Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Well, it was a very cold and snowy Christmas here in Portland this year and unfortunately a very lonely one, too. Dave and I were expecting about 20 people at our house for Christmas Day dinner with both his family and mine but we ended up with 9 people instead. Debbie and Ken tried their best to get into Portland from Salt Lake City but the snow storm that hit the Pacific Northwest was so bad all departing and arriving flights into the Portland International Airport were cancelled. They could get out of Salt Lake City but not into Portland. So they had to cancel and spend Christmas in SLC without their family and friends. That was disappointing for all of us. Gary and Judy ended up not making it over. They spent part of their Christmas day with Judy's family but it was just too much to try to get through the city. Even if they could have made it over, there was no place to park at our house. 47th Ave was cleared but the side street where the parking is was still so snow packed it was impossible to park. If you could park there was a good chance you wouldn't get out again without being pushed.

All of Dave's family were snowed in. His mom and dad in Columbia City couldn't even get out of their driveway and the hill up to the main highway was impossible to manuever. His aunts were snowed in as well so they couldn't get to the house either.

So, for Christmas Day, my cousins Kimberly and Mike and Mike's two adorable daughters, Bella and Lily were able to make it to our house. Mike had a four-wheel drive truck and went to get Kim who lives in Vancouver. She was definitely snowed in and if he hadn't been able to pick her up she wouldn't have made it. Our friends Jon, Steve, and Kevin were able to get through either by sheer driving skill or by using mass transportation. Janelle, Jon's wife, had to work that day and couldn't make it. Thank heavens the others were able to make it since we had bought two turkeys for the dinner. Dave, Jon, and Steve worked kitchen detail while I entertained our other guests. We had a festive and fun dinner with lots of turkey, mashed potatoes, and the rest of the traditional Christmas foods.

To compensate for such a lousy Christmas Day, Dave and I took off for the beach for the weekend. I had promised Dave a stay at our friends Nena and Patti's beach house for his last birthday so it was a great time to go. Luckily the day after Christmas the weather broke and it was a lot warmer and rainy. It was great to return to Portland's normal wet and warmer winter. We were joined at the beach by Jon and Janelle and Steve for the two and a half day stay. Dave, Janelle and Steve, who are the cooks of the group made some great meals while Jon and I played on our computers. I have a great picture of the dining room table with five different laptops (all Macs except Dave's Viao). I had a great time playing with my new Kindle which Dave gave to me for Christmas.

The Kindle is an electronic book reader. There's some awkwardness with how you have to hold it but otherwise, it's a great invention. You can buy books directly from Amazon.com and they automatically download to your Kindle. And it takes about 5 seconds to download an entire novel. After the first 20 or 30 minutes, I actually forgot that I wasn't reading a real book. It's that fun and easy. Kindle editions of new books are cheaper than buying books and you don't have to carry around three or four books during a 2 1/2 day trip. It was wonderful.

I recommend Kindles to anyone. Not every new book comes in a Kindle Edition but Amazon.com says it has about 80,000 books available for the Kindle and the list continues to grow every day. You can also go to a number of other sites and get copyright free books for nothing on the web. I will never stop buying real books, but having the Kindle will let me be more selective and give me more flexibility for taking reading material on vacation or just sitting around the house reading. I like it.

I'm back at work today after 10 days of not working. The University closed two days the week before last and was closed the entire week of Christmas. So I'm catching up with my work and emails. This week will be very short because of the New Year holiday on Thursday. The state has closed all state offices (including the University) on Friday so I'll have another four-day weekend. I'm beginning to like this. It may be a first taste of retirement and it's not bad.

I hope you all have a wonderful and prosperous New Year. Take care.