Monday, December 25, 2006

Ho Ho Ho ! and Merry Christams



Ho Ho Ho! It is Christmas day -- Merry Christmas to everyone.
We received about another 4 inches of snow during the night. Jim is out "snow-blowing" and I shoveled a little bit...walkways here and there. Blazed a trail down to our river/creek -- it is a very small river, so we call it a creek most of the time. Everything is so beautiful, but it is warming up so the snow is getting really wet and heavy... gets stuck in the snowblower and Jim has a heck of a time.
Hope everyone is having a great Christmas.

The tree photo is looking out towards our river from my sewing studio deck. And of course our cabin.

Hope you are having a great Christmas.

Luv, Bunny

Monday, December 18, 2006

Fruit Salad

Here is Sally St. Clair's Fruit Salad from Bunny

I don't have amounts...this is just in my head.
Chopped unpeeled apples
Sliced Bananas
Chopped Walnuts
Raisins
Miricle Whip (yup... not cool whip)
Mix altogether
I added a can of mandarin oranges for our Thanksgiving salad; and you can add grapes or ??
Thanks for the Blueberry recipe from Aunt Marian. I have frozen huckleberrys... should be really good with them as well.
I would love to have the time to play with geneology. I have also talked to Aunt Marian and she has given me lots of information. But I just have not had time to work with it. I have a friend that does a lot with her family geneology and really enjoys her research. Would be great if you could keep us posted on what you find Shirley. I even have or had a geneology program for my computer, but have never even loaded it onto the computer.
Not enough hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the month, etc. !!
Have a Merry Christmas and wonderful 2007 everyone.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Greetings From Shirley St.Clair

Hi from Shirley (daughter of Oba & Dorothy): Want to get this to all you St. Clair cousins galore before the end of the year so I can at least feel a wee bit timely!

In July, I visited Aunt Marian in Reedsport to talk St. Clair Genealogy. She made and served a fantastically delicious Blueberry Torte and shared her recipe which I have written down for any of you who might want to try it. You can see her holding the finished product next to the recipe below.

In August, hot on the trail of St. Clair Genealogy, I went to the Scottish Festival in Winston. Being so near Tenmile, I stopped by to see Uncle Harold and Laveta. As you can see from these pictures, our rough & tough eldest St. Clair guy was looking fit and feeling good. He most definitely looks 20 years younger than his 81 years!

Since September I have been taking weekly genealogy classes to learn methods. One of the many things I have learned is how challenging and time-consuming it is to track down information even with the many sources available on the internet. I am so in awe of how Aunt Marian traced the St. Clairs back to Alexander in 1698. She did all this by regular mail, following leads and dead-ends, and once completed she gave us each our personalized heritage histories. She did all this (a really monumental task) without the benefit of a computer or the internet. Thank you, Aunt Marian, for your foresight and diligence and for caring.

My goal is to track our heritage back to Scotland; to see if I can figure out what part of Scotland bonny Alexander hailed from and actually go there eventually.

Shirley

PS: Dear Bunny - Will you please share your Mom's (my Aunt Sally's) recipe for fruit salad that you fixed for Thanksgiving.

PS: Dear Nancy - I was so pleased to see the pictures you posted of your Mom (my other Aunt Marian - Bud's Marian). Please tell her "Hi" for me.



Aunt Marian's Blueberry Torte

Crust: 1 stick oleo
1 cup flour
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Mix well with pastry blender & press into 9 x 13 pan. (Aunt Marian used a pie pan. Worked great!)
Bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees.
Cool completely.


Filling:
1 pkg cream cheese (8 oz, room temperature)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Whip until creamy, fold into:
2 cups Cool Whip

Spread onto crust. Top with:
2 cans blueberry pie filling

Chill and serve with Cool Whip on top.
* * * * *

When Aunt Marian made this for me, she cooked up frozen blueberries instead of using canned filling and used real whipped cream instead of Cool Whip. It was absolutely, positively wonderful!
...... Shirley

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Greetings From Marian Sanders

Marian sent me the following note to post for you all. Carol

I loved hearing about all the Thanksgiving doings (on the blog). We had quite a crowd here. I made the turkey, dressing, and a large shrimp salad. The rest brought all sorts of side dishes. Enough for several days eating. Jason made 10 - 12 pies from scratch plus many other things. Great eating and gathering. Seventeen in all came.
Love,
Marian

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Season's Greetings From Clair

Hey St Clair clan,
Since this is my first blog entry ever – I will give a short history of C & B (Clair and Beverly). Clair born 1951, Beverly 1940, Married in 1976, daughter and son, 6 grandchildren, 2 sisters-in-laws and brother-in-laws, lots of eclectic friends.

Beverly worked in education of all types from juvenile corrections to Jr. Hi to adult nutrition – retired OSU extension. I worked conservation education – outdoor school for kids and presently Soil and Water Conservation District for adults. Put in 12 years of full-time farming (Blueberries, Raspberries, Marions and Boysens) during that time and another 14 yrs of part-time farming .

Beverly likes to garden and visit a number of older folks that need visitors. She writes a bit and paints a lot since retirement. She travels to Tennessee to see our daughter and grandkids twice a year. I like work because the jobs are so diverse. Chocolate is an essential food group for me and tea for Beverly. I have a 3rd part-time job as naturalist on a small cruise ship (60 guests) in Alaska, Baja and on the Columbia River(Lindblad Expeditions). The company offers staff space available on trips all over the world and we take as much advantage of it as possible. I am headed for Ecuador and Galapagos Islands next Wednesday and return Christmas eve. We have been to Antarctica, Europe, Central America. Beverly isn’t going on this trip and is holding out for Europe and Scandinavia. Would travel more but the only thing holding us back in having to work for a living and available cash. Sound familiar?

Come visit - we would love to hear what makes life exciting for you. We can fill in the details on our short history !

Life is fine – Everyday is a Great Day - just that some are Greater than others!

Love to all, Clair and Beverly

You can click on either image to enlarge.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Christmas Jigsaw Puzzle

Click below: Santa's Jigsaw - animated flash ecard by Jaquie Lawson www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=ER13610552

Enjoy!
Karla St.Clair
(Rod's wife)