Why are you supposed to water your Christmas tree?

After Christmas in 2009, we started a new Jayne family tradition.  Once we take our tree down, we put it out in the middle of the street and set it on fire!  We tried it 2 years ago and we had watered the tree too much so I would not burn.  In 2009, we did not ever water our tree so in burned nicely, as you can see in the pictures on my blog from that year.  In 2010, we continued with the tradition and did not water the tree at all, just so it would be nice and crispy for our after Christmas fun.  But for some reason, our tree did not dry out as fast as normal this year and we had to wait a few weeks with it in the garage.  Our patience paid off as you can see in this video.

  

Now you know why you are supposed to water your Christmas tree.  If this happened in your house, there is a slight potential there for a problem!

Disclaimer: DO NOT attempt if you are clumsy, accident prone, fear fire or lack common sense.

No buildings, people, animals or property were harmed or in anyway damaged in this ceremony. This would not be wise to attempt indoors or on a dry lawn.(use common sense)

I hope everyone got as much amusement out of this as I did and I wish you all a happy and safe 2011!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

Today was my mom's birthday.  You will have to ask her to find out her age though.  I know what her age is, but I am not sharing that here!  We just made the trip to visit her last weekend and we all enjoyed spending those few days in Paisley with her.  We all wanted to stay longer but I had to go to work on Monday.  Now, two days later, it is her birthday.  So I had to write a blog to tell her Happy Birthday!

I searched through thousands of pictures on our computer only to discover that we do not have very many pictures of Mom.  We will have to do something about next time we go visit her.  Here are a couple of the few that I found.

Mom at our house for Christmas in 2009.

Mom at our house again when Mileah was born.

Mom and her house giving Riah an art lesson.

Mom at our house giving Emma an art lesson.

We all love Mom and wish we could see her more often.  We just have to cherish the times we do get to spend with her.

I am just thankful that she is my Mom and wish her the very best on her birthday.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Paisley, Oregon

We took a trip to Paisley to visit my mom last weekend.  It is always a nice and relaxing trip.  On Saturday, Emma wanted to go for a walk around town.  So I grabbed the camera to take some pictures of things that are still around from when I was growing up there and things that are new since I was growing up there.  Then Emma, Riah and I spent a couple hours hiking around town with them asking me about what it was like when I was here before.  So here are the photos from this trip and some of the memories from growing up.

The first view of Paisley as you are driving south on highway 31.

This is the first house I remember living in.  Our family moved here when I was 1 year old and we lived in a couple of other government houses before moving to this one.  My parents had a house built and we moved out of this one when I was in the 5th grade.

Here is the house my parents had built when I was in the 5th grade.  So I lived here from then until I graduated from Paisley High School.

Here are Emma and Riah being silly in some snow near mom's house as we started our walk downtown.  The next 3 pictures are from the top of the hill behind mom's house looking down into Paisley.

This is a common site in town as well.  There were nine deer in this field right next to some homes.  2 of them were bucks.  There has always been deer in town.

They are a little more brave than I remember though.  They have been hanging out ON my mom's deck and staring in her back door!

As we were headed down the hill the girls were looking forward to doing a stick race in the irrigation ditch that we have to cross.  Unfortunately, it was not flowing very fast so the sticks did not move!  Other than to bounce off the ice.

 Just below that frozen irrigation ditch is the town fire hall.  I am not even sure what kind of fire apparatus they have now.

This is a new addition in just the last couple years.  Paisley has a coffee stand now!

This is the main part of downtown Paisley. There is the Pioneer Saloon, the Mercantile, and the Homestead restaurant.  Across the street to the north is the Chewacan Garage. 

 To the east of the Chewacan Garage is the Post office and behind that to the south in the Paisley community center where most events happen in town.

Here is the 100+ year old church that my mom goes to church in every Sunday.

This is a fence around a front yard at a house next door to the school.  It is in pretty good shape for being as old as it is.

 Here is the front of the school.  My class graduation was held on those steps right there.  There was 18 of us graduating that year.

 Emma and Riah playing on the swing set at the school.  The chains and seats are probably not as old, but the frame of the swing set was here when I was a kid.  Just in a different part of the school grounds.

 GO Broncos!  We were the Paisley Broncos and this was on the gym above the entrance.

 Not sure if this is still the same old bus they had back when I was here, but it sure looks the same.

The high school building.

This next picture was take by something that was not here when I was here.  ODOT has a camera set up that you can access on the tripcheck.com website.  I called Brooke and waited for her to save a picture of us from the ODOT camera.

Emma, Riah and I went for a walk around town Saturday afternoon. Here we are waiting for the ODOT camera to take our picture.

 Here is the site of a sawmill that used to employ a lot of people in town.  It closed down after I had graduated from college and this sign is all that is left.

 I saw this and had to take a picture of it for a friend of mine that was in the Marines.  I won't say anything about the truck or him being old and wore out.

Anyone want to go for a swim.  This was the local swimming hole in the Chewacan river just out of town past where the old mill used to be.  Might be kind of chilly today!

