Back from Leavenworth.

We spent 4 lovely days in Leavenworth. This is a Bavarian-style town, built by 

Bavarians in the Bavaria-like hills of Washington State in the USA. 

With our good friends and traveling companions, Charles and Diane Fitzgerald. 

Our WorldMark condo had this view from the terrace.

Back from the cruise

It was a great experience and we loved it. Holland American is much better than Norwegian. The food, however, is too much. Too tempting. 

  

  

In Sitka

NFinally we got a WiFi connection. We are sitting in a community hall, watching Russian dancers. 

  At a glacier. 

Today is the day...

the day we board the MS Oosterdam, our floating hotel for the next week. 

We got new clothes, we dug out old big suitcases, and packed them. 

Then re-packed them. 

Chuck & Diane are here

We picked them up at the airport 6:30 yesterday, stopped for a burger at a Red Robin and for a highway accident, got home before 10. 

Nice visit from Chas

Good friend from Victoria Chas Martin spent the night on his way to Orlando. Good to see him again. 

  Chas

I'm using the 'Blogger' ap on my iPad to put in these posts, which is why there are so many. It's super easy to make a post. Only problem is that there's no run-around on photos. 

Apple Store 1-2-1

Went to Apple in Tacoma to fix the iPhone. It needed to be nuked and paved. Did it during a one-to-one open training session. It has some residual problems, but at least the camera works again. It is our "main" camera. Bill came with, then we had our Red Robin burgers. It was a good day.

Working a bit,

. . . getting electronics and other info into Evernote. Finally.

Manfred's almost-new iPhone gradually stopped working.
He's getting used to his new teeth. Learning to stop biting cheek.

Here's a photo M took in our yard.
The birds are one of those
"They told us we could be anything, so we became..." photo jokes.

Back in P.O., facing austerity & weight loss

We have been back in Port Orchard for a couple of days, now. Mercutio, our cat, came running from the woods to greet us when we arrived around 8 pm. He has been über-affectionate ever since. Our flights were not delayed, in fact, they were early.

We have to go into austerity mode now, to pay for all that extra activity.
No buying nothin', not nohow. Sequester kicking in. : (

Manfred is making another attempt at losing weight. Me, too, I am getting fat and lazy. We have been eating mostly soup, and some yogurt, for the last 2 days.

M's fav cook on Food network, Alton Brown, had some good rules:
Daily - eat fruits, whole grain, leafy greens, nuts, carrots, green tea
3x/wk - eat oily fish, yogurt, broccoli, sweet potato, avocado
1x/wk - eat red meat, pasta, desserts, alcohol
0x/wk - never eat fast food, soda, processed meals, canned soups, "diet" anything.

I don't agree totally with those 1x restrictions, but I'll try it anyway.

 Alton Brown

Today is the day . .

The day that Manfred gets his new teeth. We need to leave Chuck & Diane's house at 11 a.m., to get to the dentist appointment at 4.

?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?

Well, it was pretty horrendous, but we made it. The dentist took too long, and we had to take a taxi which drove really fast and got us to the train station in time to just catch the last train to Encinitas. It cost us $60. Luckily we had round trip tickets.

There was a lovely lasagna dinner waiting for us.
Tomorrow is our flight home.

In Encinitas near San Diego

We are having such a good time with Charles and Diane. We're doing fun things with computers and iPads.

Manfred got his dental prep done and is waiting for the lower permanent denture, which will be installed Monday. Tuesday we leave.

TJ again

Logan left yesterday and we spent today getting to Tijuana. We are in the hotel now. Tomorrow the dentist, then to San Diego to visit Chuck and Diane.

Logan visit

Logan came on May 5, and it's been so nice. We went to Seattle to see Jurassic Park 3D at the IMAX theatre. It cost a lot, but it was worth it as it was Logan's first ferry ride, and first IMAX.

Then Bill invited us all to come to his place. We drove to Port Angeles and took the ferry on foot. After the usual hold up at the border, Bill picked us up and drove to Port Renfrew. That was yesterday. Today we saw Maurice Tremblay, and Betty, and Ted and Loretta.  And the big spruce. We didn't see Bruce and Angie, but we saw them last week.

