Seriously, I have more going on in my life than a new mattress. So now gotta play catch-up.

On December 2, my friends from The Gathering and I went holoholo kaʻa on a 3 1/2 day beach retreat to Seaside, Oregon. The weather peeps had been warning us that a major cold front was approaching, with snow very cold temps, but the morning we left we had clear roads and pretty blue skies. Two of my friends have reserved seats in my van every time we go to the beach, and I picked them up at 10 a.m. in Portland; the three of us always travel together so well, and this time was no exception. I couldn’t get Christmas music (yet) on Sirius XM (oh yeah, another freebie that came with my new kawila!), so all the way over we listened to Hanukkah music and it was wonderful!

All of our days in Seaside we had blue skies, and we watched the ocean from our wonderful penthouse Worldmark condo, generously donated by Linda.

Our first night’s sunset was absolutely magnificent.

We all were enthralled by the reflection of the sun on the sand, and several of us braved the cold to get plenny photos of it.

I stood out on the balcony for a few minutes, watching the sun go down, not feeling quite as brave as the people walking for a long time on the sand.

The next morning, there was frost on the sand. Ho da cold!!

Several women walked down the sidewalk and came back telling of us a fantastic decoration about four hotels down. Julie was going to take a walk to see it the next night, and I asked her to take my camera and get a few photos of it, which she graciously did.

‘Way cool, yeah?

Oh. Try wait. U like see moa close? K’den.

One gigantic heʻe! All lit up, and with green laser eyes. Fantastic, yeah??

That night we had another nani sunset.

Sunset at the beach. When I am at the beach, I am always looking southwest towards home.

It was a relaxing few days, but all too soon we had to leave for home. While we were packing up the car, it was only 32° outside! One couple in the parking garage told me that they were leaving early because the major part of the oncoming snow and ice was going to be worse at the beach.

There were about five cars in our group, and we all met up at our traditional lunch stop, Camp 18, in Elsie. The food there is great, and the Christmas decorations are absolutely wonderful. The mountain lion even gets a hat and scarf on.

As we drove home over the Coast Range, the trees were so pretty; there were spots of ice on the road, but it wasn’t too bad. (Sorry for da blurry.)

When I got home, ho da cold!! The next day temps were in the 20’s, and I had to keep rotating the hummingbird feeders to keep them from freezing up. I switched thawed and frozen ones all during the day.

We didn’t get a lot of snow, but what we did get was cold! The whole valley was freezing below us.

Being the adventurous kind of girl, I didn’t stay home. This is looking down our driveway the first day.

One day I drove out to Sandy; this was the fountain as I entered town. (I was stopped, no worry.)

My brother dem drove out to Multnomah Falls and he sent me this fantastic photo.

One degree colder than the one in the next photo was our coldest temperature, and it was like this for several mornings. I don’t think our heat pump turned off for more than about three hours, and that was only when I turned it down a little bit at night. I was afraid that if I turned it down to the usual 55° it’d never get caught up during the day.

Our well pump started to freeze but fortunately I noticed it in time for Nolemana to get the heat lamp going in the pump house in the garage; he also put a space heater out there for a couple of hours. Whew. Water! We never lost power though it flickered a few times, but we had three pipes break. Nolemana gets to fix those this next week.

By the end of the week I’d had enough cold and decided that a sure-fire way to get temps to warm up was to get my studded tires put on.

It worked! We’re now back up into the 40’s and I don’t need them anymore. But I’m ready! Bring on the snow!