Puerto Rico

                             Happy Hour in the British Virgin Isles

                                          Our nice hotel

                                         Lovely water

                                  The Crew from Klamath

                                          Girls Gone Wild

     My heart surgery was to be in February but wait just a minute. We has already planned for Sheryl and I to spend two weeks in Puerto Rico, plus the Virgin Islands and then go on a Caribbean Cruise with all of our good Klamath friends. That was an easy call. We postponed the medical issue and had a ball, as we always do, with our great friends from Klamath falls.

Off to the Repair Shop.

Time to Catch Up!
During the Holidays it was determined that I had atrial fibrillation as well as an aortic aneurism that needed to be fixed. That was kinda scary and originally I was going to have a somewhat risky surgery to fix it here in Corvallis.  I was not confidant in the surgeon and managed to get a second opinion in Portland where they concluded I needed a somewhat less risky procedure and on April 30th I had a "Valve sparing aortic root replacement with a modified maze procedure." My support team of Sheryl and the boys stood by and all went well.  I  now have a manly 9inch scar up my chest and am on my way to a total recovery. Whew!  It was also determined that my coronary arteries are "clean as a whistle" which was good news for a 67 year old  overweight guy,

Adventures with the IRS

Back in 2010 Sheryl’s beloved mother Millie passed away and she thoughtfully left us some stock.  As we understood the IRS rules we did not owe tax on what we inherited so when we received the stock we sold it as we would just as soon have the cash. It wasn’t a great deal of money, maybe enough to by a car… well maybe a crummy little Korean car.

Then last year we received a bill from the IRS that nope, we owed several thousand dollars from the sale of this stock! Ouch!  I called our tax guy in Klamath and sent him all our papers and he correctly deduced that what had happened was between the day Millie passed and the day we had actually sold the stock it had increased in value several hundred dollars and we only owed tax on that increase and what we now actually owed the IRS was $100.00 Fine, Ok, Got it.  I sent the IRS a check for $100 (and the tax guy in Klamath a check for $275 for his fees).  Done!   Wanna bet?

Three months later I get our check back and am notified by the IRS that oops I sent the check to their office in California and it is the wrong office.   So I called the number, listened intently to the options, pushed  7, held for 10 minutes, then pushed 3 then 7 again, then a magic number, and a code, and held a few more minutes and the nice man told me to send the check to an address in Utah. I did.  Over?  Wanna bet?

Last month in the mail I get another letter from the IRS – AND I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP – and a bill for $5.00 as we owe this as interest because it took so long for them to receive that $100.00…and…no address to send it to! AND IT INCLUDED FORMS TO FILL OUT SO I COULD HAVE INSTALLMENT PAYMENTS WITHDRAWN AUTOMATICALLY FROM MY BANK EACH MONTH!  For 5 bucks!

Call the 800 number, push 5, the security code, the personal identification question, wait while we transfer the call, listen to bad crackling music and finally get a guy with such a strong accent and high faluten’ attitude that I finally gave up as he said there was an IRS office in Oregon but I couldn’t possibly understand where.  Five bucks!

On the internet I found an IRS office in Salem about 40 miles away and drove there with my crisp five dollar bill in hand.  It looked like the DMV. Take a number. Sit with the defeated, despondent and possibly deranged IRS sitters. Finally my number comes up and no they cannot take my five dollars cash unless I see a special agent. OHMyGod.  Thankfully I had my check book and indeed they took my check!  Wanna make another bet?

This week in the mail Sheryl and I both received individual letters from the IRS that say actually we do not owe $5.00 (that we have already paid) it is only $4.89 and because it’s such a low amount we are forgiven and our balance is now zero!  Wanna bet?
UPDATE: March 6, 2013
Today in the mail we received a refund check from the IRS for $5.00.

The Alamo Bowl

Our Oregon State Beavers had a good season and were invited to play Texas in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio Texas on December 29th. We flew down and met our good friends Jim and Cheryl Henderson who drove all the way. We had five days of fun attending all sorts of Beaver functions, the football game, and finally celebrating New Years Eve in real Texas style. We even won the first three quarters of the football game!

Holiday Time

Our Thanksgiving tradition has become a Friday event here, allowing the boys to spend Thursday with their in-law families. Nevertheless Sheryl puts on the full meal deal and we LOVE it.

