Graduation 2019

Ray went to the University of Washington in Seattle and got his degree in Chemical Engineering in four years. He graduated in June of 2019. He worked as a research assistant in a lab developing perovskite solar cells and during the summer of 2018, as an intern at the Phillips 66 refinery in Ferndale. The two work experiences and his time in the classroom helped him to know clearly what he wanted to do after school. He accepted a job as a Process Engineer at the refinery as his internship came to an end. It was nice to finish his last year of college without having to hustle for employment at the same time. We are very proud of him - he worked hard!

Days For Girls

Days For Girls is an amazing organization that provides washable and reusable menstrual supplies to girls and women around the world. The person who got it off the ground lives in a nearby city and the chapter in our town is one of the earliest that was formed. 

I saw a small ad a few years ago that described the work that was being done in Anacortes and I showed up at a monthly sewing event to check it out. From the very first moment, I liked everything about it. The mission itself is admirable but the execution, locally and internationally, is what has kept me coming back. The leaders here have always been wildly efficient and widely accepting of anything anyone has to give. If you sew, there is sewing but they have found so many other ways for volunteers to contribute and to enjoy the work that they choose to do. Many people put their hours in at home and bring finished products back to the fold. Others give time or money in other ways but I have seen tremendous productivity go out the door and the feedback loop is good. Days for Girls has made constant changes to the kits that they distribute based on information they receive from those who are using them. They also nimbly respond to cultural (no animals on fabrics in Country X) and governmental (no plastic bags in Country Y) constraints. We just pump out a lot of supplies. I think it helps.

More Socks of 2019

My favorite sock designer is Cookie A. She's a genius. I have made so many of her patterns and will make more in the future. Nine of the 13 sock projects from 2019 were from her books and online pattern store. 

The first three pairs shown are from the pattern BFF. I wanted to be twins with two of my stitching buddies so I made them each a pair and kept one for myself. 

BFF

BFF

BFF

Sarsaparilla

Sarsaparilla again

Twisted Flower

Sail Away

Eunice

Eunice - back view

Milo

Milo - back view

Socks of 2019

I got fired up about knitting socks last year. When we left for our road trip, I brought my knitting needles and one skein of yarn even though I hadn't made anything at all for some time. 

Generic pattern

Then I was gripped with sock knitting fever. My own sock drawer is full but I came up with a dispersal plan. I ordered some yarn and UPS delivered it to the door of our camping trailer in Yuma two days later. 

Rumpelstiltskin

SKYP

Flame Wave

Desert Trip 2019

Tucson

The trip south with the trailer in 2019 was longer than usual, lasting about 7 weeks. We left home on January 2 and came back on February 20. We were in California for almost 2 weeks and enjoyed the tremendous diversity of places in that beautiful state, from Black Butte and San Luis reservoirs in the north to Doheny Beach and San Diego in the south. We cruised through Slab City and stayed at the Salton Sea. The Taylor guitar factory tour in Costa Mesa was a highlight - it was so interesting and a lot of fun to play the showroom guitars. 

We covered a lot of ground in Arizona but spent full weeks at a small unpretentious RV park in Yuma, camped with hundreds of other little fiberglass trailers in Quartzsite and stayed at a rodeo ground in Lake Havasu City, watching a massive fireworks show that went on for days. It was all very social as we met up with friends everywhere we went and played our ukuleles and guitars when we could. 

Salton Sea

Pictures from Home in 2018

2018 Trip to Juneau

Our trip to Juneau in October 2018 was all about visiting our daughter, her husband and their baby. Many of our friends who still lived there were out of town. We did stay with an old pal, Carolyn, rather than crowd in on the liveaboard boat with the new parents but we spent most of our time with family. It sure made us remember our days of living on a boat with a baby, an 8 year old and a hamster. Those ramps down to the dock were steep then and the tide still has the same big swing. It's a good thing to do while you are young. 

More sketchbook exercises

2018 Pokemon Drawing Project and Watercolor Class

I have an interest in art although sometimes I wonder if it is just a desire to buy art supplies. My pens and paints can sit there untouched for months and then one day, I wake up and want to draw or doodle or paint.

Kasey Golden on YouTube did a project where she painted the first 151 Pokemon characters from memory. Even now, I can only name a few so the memory part was impossible for me. I looked them up one by one and using some of her drawings as a reference, I was able to draw all of them, too. I filled 3 small notebooks. I showed them to a few people and usually was asked "Are you going to color them?" The paper isn't suitable for watercolor and really the exercise was about drawing so I will leave them as is. 

Later in the year, I took an online watercolor class from Liz Steel. It was a good class with video instruction and doable exercises. We posted our work to the class site and received feedback from other students. I filled a few pages in the sketchbook, some turned out all right and others not so good. I'll never be great but I do enjoy it sometimes. 

Draw your palette

A la Modigliani

2018 Desert Trip

We left for our trip south on January 18, 2018 and returned home on February 12. We drove down the freeway through Oregon, visited my sister in Eugene then my brother in Reno. We camped at some nice spots in western Nevada before arriving at Death Valley National Park for a week of camping with 18 friends. It was my first time there. It's a great place for hiking and long, sight seeing drives. Later we went to Anza-Borrego State Park in California and Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.

Walker Lake - Nevada

Death Valley

Valley of Fire

Travel and personal journals

Catching up on 2018

The biggest event of 2018? We became grandparents! Malakai Bay was born in July up in Anchorage. He and his parents lived on a boat in Juneau at the time although they spend summers out in Naknek in Bristol Bay at a family set net fishery site. They have since moved to Dutch Harbor and are expecting boy #2 very soon. 😀

We went up to Juneau to meet him and visit with his parents in October 2018. He made eye contact with us and batted his arms around and we were both completely smitten. He's a sweet boy and it is a joy to watch him grow.