My friend Long at the Immigrant and Refugee Legislative Day in  Olympia Washington. It was a good day.

The three siblings together for the holidays. Ruby Alice and Sam, they don’t get together to often.

We had special visitors from Lisbon  for Christmas.

Getting into character, Mrs. Claus prepares for her first Christmas  show of the year.

Just North of La Push across the Quileute River is the long and beautiful beach known as Rialto. Here you see Flora braving the winter surf for a photograph.

Ruby messing around on the Washington Coast, it was cold and rainy as you would expect, but a true North Westerner doesn’t let that get them down!

Lake Crescent on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, with Mount Storm King in the background.

From Wikipedia:

The lake was formed when glaciers carved out deep valleys during the last Ice Age. Initially, the Lake Crescent valley drained into theIndian Creek valley and then into Elwha River. Anadromous fish such as steelhead and coastal cutthroat trout migrated into the valley from lower waters.

Approximately 8,000 years ago, a great landslide from one of the Olympic Mountains dammed Indian Creek and the deep valley filled with water. Many geologists believe that Lake Crescent and nearby Lake Sutherland formed at the same time, but became separated by the landslide.^[1] The results of the landslide are easily visible from the summit of Pyramid Peak. Eventually, the water found an alternative route out of the valley, spilling into the Lyre River, over the Lyre River Falls, and out to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

After the Thanksgiving Week storm this year the lake was ringed in snow and icy cold. This photo was taken Sunday November 28th.

Flora is a patriot. She is also my muse and rudder. America could stand having more like Flora around.

Toby a neighbor and long time friend comes by a few weeks before every election to pass out Democratic Party information. He is the real grass roots. This year is a frightening and disturbing election year. After the Obama victory in 2008 the country is more divided than ever and stakes couldn’t be higher. Liberal dreams are withering;  decayed and morbid ideas of the past are rising from the grave. It is like we are in a horror movie, Attack of the Zombie Ideologues.

Summer ends in a few days and the neighbors are taking advantage of a sunny saturday morning at The Lighthouse Roaster, our local coffeehouse. They roast their own here and have been supplying my neighborhood with excellent coffee for over ten years.

f/2.0 – 1/5000 – ISO100