Tomorrow, we go back to Port Orchard. It makes for a long trip.

<

Between visitors.

Bill left yesterday. We took him to the ferry, met with friends, did not attend SMUG meeting. Today we prepare for Logan's visit. He'll be here 10 days, April 5 -15. Can't wait to meet him. We haven't seen him since he was a few month old, now he's 21, I think.

Happy Easter!

I'm writing this post on my cute little iPad, so the writing is really tiny. I have to depend on the spellchecker because I can hardly read it.

Bill is visiting again.  He was going to stay in BC until April 8, but couldn't stay away.  We are working on the traditional Easter ham dinner. Already had the Deviled Eggs (delicious), including a couple of painted eggs from our wonderful neighbor, Charri.

We have just booked our flight to San Diego for April 16, returning April 23.  Logan will be here from April 5-15, so it will be a busy month.

Cat photo

We never seem to have any photos of our cats, so when we don't have the critters anymore, the chance is lost. So this time I'm putting a photo here of our present feline family member.

Introducing Mercutio, whose previous owner must have liked Shakespeare. He's called Merki, is an old guy at 12 yrs, colored "tuxedo", runs the house fairly well, has his own cat door and spends a lot of the night outdoors.  Days are spent mostly sleeping on each bed and chair in its turn.

So easy, so cool

Yo! Now I will be blogging every day.

I just got another new app -- Explain Everything ... It's to make slides that are like ppt videos.
I tried to put on a video here, not from EE, to see if videos work, but it was a still. I guess only still are available to be chosen.

This is the skin I've chosen for my iMini (iPad Mini), and another of the many available for $10.

New app -- blogger -- testing

I just got the *blogger* app for iOS, so I'm trying it out. I'm writing this on my beloved iPad Mini. If this works, I'll be blogging more often. I'm going to try putting in a photo.
I can't control the size or create runaround on here.

NeatDesk is soooo neat..

We have been staying home a lot -- couch potato city.
We will be going to Mexico in April and to Alaska in May.  

We have a new NeatDesk scanner w/ocr & document organizing software.  I am feeding all the paperwork through it.  Nothing is safe.  The NeatDesk scanner works very well, but the software is not totally wonderful.  There are other brands that do the same thing but better and much cheaper.

But I am really happy that I have this.  Hopefully, the forest of papers will someday diminish.

I also got my contact lens replaced (after about 2 years.  What a difference!

I am really enjoying my iPad Mini, just as much as Manfred is enjoying his iPad.  I need the computer to do the Neat Desk thing, but otherwise it just sits there.  And it is the world's neatest 'puter -- a tiny 11" MacBook Air, which is almost as small as the bigger iPad.  

Back after gone long

I can't believe I've neglected this all this time.  Too much has happened since that last post.

Probably the most important thing is that I got an iPad Mini, and Manfred got an iPad.
Before that, he got an iPhone 3GS.  And I have an iPod Touch.  So we have pretty much switched over to the iOSphere.  We spend more time than ever on our devices (lots of time--we so love them), but we hardly ever use our computers any more.  One bad side effect of that is the neglect of this blog.  Blogspot does not play well with iOS.

Anyway, we went to Mexico for Manfred to finish his teeth, and he changed his mind about the kind of teeth he wanted -- permanent instead of snap-on.  So he needed more implants and he still hasn't got the teeth, so we go back again in April.

When we went there, we stayed with Chuck & Diane Fitzgerald in a WorldMark condo in San Diego, and went on a Harbor Cruise (very nice) and to the Zoo (so-so).

We have booked a cruise to Alaska with Chuck and Diane for the end of May.
After the cruise, we will go to a WorldMark condo in  Leavenworth WA. 
No plans for Europe at present.

Bill Jones has been staying here (Port Orchard) since the Coho ferry stopped running between Port Angeles and Victoria.  He will go back when it starts running again, on Feb 7th.  He is also going on the cruise to Alaska.