Christmas Day

We have so much to be thankful for, God has been faithful to us.  We praise Him for each day we have together and with Him.  He is leading us in all that we do.

Peter is still here, the blood sugars are coming down, the bp is still high and he still get arrhythmia at least once a week but as long as he doesn't move around too much it goes away the same day.

The rain is coming down in torrents today but this weekend is supposed to clear up and be nice.  We have a show this weekend, an agility just across the street at the fairplex in pomona.  Three weeks without shows has put us very tight but we're warm, dry and have plenty to eat.   

I just talked to Rachel and 7 year old son Sage, it was a nice gift to hear from them.  I'll be able to hear from Sarah and Jordan later today when they get home from their dads.

The dogs say its cold and are snuggled up, Hoshi doesn't like to go out in the rain so when she has to, I put a rain coat on her but she still spends most of the time shaking drops off herself.  Nougat uses a wee wee pad so doesnt have to go out.

It's a good day to reflect on the wonderful Gift that God sent to save us... we are so blessed to have Jesus as our savior.

LA Freeways

Well I just spent most of the morning on the LA freeway system.  Wow, what a trip.  Glad I had my Garmin with me on the way down, it made it so easy...

On the way back I stopped at a bank, and then put in my destination... the Garmin totally lost it.  First it told me to go E on I-10, N on 101 - then changed it's mind and said to go S on I-5... connect to I-10 E.  I don't know what happened but it took me right past downtown and the traffic was horrendous!!  I got off on Hwy 2 and followed that until the Garmin decided that it would not make me turn around and told me to go Colorado Blvd for 10 miles.  I saw Hwy 134 and took that and wound up on Hwy 210 which was where I knew I wanted to be as it got me back to San Dimas finally!!!

I think that's all I want to do for freeways.  Thank goodness Peter will be driving when we head East again.

Kayaking w/ Hoshi

This is the first time I'd taken Hoshi out in the boat.  I've got some pictures here , I'll try to put captions on them as I go.

She sat between my knees as we started out, I've got her harness on and a

 leash clipped to the boat.  She's fairly nervous at first but wanted to keep an eye on all the ducks that were around us, both in the water and on land.  

The first day we did not venture far and I let her get in and out of the boat often to show her that she could.

The second day we went all around the lake and were out on the water for over an hour.

Seeing the birds on the land was very exciting, but she was not anxious to get into the water.  She fell in a couple of times and I

 pulled her right out and into the boat, she was very cautious and was careful to not fall in again.

We paddled around the lake and there

 were always ducks around that would flap away when we got close, that kept her very happy to just sit and watch for quite a while.  There were quite a few people around the lake fishing 

or painting s

cenery which is quite beautiful.  This lake is Puddingstone lake in San Dimas, CA and there is a public park as well as the RV park.

When I got into the middle of the lake on the way back to our launch site, Hoshi decided that she was brave enough to climb out onto the  bow of the boat. 

 It didn't take her long to get her balance and she was standing at the very tip of the boat, watching where we were going.  She stayed up there for the rest of the trip, loving every minute of it.        

  Her balance was amazingly good for this being her first time on a boat.  And her being comfortable out in the middle of the lake was very surprising to me.  I've tried to introduce her to water before from shore and all she'll usually do is put her feet in up to her ankles.  I am so please that she enjoys boating as this is another activity that I love to do and having her with me is just doubling the fun!!.

This is her smile, she uses it quite often when she's doing something fun, seeing me come back home, waiting for food that 

she's smelling.

She's such a happy girl, and so obedient.  She's easy to train and she loves for me to play with her.  I can tell that this is something that she'll love to do often.

Catch Up

We're in California at this time and trying to take a 2 week rest... I've got lots of projects lined up for myself; I am anxious to put the kayak in the lake and have 2 new books to read as well.

While in AZ some things have been happening that I want to share; Peter' BP has been skyrocketing, when we are brave and I take it it's been over 190/120 regularly with fluctions up to 220/135 not uncommon.  We did call the dr and all they were worried about was his high blood sugar which has still not gone under 200 fasting more than twice while on insulin.  He's on 5 units of lantus nightly which is a 12 hr acting drug so it is supposed to handle it all day long.  He gets really grouchy at times and I know that it's due to him trying to handle the physical problems that he's having.

While at Tucson, the phone service was terrible and I couldn't get through to him, I jumped on my bike and peddled out to the rv which was about 1/4 mile away... just to check up on him.  He was ok but my bp went through the roof as that morning he had not been feeling well.

We had a nice time visiting with my brother Rob and his wife Julie just before the Yuma show, it had been a few years since we had been able to catch up with them.  Both of us enjoyed it greatly!  We parked out in their back yard and I got the shelves done in the trailer.  

Speaking of their back yard (which is totally fenced), both front and back are wonderfully done in cacti of many varieties, along with the tall ones with arms that all little kids can draw!!  There are some that have "flowers" that are yellow or orange but the flowers are the same consistency of the cactus!!  There are lots of branches that we would call trees but are still cactus.  Really beautiful, it's amazing that the desert blooms are so other worldly than what I grew up with in the NW, but I can't deny the beauty in them.

The agility show in Phoenix was really bad for us, people were not in the buying mood at all, there are many vendors that are not making enough money to restock their shelves.   Thank the Good Lord that the gas prices have come down as we didn't feel bad about running the generator since there were no plug in's.

The weather in Phoenix was weird, friday was nice, saturday was beautiful, and Sunday was totally cloudy, it actually started to sprinkle a smidge... We couldn't stay over on Sunday night so Peter drove us to a flying J and we stayed the night there... got an early start the next morning and made it down the boring I-10 to Banning.  Boy was it windy!!  we were getting buffeted all over the place and Peter needed to pay attention as the wind was shoving us sideways on the freeway.

We are now in San Dimas at an RV park with a lake.. I've got the kayak almost together and I'll put it in the water tomorrow.  I expect to get totally wet as Hoshi will probably tip me over at least once!  The weather is cooperating this week and expected to get warmer until monday!

STILL IN AZ

Well we're back in Phoenix, I like this area... we're still in the Scottsdale area, northern Phoenix... there are so many bike lanes, it's wonderful.  I just ran to Safeway this afternoon, the weather is cooperating, nice and cool but still perfect.

I goofed again, I forgot the name of the rv park that I had sent all our mail to so now I have to go over there and collect it tomorrow and hope that I catch all the UPS stuff coming in!!  It's not far, we're on 27th and they are on 25th.

Hoshi is having ear problems so I'll take her to the vet tomorrow.  It's about 1.5 miles down the road, so not too much travel for either of us.

Yuma was a terrible show, no one was buying much of anything, I did sell alot of ornaments but hardly any leather at all.  Yuma is not my favorite place, it's flat but it rained two days, heavily... standing water all over the place.  The only good thing was that there was a canal that Hoshi and I could use for bicycling.

Peter has been having stomach pain, we think it's a kink in his intestine... he's hoping that he can baby it along until we get to KY in March to see the dr and have some tests done.

He's also been having high BP (190/120) average and his blood sugars are not coming down as quickly as we'd hoped.  The dr has put him on insulin, he's taking 5 units a night..it's a 12 hr release.

We're looking forward to the next two weeks, seeing Bob and Connie and getting some time off.