We found it very distressing to not have Mara in the house, we really missed her. It was even harder to bury her ashes a couple days later in the yard she loved so much.
The house had survived fine, our house sitter kept things right. The gardeners pruned some exotic bushes at the wrong time, we wish they would have left them alone. We realized that if we were going to be gone for long periods, no one else was going to take care of things like we wanted.
Bill's mother was in Alaska helping his sister who was severely ill. She was coming back for a short while during Thanksgiving and then was heading back to Alaska to help some more.
We had the annual gingerbread house party just like last year. This time it was after Halloween and Jane hosted it in Seattle on November 17th. Here are some pictures of the fun:
We had a potluck when done, no desserts since we already had all the sweets we could stand.
We drove down to Tumwater for Thanksgiving with Bill's mother and heard all the reports on his sister.
We planted bulbs in the yard so they would come up in spring. We prepared to take a one month trip to California. One of our garage doors broke its spring and had to be fixed, aren't houses fun.
It was fall, it was dreary and mostly wet, typical for this time of year in Western Washington. Maybe California would be nicer?
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