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Lebanon, Oregon, United States
We are Terry & Cathye Kinkelaar. If you've followed my blog in the past, you know that Lydia, my beautiful wife of 52 years, and I made the lifestyle choice to move to Oregon in 2017. You've seen my posts about losing her in May 2020 to cancer. Although I was left alone, I am pleased to say that I have found happiness again. In April 2021, I met Cathye, who also lost her longtime husband in 2020. Well, we fell in love and were married in April 2022. So, if folks are still interested, I will continue to post here as we move forward with our lives and adventures!

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Oregon Living 2021 – Blog #73 – Last Minute Things and a Merry (White) Christmas!

  

Wednesday, December 22nd., 2021…… We needed to go to Arby’s in Albany some time today to pick up a gift card for Jamie. We’ll go later in the day.  First up - walking the dogs. We got up and out but made a little shorter trip of it today because it was starting to rain a bit. I am so used to the rain that I don’t think too much about going out in it anymore. As long as I remember to take the time to change out my wet shoes or wet pants or whatever is too wet to wear for the day, I’m good to go!  We headed to Albany and ran some errands and hit Harbor Freight and Home Depot and used the drive thru at Arby’s (no inside service), to get that gift card.  Problem was, when I got up to the window, I found they do not sell Arby’s gift cards!  But I managed to back out, thanks to the guy behind me having a big truck and gave me enough room to get out. Thank you, sir!

Thursday, December 23rd., 2021……  Another drop in temps today. BUT we had some glorious sunshine for most of the day!  It was just cold. Temps all day in the low 40s. All of the news today has been about maybe a white Christmas. We’ll see… We had Aimee (my realtor friend) come by and meet Cathye today. We took her over for a tour of the trailer just to get an idea of its value. We’re still trying to figure out our best options for the property. We had a nice visit and she took a few pics. Later, Cathye took off for some errands. She had to run to the store for some ingredients for a cake and to drop off a few gifts to friends at the trailer park. That done, she came home to get me. It was time to head off to her doctor’s appointment. This was her yearly physical. I drove and waited in the car and rested. No worries. She is very healthy. We got back home and then headed over to Walmart for some last-minute stuff for Christmas dinner. Tv until bedtime.        

Friday, December 24th., 2021……  The storms and the humongous cold front that is coming in from Alaska is still on track to hit the Northwest so we are all getting ready for it. I only have one or two outside water spigots that needed to be covered and I did those. Cathye got a note in her mail at the trailer reminding her to do the same. She went over and took care of hers. Then we settled in at the house and got ready for tomorrow. We pre-cooked some stuff for Christmas. Cathye made a chocolate cake and I made the deviled eggs this time.  We were ready! I did manage to catch this little elf on the shelf taking a break!...

The only thing left was midnight mass. But, as it turned out, most of the churches cancelled services due to the weather. So, we had an early night and settled in.  

Saturday, December 25th., 2021…… MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  We will have Cherrelyn, Butch, Penny, Britany, Corey, Brandon, and Jamie here for dinner. But each of us will open gifts beforehand and then the shared ones when they all get here. Cathye and I took the dogs out for a really short walk. It was 33° and not expected to get any warmer throughout the day. But no rain or snow so we just had the cold to deal with. I used to think I would hate the cold, but I guess my blood is used to it by now. So, temps in the 40s don’t bother me (shorts weather!) anymore. I don’t think anyone can ever get used to highs in the 30s, so I can say it was cold today!  Snow is still expected today. Anyway, we opened our gifts to one another (and the dogs got theirs too), then got ready for the family. Everyone showed up at once (around 11:30) and we opened gifts. We also had several phone calls and a couple of facetime calls with family and friends. Dinner was spectacular!  

Dessert was awesome, although we ate it way later in the day because we were stuffed. Later, when everything was cleaned up and everyone was gone, we settled in and relaxed and enjoyed a quiet evening watching tv. Rylee was pooped out, surrounded herself with her guarded toys!

As we were sitting there, we looked out and saw the first snow falling! This is a shot from the front porch.

It was the end to a nice day!    

Sunday, December 26th., 2021…… Here’s what we woke up to this morning. Shot from the back porch...


It wasn’t a lot of snow but it wasn’t done yet!  It continued to snow off and on all day. Our discussion about Christmas decorations had been going on for some time now. Cathye wants them up until January. I want them down the day after.  We compromised. The tree and my village will go today or tomorrow. The outside lights and the snowflake lights in the windows stay up. The snowmen decorations (and we have tons of them!) will also stay up around the house. The rest will be boxed up. Not too much going on today though. Her church service was cancelled. We were both content to just hang around the house and not do too much. We did go over to Penny’s house to give Cherrelyn her gifts. She didn’t come yesterday, and we wanted to get out in the snow anyway, so this was perfect!  We took Cathye’s 4x4 truck but the roads were fine and we made it there with no issues. We had a nice visit. Later, when we got back home, I drug out the boxes and bins and we started with the tree and got the decorations down and put away and the tree boxed up and out on the porch. That was about it for the day…

Monday, December 27th., 2021……  More snow last night. The main roads had been sanded yesterday but not today. They were icy!  I know because we went out for breakfast and, even though I was driving the 4x4, I managed to lose traction and slid it a bit. It was fun watching people watch me as I corrected the wheel to avoid hitting anything. But I put it in 4-wheel drive and we were good to go.  Cathye managed to have a few laughs at my behalf! We ate and headed back home and finished putting away the Christmas stuff. The boxes only made it to the back porch but at least we had everything in the house cleaned up. Only the snowmen (and the outside lights) remain!    

Tuesday, December 28th., 2021…… Cathye headed off to take down her decorations at the trailer and hit Walmart while I concentrated on getting everything off the porch and stashed in the shop garage. We will wait until all of the bins are there before we stack and store on the racks. I took pics where everything was but we have purged a lot of the old brittle bins and replaced them with bigger ones. But I think we’ll have no problem putting everything away. The snow is still on the ground but it’s starting to melt. I think by tomorrow, it will all be gone – at least on our flat property. Those folks up the hill to our south have tons of trees and don’t get a lot of direct sunlight.  

 

 

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