2008
Copyright © James W. Blilie, 2010: All rights reserved
Phyllis and Jim's family photos - Main Page
Phyllis and Jim's family photos 2008
It's been another year full of activity, including a lot of projects on our Shoreview house and a few in White Salmon as well. It's been a rather wild year in the economic and public sphere. We feel very fortunate to have good stable jobs and to have a basic, traditional style mortgage that we can afford!
At the end of last year, we had a nice Christmas time visit to Shawano to see Phyllis's relatives, including getting to see our nephew Brad and his friend Juan Carlos. Brad showed us his photos from his artists exchange visit to South Africa, which were fascinating. Brad had an internship this year at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. He's well on his way to making a good career at a museum - maybe in New York or Washington, DC. This summer, in July, we also got to celebrates Jim's Mom and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary. It was catered at his Mom and Dad's new townhouse. Jim's Dad continues to slowly decline and restaurants are a bit of a challenge for him now. Jim's Mom and Dad moved into a newer, nicer, and much brighter townhouse in the same retirement community. This was a very good move for them. Jim's Mom is much happier in the brighter, more spacious home.
This year, we had a nice, three-week long trip to White Salmon in June and July. We had plenty of time to see our friends: Kevin, Anna, Tim, Eric, Allison, Ben, Gaye, Cara, and of course Jeanne, Steve, and Anne. We also got to see our neighbors: Martin, Tom Nicolai (who has the nice log home down towards Major Creek from our place, and Roger Gateby from down Bates Road. We took many hikes, as usual, including finding some new ones that may become favorites, like the "backside" hike up Mount Defiance. (The regular route rises over 4000 vertical feet in a few miles - way too much for us right now.) Jamie is now doing all his own hiking: no more baby-carrier pack on Dad. Jim has really felt the relief from this! Jim's pack weight went from about 50-60 pounds loaded back to 15-20 pounds. What a relief. As all hikers with kids know, we are now in the limited stage when the small one hikes on his own; but isn't big enough the do heavy hiking. We also visited the Gorge center in The Dalles and the Bonneville salmon hatchery and sturgeon center, where we got to feed the trout and check out some giant sturgeon (up to 10-ft long and 450 pounds!) Jamie also got to play at the Hood River Pool with Cara and Gaye, which he loved. We also went to Cannon Beach, which was Jamie's first trip to the ocean since Florida a couple of years ago. We all loved the tide pools and sand castle building. We had superb weather - just a couple of rainy nights and a couple of very hot days. Otherwise, it was perfect NW summer: 85° days and 55° nights. While in White Salmon, we accomplished quite a bit of work in addition to the fun. Since Phyllis is now playing piano, we got a Yamaha electric piano for White Salmon. Phyllis played it a lot, as did Steve, and Jim and Phyllis even played together a few times, which was fun. We got a new, comfortable and sturdy reading chair for Jim. Jim installed ceiling fans in the other two bedrooms (all bedrooms have them now.) Jim also replaced both of the super-cheapo toilets with nice, new ones: sounds silly; but we really like them. We got a new simple stereo, got two nice enameled cast-iron pots, put new benches on the front porch, and put up a new coated steel clothes line. Jim cleared more junk out of the barn, cut up the old tow-bars (new acetylene-oxygen torch!) from the house (which were on Anne's property) and got rid of them, and disassembled the remaining farm equipment and got rid of it too. The place is pretty cleaned up now. All this work fit easily amongst the play and lots of sleeping.
