Aack!

Have you ever tried to take a picture of the broken blood vessel in your eye?

The following pictures are the results of my efforts.

The way it rolls---stand in front of the mirror,

point the camera at my eye,

look at the display in the mirror then adjust the camera to center the object,

shoot!

This picture is kind of creepy/scary.

I just had to post it because I laughed so hard when I saw it.

I didn't notice the blood in my eye until I put my contacts in yesterday morning.

What happened?

Pretty, red eye!

Stump

Kevin is trying to destroy this olive tree stump by burning it. That is a chunk of willow tree that he lit on fire to hasten the process. (our lawn is so sad:(

no more leaves

One Friday morning before he left for work, Kevin asked me to rake up the leaves so he could tamp the base in preparation for putting the adobes back in place. Notice the neat stack of pavers on the wall.

Kevin had decided that something had to be done about the pavers. They were buckling from the roots of the tree. One root was coming very close to the corner of the house. Eeek!

A pile of leaves before bagging and dumping in the garden area.

We've had some freezing mornings this past week and now our tree is leafless.

Its difficult to see the tree with the other tree behind it that doesn't shed leaves.

I didn't have to rake any more leaves---Kevin must've done the rest.

Doesn't the patio look nice? Kevin has done a fabulous job. Just the edge needs to be finished.

Parkfield Pigs

After dinner at the Parkfield Restaurant, we got in the car to drive home and there were pigs crossing the street! So, naturally, we had to take pictures!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kevin was very thankful to work on our patio. Its taken several months, but he's finally getting it finished.

After I finished making the pies, walnut and apple, we drove to San Luis to join Kyra and Brad. Sorry I got your back, Val, I really wanted to show off Kyra's baby bump!

This is Kyra's second helping of Green Bean Casserole. She was so excited to get to eat some (its her favorite Thanksgiving dish) that she made a double recipe!

Kyra, Natalie, Kevin, Val and Brad. Dinner was fabulously delicious! After we were done eating and before we all left the table, Brad wanted to continue the tradition from his family of everyone relating what they are thankful for. I'm glad we didn't do that while the food was getting cold on our plates.

Here is the dinner counter, after we all ate. This was Kyra's first turkey and it turned out just right. Kevin performed the surgery on it (carved)--He is fabulous at that, too.

After dinner, and after Kevin, Kyra and I finished up the dishes and putting away the food, we got out the movie "Wall E" because Kevin and I had never seen it. So cute! We enjoyed dessert, too, brownies with cream cheese frosting, sweet potato pie cheese cake (yummy!), walnut pie and apple pie, all with whipped cream.

Thank you, Kyra and Brad, for a very memorable Thanksgiving! (thanks for all the yummy leftovers, too)

text conversation---

I started this funny conversation with Brad yesterday--
Kathleen sent at 9:47am--is the turkey in the oven? Lol

Brad received at 10:20am--oh crap

Kathleen sent at 10:21am--LOL

Brad received at 10:27am--We were supposed to cook a turkey?

Kathleen sent at 10:27am--Haha

Kathleen sent at 10:31am--I'm bringing the desserts--not just pies but brownies with a surprise.

Brad 10:33am--Sweet. What time are you coming down?

Kathleen 10:33am--As soon as the pies are done. When I get the apple in the oven I can give you a better idea of the time frame.

Brad 10:37am--K

Kathleen 11:21am--Walnut pie out of the oven--apple in. Takes 45 min.

Brad 11:23 am--Awesome

Ok maybe it isn't so funny to you. I guess you had to be there.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy to head to Kyra and Brad's for dinner with them and Brad's sisters!!! Pictures to follow.

moonrise

as i was making my way to kyra and brad's, this is what i saw emerging from the clouds.....

Kyra's birthday

I know I'm late....I was just too lazy to upload the pictures from my camera. I also wanted a baby picture of Kyra--I'm having trouble scanning it. We'll see if I can get that done. Sunday was Kyra's birthday. Before church on Sunday morning, I baked a cake. Brad informed me that Kyra wanted a "rich chocolate cake". I wasn't sure what that meant so I bought a Betty Crocker
Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake mix. I let the cake cool while we were at church and frosted it when I got home (cream cheese frosting, again per Kyra's request). I mixed up my usual half recipe of frosting and when I looked at it, I thought to myself, that is not enough so I dumped in another chunk of cream cheese and about a cup of "cone" sugar and mixed it up again. I didn't want any cake pulling up when I frosted it.
We drove the truck, loaded with firewood, to San Luis. Kyra and Brad installed a fireplace insert! They had a nice fire going when we got there. This is Kyra's cake with the candles lit. Kevin and I decided that she will only get one box of candles on her cake until she's 48! haha. the biggest box of candles had only 24. What happened to the boxes with 32 candles?


She tried to blow out the candles slowly but left 3 lit. Can you see her baby bump?

Here's a better picture of baby boy bump Liggett!

we're eating cookies and cream ice cream with our Triple Chocolate Fudge cake. mmmmm! yummy! (Brad, Kyra and Kevin)

the baby's room!!!! with mama kyra

future parents! I also got out Kyra's baby book and gave it to her. She and Brad enjoyed looking through it, me too! Brad mentioned that Kyra looked like Danny, her older brother, in one picture.

Kyra's older sister, Mandi, requested birth stories so I'll try to relate Kyra's here.

