom, we next set our sights on a secondary bedroom to upgrade. We wanted an office but still be able to have a sleeping area for guests. In the condo we are currently renting, we have that kind of set up and took the design and embellished it for our house! It turned out great and we used Wall Beds Northwest to build it and install it! We are very happy with the finished product and now all we need to do is finally move here and get to use it full time! That day is coming soon!!
We went from this……yellow walls!
To this….walls painted grey!
And finally…….the completed office/bedroom!!! Yippee!!!
Time has slipped by me and I have realized that I am seriously behind posting on our blog. That being said, I decided to wrap up what’s been going on lately into one post. Debbie thought retirement would be boring but she has been going non stop in a whirlwind of activity. It has been a busy summer indeed for both of us!
First off back in June we went on our annual Givens/Kelly camping trip. This year took us to the Okanogan area of northeastern Washington. None of us had ever been there before and it was an absolutely beautiful place! Fortunately, our boy Cordell was able to go with us and this turned out to be his last camping trip. We hope he had fun! We stayed at the Black Beach Resort right on Lake Curlew. It was a clean, beautiful place and the owners were extremely nice and almost everything was on the honor system from the store. You just got what you needed and just put it on your bill. They had an ample supply of movies and bikes to rent for free. The nearest town was Republic, an old mining town. It was a cute little town nestled in the hills but seemed very depressed as mining had all but halted years ago. Every place we went to was for sale and I am not sure there will be any buyers. One day we rode into town on our bikes. It was around a nine mile ride on an old railroad grade that was supposed to be paved, but it turned out to be mostly soft gravel. Debbie’s bike was not really suited for it and she had a rough time most of the way. We wandered into a brewpub in town and enjoyed some libations to the point of not really wanting to ride back. There was a three person group near us and we had started talking with them. Luckily they had a pickup and gave us a ride back to our camp. They invited us over to their site just up the road and left. Not thinking we would show up, they were surprised when we did and were a totally different bunch at that point. Didn’t take us long to head back to our place.
Rich The Fisherman
Another day we rented a pontoon boat and tooled around the lake. It was by no means a speed boat, but that was okay, we were in no hurry! We boated from one end of the lake to the other and as with most days of our trip, got rained on. As a matter of fact, at one point we had to take refuge under a bridge because we didn’t want to get rained on or struck by lightning! Another day we rode all the way around the lake. This time we snagged a better bike for Debbie and she had a much better time. By the way, in July she got a brand new bike for her birthday! Whether it be by boat or bike we tended to gravitate to another RV resort up the lake and across from where we were called Fisherman’s Cove. It was a gorgeous resort with RV spots, remodeled cabins and was well cared for, and by the way for sale for $1.2mil at that time. Think we could scrape up that kind of dough? We would love to bring our rigs up there, but they only have a few spots and have to be reserved way in advance!
Hanging Out At Fisherman’s Cove
Another day trip took us up the road to the town of Curlew. This place was practically empty of people, stores, traffic. It was like it was a ghost town and very eerie! It was such a shame because the setting was stunning! What we did find was a very cute little church on a hill just barely big enough for twenty people to be in at one time. Another day we took a drive over the scenic highway over Sherman Pass and it hailed so much that it looked like snowed had covered the road. All in all it was a fun trip with great friends. Of course Uncle Rich and Aunt Pam got to spend time with our little boy one last time! For more pictures of the trip click here!
Cordell Enjoying A Ride on the Boat!
Recently we had our old Packer friends Kevin and Tori come up from AZ in their C Class RV and spend some time with us at our place in Sequim. We are fortunate to have water, power, and dump right outside the house for our RV guests! We packed in as much as we could in the few days they were here. We hit some golf balls, roamed the town, had dinner at Kokopelli Grill, drank a lot of wine, walked our hood, and just caught up with each other. They even managed to find a place to indulge in their pickleball passion. They have a dog named Dash, so we got a bit of dog fix which was nice. He is a good boy!
Golfers
Tori and Kevin
Ready to hit balls
Golfers
Dash Getting A Treat
Elton Fukstick
Right after the Hilltroms left, we had to shoot back to Snoqualmie, pack, load and hitch up the trailer and head off to our fourth Watershed Festival at the Gorge! It was per usual, three days of country music fun with the Kellys! Since we dry camp, the weather cooperated with us and we didn’t get baked too bad! Back from that, the whirlwind continued with Debbie blasting off back to Eastern Washington for her girls “Diva” weekend and me, as of writing this, sit in my house in Sequim enjoying some down time alone without my little buddy! Oh well, time will heal the wounds of his leaving, but the hole in our hearts will never be filled completely. Once Debbie returns, things will calm down for a bit and our focus will be on slowly exiting Snoqualmie and settling here for good! Until next time!
