Absolutely loath going so long between posting as I can't remember what all has been going on. Just some highlights since last posting:

Opportunity Foundation finally hired my replacement mid July. What a relief it is not to be driving over the mountain one or twice a month for a week or more to work. I finished out July and have not been back, even to visit. 

Basically I have been happily unemployed.  I have rewritten several of my genealogy web sites which was a lot of fun. Was able to add lots of new information to each site for researchers.  Still got finish work on a couple of those. 

Got an early Christmas present from Todd. A new "35 mm" digital camera that contains wireless connectivity, such fun and much improved over the smaller brother to this one.

I got it while in Prineville, visiting Mom and didn't have time to really play with it, so first morning home, we had a lovely fog and just enough light from Clark to make a couple interesting photos.  Think I'm going out to play later this morning.

Have Elin started in her Junior year of high school. 17 already, so scary. She is just growing up too soon. Got her through soccer, that seemed like 2 months of pure he-double-toothpicks. Ended up a fairly good season. Now we are into November and the cold.

Todd & I picked out a shelving unit for the deck to put the plants into. Hopefully, I can winter them

over and not have to replace them. Which reminds me, I need to go check them to see if they need water. I have replaced the cardboard with a tarp around the back and a cloth sheet that can be clipped on over the front and sides. So far it is working out great.

Todd's new full time job working from home seems to be working out just fine, except when he has nothing to do, so he comes out to pester me. Telecommute sure means a lot of phone time for him. He doesn't seem to ever run out of words.

A new cousin reunion (with moms) has been scheduled for February. Looking forward to it. Not sure yet if Todd can get it off, but am definitely taking Elin out of school to go.  She has missed out on quite a bit of these kind of trips so it is her time.

Guess I am out of words, as I can't think of what else we have been up to. Did drive down to Cottage Grove to have dinner with Guy and Tammi which was fun. They are renting a cute house, but home to find something to buy.  Thanksgiving will be at Linda's in Hood River, don't know what we are doing for Christmas yet.

SPRING! June 2013

Vancouver has been wonderful! Being semi-unemployed, I've been able to do a great deal of genealogy research.  Spring here was beautiful. Watching the birds, a squirrel, and leaves come on the trees. It is amazing the changes that happened just in the month of May.

Special things that happened since I last posted:

A great trip to Indiana and Illinois with my mom to visit her sisters, see Chicago (pictured - flying into O'Hare). A tour of the parking lots at the Indy Speedway and many other exciting places. I got a couple things taken off my bucket list on that trip. We got to spend a week there visiting and touring. (Think I already talked about this?)

Spent the winter going once a month back to central Oregon to O.F.C.O. for work. My retirement from them lasted to the week before Thanksgiving when they called with several disasters that I went down and cleaned up. Lots of changes happening there that are both good and bad. 2 weeks in December over Christmas and 3 weeks in Feb for more work. And just got back yesterday from another trip down there

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Marlene, Karen, Susan at The Steer for dinner

My next trip with mom was to Iowa for her sister's 60th High School reunion and the "all classes" dinner. She also had her 60th Lutheran Hospital Nursing school reunion.  So, we threw in a Cousin reunion dinner on a Thursday night, then a Heggen/Simpson reunion on Friday night where there were 5 generations, from age 86 to age 1 mo. (This doesn't count the bun in the oven). Another trip that was very fun.

The trip home was not so great, our plane from Des Moines was delayed by an hour, causing us to miss our connection in Denver and we had to spend the night there, I was given the choice of separate room or sharing, so we had separate rooms for the night. Kinda fun :-)

My darling daughter Elin has only another week or so of school and she will officially be a Junior in high school. Holy Cr**! She has 3 days of what they are calling "newbie" soccer this week and also testing at school. Official last day is June 18th. I have to be back in Redmond on the 19th of June for 3 days; 1) to attend a retirement party, and 2) to get some work done.

I've signed up for a couple of great crochet newsletters.  Its fun to look at the patterns, then scratch my head and think, I wish I could read this and know what I was doing... I've crocheted for years, and still have a very difficult time following a pattern.  Mostly, over the years, I've just looked at an item and figured out how to make it, or some close approximation of it.

Today's "Hooked on Crochet" newsletter is having a contest to give away 3 skeins of beautiful yarn.  I've already put in my first entry at http://www.allfreecrochet.com/sweeps/Naturally-Caron-Spa-Yarn, now I need to blog, twit, facebook and pray :-). I just love the newsletter as they do a good job of mixing the free with the purchase and ALWAYS have easy patterns for us who are inept at crocheting but love it.

