We had a ham dinner last night and we are having prime rib for dinner tonight. We are on our way over to The Taylors for a short visit and then back to fix dinner.
Hoping that all of you have a wonderful Christmas. Most of my crew is in Long Beach having Christmas with Joey and Jonathan. Mike is having Christmas with his family in Colorado and Tina is in Fresno with her kids. Today is Duncan's 19th birthday. Hard to believe.
Well we are almost on to a new year and new experiences and let us hope they are good ones.
The visit with Dee was all too short. I now have a basket on my bike and have only managed to ride to down to the mailboxes and back. I hope it stops raining soon so I can get some actual miles on it. The first clear day and I am riding to Judi's house. I also have a new helmet with a blinking light in back. Look out Corvallis here comes the screaming pink machine.
Bought a combination bike lock (pink of course) but none of us can figure out how to work it. Judi, Tiff and I have all been working on the lock with no luck so tomorrow I am going down and buying one with a key.
Hope you are all ready for the holidays. MERRY CHRISTMAS.
This is Kay. I am at the CV house waiting for Judi and Cheryl and boy is the rain coming down. Great pictures Dee. Is that window display from Jessica's store?
I wore Bop's cat jacket today. It made me a little emotional because she wore it so often. So, I think I will just keep it in the closet to look at and remember.
Tell Jess that RV beds are for people the size of her auntie - not tall people. My knees have been aching for the last couple of days so I am going to the drug store sometime today and see what drugs I can find. My car is road worthy - the mechanic went through it and put on new brake pads and then I bought new tires. Surprising how much nicer the car rides - perhaps having balanced tires made a difference.
The dogs and I went to the EE Wilson area and walked a few days ago and I remembered that Bopcha had showed me this area and had made the walk all the way back to the lake. Seems every thing has a memory attached. This time I passed hunters with big guns and bird dogs but it didn't appear that any of them had bagged anything. Beautiful water dogs and one mean pit bull.
Everyone here is on the lookout for cougars because there have been so many sightings. I watch tree tops and behind me - and so far the dogs are still alive and well as opposed to being a cougar snack.
Steph and her Dad are off to a Nascar race somewhere with a lot of older people and she said that her dad is really excited that she is going. Like I tell the kids - make a memory
Well today is Tuesday and I am going to continue the Bopcha tradition of checking my membership number at Bimart. She was lucky and got stuff and so far I haven't but I will keep trying.
I am trying very hard to get rid of stuff as I go through my boxes but boy is it hard. So far have only managed to get rid of a few chicken items (okay 3) and some misc plates and bowls. When I go to CA I am thinking of taking a box of pictures down and trying to give them to the kids.
Crystal will know at her next doctor's visit the sex of her child. I did finish her baby blanket and now need to start one for Jake and then another one for Meredith (I am sure she will be starting a family in the next couple years). I have gotten too lazy to buy my yarn locally so I go online and have found some great prices.
Judi is a no show at the house so far but if I leave, she will show up ready to go to work. I did empty one box that I will take to Vina Moses.
Dee hope that stupid computer is up and running soon. That was the cutest picture ever of the raccoon. The dogs and I did Chip Ross this morning and saw nothing except another hiker. I didn't know they ate grapes.
Hey guys. Sorry for the hiatus. We stayed in Kumasi for the last couple of nights. From what I am told, Accra seems to be some of the newer parts of Ghana and Kumasi is more of the cultural and historical center. We actually were not that busy while we were out there. It is about 4 hours away from where we are staying in Accra so much of the time was spent driving/getting from one place to the other. We didn't do much other than drive eat, and meet with a couple of students at the local university involved with SIFE - Students In Free Enterprise - A program we have a Seattle U. We just picked their brains on how they have tried to gain some entrepreneurial spirit within the community and what not. Very interesting. Today, we drove back and met a church group outside Accra, with the topic being a potential bakery that they would like to start there. We basically just brainstormed different ideas and/or asked questions regarding how they were going to run it. Good day but long. We are about to go to dinner so until tomorrow...Hope all is well in Seattle/Corvallis.