In addition to the projects in White Salmon, we also had a big year of projects in Shoreview. (We've decided that there will be very few projects in 2009 - we'll be saving money and relaxing a bit more.) We were very pleased to have a family of bluebirds and a family of tree swallows each successfully raise a brood in the bird houses in our backyard. We planted a new trumpet vine and it flourished. We put new carpet into our main level, with lots of help from Nannette, Jeff, and their sons Lee and Chris. Wow, what a difference! We also got a couple of new rugs: one for the master bedroom, one for Joe's bedroom, and one to cover up the gray tile in our foyer. Jim replaced all the faucets in the house (primarily because they were old and Jamie couldn't work them) which involved putting shutoffs on all these locations. Jim also replaced one of our outside faucets. And, we liked the new toilets in White Salmon so much, Jim replaced one of ours in Shoreview (the others to be done in 2009). (Jim says, remind me not to do any plumbing for a LONG time! If you have plumbing to do: be sure to check out the new Shark-bite fittings - magic!) We replaced every knob and drawer-pull throughout the house. We replaced both refrigerators (they were 20+ years old and we wanted to save energy costs.) In addition to the new roof last year, we got all new gutters and down spouts, and had the entire house painted. Before the painting we had some pesky siding damage repaired. Berkshire Exteriors did a great job for us on the hail repairs. We repaired the decks our selves, which involved demolition of the deck railings and complete rebuilding of them and sanding the entire deck down to bare wood and re-staining the entire deck. This was a huge job and took most of Jim's Phyllis's and Joe's free time for four weeks in May and June. The result was well worth it. Jim replaced the front screen door with one that has sliding glass and screen elements. Jim also replaced all the exterior lighting on the front of the house after the house was painted. After all the home projects were done, we threw an end-of-summer party and invited friends, family, and work colleagues.
Joe is now a Junior at Mounds View High School and continues to like it and do well. He's taking photography this year, which he likes a lot. They are shooting black and white and making B&W prints. Joe continues to drive in preparation for eventually getting his license. Joe continues to deal with ADHD and as part of this, he had an extensive series of tests which revealed: genius IQ (no surprise) but also some interesting challenges including auditory cognition (surprising for the kid who can remember tunes and movie quotes so well), and sequential memory (an ah-ha moment.) We are working with Joe's unique learning needs with the school. Joe's big news this year was his coming out to his parents: Joe told us he is gay. We had thought this for a long time; but it was important to hear it from him directly. He seems more relaxed and sure of himself since.
Jamie continues to love New Horizons at Jim's work. He's eager to learn letters and number s and writes his name pretty well. He loves books, especially books about the ocean. He really loves to draw and fills our home with pictures of: the ocean at its creatures, our home, Halloween scenes ("Halloween is my favorite holiday!"), and pictures of various animals and giant sequoia trees. Jamie is a very strong hiker - he easily does 3 miles and had no trouble hiking up 1100 feet on Mt. Defiance on a hot day. Jamie is a sweet and happy boy; but is also very headstrong. He sure is his own little man. He'll start kindergarten next fall.
Phyllis has had another fine year. She has her best class of students at EXPO Elementary this year and almost all of them are returning 2nd graders from last year, which makes things much easier. She also started piano lessons last fall (2007) and has stuck with them through the school year. She is really enjoying playing and is making exceptional progress (much faster progress than Jim ever made on guitar!) Phyllis enjoyed making our Shoreview home much nicer with the projects this year, on which she worked very hard. Phyllis has been using our 14-year old Civic for commuting. With Jamie's daycare expenses dropping dramatically soon, we plan to get Phyllis a Prius hybrid early next year. She'll finally have AC, among other comforts, for her drive.
Jim has had another busy year. He got three guitar orders, two of which are almost ready for delivery. He also sold several older guitars, which was good to clear old "inventory." Jim has started using a water-borne lacquer finish that is much much less toxic. The worst stuff he uses now is ethyl alcohol in shellac. Jim was advised by his doctor not to use free weights, to protect his back. We got a Hoist V3 home gym this year and Jim has been using it and rebuilding his upper body. Joe and Phyllis have been using it too. Jim continues to enjoy his work at Boston Scientific CRM. He's better compensated than he ever expected to be. He got a nice promotion this summer that, among other benefits, carries eligibility for higher bonuses and stock awards. Jim couldn't be happier at work: he has a great management chain, the work continues to be challenging and diverse, including his first new design program and plenty of hands-on work in the labs.
This year, we lost Annabelle in March, which made us all very sad. She was a wonderful little friend and always so patient with Jamie. She was 22 years old and had a great life (the vet said she had only ever seen one cat older than Annabelle.) It's great to have pets; but as we know, if things go was we hope they do, we outlive them. We plan to get another cat from a rescue shelter
Phyllis and Jim's family photos - Main Page
Phyllis and Jim's family photos 2008
Last updated: 13-Jan-2010