My latest headband projects for the Christmas Bazaar.  I've already finished 6, and need a few more before I can go back to the hats I really enjoy making.

Lots has happened since I was last on here to blog.  We have moved completely to Vancouver, WA. and live just a few blocks from Historic Ft. Vancouver.  Lots of history there, more important to me is the Base Cemetery and Old City Cemetery that are just a few blocks away from here.  I have posted a few pictures of the Base cemetery on FB, but maybe I'll get crazy and do a few here also. OK, just one ~ this is my favorite that I saw while we were wondering...

What brought me back to the blog is an article at: http://www.sentinel-standard.com/article/20120915/NEWS/120919661/1001/NEWS I picked it up from a tweet on family search.  Its a really good idea to do this on your cameras, cell phones other digital devices. The basis of the story is to create a file on your memory card that has your name, address & phone number so that if your device is lost, it can be returned to you.  I plan on doing that on mine.  If you need instructions, I can help, just let me know.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, bacon has cooked, hash browns are ready to go in and eggs are sitting and waiting all while we wait for the dishwasher to finish.

I'm at work and it is HOT!  Not like they are getting back east, only in the 90's here.  Problem is we have about 15% - 20% humidity so you sweat.

We are down to about 2 weeks to moving to Vancouver!  I'm sitting here today trying to transfer documents to my replacement and finding it VERY hard to give things over...

Elin gets back from summer camp today.  I've missed her.  Miss Todd also as he has been living in Vancouver.  Guess I better get back to work.

Update on trips in November

Its now pushing the end of January 2012! I got an email from a friend who I haven't heard from in years, and it reminded me that I have a blog. so I need to get blogging.

What has happened since November?  We went to Seaside and to Chiloquin. Had a great time at both.  Pictures: didn't take many, but will add them 

This is a tiny little gate about knee height.

This is a gate to a B & B that I thought was cool

Todd & Elin walking away disgusted that I'm taking gate pictures 

Hills to the south of Seaside

Strange vine growing on a fence

The ocean

It was cold and mostly raining in Seaside. But we had a nice time staying in the condo, went out a couple times for groceries and once for a walk.

At Chiloquin we went to the Klamath Trout Hatchery

 The Hatchery was built in 1939 and was very fun.  A great place to picnic in the summer.

Couldn't get over the size of some of the trout there.

This is looking south across Agency Lake toward the mountains.

Sunset over Agency Lake out the front porch of Guy & Tammi's home

Cat guarding the Thanksgiving leftover

back yard fence with dried flowers

Fort Clatsup rebuilt

We stayed home and worked through December and had an enjoyable visit with Scotty when he came home on leave.  Now we are into January and I'm planning a trip to Las Vegas for AYSO and planning the Heggen reunion in May.  Fun stuff to come in the future.  Will keep you posted

November ALREADY!

Daylight Savings strikes again!  Changed my clock last night, and kept waking up to figure out what time it "really" was.  Today is laundry day, clean up web sites day and blog day.  It is also help Elin with homework day.  Awoke to our first snow fall this morning about 7:30am (8:30 in real time) after getting up at 6am (7 in real time).  It didn't stick around long enough to do much beyond make mush in the driveway.

What has been happening?  Not much.  Getting ready to return to Seaside next Sunday for 4 days.  Following that, we go to Chiloquin for Thanksgiving with Guy & Tammie.  That should be very fun... then Christmas.

This year is almost shot, and I honestly can say I haven't got much accomplished.  Soccer flew by so fast it didn't even raise a breeze.  Elin moved into the high school as a freshman. I purchased a Desk/Wall Organizer and its still in its box. 

Guess we just continue to let time fly. 

Trish's visit

My friends Trish & Leonardo Pieterse are here visiting from New Mexico. What fun I've been having. They allowed me to drag them to Elin's choir concert last night.

Gonna head out on the town her soon to give them the tour of the town. Caught a little last night, but not a lot.

Elin had her final choir concert last night in the middle school. All the kids did a great job with their music. We didn't stick around for the band concerts, as we decided to take a tour of some of the changes around town since Trish last visited.

May 29, 2011

Another 6 months have gone by since I last posted. I'm so bad.

I read over some of the old blogs, so I'll catch you up: JD will turn 1 year old the 7th of next month.

