Season's Greetings, From Our Home to Yours

Jim and Laurie, 2011. 
During this Holiday season, we hope you too are enjoying the comforts of home filled with happiness, festivity, family, and friends.

Laurie, daughter Riley, and cousin Anke during her visit from Berlin.

2011 has been a busy year for us, from start to finish. We enjoyed hosting family and friends at "Mom's B&B" and also found time for travels. Laurie's work representing Oregon educators keeps her busy well-beyond full time, especially during the Legislative session. Jim continues his work, research, and web works. Laurie really enjoys her new digital camera, and our recent photography provided useful video production experience with new apps. We hope you enjoy the selected photos below and our HD video slideshows.

Quicktime HD Videos:   Dakota Vacation   |   Los Cabos, Mexico   |   PDF:  Laurie's 2011 Holiday Letter

On the home front, insulating the attic to R-50 and a new furnace comforted our winter and summer while conserving energy. Landscaping the backyard hill, this year's major project, is transforming and enlarging our living space. Late last year, we removed a large red cedar threatening the house, thus triggering a sequence of garden improvements. Clearing a decade of brush was necessary just to remove the leaning tree. We cleared a dozen intrusive trees, and created walking trails that support using a wheel barrow to move rocks and other materials up or down the steep slope. Here is a 'before' image, albeit after clearing a lot of the jungle. The 'after' image below is a flatroof view of initial progress.

Still blooming in mid-December, Laurie's decade-awaited bed of fuchsias hanging over the painted wall is delightfully framed by the guestroom window. A landscape salvage opportunity—all the free plants and bulbs Jim could dig and transport from a vast, closed mobile home park—helped fill the yard with well over a thousand bulbs, plus roses, lillies, irises, lilacs, and much more. In addition to three free van loads of incredibly varied flowers saved from the bulldozers, we purchased colorful rhododendron and azalea starts. Van loads of rock are adding interesting lithic features to the terracing and plantings.

Jim's birhtday present, a chain saw, has proven quite useful. We named the trails and Laurie created beautiful signage; Fuchsia Fairway, Hilltop Trail, Snake Lane, and Zen Path (below). We are slowly moving the hillside back by hand, using a shovel and bucket, while terracing shaded patios and planting beds for berries, tomatoes, vegetables, and flowers. The remaining well-shaded lower section, a Zen Garden in progress, already presents a finished look from the bedroom windows (photo below from the flat roof). A lot of work/exercise remains as we both really enjoy our back patio haven, getting our hands in its soil, and savoring its beauty and produce. Meanwhile, another winter's indoor project list awaits, as does a Spring delight of new flowers.

Seasons Greetings - Have a Great New Year

Our Travels

Jacobs Centennials - The Dakotas

We enjoyed several local outings, a week in Los Cabos, Mexico, five days in San Francisco, and a driving trip to the Dakotas. Laurie also spent a week in New York, visiting her alma mater, Vassar College. In July, we drove to North Dakota to join more than 300 members of the Jacobs family from all over the world in commemorating the family's centennial of first migration from Holland. We camped in the Idaho forests, enjoyed Lolo Summit, overnighted with Jim's brother Roger and family, and researched Wimmer heritage in Miles City, Montana. In Jim's home town, we housed with family in a cousin's furnished four-plex, caught and cooked fresh trout, and gathered at the reunion and on the family farms. We meandered and camped our way back west, enjoying Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument, the Indian Museum of North America, Devil’s Tower, the Big Horn mountains, Yellowstone National Park and Old Faithful, plus the Grand Tetons. We really enjoyed the outdoors, the wide-open spaces, peak flower season in a variety of locales, awesome luck with great campsites, and good photography weather.

Mt. Rushmore lacks women, so Jim took this photo of Laurie below her distant cousin George.

Guy and Maria Jacobs Family, at home on the farm, July 2011.   Pete and Laureen, Jim and Laurie,
Larry, Francis (and Terryl), Bernie and Van, Roger and Sandy, Joann and Gary.

After chasing rainbows across Wyoming, sunrise was clear and visible on Devil's Tower from our tent location.

Quicktime HD Videos:   Dakota Vacation   |   Los Cabos, Mexico

Los Cabos, Baja CA

Above, sunrise in Cabo San Lucas from the balcony at Pueblo Bonito Rosé. Laurie's friends invited us to enjoy their penthouse.

We enjoyed tour-guide treatment to sights and eateries and we ventured about town, the harbor,
the museum, beaches, and shops. Our new hammock will be hanging in the back yard next summer.

San Francisco, CA

While Laurie attended convention proceedings, Jim explored art galleries, visited Occupy San Francisco, and worked online.
In the company of good friends, we visited two great art museums with delightful prehistoric American ceramic collections.

One evening at a small, private reception, conventioneers were joined by national and local political leaders.

Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival - Earth Day 2011

Oregon Coast - Memorial Day Weekend

Quicktime Videos:   Dakota Vacation   |   Los Cabos, Mexico   |   PDF:  Laurie's 2011 Holiday Letter