Acorns, Stargazer and Vista House

This morning I stepped outside to see if the pin oak tree had turned more red, but it is still mostly green with some patches of red.  A stiff breeze blew through while I was looking up into the tree and I heard a bunch of acorns hitting the ground.  I got a shot of these "twins" - where two nuts are attached.  I am just fascinated by acorns.  To think that a gigantic oak can grow from these, plus they are just plain cute.  

My two little grandsons were with me during my jaunt and I asked them to pick up some acorns for me.. well, they're much closer to the ground than I am. :-)  

They kind of remind me of an elf with a hat on.

I got my grandmother's bowl out of the china cabinet to put my little collection in for a photo on the table.  It's called "Carnival Glass" and grandma used to make potato salad and serve it in this and she'd cut a hard boiled egg up and make a flower in the center with a slice of egg yolk for the middle.  I got this bowl the long way around.  My aunt inherited it and offered it to me while I was visiting, but I was worried about taking it home on the plane, so regretfully declined.  I kicked myself for years for doing that. A year after she passed away I wondered what happened to the bowl and wrote my cousin who was her executor and inquired to it's whereabouts.  She wrote back and told me, "She promised that bowl to everyone!", but she did have it.  A few months later a package arrived and lo and behold, she'd sent this treasure to me.  Thank you, cousin Glenda!

Autumn in a nutshell. :-D

We've sadly decided to sell our sailboat, Stargazer.  I have a website for the Ranger 26 and I get emails asking if any are for sale, so I've had 3 inquiries of late.  One man said he was going to drive here from Montana to look at it, (today), so Dayle and Travis have been down in the marina of the Portland Yacht Club getting her ready to view.  They had to install 2 fresh new marine batteries and Travis had to clean out the carburetor and they reinstalled it and the motor started up and purred!  Unfortunately, the man came down with a virus similar to mine and could not make the trip.  OK, my boat remains mine for a bit longer.. I love this vessel.  I lived on it in the San Juan islands for 4 months one summer and singlehanded her out in the San Juan Channel, and sailed to Rosario on Orcas Island with one other crew member.  I also sailed her in the Columbia River when I lived on a houseboat for 5 years, it was moored right outside my front door.

I named our boat Stargazer as there is a star embossed on her rudder and when you're sitting in the cockpit at night, what do you do?  You star-gaze!

Last night I was invited to attend the Friends of Vista House volunteer appreciation banquet at Mt. Hood Community College.  The Friends were nominated for the "President's Volunteer Service Award" and were honored with it last night.  Pretty neat, I'd say!  Our Friends of Multnomah Falls group also received this honor.  

Each one of the volunteers received a pin, what a treasure!  I will wear this with pride.

Two of my friends were also honored with a special volunteer service award, George Perry and Sally King.  I was asked to give a presentation about Sally, so I wrote a speech yesterday and told about the early days of the Friends of Vista House - as I was one of the founders of the group, and the first Executive Director back in 1982.  Sally has been the Volunteer Coordinator for 30+ years!!  Truly amazing.  And a very good friend of mine.

And today the FedEX guy came and delivered some new Corelle dishes for us.  With 6 people living here we've been running out of dishes of my old set, so I looked around and found these chicken dishes on the Walmart website - I ordered 2 sets of 4, so we shouldn't run out of dishes again.  :-)  Do you like them?  I do!

Cock-a-doodle-DOOOOO!

I wonder when all the leaves will be red?

Dayle has a turkey breast on the pellet grill/smoker right now.  We wanted to see if we could make our own smoked turkey for sandwiches.  I'll let you know how it turns out.  I hope you're having as wonderful of an Autumn as we are!  Have a great weekend!!   
((hugs)), Teresa :-)