Mid-April we made a road trip to Oregon and made an offer on another house in Brookings. The weather there is comparable to the weather in Santa Cruz, the weatherman attributes the Brookings weather to the "Chetco effect" - whatever, we love it! By mid-May all non-essential item packing was completed and loaded into a 40 foot long sea container and...

... then there we were at home in West Sacramento waiting for the time sands to run out on escrow for the SALE of the house and virtually "camping out" with just the bare essentials: a few kitchen utensils, 2 twin mattresses, an antenna TV, computers, 3 pairs of different camping chairs, the 2004 88cid Harley-Davidson twin-cam and the 2005 55cid Harley-Davidson sthmorthner (the other six were put into storage).

We took the essentials with us to Boulder Creek at the end of May where we would wait for the time sands to run out on escrow for PURCHASE of a house in Oregon. Boulder Creek being close to Santa Cruz there were frequent trips to the beach and drives on the Pacific Coast Highway. By the end of July the 3rd escrow on the West Sac house closed finally!

Beginning of August was another road trip to Oregon (with Penny & Lucy) to make our 3rd offer on an even better house: 3bd 2ba (walk-in shower), 2 car garage + 1 car garage, 1/4acre, ocean view, can hear the waves, fantastic sunsets and the stars at night are big and bright.

Mid-August forest fires in the Santa Cruz mountains caused us to evacuate Boulder Creek and relocate to a friend's vacant house in Sunnyvale where we had all the convenience of bay-area city life and worked jigsaw puzzles.

September 18th was another milestone accomplishment for Rusl having recently passed the preceding 5 mid-term tests and the 2nd Degree Black Belt Recommended test. Testing included bag work, escapes, forms, weapons (nunchucks, double nunchucks, knife, 6 foot bo staff), 2, 5, 20, and 5 continuous rounds of sparing (1-on-1, 2-on-1 & 3-on-1 without and with weapons), and, board breaks. Friday the 18th, Rusl passed the 2nd Degree Black Belt Decided test. Not too shabby for a 75 year old dude!

End of October we took the puppies to Oregon to sign documents at the title company and the sale was recorded on the 30th! {that was an approximately 3 month escrow} Back in Sunnyvale, we gathered our minimalistic things and relocated to Boulder Creek.

November 6th we picked up a U-Haul truck with an auto-transport trailer, 7th loaded all our essentials, 8th drove to Oregon and spent the night in our new home!!! And then the fun began... "camping out" in our new home with our essentials as we wait for the sea container to be delivered, moving 2 cubic yards of rocks to prepare for a concrete widening of the north driveway for the sea container pad, dealing with the electric company to re-route the electrical supply lines to the house onto a new pole (they were too low for the truck to deliver the sea container), removing carpet & pad from the 3 bedrooms and installing vinyl wood flooring (and obtaining new tools [all mine are in the sea container]), patching nail holes and preparing to paint all the inside walls with our favorite color: Home Depot's Behr custom color Whimsical White of course, and, you guessed it - sunset walks with the puppies on the beach.

Life here is different... slower paced... we live in Brookings, population about 6,000 - that's like about twice the size of the high school I attended, and everyone is friendly, waves, stops and talks. Brookings is in "no hurry Curry County." A outing in West Sac took 10 minutes to get out of the neighborhood and then 20 to 45 minutes to get to the destination; here everything in town is 2 to 5 minutes door to door and Home Depot in Crescent City is a mere half hour drive. When 12th in a string of 15 cars behind an 18 wheeler on a 2 lane 55mph road and come to a passing lane everyone just cruises along right where they are, well, excepting the occasional impatient California driver who has the need for speed.

Humming birds, turkeys, deer, hikers, especially hikers with dogs, motorcycles, pickup trucks, especially noisy pickup trucks, like diesel pickup trucks, the mail delivery truck, UPS trucks, FEDEX trucks, RV's, dump trucks, 18 wheelers, well... if it moves past the large living room plate glass window then it gets the "AH WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO"... and if it was going uphill and turns left at the stop then there is the dash to the sliding glass door and another "AH WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO"...

THANKS GIVING DAY... and PLENTY to be thankful for today. Dinner was chopped liver & heart with turkey juice from the turkey pan over kibble for the puppies, and, for us: brown gravy, black muscat wine, stuffing, turkey, home made cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, cooked yams for Babydoll, candied yams for Rusl, butter, dinner roils... this great feast and we're still in "camping" mode.

This year ends in a very merry Christmas with a new "Gone to the Beach" Christmas tree decorated with sea shells, and, with eager anticipation of the arrival of our sea container... soooooon... We wish all y'all    a Very Merry Christmas         and a Very Happy New Year!  Sharon, ,  Penny  &  Lucy                                                                                    KNUCKLEHEADS FOREVER!