Father's Day

As usual with the rest of my life, better late than never, right?

Nick left on Sunday for the youth mission trip to Vancouver, so only two boys were home for Father's Day. We had a nice roast beef dinner and they watched some baseball before Eric had to go to work.

Sometimes Zeek watches baseball too. He's getting a little big to sit on Will's lap though!

Later in the day, we picked up Doug and Anisa and Will drove us around Linn County, showing us some scenic sights and telling us some stories of things that have happened at various locations over the past years. Enjoyable and entertaining as usual. We stopped at the Point restaurant in Sweet Home for pie and wondered if we would ever get it, but eventually got the attention of a waitress. Will got an extra scoop of ice cream in an attempt by the waitress to make up for the delay.

Summertime

Well, I survived all the year-end activities and didn't mess up anything too bad. Only one parent called on the last day (Thursday) to criticize the promotion ceremony, which took place at 9:00 am that day. Why is it that when some people complain they feel the need to repeat each complaint several times? Yes, I agreed it was too long, we are sorry it went longer than intended. I am so sorry your husband is disabled and couldn't sit long enough to see his daughter receive her certificate. And on and on. I've received several memorable complaint calls from that parent over the years, and I rejoice that her child is moving on up to high school!

Friday we got the teachers checked out for the summer. This week has been amazing, with few phone calls and very light traffic in and out. The boss left, the new boss is moving into her former office, and the new assistant principal brought some of her things in. Lots of work to do to keep busy for a good long time. I get to take Fridays off this month and next to make up for all the long hours I've put in, as well as some time in July to go to the Metolius. I have always had the whole month of July off since I started working. But on the bright side, after I've been on the job for a year, I will get two weeks of paid vacation! That is also a first!


I love the summer hours - 8 am to 3 pm! Now if I could just train myself to go ahead and sleep an hour later!

I love home made ice cream!

I am pretty much convinced that unplanned social activities at our home are much for fun than planned ones.

Recently I told Will I would like to get an ice cream freezer. I love to have people over, but working makes me have less energy for cooking and cleaning...but making home made ice cream is easy and it's a fun thing to invite people over for.

So yesterday morning I asked Doug and Anisa if they would like to come by that evening for homemade ice cream. They had other things going on and we left the time open. We always try to have a family dinner with our boys on Sunday, and it ended up being a little later than I had planned. They arrived just as we were about to sit down. Fortunately we had lots of salmon that Will had caught on his recent Rogue River fishing trip, and it was quite fun ordering the boys to haul out another board for the table after the table was already set and being embarrassed by their lack of working together politely skills. We had enough food to go around and I didn't have to worry about making a dinner good enough for company. Although the meal was pretty decent if I do say so.

Brother David called while we were eating and was just leaving our parents house in Brownsville, so he and McKenna came by. The weather was nice enough that we could go out on the deck to eat it. Although poor Anisa had to wrap up in a blanket. I have this problem of feeling like if more than one sibling is here, I really should call some more to join the party. I called Galen but he was home nursing a cold. Lucky for us, because that gallon of ice cream disappeared pretty quickly!


Yes, it was a good evening. Nick and Duane played catch in the back yard and didn't break any windows. Some cute little neighbor dogs escaped and came over to bark at Zeek. Nick and Duane enjoyed playing with them til the neighbors got back. They also went for a bike ride earlier in the day and didn't bend any wheels or damage the bikes at all. Nick didn't rip any pants out or anything. A very successful day.


I woke up at 4:30 this morning, thought about all the things still to do to get ready for 8th grade promotion, got up and was the first customer at Dutch Brothers shortly after 5:30 on my way to the office. Got a lot done and am feeling ever so much better. I went to McDonalds, the one clear across town, after work to pick up the Ray Kroc award (founder of McDonalds), a Leadership award they give every year to an 8th grader. I had called ahead and they were expecting me. I knew a couple of kids working there and chatted with them a bit after someone handed me a bag with the award. As I drove away, I thought it seemed a little odd that it was in a McDonalds bag and kind of heavy. At the stop light I opened the bag to check it out. It contained a couple of wraps! I thought it was real nice of them to give me some free food, but where was the medal? I circled around and went back in. The manager had been told I was there for the award, but she said, "I thought you said she was here for her order - someone just went through the drive through and left before getting one of her bags!" They didn't let me keep the food but they did give me the medal!

I wonder what I'm forgetting? I'm making a list so that this will all be much easier next year. Events at work do require a great deal of forethought and planning!

Camping at Casey's Riverside RV Park

We camped at a new place this past weekend. (New to us anyway.)Less than an hour and a half away, it was a delightful surprise, set along Willamette River where the Middle Fork and the South Fork come together, just four miles out of Oakridge. An ideal place for a little dog to learn to swim and fetch in the river.

We enjoyed a lovely hike along the river on Friday. Wild yellow iris and columbine were blooming profusely, but I didn't get any great pictures of them. Zeek was a good hiker and was happy to splash in the water at the end of the journey.

All the campsites had little flower gardens or pots. Zeek is such a good dog, he knows better than to bother flowers!

Our friends Bruce and Marla joined us on Friday with two more dogs. It was a great camp for dogs, with a place to play fetch in the river as well as a fenced in dog run where they could romp and play to their heart's content.

A unique feature of this place was a soft serve ice cream machine in the covered group area. On the honor system, for $1 you could make yourself an ice cream cone! We enjoyed one our last night there.


It wasn't all about the dogs of course. What a lovely place to sit and watch the river with your husband of 26 years, or read a book while he's playing with his dog.

It was wonderfully relaxing to get away from the hectic pace of work. Eight more days and I can breathe again!