Sorry again for missing a day guys. There are technically two computers here but only one of them remotely works and everybody is on them all day so it is hard to find the right time. Either way the last 2 days, again, have been really cool. Yesterday, we met with the coach of a girls soccer team which is co-run by this club and school. It is called Valued Girls. We met him in the morning to discuss expanding their computer lab of about 10 computers to something closer to 50. Not that simple but intriguing, still. In the afternoon we went to a ceremony held in one of the local villages of greater Accra honoring the dead. It was cool to see all the people gathering to pay their respects to people who had long past away. After that at about 5pm we returned back to Joy Family Lodge and as I thought I was going to be able to sneak a nap in before dinner I was told that we were going to the beach. So all the students here, which is 8 total people, packed some of our stuff, and took a solid hour and a half long journey to this resort. We ate at this Italian restaurant and had pizza. Who would've thought. Afterwards we came down to our campsite and hung out near the ocean. It was cool to look out onto the Atlantic Ocean and have it disappear into the distance. Kind of surreal. This morning we came straight back to see the Valued Girls soccer game in which they won in the last couple minutes. We went straight from there to a Frankies, a type of American style restaurant that had everything an American could want. I had a cheese burger with fries. Since then we have come back to the lodge and packed up some of our stuff to get ready to go inland to Kumasi for a couple days. I'm not sure what the internet access will be like there but I am told we are staying in a dorm of one of the local universities. If I don't get back to you soon don't worry. This place is unbelievably safe. Seriously it's kind of a joke. Its about the equivalent to walking around mercer island by yourself at night. anways talk to you guys later.
Today was cool. We started kind of early though. We first went to a school maybe 5 minutes away. We sat in on about 15 minutes of class where we did an exercise where we took about 5 minutes to envision where were going to be in 10 years. Most of the kids were around 13 so basically they envisioned where they'd be when they were my age. Obviously my vision looked more like a 33 year old. Either way it was fun to hear what all these kids wanted to be. Straight from there we went to a fruit harvesting company called Blue Sky. We went on a tour and I had some of the best pineapple/mango juice i've ever had as well as mango slices. Straight from there we met up with a local soccer camp/program nearby where we are staying that had a soccer game. It started raining right before we started playing so instead we first witnessed a local dance ceremony. Then as the rain continued to come down we played soccer with a large group of 13-17 year old girls. They're good. Once we were drenched and we took pictures we came straight back for dinner and a nap. Exhausting but fun day.
Sorry this is coming so late. It is 8:30 in the morning here. Yesterday we were gone pretty much the whole day so when we got back everyone had to use the computers and because of the limited availability, I had to wait but then eventually just fell asleep. Yesterday we met at about 10 had breakfast and ventured out to a canopy walk a couple hours away in a protected forest environment. First we hiked up about 15 minutes fo pretty steep hills and stairs until we had to walk these rope bridges where the walk way was about a foot wide. As you walked (and there were multiple of us at a time) the bridge would shake and sway. The shortest bridge was probably 100 feet and we were no less than 60 feet off the ground I would say. If you were scared of heights at all, this was the place to be. After that it was about mid afternoon already so we sped back to the former Portugese, then Dutch, then English, slave castle in Cape Coast. According to our guide it was the oldest of all the slave castles in West Africa. It was pretty powerful. Don't worry I took pictures. After that we ate locally and got home around 11pm. It was a long day but it was definitely one of the most fun. I will update you guys when we get back this evening. It shouldn't be as late this time.
Noah - I'm so delighted that you are sharing news of your adventures in Ghana with us via Bop's blog. Makes keeping up with you so easy. I'll read to Bop when she wakes up. She's napping right now. Lots of love, Aunt KC
Sandra, I say adopt all those stray kittens. It is a darn good thing I live in a little trailer or else I would surround myself with orphan dogs.
This is not a good day for us - Judi is weak and still in bed, I am very dizzy and Sid is out mowing. Judi has her doctor's appointment tomorrow (thank heavens). I do not know why I am dizzy but Bopcha is wearing her cell phone in case I collapse and I have mine in case she needs help. We are indeed a sad group this weekend. When Sid returns, I am going home and lay on the couch.
We had a bit of rain this morning and we could certainly use a lot more. Actually, it was more like a spray than actual rain.
Kay here. Dee that is mostly dirt but even after he showered, he is really really really brown. That is what haying will do. Kind of resembles Unc's tan.