My doctor for this pregnancy was Art Segal. If I remember correctly, my due date was November 30th, 1984. I was 30 yearls old. Dr. Segal wanted an amniocentsis to determine if the baby's lungs were ready for breathing outside the womb. That was not an experience I want to repeat. I told them that I didn't want to know the sex of my baby until birth. I'm old-fashioned that way. After the amnio, we decided on Nov 21st as the birth day. Nov 21st was a Wednesday that year, the day before Thanksgiving. Mandi and Danny were in school, Mandi was 7 1/2 and Danny was almost 6. I arranged with my parents for them to stay at our house on the big day to tend to their needs. We went to the hospital very early, my favorite, San Luis County General Hospital--Mandi and Danny were both born there. There was the check-in, usual prep. Kevin was allowed to be in the surgerical room but only standing by my head. He had my dad's Polaroid camera and took pictures. Everything went very well and guess what! another girl. I cried that time, too. We had previously decided on the names Kyra Rebecca or Nicholas, if we had a boy. Oh, I have to tell you where we got the name Kyra from. I was about 7 months along when we watched a video titled "Xanadu", starring Olivia Newton John. The main character's name is Kira. When I told Kevin "what do you think about the name Kira?' he said "Okay but let's spell it with a "y"". Later in the afternoon, Mandi and Danny came to meet their baby sister and Danny said to her "I'm Danny, your big brother". so cute! I'm so glad Kyra is part of our family! Thank you for being the sweet, loving woman that you are!
I almost forgot to add that we left the hospital on Saturday and had our family Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house in Atascadero. I'll see if I can find the picture taken then.....

Yesterday

Yesterday was Kyra's birthday---just in case you didn't know. I will be adding some pictures here. Just have to find the time to get the pictures off my camera......

Cone sugar!

Remember cone sugar? This Tupperware container was part of a set given to me by my long-time friend, Tani. The label is abbreviated "Conf Sugar". When the children were little, they thought it read cone sugar. Isn't that cute?
Preview--Look for sweet daughter pictures on this blog over the weekend. Sunday is Kyra's birthday!

??????

Remember the post last month "strange"? Well, here are some pictures (I didn't have my camera at the time). There are now more clothes and shoes plus a couple of lunch bags with names on them (Lindsey, Matthew and Christine). I picked up the lunch bags and other trash so it wouldn't get blown around. (that's one thing you should know about me, I don't like trash!)

The ground is very smooth there from being walked on. It used to be kind of lumpy, like it was harrowed. I think I will get up very early tomorrow and hide behind the bushes to see what happens. Then Kevin and I can put up chickenwire to close off the corner. I'm still trying to figure out what is going on!!!!!!

Parkfield-Earthquake capital of the world.

Parkfield

Be there when It happens.

Here's the other marker. So I went back through the file of photos and found a bunch that i missed. Should I delete this post and start over? ugh.

Things were really hopping there at the restaurant.....

we wandered around at the inn and found the pool. we went right in to the enclosure.

This is the main street of Parkfield. Don't blink!

This sign designates the San Andreas Fault and the North American Plate.

Its only taken me 3 days to upload all my pictures from our afternoon in Parkfield! Here's the story--one afternoon I suggested that we go to Parkfield. I've never been there. We were going to take off after church one Sunday last spring but something else came up (don't remember now what it was). So on 10-10-10 I suggested to Kevin that we go there after church. We put the top down on the Miata and took off east on highway 46. Good thing I took along an extra cap because I really needed it! My hair was whipping around all over the place. It was the first time I rode in the Miata with the top down since I let my hair grow longer. Above, is a shot of the old post office.

Parkfield Inn. We walked around behind it and looked in the windows of the rooms and they look really cool! One room had a loft! They were themed rooms but I forgot to make note of their names.

Self-portrait. Like the cap?

we called this beagle the Greeter. see the blurry tail? the minute we drove up, she came up to our car, barked a few times and wagged her tail the whole time.

Another shot.....

When I reached out to pet her, she rolled over and let me scratch her belly. So cute!

We drove over the Parkfield creek and there was actually water running under the bridge!

These notices are posted on the door to the Parkfield restaurant. We never did find out why they close early on Tuesdays.

This boiler is to the side of the Parkfield Inn.

So they planted these markers (the other one is in front and to the side of this one). Notice how long it took the plates to move.

In case you can't read it, the population in Parkfield is 18. (note, that black thing in the lower left corner is the edge of our car.)

Fault signs--we were right on the San Andreas fault!

These signs were in front of the Parkfield restaurant.

After looking around, we went to dinner. These are brands hanging from the ceiling of the restaurant. There were lots of them!

I'm sorry to inform you that my pictures are out of order. I had a really hard time uploading them.... This is the Parkfield creek again.

This is my favorite shot of the whole trip. Isn't it pretty? Credit goes to Kevin--I left my camera at home and he took all these pics with his phone!

Here's another pretty one---

Looking down at the creek from the bridge....

Here's where we turned off the road to drive to Parkfield....

sunset

The guardrail over the creek. I like this photo, also.

right next to the Inn was this little rock garden .

As a footnote, one of my customers a couple of weeks ago was from the Parkfield Inn. So I was telling him about our little excursion there and he said, when I mentioned I had never been there before because its not on the way to anywhere else,

"Either you're on your way to Parkfield or you're lost"