Christmas starts at the in-laws then all assemble here in Corvallis.  Santa brought s the Liars Grow A Big Nose game this year which we all enjoyed, especially these two growing granddaughters who shall add a little sister in June!

Beaver Believers

Are You Ready For Some Football?

 

Last year our Oregon State University Beavers were just awful at football. Won 3 Lost 9. Ouch. So when the Recruitment Dinner was held last January we attended, and as you can see, we were enthusiastic about prospects for this year.

Every Thursday night we attend the coaches talk show where our coach, Mike Riley, and The Voice of The Beavers, Mike Parker, discuss this week's game. In the foreground are Jim and Cheryl Henderson who have become our best Beaver Believer friends.

Every home game we roll out our motorhome for pregame tailgating. This is the Langley family from Klamath Falls who joined us for the Washington State game.

Our most loyal Beaver Believer is Dave Hummel and sometimes his son Quinn and daughter-in-law Katie join us too.

Tailgating requires gourmet cooking. Here Dave prepares wild duck breasts wrapped in bacon. Yuuuuuuuum.

Reser Stadium, the home of 45,000 wild Beaver fans

This is my favorite photo. The enthusiastic student section only allows in fans who scored very low on their reading exams. Look closely.

This year we were predicted to be last in our leage of 12 teams. Ha!  After 6 weeks we have won all 6 games and are ranked 7th inTHE NATION!

 

 

 

So we are having a LOT of fun with our Beavers this year. We are actually schocked by all the success and the bubble could burst any week now but until it does...

GO BEAVERS!

From the Hoh to the Hospital. We Go See Washington

 The Hoh Rain Forest

This summer has been busy for Sheryl and me and although we had a great time in California with the family, Sheryl was sick and we just headed straight home. We could see our window of opportunity in August, so we packed up the motor home and decided to go see the parts of Washington State that were new to us. It was 100 degrees when we left here but after visiting Tyler and Meghan's house project we headed for the Washington Coast and out came the sweatshirts, and the heat was history.  We took three days heading slowly up the Olympic Peninsula viewing all the Lewis and Clark history sights, eating fresh crab, and having wonderful walks on the beach. The motor home life is lazy. The motor home life can be slow. The motor home life is good.  In Olympic National Park we headed up into the Hoh Valley and walked amongst some amazing trees. The cedar and spruce are unbelievable as they get 12 feet of rain per year.

We seem to stop at all the sights.

This tree was the only thing older than us in the park

After the rain forest we drove around to the north side of the park and up to Hurricane Ridge on a magnificent day. The 360 views were stunning.

We did have some fun meals in the little towns we visited but normally our chief cook whips us up something in the motor home then we have an evening by the camp fire.

Deception Pass - Whidbey Island

We had never seen North Cascades National Park, and knew nothing of it.  However being that it was a National Park we figured it must be worth seeing. Was it ever. The drive up Highway 20 just gets better and better culminating at Washington Pass. It's a gorgeous hunk of geology and well worth the drive.

We have to take pictures of everthing

Yeah, that's not the sign ya wanna see on your vacation.  As we traversed down the east side of the cascades we decided to visit Lake Chelan as it's a place I had often heard of but never seen.  It was pretty cool, a little like New Zealand's Queenstown. It hasn't the same natural beauty (no place does) but it has bunches of watersports and adventure activities for folks of all interests.  We had trouble finding a campsite but finally did and pulled out the chairs next to the water, poured a cool one, brought out the pistachios and life was good. We planned out the next day's 50 mile boat ride, trip to a waterfall etc., when Sheryl began to complain about her foot starting to hurt.  We headed into town and had a fun dinner but it was on the second floor and she struggled just getting up the stairs.  Even after wine her foot still hurt but now she could not get down the stairs unaided and was nearly in tears. She just could not walk and I rounded up a wheelchair for her, when a guy in a golf cart rescued her and drove her back to the motorhome where we could barely get her up the two stairs.  She was sure her foot was broken and I thought it was gout as she had had no trauma to her foot and it was obvious she was n excruciating pain. She later rated it as bad as childbirth! I had to drive back to the campsite to pick up our things and she was just wailing in misery by now. That was it. At her request/demand it was straight to the hospital where gout was diagnosed and morphine was injected in he backside, pills were swallowed, and after half an hour she could again bear the pain. Our vacation was over. It was a long drive home.  We are tired of these doctor adventures on our summer trips. Bummer.

You can tell this was taken on the way out as she is smiling. You shoulda seen the way in...