August 19, 2023

 We had wonderful weather for the Jerry's Celebration of Life. Sunny, then wild rain, thunder and rainbows.

Joan, Ray, Judy and John enjoying a wonderful dinner John prepared the night before. Our big brother Ray welcoming the crowd. Followed by sharing of memories by friends and family.

Our big brother Ray welcoming the crowd. Followed by sharing of memories by friends and family. Photos of Jerry. 

Nice spread of food. Watching the slide show.

 Nibbling on food. Deep conversation!

Watching the Jerry slide show. Good crowd, about 25 friends and family. Lots of socializing.

 The three siblings. Sue, Ray and Judy. The Jerry Palmer memorial garden. The residents put  up a very nice plaque in the garden. 

Morgan, Tammy and Justin. Katy, Katie and I.

 Peeping tom toads watched the celebration outside the window.  Family-siblings, in laws and cousins.

 Rainbow on the way home. Sunset on the way home.

August 5-18, 2023 Fort Collins, Colorado

 Low 90's, high 80's. Still raining every day.

Rainbow under a huge storm just south of us. Thunder was almost continuous. One of north Shields lakes. 

Cool clouds over storm. Sunset.

Sunset. I finished another masterpiece. It is about 11 x 11 x 1 inches. I made the center part in a class last year and put a border on it this year. I like how it came out. 

The masterpiece with the sun behind it. I injured my back lifting a box and have been laying low.  John hurt his knee walking. We went out tonight for a walk around town. Free music in Old Town Square. 

We think this is a new mural downtown. A new thing for us--The Barnacle. It is attached onto the windshield of this car by suction. They have to pay the parking ticket to get it off. I think it is the new boot. 

Sunset tonight. Not sure if this looks more like a shark or an airplane. And another wild cloud. 

I finished these two bears bowls. Wildflowers and a deer in the aspen.

Judy took us out to dinner tonight. We closed on the condo today. Hopefully seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with the estate! The official high was 99 degrees, but the car said 105 and the thermometer in our back yard said 107. Good day to stay inside. 

Scotcheroos. My brothers favorite childhood dessert. I made a gigantic batch for his celebration of life this weekend. The tray is about 2 feet long. Sunset.

Judy and I set up the microphone and speakers for the Celebration of life in the garage to make sure we could do it at the actual celebration. We are a little technically challenged with AV equipment. We labeled all the inputs and outputs with color coded tape. And  made a chart.  Sunset. 

July 28- August 3 2023 Fort Collins, Colorado

 Still 90'sm but thunderstorms every day.

Trying an experiment. I fused these aspen and their reflection. Then cut  the reflection into strips.

Put the strips back together offset. Will see if it looks like a wavy reflection after it fires the second time. I was contemplating how to do this last fall when I was paddling on a lake. John threw a 70 year young party for me. It was lots of fun and great to see everyone. 

John and John with all the yummy food. Sunset

Happy 39th Birthday Season to me! It is official, the Medicare questionnaire says I am not frail. I had someone say to me that they wished they were as spry as I am when the get my age!

The masterpiece now has waves in the reflection of the aspens. I just need to cold work the edges, paint on it and slump it into a mold. Lots of fun gifts for my birthday.

We had dinner at a really good Mexican restaurant in Denver with my cousins to celebrate my birthday. Great to visit with them. My sister arrived to day with her new camper. She was going to park in our garage, it was just long enough end to end. I couldn't use my glass studio and her back door was right up against the garage door, she would have to use the garage door opener and open it to get in or out. But when the garage door opened and closed it did not clear her air conditioner, so she is parked in front of the garage. We parked our cars on the street. 

I gave Judy a box of wheat grass as a new camper gift. It is kind of a joke, my brother had a lot of it in his house when we cleaned it out. Judy took us out to dinner for my birthday. We were seated outside, it started to rain so we came inside. Then is just dumped, hailed, wild lightening and thunder. We walked home with umbrellas in it. This map is the amount of rainfall from the storm. Home is where the red arrow is. 3.51 inches. My poor basil lost some leaves to the hail. 

Today I rode my bike in the morning since is was predicted to rain again this afternoon. The river is up a little bit, either from the rain or because the farmers are not pulling as much out to irrigate- because of the rain.  My sister played Chop Stix on this beautiful piano. 

Sunset was a little thin tonight. Around midnight we had a huge thunder storm, lots more rain. I am working on this masterpiece. I made the center part in a class and am adding the border. 

Rained again today, then there was this beautiful rainbow. This master piece is finished. The reflections of the trees on the bottom half came out pretty well. 

The masterpiece looks better with light coming through it. Sunflowers on the lake on my bike ride tonight. 

Weird looking sunset cloud tonight. We got even more rain this evening. We live where the red arrow is, so we got another 1.26 inches of rain in the last 24 hours.