Our hearts are heavy and filled with sadness as we had to send our little sweet boy over the Rainbow Bridge this morning. His mind and body had finally had enough and what was once our Cordell was nothing but a shell of a dog. We had almost 10 years of joy from this lima bean and are so grateful he chose us as his people that day at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary! We wished that he could have lived forever, but knew that wasn’t a possibility. It was just by chance that he was able to spend one of his last days with all of his family and see his best friend Wemberley just on Saturday. He got dirty exploring and got lots of lovies from his aunts and uncles! The hole in our hearts that his passing has left will never be completely filled and we will miss him sooooo much! Have fun chasing rainbows and running in the fields until we see you again. We will always love you and will never forget you! Hugs and kisses from Mom and Dad.
So after 33 years at the Port of Tacoma, Debbie has finally closed the door to her office one last time! She started as a computer programmer back in 1986 and finished up as Director of Systems and Business Process. She was also the Public Records Officer for the Port and Northwest Seaport Alliance. During her tenure at the port she oversaw and implemented many projects, processes, and upgrades to the port’s systems. Her career there had her managing most of the port’s internal systems, to then managing the IT department team. She guided the big Y2K brewhaha which went without a hitch and implemented a big systems change that kept her away from home for days once! She climbed the ladder all on her own and we are very proud of her! Now she gets to enjoy the next chapter in life which leads to who knows where. One thing is for certain though, she will not just sit in a rocking chair on the front porch watching the world go by!
The process of moving here and living here full time has begun. Up until now, our retirement home has been basically a weekend get away once or twice a month. We have moved furniture from our old Crestview home up here to make it livable and comfortable, but never really made it our own! Today marks the beginning of just that! We had our new bedroom set delivered and built! The pictures don’t really do it justice, but believe me, it looks beautiful. Of course there is more decorating to be done, but the bones are done! Soon another room will be done! Stay tuned!
For quite awhile we were in a quandary about replacing Debbie’s Avalon, but didn’t know when or with what. We were hoping to wait until after she retired and maybe for awhile longer. But after this winter’s snowpocalypse came and none of our current cars could handle it, it was time to get something that could. Debbie has always liked the Toyota FJ Cruiser, but finding a decent one for sale was a tad bit difficult. We found good ones for sale, but were in other parts of the country. When we finally found one we could look at and test drive, someone bought it right out from our noses. Hell, we were just sitting down to go over numbers too! They had bought it without even a test drive! It had a shimmy when braking, let them now worry about it! Then she found one, a 2014 with only 41K miles on it that hadn’t even hit the sales market. After patiently waiting until the dealer had gone over it in the shop, cleaned it, and made it showroom ready, she went and saw and drove it! Then she went back with Alex and he drove it and the deal was done! She did it all by herself with a little encouragement from him. Drove it home yesterday and as of this writing, I haven’t even been in it yet! It does look nice in the garage! So we say goodbye to our Avalon we’ve had since new and traveled over 269K miles in it and still running great! Someone will get a little more miles out of it! Now off we go on vacation!
Yes, here we are again! As I mentioned during my last post regarding our trip down in October, Deb and I decided to return again for the last week of the year! We camped in our trailer in October and saw Fall in McCall, and this time stayed in more luxurious surroundings in Winter! It was a magical winter wonderland and since it was the week after Christmas, we still were able to see the town decked out in holiday regalia! We stayed at the Shore Lodge in a gorgeous lake side suite.
The place was absolutely perfect for us! Amenities included, nice bar, two restaurants, small gym (yes we did work out), out door pool and hot tub, theater (we did not use), game room, and a spa. Unfortunately, the spa was booked the whole week we were there so we weren’t able to enjoy a massage or anything else. At night they would build a fire and you could go out and have s’mores with the ingredients provided by the hotel. And every night while the s’mores were cooking, raccoons were hiding in the darkness with little glowing eyes waiting to grab a morsel off the ground or out of the trash! Everything was clean and the staff were very friendly and helpful. As a matter of fact, people in Idaho were nice and happy in general! We love it there!!!!
