A fun night at the bonfire 2009

Amanda Pavlas and me
Lorraine Coyne and me
The promised photos of the burning of the bonfire after the chili cook-off.
Lorraine is such a great worker/volunteer/community member! She helps with just about everything so it is great having her around. (plus she is just lots and lots of fun)
Amanda is great-I enjoy the fellow Texan that she is. I love people that say it like it is and that she does-and in a good way! Glad you girls live on Sakhalin at the same time as us!

pictures of the grand kids and Halloween

JJ as a vet, Aiden the kangaroo, Cate the giraffe, Brooks as a crocodile
Chaliese, Daniel, Clinton and Chaliese's mom, Cheryl
Cutest trunk or treat I have ever seen!
New baby Riley Erin, born October 28th 8 lbs 15 oz 21 3/4 inches
Dreaming happy thoughts

the logs, and the bonfire prepared to burn

Dan helped carry the logs, lay the logs and build the bonfire tower. This coming Sat. they burn the tower!!!
See the spattering of snow...brrr. I hope it warms up for the actual bonfire on Saturday!
I'll post pictures of the burning and then I will post some of my absolutely fun two Japan trips I took recently (posts will be after Saturday November 7th).

While I was gone...

Dan helped out John Sandlin's yearly project of building the A&M (mixed colleges here) bonfire here in Olympia.  Lots of planning goes on and this day they gathered wood.  Too bad they don't have a picture of the logs laying neatly in rows on the ground. 

Igor, Farit's daughter's boyfriend made me this awesome stained glass nativity

I worked with Farit through PKT (training center) practicing his English skills.
His daughter's boyfriend made this amazing stained glass picture for me. He is a great artist and I hope to buy other pieces of stained glass from him.

It's been awhile--I felt like I was doing a Relief Society project...

I offered to make a Christmas tree skirt for the local bazaar that benefits an orphanage in the area. I had to sweep the cobwebs from my mind and use what we had available here and this is the end result...ta da...finally done!!! I am going to hand it over to Peggy (the woman in charge) so I don't keep adding to it if you know what I mean...

Now that was nice...

In the previous blog I wrote of my flight experience. I sent a similar note to Continental thanking them for the flight attendant that came to my rescue. I marked that I did not need to be contacted, however, I received a call but wasn't home so a message was left. Curiosity kills the cat so I returned the call to find out what they wanted. They offered me a travel coupon ($100.00 towards future travel) or 7,500 miles as a way of compensating me for a lousy experience. When I upgraded to Business First it took 25,000 of my miles plus $250.00 so it was very nice of Continental to make this offer. I chose the miles... it was pretty much the same value whether I took the miles or the travel coupon. I thought it was very kind of Continental to follow up on my comments, and then to compensate me was a bonus!