Kingfisher Cove

Fair Winds Following Seas

Today’s the dreaded day—Nate left on deployment. We hope to see him sometime in August.

For Christmas, I gave him a bunch of (new) paperback series I’ve read and loved, and feel quite sure he will, too. (He likes paperbacks because they’re small and fit in his pockets while he’s on Watch). These are the series I got him, in case you might be interested! (So good!)

                            (The Bill Hodges Trilogy)

 

These are all so good, so exciting, so well-written, and many of them are also full of humor!

And then today I started ordering fun stuff to stick in a “Deployment Box” that I’ll send to him throughout these months.

I just ache for Sandra and Quinn. This will be hard on both of them. At least it’s not something Quinn (or Sandra) hasn’t endured before; Nate was gone all summer, and then for about 5 weeks in November into December. I wish we could have Quinn stay with us for a few days now and then, but I don’t think he’s quite ready for that.

---

It snowed another 2 inches last night, then the temperature rose to just above freezing this morning and things began to melt and drip. I started to feel hopeful when the temperature rose to 37° and the dripping continued in earnest. THEN, it decreased again and SNOWED. It didn’t last long, though, but now it’s freezing again so all the drips are now ice.

And…we are still stuck! Yesterday, John went with our neighbor in his Jeep to the mailboxes (up our hilly icy road to another private unplowed icy road all the way to the unplowed icy county road…) and he said it was godawful. Coming back, the neighbor had his Jeep in low 4WD, and as he was coming down around a corner where an abandoned car had gotten stuck, he started skidding and came within a hair of crashing into it.

Yesterday, I set out a tray of birdseed. The result were birds everywhere, and it provided much entertainment (and frustration) for the cats, Nikki in particular. (Twitching tail, chittering teeth).

I also grabbed a couple of photos taken from other Harstine Island residents. This one was at Jarrell’s Cove, on the opposite side of the island from us. Frozen saltwater!

And this one is also on the other side—they have the Mt. Rainier view! (I could be jealous of that, but we have the Olympics and (I think) a more pebbly beach which yields more agates). This would be sunrise yesterday; our side gets sunset!

---

Here’s the 4-year-old boogying to “Ghostbusters!” (It gets especially hilarious at about the 30 second mark).

---

“Not one Republican officeholder objecting to Biden’s victory have objected to their OWN wins, on the SAME day, on the SAME ballots, using the SAME election systems.”

Trapped in the Snow

We live in a very hilly area, and our driveway is hella STEEP. We knew snow was coming, but I don’t think we really thought through that the temperatures were going to drop dramatically afterward and stay that way for several days. For example, John forgot to park a vehicle at the top of the driveway before this storm hit. (I didn’t think of it, either!)

It started out pretty, of course:

(This one, above, was taken from our deck security camera!)

We got about 2-1/2 inches down here close to the water, and then last night we got about a 1/2-inch more. Up in Everett (and plenty of areas north of us), they got quite a lot of snow. Just look at that beaming smile!

So, yes! It was pretty!

But now the deep freeze has settled in and our driveway is a sheet of ice and we’re even expecting some MORE snow tomorrow night! We were supposed to attend a pre-New Years Eve party at our neighbors tomorrow night, which has now been cancelled because they have an even steeper driveway than we do (as well as curvy), plus the private road above us is a skating rink (and hella hilly). Before the party was cancelled, John and I were ruminating about whether we would WALK to the party in very sub-freezing temperatures (up a steep, slick driveway, along an icy road, and then down a steep, slick driveway), or whether we would drive. Yes, we have 4WD, but it doesn’t help you to stop on ice!

We’re also getting low on groceries. It’s not dire (yet), but there are things we need. I doubt very much that our Home Chef delivery will happen tomorrow (or anytime soon). Nextdoor and Facebook’s “Harstine Community” keep mentioning how bad the county roads are and that the county has done a poor job plowing/sanding, including the bridge. So, we’re pretty much locked in until the deep freeze starts to thaw. Which I don’t think happens until the end of the week. We’ll survive, but I don’t like feeling locked in!

And I’ll leave you with silly Wylie, who only knocked over 2 Santas when she SOMEHOW climbed back there.

---

“We are not divided by politics. We're divided by Republicans on one side and pro-democracy Americans on the other. The divide is elemental and existential, not partisan. Wrong vs. right; chaos vs. rule-of-law; destroy vs. preserve. There are more of us than there are of them.” –Jeff Timmer

Oh That’s Right, Christmas is Coming!

Since we’ve already had “Christmas,” I’m more excited about TOMORROW, which is Winter Solstice! Which means that after that, our days start to get longer and lighter! Woohoo! (I’m very ready to be done with DARK). (Yeah, I know. It’ll be a while before we see a difference, but time flies these days).

We actually had some snow this morning (a dusting), and then when we ventured out and about for various errands (IN JOHN’S NEW TRUCK!), we were quite impressed with how much snow there was away from the water. The trees were all frosted and it was so pretty! No more than an inch anywhere (and possibly even a little less than that), but it was enough to be kind of exciting (instead of dim, dreary, constant rain…)

And speaking of John’s truck, it is marvelous! It does not ride (or, according to John, drive) like a truck at all. And it has many fancy features, even though this is the “middle” version of the Ford Maverick. I’ve never seen this before—to shift into Drive or Reverse or whatever, you spin a DIAL.

