the end of leave

Well, he is gone again. We miss him and miss him and miss him. However, we know that where he is he is doing something worthwhile. On the 4th we took some family kind of photos and then went to Hood River and watched their firework show. Before the show we had Domino's pizza in our hotel room and watched Arnold..How much more American can you get? (OK, I suppose watching Stallone would have been more American.) I also learned that I need a tripod for Christmas. (One like TJ has that is a walking stick and tripod mix would be fun.) On Sunday we took Tony to the airport and watched him leave. I did notice later that he had pretty much the exact same stuff on when he left as he did when he arrived. And he really wasn't traveling that light! Later we had lunch with Kanga and Pauli.

The boys and Grandpa and then all of them and Grandma.

Here are the boys waiting for fireworks and then a sign I found on the wall at an Embarq building. I took a picture because Kanga does so often and she is right, sometimes they are very amusing! I understood the wheeled things, but CAMPING? Maybe loitering would have been a better chioce. Jon wondered where he would put the tent and campfire!

After that, he left..sigh. And as I said, we miss him.

Well, I am having trouble with this blog thing today. I am going to stop now and try to finish my curtains, which are not working well either. The bobbin keeps boggling up! I will post more this weekend, maybe it will work better! TTYL!

Busy, busy, busy!

OK, Wednesday we got Tony at the airport.

We went to Tillamook and saw the June Dairy parade and went to the beach and picked up Tony's bike at his friend's house:




See the purty cows???


We stopped in Arlington on our way home. The mama duck is the one from 'below', however this is not the best pic that I took. I will have to scroll through them to find it. The goslings and geese were also at the park.




We have played several games of triominos with Granpa and Grandma:

The boys went camping:



I, however, got to go blueberry picking! For almost $10 I got a little more than 24 cups. It was tons of fun! Here is the link to the place my friend and I picked www.lampsonblueberries.com


Then, it was Thursday and we celebrated Tony's 20th as well as shucked some peas. Phew, the time flies when you are having fun!!!





Well, that is our week and a bit more in a nutshell! I have two new books to read, so MUST finish the Long Patrol. Oh, while in Tillamook, I did get started up on Facebook (compliments of M. Beyer!!!). I'm always ready to do new things, even if they seem nervousing (I made that word up)!

One year ago last weekend.

Well, it was just about a year ago some very good friends of ours came to visit and helped us revamp our kitchen/dining room and bathroom. It was Hodaka Days here in Athena and Mark and Karen helped us do renovations!

The start of the Hopkins Hole in the Wall.

Mark, Steve, and a smaller Jon looking to see if it is a load bearing wall. Karen is seen here unloading it. As usual, she was taking care of business!

And here is the first part of the Hopkins Hole in the Wall.

Today, it looks like this (OK, it is pretty untidy and the color is off, but the idea is there!):
The view opens up into all three rooms and the colors complement each other, too. Mark's Custom Painting (Mark) helped with that later in the year, too.

The bathroom was pretty scary, but it got much better!

It was a mess and Mark and Steve were wonderful!

Today, it is more like this:

Still pretty smallish, but it has a much taller ceiling and more space all around.

Thank you Mark and we will miss you forever, Karen. And Karen, we'll see you on the other side.

The welcome mat is out!

Hooray, it is DONE!!!!! The Little House is done and, if I must say so myself, it is sweet! Come on and stay for a bit and play. Granted, there is no bathroom, but that is a minor technicality!
The futon, bedding in the drawer next to it. We have also added two pillows for comfort! The boarding in back will eventually host a dart board. We need a cork batting for it before we put it up. You can barely see the floor here, but it has carpet on most of it and then a great kind of laminate tile on the rest. A loverly thing!
Since this photo (taken Sunday evening!!!) a Nintendo has been added and the top shelf has an array of Mtn Dew collectibles on it.

This area has changed the most since Sunday. The window now has a curtain (I didn't get enough rods before) and we have added lego bricks to the Bionicles and K'nex. I am not sure what else is on the shelves, but they are full of toys! Here we see the wonderful bookshelves. I still need to add some more books. (I am thinking the ones by Brian Jacques would be nice out here. This room kind of reminds me of the gate house at the Abbey!) As you can see the pull out desk is waiting for a writer and the linen drawer is just underneath it! The curtain on the door is fabric from the Arabian Nights play THS did ages past and the rest of the curtains are aged sheets that had a bit of life left in them.

I wanted curtains that would hold up well and wash well. Thus, I used sheets. I like using sheets to make curtains, they are much more durable! In fact, the ones I made and hung in Tony's room are from Oz. The Wicked Witch's magic powers burnt tiny holes in the sheet and I couldn't see tossing away such a wonderful bit of history, so I made curtains from the wholer cloth!

Speaking of THS theatre, this photo is a bit hard to see (the angle I had to shoot it from was awkward, I was on the stairs). It is in our basement entryway. There are 4 plays present here. Hot, Oz, Beauty, and Nights. Pretty fun, huh???

Still reading Jacques. The Badger books!

Trip Pix!

He is home and has slept for about 10 hours. I hope he is ready to work now! We have lots to do before Tony gets home still!!! We did finish the skull. It looks pretty nifty!

And here are some shots of Jon in the East.

He took many more, but I thought I would put these two on for now. They are the self explanatory ones!!! His favorite thing was the pizza in New York and he was also impressed with the Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich. More on his impressions of the East later!

Done with Alcott for a bit, am reading Brian Jacques. Just because! I won't do too many, though.

MORE plants and Scaredy Cats

Yup, I have more unusual plants. This one I was talking to Jake about. I am going to pass it on to the wonderful OSU people, too! We'll see what we have. Isn't it is pretty lethal looking? To get the real look, you need to click on the photo.

They are not in a useful part of the yard and if they do not turn out to have flowers or fruits, well, it might just be moved on to the firewood phase! It is kind of dangerous to run into!

And here is my mock orange! It has finally bloomed! After years of keeping it alive on the coast, it seems to like living here. Isn't it loverly? And an unexpected bonus plant! A Dutch Iris, I am told.

And last but not least. We finally got Teddy shaved for the summer again. And guess who does not recognize him!!!? And he looks so 'normal', too!!!!

Max was seriously stressed but held his ground, however, Moses was moving so fast, I was lucky to get this shot!

He's off and new link

Well, Jon has officially left the city. He is on his way to the East Coast and we will be doing all kinds of odd things around here to get stuff done! I added a link to the band tour. A drum major wanted to do this. We were told there would be few photos due to privacy issues, but there will tons of words. Anyway, if you want to read what the group Jon is with is up to, check it out! More on the later!

Reading Louisa May..I was feeling Alcottish!!!!

They hatched!!

Yippee! They did hatch and Jon says they look like camouflaged peeps! Personally, I agree! Now if we can only keep the peeps away from the cats! They have left the nest area now and are running free in the weeds. Killdeer are one of the few birds that can run soon after hatching. But, the parents still keep a pretty good eye on them, as you can tell!!! We thought it was interesting that the babies looked a lot like the shells of the eggs they were hatched from. Many birds are hatched from eggs that are blue or pale white and spotted and they look awful after hatching! These are more like chickens and barnyard fowl.

They hatched on Saturday, June 6.