Here is the US Forest Service office.  My dad worked here from the 70's to 1997 when he retired.  I am not sure how many people work here now.  But I am sure that it is a lot less than when I was growing up.

Not every town can claim to have a skull from an Elicorn!  That would be a cross between an elk and a unicorn!  But there is one hanging on a barn in Paisley!

Here is my dad's old truck.  I learned to drive in this truck.  I inherited it when dad passed away.  One of these days I am going to take it home and start fixing it up.  I have lots of plans for it if the budget ever allows.

 Here is the entrance to the Paisley Cemetery.  They have made a lot of improvements to it since I lived in town.  The big sign over the entry way was a project from a graduating senior just a few years ago.

Here is Emma looking at Papa's headstone.

There's a lotta bull hanging out close to mom's house!

The Paisley "P".  When I was going to school here, the seniors and freshman would all go up there on a certain day during homecoming week in the fall.  The freshman would have to rearrange the number into the current graduating classes year and repaint the rocks on the number and the P white.  Then there would be a big paint fight between the seniors and freshman and we would all walk back to school.  A fun time!  I am not sure what they do now since they do not have enough students to field a football team so there is no homecoming football game.

 Here is some pictures of what was my back yard or playground growing up.

 There was always someplace to go play and something to do.

 I spent little time at home.  Now I live in a house in a town and have a lot the size of Mom's front yard!  Makes me wish I could be back there in Paisley again.  I always enjoy going over there for visits.  All the wide open spaces, a much slower pace, no traffic, and all the people are friendly.  What else do you need?

Here is one more thing that was not here when I was growing up.  Someone has built themselves a half pipe!

So if you are looking for a nice relaxing place to go on a vacation, you can go visit Paisley, OR.  The food in the restaurant is good and all the people are really nice.  I sure whoever built the half pipe would let you use it!

One last thing.  If you do go visit, watch out for the mosquitos!  They have been known to carry people off!

Elk Season 2010/2011

Elk season was quick this year.  It started on the 1st of January as usual, but I always seemed too busy to get out in the woods and look for a gawker to shoot.  I went out for the first time for a couple hours on the 10th, but never saw an elk.  Then I headed up in the hills on the 11th and within an hour, I found some gawkers gawking and one shot later, the hunt was over.  I think this was the fastest I have ever filled my tag for any hunt.  Now we have meat in the freezer again.  Or at least we will once I cut it up! 

Holy or Holey?

ho·ly   adj \ˈhō-lē\

Definition of HOLY

1: exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness

2: divine holy — Psalms 99:9(Authorized Version)>

3: devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity holy temple> <holy prophets>

4: having a divine quality <holy love> b : venerated as or as if sacred <holy scripture> holy relic>

hol·ey  adj \ˈhō-lē\

Definition of HOLEY

: having holes

The other day, Brooke pointed out to Riah that she was wearing some very holey pants.  Emma was nearby and at first laughed, but then got a sort of confused look like she was trying to figure something out. Then she asked, "Mommy, why do they call them Holy pants?"  Both Brooke and I laughed and looked at her for a second or two until we figured out that she was serious.  Brooke answered with, "Because they have holes in them!"  To this, Emma started laughing and said that she should have known that.  She just automatically thinks of the word Holy when she hears that.  It did not even cross her mind that Holy could also be written holey.   I like that she thinks that way.  I think that is a good sign that she is learning and remembering the things we teach her.

Look out world, our kids are driving!

Everyone that comes into Angelee court had better watch out now.  Two of our daughters are now driving.  They do not have licenses yet, but they both got vehicles to drive around and terrorize the neighborhood.  So if you come onto our street your are likely to get run over by our 2 high speed racers!  They do not understand steering quite yet!

Here is Sarah in her Ferrari!  It will go from 0-60 in, well, never.  It moves at the blazing top speed of about 3.1 mph!  I think it can do the quarter mile in about 4 minutes flat!  It is a good thing that the quarter mile is a straight race, she doesn't turn very well!

With a little coaching and a little turning for her, she started to realize she can control it, but it is still a little crazy behind the wheel.  Just as most 3 year old probably.

Then there is our 1 year old, Leah.  She got a hopped up quad for Christmas!

Here she is tearing up the cul-de-sac!  She was just ripping around at the quads top speed of a whopping 2 mph.  

Although I use the term ripping "around" loosely, as she never did grasp the concept of turning.  She does just love it though.  At first we just let her ride it in the house.  The first time she got on, she would push the button quickly and make it jerk forward and then let go.  She loved it.  After a while she figured out that she could actually move if she held the button down!  She would go until it ran into something and stop.  Then she would get off and try to turn it around.

She even did some curb hopping!

Once we let her outside with it, she did the same thing.  Just rode straight until someone turned her or it ran into something and stopped.  If she happened to hit the curb right, it actually had enough power to go up on it.  

So now you know to watch for little things trying to run you down on our street.  I think you will be okay though, as long as you can react fast enough to dodge something moving at a max speed of 3.1 mph.