EAGLE CREEK HIKE

Our first day of Jess & Drew's visit was spent hiking Eagle Creek in the Columbia River Gorge. As it was a Monday, Josiah had the day off and was able to come along. Aaron, Drew's brother was also able to come. Dennis of course had taken the whole week off so as not to miss a single available moment with our kids while they were here.
Josiah and Aaron actually hiked back to a falls accessible only via the creek. Josiah will do almost anything to get a good picture!
And here it is. I have to say, it did feel good to take shoes and socks off and cool the feet in the icy cold water. And I mean icy cold! It must come straight from a glacier on Mt. Hood!

Resting and taking one last look before heading back down!

SIDE BAR!

Jess & Drew become property owners! Yeah, I know. You thought they bought lake front property, right? Well this is Joseph P. Stewart State Park, and it's where we had to be at 10:00 a.m. Thursday, July 17th on our way to Crater Lake, as it was about the only place that had cell reception. The lot in Virginia that they have been looking at for months, came up for auction while they were here in Oregon! So their realtor stood in for them at the auction as their proxy, but Drew needed to be in on the bidding via cell phone.
It was a beautiful morning, with a beautiful view of the lake while we waited for the call.
Half hour later, they are the proud owners of Virginia property, having saved close to half the asking price!
Wednesday evening after our adventures in Jacksonville, we left Jess & Drew to rest in the hotel while Dennis and I headed back up to Grants Pass to find our long lost friends and old neighbors, Ron and Linda. As we had the wrong cell phone number for them, we called Rissa at home and had her look up their address. Drew map quested it for us from the motel, and we set off on yet another adventure, hoping and praying they'd be home when we finally found their place 45 minutes later.
They were there! Praise the Lord! And they were as excited to see us as we were to see them. Finally we were able to see their new place that so far we had only heard about via email. It's beautiful and...they have water!

ROAD TRIP!

First stop: Historic Jacksonville! Instead of just visiting with friends and family this trip, Jess & Drew wanted to actually have a vacation, so Jessi and her dad planned a two day trip down to southern Oregon for when they were here. We were able to stay at the Mariotts in Medford courtesy of all of Drew's accumulated points. And splitting the fuel costs made it not so bad, especially since the Beemer came through with between 34 and 41 miles to the gallon! And that was with Dennis driving on all those mountain curves!

Boy was it hot!!!

Do we know them?

ROGUE RIVER GORGE

This is one of our favorite places to visit: majestic rushing water, a cooling mist in the air, in a word - awesome!

"Drew! Don't do it!" If you just look, there are flowers even in unusual places.

CRATER LAKE

That first glimpse is so exciting, especially after not seeing it for so long. It turned out to be a perfect day. The smoke from the California wild fires cleared out leaving us with clean, fresh air, so unlike the day before in Medford!
And there's Wizard Island.
There was still quite a bit of snow around. Jessi has the shot of all of us sitting in the snow! That was fun!
I loved the way flowers were bravely growing right out of the rocks! Maybe I need some of those in my yard! They definitely seem to be drought tolerant!
Just look at all the different water colors around the island, like jewels!

MORE OF CRATER LAKE

You can get so engrossed in the beauty of the lake that you don't realize that if you just turn around there is a beautiful view of Mt. Thielsen.
Of course you knew I'd have to find some flowers somewhere!
I think I know why they call that island the Phantom Ship. It hides in the shadows. To get a good picture of it, I think you'd have to take it in the morning light.

Our time with Jessi and Andrew went far too quickly, but we did have such fun while it lasted. It's hard to believe this is where we were just a week ago. Now they're back in Virginia and we're all back to the daily grind. Looking forward to Boston in the Fall, when we, along with Grammy and Grandad, will meet up with them again.

THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

Summertime: a time for reunions.

Cousin Katrina and husband Henry were here Friday with their girls from California. We had a family potluck to share them with as many as possible in the short amount of time they had here. Aunt Carolyn came along and surprised us also! Sorry I didn't get more pictures. I was too busy visiting and forgot! But here's a picture of Grandad with Mandy, and below is Katrina's daughter, Erica with Emma and Benton.

Here's a picture of Katrina's sweet girls that she had emailed to me a while back.

And what's this? You thought it was the "Dog Days of Summer"! Not at our house! This is how Bernard and Sheba spend hot, lazy, summer afternoons.

This next week we have vacation!! Jessi and Drew will be here from Virginia and we're looking forward to a mini trip to Crater Lake with them. Fill you in later.

LATE BLOOMERS!

What a year! It's July and we still have iris blooming! Of course they didn't start on time because of our freaky weather, so we are getting to enjoy them even longer this year.


The lateness of their bloom makes for some unusual partners. Above is Bold Look with the Shasta daisies, never before seen blooming together!

FIRST WEDDING BOOKED!

When we designed this project last summer, the main purpose was to save on water, but we kept the idea in the back of our minds that someday we'd love to have weddings here. A couple per summer would pay for our summer's water. We never dreamed we'd have the privilege in it's very first summer after completion! When we found out that our new neighbor's son was getting married in August, we felt we should offer them the use of our yard (free of charge of course, since they will be the Guinea pigs). They are thrilled, and I can't even begin to describe how I feel at being able to make someone so happy! God is so good. Hopefully Moses, (in the picture above) doesn't think he's invited!

It remains to be seen, what the creeping thyme will look like in August.
One of the first of my Asiatic lilies to bloom. It was supposed to be an Oriental lily, which I love for their awesome smell, but that sometimes happens with mail orders!