the stitches

Donnie got the new bandage on today and We got a look of what it looked like. The taking out of that little blood sucker was has one of the most painful things she has done or had done to her; period.

Donnies Surgery 12 2009

Well this week has had much to much excitement for the Zellers. First off we froze up at the warehouse in Auburn. This has not happened in five or six years. We just don’t have that much freezing weather In Washington. After hours of using heat gun and little heaters we were able to get the water flowing back in the warehouse. That was on Thursday. On Friday Donnie went in for surgery. She’s been having trouble with her fingers for the past five or six years and her little finger was starting to curl we had gone into saw the doctor couple years ago and he thought it was arthritis after talking to her sister and looking on the Internet and all kinds other things we begin to think and maybe it wasn’t arthritis. So we asked to see a specialist and the doctor set up appointment for us to go see a specialist. After he looked at it seems that there is some silly disease or something that your skin attaches to the tendon in her finger and as the skin tightens it draws your little finger and other fingers in to a type of curl. So what happens is is the surgeon asked to go in and remove the skin from the tendon not a real funt procedure. Donnie was in surgery for about half an hour to 45 minutes as they separated the skin from her attendant. She was awake as they cut on her hand. They did have good drugs however. It took 2 days for her to really feel the pain and when she did ….....The doctor was able to straighten her little finger. About a week earlier they had put cortisone in another one of her fingers joints and that seemed to help stop the spread of whatever this disease is. So here is the pictures of higher finger before the surgery and in the club that they sent her out of surgery with. That test tube with a rubber stopper thingy is actually a vacuum tube to which pulls or sucks the blood and fluids out of the wound. They showed me how to change it if it was needed but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be. We go back in on Monday to have the bandage changed and taking care of and have a smaller bandage put on it I think they will tape the little finger in the next finger together To help it stay straight. She will have to have her hand in a special little cast at night for the next nine months to help keep the little finger straight. The doctor says that the finger would curl a little at first. But after a number of years she will probably have to have the same surgery again. Not our real fun thing to look forward to. I think she was in more pain on this little finger surgery than she did with her shoulder surgery several years ago.

Donnie, Katherine, and Jims first try at canning.

Donnie, Katherine, and Jims first try at canning.

Donnie decided we needed to try canning.


So the first thing we need to do is to get some jars to do there canning. So Donnie went on the Internet and found a garage sale listing canning jars so we decided to go over and check it out. Guess what they had canning jars so we got six dozen for five bucks. And these were the wide mouth ones. A lot easier to work with. So we got out our raspberries and started making raspberry jam. This is something we’ve never done before ( canned as a kid but that was a couple of years ago. but it isn’t that hard in the good thing was that we had talked to Colleen and she told us how to do it. So we got home we had everything we needed and went to work. While mostly Donnie and Katherine I did help though. We made about 11 jars of raspberry jam. And then we had some apples that we turned into applesauce. And thought why not. Let’s can them. So then we canned six quarts of applesauce. Not bad for a Saturday night. We needed to stick around the house because we still having some flooding in the basement. The pump seems to work just fine but I seem to have to juggle it a little to get us started. So we check on it every once in a while anyway here’s some pictures of a scanning with a good time had by all November seven 2009.

Trip around Mt Rainier

Well I have to tell ya about the trip we took. John and Mary Ann came out to go on a cruise up to Alaska. And so last Friday we set them on a cruise ship. There’s all kinds of stories and begin with to them to the airport but we won’t go into that. This Friday I guess this Friday would be a August 28 we went and got them from the cruise line. And we thought we ought take them out to Mount Rainier seem like a nice place to go and so we headed out towards Crystal Mountain and went completely around Mount Rainier. I’ll bet you didn’t know that Mt Rainier has a backside. I’ll bet I’ve been here 30 years and I’ve never been completely around Mount Rainier. So we went by the back entrance and headed up towards Paradise there is some really pretty lakes and waterfalls and cool stuff like that on the backside as your headed up there. On the way there we ran into a lake that I had gone fishing to






almost 30 years ago and you could hardly recognize the lake with all the trees that are grown up around it It was then Phil Petty and I went up there fishing I know that’s he’s not the racecar driver as I rode with him in his little coupe and even though he did drive like a maniac then I don’t think he is on the circuit. We then made it to Paradise and they had yanked down the old visitor center and got a new fancy one up. It was kind of interesting to see it now with a lot less snow on it than it normally has. It has been a real hot summer and a long one too. We were able to see the places where years ago we gone up in to ice caving that were totally barren of snow. That’s not that I’m in the global warming or anything I just think this was a hot year. We’re able to come out a similar really beautiful waterfalls that were coming down off the side of the mountains where the slides that happened this year with all the rain we had. I think John and Marianne had a good time I know Donnie and I did it was great to get up there and see some of the sites just don’t ever have time to go to.

The Forth 2009

Then on the fourth we got up early well about nine o’clock that’s pretty early for the fourth and the Gessel family in our ward had a breakfast that they invited everybody over to. So we went over there and had a great breakfast with friends. Came home and worked on my basement, just little things I do down there finishing some wiring and put up some insulation other goodies that needed doing. Then about 4:30 or five o’clock we went out to the Aldridge’s to have a BBQ and fireworks. Some of the boys had made it down to the fires works stand. Bags of goodies. As you to see from the layout we had tons of food and more barbecue than you could ever imagine. We stopped at Safeway and picked up some ribeye steaks and barbecued those up. Then Nathan brought a bunch of other stuff that he had smoked up that was absolutely delicious. He had barbecued ribs, pork steaks, sausages, chicken and you name it he had it and gobs of it. In other words no one went home hungry. And as the sun started to set.... the toys and fire sparklers came out. And of course everyone’s favorite firecrackers galore. We had bottle rockets and you can see from the video or the pictures that there was some really big bangs in the sky for all to enjoy. Finally after 11 o’clock the Zellers headed home it was time for bed. And all the way home fireworks going off everywhere you can pretty well say that the whole area was celebrating the fourth.

A trip to Argentina in Seattle

Donnie giving the food a thumbs up.
This is the Spinach and the very good fries. Lots of garlic!!!!!!









While I have a great story to tell you about the week of the fourth of July on July 3 we got a call from the Dempsey family inviting us to go up to a restaurant in Seattle that serves Argentine food. Now having never been to Argentina and never have tasted food from Argentina. This seem like a very wise Idea. So Donnie and Kathrine and I met the the Dempsey’s at the


Argentine restaurant. The name of the restaurant is Buenos Aires Grill. We had a great time with the Dempsey’s and here’s a picture of us all giving a toast to Jon who is on his mission in Argentina.
They have some really good fries with garlic on them. The garlic and cheese was very good..... but they also had d some spinach stuff that was very good. I had a steak with mashed potatoes was pretty good. But we had a great time laughing and talking and just overall enjoying each other’s company. And then in the end we asked the waitress is she would sing happy birthday to Alicia because it was her birthday and It was the other reason we were going to celebrate. And if she could in Spanish. She couldn’t but she knew some of the boys that could. They got up and it was quite hilarious watching them sing happy birthday in Spanish.

This is a picture of Mary filming the singing and Alicia getting piece of cake with a candle on it.

Yes Spring has Finally come

Here is a little video for great street to go down in Auburn,WA when the cherry tree bloom. I just like it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tgZ9Uj7sMA&feature=channel_page
The pink trees add to the look of SPRING!!!!