Teagan turned 5 and is doing soccer in Oregon City.
Uncle Rick is standing behind the horse holding him. He is an active little go-getter! John is working for a private contracting company and is currently stationed in Iraq. Hopefully this will end in a couple months and he will be home for good.

My darling Elin turns 15 in September and goes into the High School. I'm not ready for that in any way, shape or form. She is too old for regular AYSO soccer this year, so if she is unable to get on the High School soccer team, she will be doing AYSO sandlot soccer. Yes, I'm still on the board for the soccer.

We are getting ready for the 2nd annual Bony Family trip to Bullard's beach to spend 3 nights in yurts. Will be heading out on Thursday morning and will come back early Sunday afternoon. Elin gets to miss 2 days of school just before the end of the year.

I've been posting pictures to my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/?ref=home

In looking through the pictures I found this one:
Sasha passed on to the great playing field beyond since I last wrote. She was 15 human years old.

An exciting thing that happened in the last 6 months: Have reconnected with my friends Deb and Dave S! They are living over by John Day. So close and yet so far.

Well, I guess that's it for now. I better get my day started. I'll write and post pictures of the beach trip and the trip to Las Vegas when I get back off the road middle of next month...

Time gets by me

I can't believe its been so long since I posted! JD is now 6 months old. Today is laundry day. Todd has gone to his office to clean there. Elin was sick yesterday, but better today. Mom is off in the morning to Hawaii for a couple weeks. Life is good.

Work has been busy for me. I've been updating web sites and trying to keep up with all the new computers I've put out. Printers are dying right and left at OFCO and they are having a huge budget cut. Life is good.

Have been enjoying Facebook. Staying in contact with people through it is fun. Got me an android phone, in August, so I can follow email and FB on it, so I'm always in touch. Just have to figure out how to update my blog so I can use it more.

Also now have a twitter account. Good grief, keeping up to date with all the technology is a tough thing. @jan_ochoco is my twitter account.

Am taking a bi-weekly Social Media class. I'm learning how to tie all the technologies together. I can at least put a fb button on a web site :-)

Thats it for now in my world. Will post again soon!

NEW BABY!

Danielle & Jay's new baby JayDee is a doll. What a keeper!

Softball is winding up. Elin has one more regular game, next week in Redmond. We then start 2 weeks of practices 4 to 5 times a week for All-Stars that is being held in Bend the last week of June. That will be fun as she doesn't want to play next year, so this will be her big finale.

Soccer registration finishes tonight. YEA! Once I get tonight's paper work into the computer, I'm basically done until the last week of July when we have British Soccer camp. That is always a big deal and lots of fun. I hope to download the camera and have some new pictures to share this weekend.

I've been having lots of fun with Face Book. Have reconnected with old friends and made a couple new ones. Got into it doing my 35th class reunion.

Going to be a wet windy day today. God bless.

Well, I'm behind in my posts AGAIN! Don't know where the time goes, it just goes away...
Softball has started, I'll post a picture or two later. Elin & I did Young Eagles last Saturday so I've drawn the pictures from that


This is from my flight at the end of Young Eagles.

News worth posting on the blog about:

John, Lindsay and Teagan came to visit today. We had about 3 hours to eat and visit before they took off to visit John's dad Paul. Teagan will be 4 on April 1. He is a real go getter. Todd & Toni joined us for lunch. Mom did an excellent job on the food again.

Been having so much fun last couple months on Facebook that I forgot about my blog. Have reconnected with cousins and old friends. Its been really good to talk to Trish, Carlene, Ron & all the others.

35th Class reunion coming up for the Class of '75. .Had fun scanning pages from my freshman year at Crook County Jr. High. If you are hitting here hoping for reunion info try http://www.ochoco.com/~jbony/classof75

Time flies when your having fun! I can't believe how long its been since I've been on the blog. Here is what is happening here:

Winter Weather Advisory in effect until 10AM Monday for Central Oregon. Snow will turn to rain Sunday afternoon below 3500'. Areas south of Bend and above 3000' in North Central Oregon will see around 2-4" Sunday and 1-2" Sunday Night and into Monday morning. Accumulations of 3-6" are possible above 3000'.

South winds today of 10-20mph may cause some blowing and drifting snow and periods of reduced visibilities. A Winter Weather Advisory means travel could be hazardous during the advisory period.

It's cold, wet and nasty outside. At least the dirt from driving over the pass last Monday is getting washed off my car.