And that little lever beneath that dial? It’s the “electronic parking brake.” John has spent quite a bit of time reading the manual (he never does that…) and also messing around with all the billions of buttons to figure things out. It’s pretty much impossible to figure out on your own what all those weird icons even MEAN.

Yep, 35° but the snow stopped and by the time we got back, the snow we got was gone.

I love this truck! It is so nice to swing my legs to climb out and have my feet immediately touch the ground instead of having to DROP (the old truck was BIG). And it has a back-up camera! (I think they’re pretty much standard in newer vehicles these days. My 2012 Subaru—that only has 48k miles on it—missed that boat…)

---

One of the presents I got for Quinn was a little kid’s camera. After I got it, the box said, “for 6 years old+” and I was a little concerned that it might be a little old for him yet. But he was SO EXCITED and boy did he take to it. (It’s really cute, and it came with a little chip that you insert into a USB memory stick. I was able to easily transfer all of his pictures to my computer). I could see him running around the house everywhere, gleefully taking pictures! Here he is taking a picture of my Santa collection:

He took a LOT of pictures, and many of them were hilarious and blurry. Including some selfies! But some were quite creative (possibly accidently) and some were pretty darned good!

I’m not sure what this was, but it’s kind of cool!

The fireplace:

Goofy Papa!

Santas!

Da tree!

Blurry Nonna:

Quinn selfie (tee hee!)

The floor!

Daddy (and Nonna):

Papa with a filter!

Mama!

And…someone grabbed his camera and took a picture of Quinn:

Good times!

Festivities and Early Christmas

We just came off one of the busiest (and funnest!) (and bittersweet…) weeks we’ve ever had here. It started with inviting a favorite neighbor couple for dinner, which was fun because the house was clean and decorated and WE HAD LOBSTER! What a great evening, including yummy hot buttered rum. They are wonderful people, and of course I didn’t get a single photo. (I was, uhm, busy).

Then, two days later, Helen came to visit for a couple of days and that was a BLAST. Again with the hot buttered rum (plus additional yummy adult beverages) and gift exchanges. We also did a little baking. I made banana nut bread (it’s my wonderful recipe with cream and egg whites) and she made a cinnamon sour cream swirl bread. (It’s a pretty fun kitchen to do this with lots of counter space and two ovens!)

ALL of this bread is now GONE. Yep, GONE. We made all of this last week! I only had a total of three slices. That’s OK.

Throughout all of this, I knew that Nate had not yet returned from his “underway” that was supposed to be the full month of November, but was encroaching well into December. The evening of the day that Helen arrived, Nate texted me and said, “I’m back! Can we come this weekend and celebrate Christmas?” I remember staring at that text with wide eyes. I had known that we would be getting together to celebrate at some point before Christmas because of Nate’s limited Leave, but I was not prepared for the upcoming weekend! I had a mountain of boxes in our bedroom piled high that still needed to be wrapped. (In fact, I had barely finished my shopping and I’d been feeling pretty smug that I was so on top of it!) I had nothing planned for any meals to celebrate the “holiday.” Helen was visiting for two days and leaving Thursday, and the kids wanted to come Friday evening! Finally, I texted back, “Could you guys come maybe Monday & Tuesday of next week, since you’ll both be on Leave?” Apparently that wasn’t going to work for them, plus at least Nate had to report back to work mid-week. So we decided they would come Saturday afternoon and head home Monday. Whew! That worked out pretty well, but both John and I were pedal-to-the-metal, especially wrapping all day long on Friday. I’ve been having pain in my right hip after standing for any length of time (cooking is killer on it, as is marathon Christmas wrapping) so I had to take frequent breaks. Thankfully brief breaks, as the pain would subside within about five minutes and I’d be able to get back to it again, for a little while until it was time to sit. Ugh. I was so thankful that John really pitched in and helped in a major way. (And he’s had a wild couple of weeks, basically GONE every day either at the Hydroplane Museum or at his mom’s trailer replacing the flooring). The most wonderful aspect of his help was stopping at the store on his way back from somewhere and picking up Dungeness crab (plus hot buttered rum mix and a big bottle of rum!) I had plenty of snacky stuff on hand from Helen’s visit, plus banana nut bread! Plus, I also had steaks for our 2nd meal from Butcher Box, so aside from tidying up, changing guest bedroom sheets, etc., we were ready to go. Yeah, the floors could have stood another cleaning, but meh.

The night before the kids came, they went to Sandra’s Command Christmas party, which looked like a lot of fun!

It included ice skating! What a cool contraption for young kids to keep them from falling on their faces!

Here he is on his own!

CRAB!! (I forgot to take a “before” picture…)

So, the bittersweet? (Besides the fact that Christmas is now OVER and I keep forgetting that it isn’t for virtually everybody else…) Well, this will be the last time I see Nate for nine whole months. He leaves the end of the month on deployment. (Nope, not January).

---

In other news, John got his new truck! I haven’t had a chance to ride in it yet! And all it’s been doing is pouring down rain so it’s already dirty, having to traverse the muddy pot-holed road before getting to our road!

Woohoo!! I’m looking forward to a ride. It’s a small truck compared to his old one, but he no longer needs a big truck. Eventually (once they’re available) he’ll get a matching canopy. And it has a BUNCH of bells and whistles, that he had no idea it came with!