OMSI

Trent, Kirsten, Amy, Matthew & I spent an afternoon at the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry. We had a great time exploring the exhibits:

The Water Rocket was the first thing Matthew wanted to do. He pumped air and water into a plastic bottle and when he felt he had enough he launched it to see how high it would go. I think his ended up on Mars!

Next we played with air!!! We put balls in tubes and watched the air make them rise. See the blue ball? It's floating!!!!

More air fun was making paper cups into shapes we thought would float best.

We toured a submarine named Blueback that has been out of commission for a while. It was fun to learn about how it ran and how the people lived on board for a long period of time.

The dinosaur exhibit was pretty amazing. I'm glad we don't have them around today!!! Too big and scary looking and I saw the movie Jurasic Park!!!

Here Kirsten & Matthew are making streams suitable for salmon to thrive. They had a lot of fun playing in the water and moving the sand around while fresh water poured in from upstream!

Reunions

Here I am with my brother Richard, his wife Sally, daughter Elizabeth and sons John, Steven, & Neal, cousin Bev, cousin Pat & her husband Larry. Bev's husband took the picture. This is actually quite a feat because it was 104 degrees in the Pacific Northwest today - almost an unheard of heat!!! And this was at 6:30 p.m.!!!! I think everyone was a good sport to pose for two different cameras!













Another picture of me this time with my friend Robbie at our high school reunion. We went to school together from 1st grade to graduation and married and had kids about the same time. It was so much fun to reconnect with former classmates. There were over 200 classmates at the reunion from a class of 365. Larry & I have been married the longest. Whooo Hoooooo! As I have spent this weekend reflecting on my life I know how blessed I am. Words cannot express how grateful I am for my family and friends and I cherish each of them. They are truly the treasures in my life.

June 26th - Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Today Trent, Amy, Kirsten, Matthew and I were headed to OMSI to spend a good part of our day. On the way Trent felt impressed that we needed to go visit my parent's grave so we made a detour and headed to the cemetery. It had been a while since I was able to visit their grave and today was even more special because it would have been mom's 85th birthday!

After the cemetery we had lunch and then went to the temple. Another great choice for mom's birthday!

Does it look as if these three are having fun together or what? We call them our Oreo cookie because the blonde is usually in the middle. Kirsten and Amy happened to have the same shirts so they wanted to be "twins" today. They were great sports and we will go to OMSI another day! Happy Birthday Mom/Great Grandma from all of us!

Great friends. Great food. Great time.






Dale and Carol survived the heat!!!



Larry & I are gearing up for another scorching summer! I used to be cold all of the time in the Pacific Northwest - not a problem anymore!




















Helping me decorate.













Refreshing waterfall. Look closely and you can see lots of birds enjoying the water (and in triple digit weather!!!!).

This month finds me in a journey back in time.....back to my high school days as I prepare to attend my high school reunion. As I have reflected on the years that have passed so swiftly I decided to share a pictorial history of this journey.

Our wedding day. So young, so hopeful, so in love. Still together after all these years!



This picture of me with Todd was taken for Larry while he was serving his year in Vietnam. Todd was about 11 months old.







Young family of four.




Family of five.







Then Serina joined our family and we became six.

This family picture was taken shortly after our 25th wedding anniversary. We are now a family of seven!

And just a few days after Jacob came out of his six-day coma after sustaining injuries from being hit by a van while walking across a street. This is the first family picture in 13 years! In addition to our family of seven we have 11 grandchildren that have come to bless our lives. I am thankful for our loving family and look forward to seeing most of them later this month.

My suitcase is almost packed.....

After discovering what a suitcase could be (thanks, Ethel) I accidentally found this suitcase and decided to invest in a new one. I don't like to check baggage so everything I need has to go into one carry on bag! My old suitcase was adequate but after using it for my whirlwind trip to Washington, DC in February and then to Wisconsin last month, I decided it was time to upgrade. The new one has lots of pockets and room for expansion - which is always good - and it has the mandatory rollers! I am almost packed for my trip later this month (not too excited or anything!!!) to Kentucky, then Oregon & Washington, and then back to Kentucky. The plan is to pick up grandchild #10 and take her to see our family in Oregon and Washington, attend my high school reunion in Oregon, attend an extended family reunion, and make lots and lots of memories with most of our children and grandchildren for a blowout 4th of July celebration. Whew!!! Then back to Kentucky and home again. We have a little over two weeks so we should be over jet lag before we have to do the reverse trip! Hubby will fly in for the 4th of July weekend as will #4 son and his fiance.

In the meantime we are gearing up for our good friends to come visit us next week from Colorado. We always have special times when we are together! Here they are last June in Denver when we visited in Colorado. They also came down to visit us in the desert in October. The guest room is all spiffed up and waiting!!!

You know it's hot when.......

Snickers naps in the sink!!!!! Doesn't she look comfy??? Perfect fit, I'd say. She first started doing this when Larry brought her to the desert in July 2006. She pretty much spent the summer in the sink!!! Of course Larry had the thermostat set at 82 degrees so she was a tad bit uncomfortable - coming from the Pacific Northwest and all. Guess it's her way of coping! I tell people that summer here is not for wimps !!! Our cat is not a WIMP! Move over Snickers!

You may be wondering what this mess is. I'll tell you....it's what came off of Lady the last time I cut her hair for the summer. The process is one she does not relish. I have to use a sheet under us to catch all the hair. The electric clippers get pretty hot after about 20 minutes so we take a lot of breaks. Lady likes the breaks but is not too happy to get back to clipping. I have been known to take three days to get this job done but managed to hone it down to just one this time. Usually the pile of hair is almost as big as she is. More than once I've had to look twice at the heap just to make sure it wasn't Lady!!!

Here she is after her summer cut. She is sooooooooooooooo much cooler!