Verdict: "It's a total loss".

A member of the 'Catastrophe Response Team' came out to our home and after crawling up on our roof, said that the roof was a loss. He found that nails were working their way up causing shingles to also work their way up and making it easy for wind to get beneath the shingle and pull it all the way off. He found that the people who installed our roof 14 years ago, had only put in 4 nails instead of the usual 6 and they had placed them in the wrong areas. We were also given money to replace 1/2 the fence and our gate, as well as the weather station that we had on top of the roof.

January Windstorm 2008

As I write this the winds are barreling down the Columbia Gorge, blowing ferociously outside and whistling around the eaves. Every once in a while we will hear a loud thunk and then hear shingles tumble off the roof of the house. The wind has been blowing since Thursday and we have had sustained winds over 40 mph with gusts somewhere between 60-75 mph. We have an area 25 feet long and 4 feet wide where the shingles have blown away and all that is left is the plywood. Fortunately, it isn't raining, but we will need to do something before it starts to rain. Blink gets very stir crazy with the wind--the constant howling, and the pressure that builds up inside the house--we can understand because we feel the same way. When the wind blows, James wants to move. Here are some pictures of the storm.



This is our gate at the side of the house. Our neighbors tree blew over...of course we had 3 neighbors with trees over.








Our next door neighbors apple tree is going over and to the right of it a tree in the park is up-rooted and lying on its side. The park lost 5 big trees to this storm...that we could see.







We noticed this tree in the park is uprooted and rocking back and forth with the wind. Notice just below the white circle where it is uprooted--James heard the roots crack when he was out surveying the damage at the back of the house.

Oregon Open House for Josh and Kaija

On January 10th we had an 'Open House' for Josh and Kaija. Since Kaija helped in searching and cutting down the Christmas tree, she really wanted the tree to be part of the open house. We all worked hard to keep the tree watered and fed with plant food. On New Years Eve, James cut 1.5 feet off the bottom and we placed it in another trough of water and plant food. It worked! The tree was absolutely stunning! We enjoyed having it up into the middle of January.








































We asked a friend, Joelle to do the flowers and another friend Misha to do the cake. They both did a wonderful job. Joelle did the cake top too. Misha did a chocolate with cream filling for the first and third layer and a white with raspberry filling for the 2nd layer. We also had cheesecake with strawberry and blackberry filling and cream puffs. Along with that we served orange chicken with cheese and crackers. Of course no party is a party without the keg of Root Beer (over 200 pounds!) that Aaron and Lauren drove to Mt. Angel to get.















We had a lot of food left over and the next night-Sunday-was the youth fireside which was on Celestial Marriage. We were very happy to have 30 youth and leaders over to help us eat more of the cake, nuts, mints, and M&M's (We had ordered these purple and silver M&M's especially for the open house with Josh and Kaija's name and wedding date imprinted on them.

Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Sharp---January 2, 2009

On January 1, 2009, James, Matt, Katherine and I left early in the morning for Utah. The roads were very icy and bad just 10 miles from our home and we had to drive 45 mph for 1.5 hours. We had bad roads over the Blues, and several of the higher elevation areas. We arrive in Salt Lake at 7:30 that night. Grandma Conger had spaghetti ready for us to eat and Aaron and Lauren had come up from Orem. James and I stayed with Grandma and Matt and Katherine went back to Orem with Aaron and Lauren. The next morning we all met at the Salt Lake Temple to see Josh and Kaija get married.




















Here is the new Mr. and Mrs. Sharp after they were married. The day was cold, and although we had a little rain on the walk over to the temple, there was no rain during the photo shots.

Here are the Kammeyer family with Mr. and Mrs. Sharp...and Kaija's family--Debbie, Alan, Michael, Bailey and Mariah Misbach.





















That evening Debbie and Alan hosted a dinner at Gardner Village in 'The Gathering Place' for family and close friends. It was a beautiful event. James paid tribute to Josh, and Alan to Kaija. Josh sang a song to Kaija. It started to snow heavily while we were at the dinner.





The next day we spent a couple of hours visiting Grandma who is has four more months left to serve her mission, and then we decided we wanted to head back home. We had horrible roads on the way home too, and were glad to arrive safely home at 10:15 PM.