The weather was beautiful for most of our stay. Mostly clear blue skies with the occasional snow flurry now and then and man was it cold! One overnight low went below zero…..brrrrrrrr. Now if you are familiar with McCall or Idaho in general, you would know there is plenty to do whether it is summer or winter! After we had settled in and had a look around, we started planning our activities for the week. Just six weeks earlier Debbie had knee surgery, so skiing was out of the question. But there was plenty else to keep us occupied.
So we got to it and one of our first things we did is rent snow shoes for half a day. We thought it would be enough and didn’t want to push Debbie’s knee! We asked about where the best place to go and headed to the suggested destination of the Bear Basin Trail Head. It was a great place to snow shoe but we also had to share trails with cross country skiers too and they had the advantage and their own trails that we had to stay off of. That was okay by as as there was plenty of trails and room for both! It was so cold, that both of our cell phone batteries died and we didn’t get a chance to take as many pictures as we would have liked. Luckily before they died, we met a couple of hikers and their dog and they managed to snap a few of us! The most disconcerting thing was that we didn’t know what time it was or couldn’t pull up a map of where we were. That made us turn back a bit earlier than we would have. The last thing we needed was to be out after the sun went down! We had a great time anyway and got plenty of cardio.
Fun times!
Beautiful cold day!
Met a friend!
One thing that we just had to do, was rent a couple of snowmobiles and hit the tracks. I did a little research before we left to find the best place to rent them. We settled on Cheap Thrills Rentals and were really glad we did. We had brand new sleds and they supplied everything, suit, gloves, boots, helmets, and everything was clean and kept us very warm. We had to drive ourselves to the meet up in a big parking lot where all the sleds were. Then after a brief safety and operation spiel, we were off on our own! Now the only thing that we didn’t really like was that we had to stay on the road, so going off into snow fields wasn’t allowed. Now I get it and why they request it, but it was tempting to hit a nice flat looking clearing to go have some fun in! At any rate, we still had a blast! We road back up to Burgdorf Hot Springs where we had been back in October. We stopped there and had a cup of coffee and thought about going in the hot springs because we did bring our stuff. We decided we didn’t want to change, get wet, dry off, etc! We’d rather continue to ride.
Once we left Burgdorf, we headed further up the road to Warren which is an old mining town that is almost a ghost town. It does have a population of 7 in the winter and there is a landing strip at the old town to get supplies flown in. It was very cool and we rode around exploring then went into the Baum Shelter for a quick bite and beverage. For a place this far out in the woods and away from civilization, it had an extensive menu and was very good. After hanging out and warming up we finally headed back down the road and went a little bit beyond where we were supposed to. It was a great day and we put just over 90 miles of riding!
Some days we spent driving around the local area looking at different spots around McCall and checking out properties of course and just getting a lay of the land. We also wanted to get more familiar with the town itself and of it’s surroundings. We found some really nice developments and some areas that were just meh. Sounds like we are looking for another place to buy right? Well you never know, we really love it out here. It could be another place to land in case Washington State goes sideways like it just might! We were also able to spend New Year’s Eve here too! The hotel had a big party which we attended. Had a great dinner, drinks, shared a table with strangers that became one night friends, and even did some dancing. It was a great way to end the year and ring in the new one.
We had to say good bye to McCall and drove down to Boise for the last night. We left mid morning to give us a bit of time to check in to our hotel and have some time to do a bit of exploring while we could. We just looked on WAZE and just started driving. We drove onto the campus of Boise State University and looked around. It is a very pretty campus and also drove to the stadium and checked out the blue field. We also saw the capitol building and were surprised at some of the mansions that were nearby in a very cool neighborhood. We then stumbled upon the Old Idaho Penitentiary which was awesome and spooky. We had gotten there too late to see much of the place and were only able to go into the women’s ward. It was not a comfy place to have to be into back in those days. It was such a bummer that we got there too late to see anymore, because it was so cool. Finally we hit a local restaurant that was recommended by some of our good Snoqualmie friends, the Barbacoa Grill. OMG this place was huge, busy, and sooooooo good. They make the best guacamole fresh right there table side. The drinks were great and the food was awesome and the place was packed. The vacation was such a blast and went way too fast. We both were experiencing post vacation depression upon our return, but we had our little four legged buddy to cheer us up! In addition to the pictures I posted here, you can find many more in our online album, so go take a look!