So currently Todd is working on an accounting problem for one of his counties, Elin is collapsed on the couch vegetating with Disney channel, Mom is in Hawaii and I'm stuck with laundry, dishes and cooking. What fun. Made cinnamon rolls this morning, cooked eggs hashbrowns and sausages for lunch and am going to make chicken noodle soup for dinner. Great way to pass a snowy/rainy cold nasty day.

AYSO, (American Youth Soccer Org) has combined with WPS, (Women's Professional Soccer), soccer stars: Mia Hamm & Brandi Chastain and MedImmune to create "Don't Play with the Flu". If you are a face book user, please log in and go to http://www.facebook.com/DontPlaywiththeFlu

MedImmune will donate $1 (up to $50,000) to Families Fighting Flu, a not-for-profit organization committed to flu prevention for each person who becomes a fan. Be sure to pass on the information on preventing the flu. Don't forget your flu vaccination!

Symptoms of H1N1 Flu in Children:
1. Rapid Breathing or difficulty in breathing
2. Grayish or bluish skin color
3. Dehydration
4. Persistent severe vomiting
5. Not able to interact properly with people, becomes irritable
6. Flu like symptoms, bad cough and fever

In Adults:
1. Shortness of breath or difficulty in breathing
2. Pain in chest or abdomen
3. Sudden dizziness or loss of energy
4. Severe or continuous vomiting
5. Flu like symptoms, bad cough and fever

Symptoms of H1N1 are similar to the ones that people get in regular, seasonal flu and so things like fever, sneezing, cough, body ache, head ache, shivering, sore throat and fatigue are common. Diarrhea and vomiting are also symptoms that have been associated with some cases of this flu, also know as Influenza A.

This information was taken from ezine @rticles
http://ezinearticles.com/?Symptoms-of-Swine_flu---Know-the-Difference-Between-H1N1-Flu-and-Regular-Flu&id=2748043

It contains excellent information on the difference between flu and Swine flu H1N1

This is my new car. It is a 2010 Kia Soul plus. I picked it up on Friday from the new Team Kia dealership in Bend. One month to the day after the insurance company closed the claim on the car I broke backing into Brother Todd's pickup. My old baby was totaled, didn't even scratch the rust on Todd's truckThis is the back end of the car
My new car and my 131/2 year old Sasha. Guess who doesn't get to ride in the new car!

Todd and I did a great deal of research, pricing and traveling to figure out which car "I" wanted. This was not the first choice, but I'm very happy with the decision. Of course, I'll have to live with it for a long time. It has really cool tech things like bluetooth giving hands free cell phone use, volume control in the steering wheel and a USB port in the dash. It came with 3 months free of Sirius Satellite radio.

So, a new link to check out if you are wanting to follow gas economy on your own vehicle:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov
You can set up an account and enter your millage, gallons and cost of gas. It tracks how you drive (stop & go vs. highway) and then you can compare how your millage compares to others. There are only 2 other Souls on it (Florida & Missouri, so it will be interesting to see how those drivers compare to me for gas usage.

Young Eagles and Soccer

We need to go back a couple weeks, to fair the first of July. Elin got the chance to be a goat milker. Somehow, I managed no to get any pictures of her ribbons. Goat milking seemed to be a lot more fun.

Elin went up in her first small aircraft today. What fun she had. This was the flight that was postponed when Grandpa Mel had his accident.

She was out and about for about 45 minutes, which was enough time to fly over our house, grammy & pappa's house and out to Ochoco Dam.

Soccer is going on, the 5, 6 & 7 year old's play for another week or two, then the older kids start up. It goes on into the middle of October. Burrr...
Its already getting chilly at night (last night was a frost warning for central Oregon). Its already getting dark as the games end. Won't be much longer till its headlight soccer.

Hope your summers went well, it went way too fast for us. Never seemed to find the time to do anything...

Its August! We have survived a week of 100 + degree days here in Prineville the last week of July and into the first couple days of August. Fantastic thunder storms with magnificent lightning and lots of small fires around central Oregon. Now the clear blue skies look dun colored with smoke.

Last week was British Soccer Camp and I spent 5 days down at the fields watching 2 coaches and 25 kids run around in the heat. They were awsome! We went through 6 cases of water.

This week is county fair. My daughter took her 3 rabbits in yesterday and then they showed them today. She got Reserve Grand Champion with Spice, and blue ribbons with Ebby. Poor Shadow was disqualified this year, so it is his last fair trip.