Festival of Trees

One of our Thanksgiving holiday traditions is going to the Festival of Trees. Bill is a member of Rotary and everyone participates in it in some form or fashion. Bill has been in charge of judging the last several years and has played Santa as well. This year his participation included his usual judging responsibilities, making a video advertisement and presenting the video contest submissions on Sunday afternoon. He also was Santa for a photo shoot done in August to help advertise the event which is what the Santa in the airplane pictures were for.

As usual the trees are beautiful. They do a nice job of nestling the trees among the vintage aircraft at the Pearson Air Museum. Next Saturday, we will be going to the gala where they will sell them.

Thankful

We had a nice day. Chuck arrived Tuesday night. Tom got here last night. He had a little bit of a challenge getting home. He and Maddy were stuck on I-90 for about 3 hours Tuesday night waiting for the freeway to open over Snoqualmie Pass due to the snow. He came from Seattle to Portland on the bus yesterday.

I had to work last night and then Tom and I visited until the wee hours of the morning so it was a little bit hard getting up this morning but I didn't want to miss the Packer-Lion game. And thankfully they won and are 11-0 now. Yippee! Bill and Chuck did a little hiking in the rain while we watched the game.

Chuck and I teamed up to make the turkey dinner. All and all it was a nice day but exhausting. Ready to go to bed now. Night all!

Senior Vigil

Tom participated in his fourth Veterans Day parade in Ellensburg this year. But as a senior, he also participated in the Senior Vigil--a 24 hour vigil over a POW/MIA display. Nine out of the twelve seniors participated. They took turns in 15 minute shifts so they basically had to do one 15 minute shift every hour. So he was up the whole 24 hours plus. And the display was outside so it was cold.

They started right after the parade on Veterans Day--at noon--and went until noon the next day. They had a lot of visitors. Tom happened to be on at 11 p.m. on 11-11-11 shift. An Air Force veteran stopped by and gave Tom and another cadet his second lieutenant bars. Tom said that a Vietnam veteran broke down in front of the display for quite awhile.

So proud of Tom and his classmates for honoring our veterans and our war veterans in particular in this way.

Annual Veterans Day Celebration

We were invited to the Canby Pub and Grill for our annual Veterans Day celebration with Jeff and Julie. There were about 18 of us at dinner last night. Jeff and Julie wore their vintage uniforms as they always do. Jeff wore a new uniform to his collection--a 1922 Navy dress uniform. Julie wore a Navy WAVE uniform from World War II. We had a very nice time getting together with them and their other veteran friends.

An Evening with John and Caprial

I have to admit--until recently I had never heard of John and Caprial Pence. That probably shocks those people who love to watch cooking shows. But I never had seen their show. One of my co-workers has gone to several of their classes and has talked about them a lot. It has surprised me how many people actually know who they are because I had never heard of them.

But they live here in the Portland area and used to have a restaurant here. Alex invited the nursing informatics team to go with them to the class last night-an Italian celebration dinner. Laura and her husband came with us as well. It was fun to watch them cook and explain how to make your own pasta and ricotta cheese and everything else that they were making. They had lots of tips for making radicchio less bitter, making less lump sauces and things like that as well. The dishes were fabulous. But so rich. I was so so full for hours after we left.

It was fun to have a little brush with celebrities for an evening.

Veterans Parade

One of the things that I love about Vancouver is how much they value the contributions of our veterans. We have had a big Veterans Parade here in Vancouver for the past 25 years. In years past, we have also had big hangar dances in the evening. That portion of the celebration has gone by the wayside in the past few years but the parade continues to be as big a deal as ever. Reenactment groups like the 1st Oregon Volunteer Infantry and the Buffalo soldiers, various veterans groups, car clubs, bands, and just about every Girl Scout and Boy Scout troop in the County participate.

Every year it is either rainy and/or cold but there are always more than 100 units in the parade with about 2500 people marching in it. It last about two hours. So it is a long time to stand in the cold and the rain. But the fact that so many people march in it and come to view the parade is such a tribute to this community and I am proud that it supports our soldiers and veterans in this way.