Cruzin' for Cascade '09

Yesterday was the annual 'Cruzin' for Cascade' walkathon at Amy's school. The kids (& teachers) dress up in costume and walk around the track to raise money for the school. This year Amy and some of her friends put together a last minute costume idea - not sure what they are supposed to be - blazers and pink hair streaks?? Oh well, they had fun and are already planning for next year. We'll see how that goes...


Here are some random pictures I took of other costumes - kids & teachers.

OK, I've been a bit remiss....

School started last Tuesday, 9/8 and although Amy said she was not happy about starting 7th grade her actions over this past week "spoke" louder than her words.

Action 1: She now gets herself up @ 5:35am to shower, dress & eat with no 'help' from me. This is NEW! Dan & I still get up @ 5:55am - this is not new.

Action 2: Although there is quite a bit of grumbling about homework she has been totally self starting and even spent all Friday afternoon and evening working on 2 projects that aren't even due for a few weeks.

Action 3: Last night, after ballet, she immediately wanted to start another project involving papier mache and all I could think about was the mess!! and "wasn't she tired?" and "didn't she want to relax?" Then I thought "What am I doing? She wants to do homework! Go for it!" So, she did...

Here she is with her friend, Alanna, who she walks to the bus with every morning.


Charlie & Bella were quite forlorn without Amy but that was about to change!


We had a house guest! Lola was coming to stay with us while her owners, our neighbors and dog/bunny sitters, were going to England for 8 days. It's a great situation - they take care of our animal family while we are away and we do the same for them. Lola is a restless soul - while our dogs sleep away the afternoon, she is constantly on the prowl! Bella is usually the target and they did have quite a bit of fun. Although this next picture may paint a different story!!


The real story of our Lola Saga does not even involve Lola. It involves the mystery of the lost house keys. You see, in addition to Lola there were 2 kitties that needed to be fed daily and someone - who shall remain nameless - misplaced the keys on the 2nd day. Needless to say, our house was searched, the ground between our 2 homes was searched, the river trail where we walk was searched, the neighborhood association, Parks & Rec Dept., & Police
were called and emails flew back and forth across the Atlantic. Finally, our home builders warranty guy came and helped Dan break into the house. The cats went 24 hours without food - not a calamity for cats but... we are still looking for the keys. The Police suggested Craigslist & the newspapers Lost & Found, which we are still checking daily. They will turn up - I know it! Our neighbors are home and they still seem to like us!

Dan and a few friends will climb the South Sister on Saturday. We have been watching the weather because this is their 3rd attempt, so far. The first one was planned for early August and there was just too much snow still blocking the trail. The 2nd attempt was for 9/5 and the mountains were socked in by clouds with "white stuff" revealed the next day when it cleared up. So, we'll see if it's a go this weekend.
We took this picture on our walk this morning - the clouds are above and below Broken Top with a bit of snow showing up on South Sister just hidden by the tree on the right. I'm sure Dan will post some pictures if all goes as planned on Saturday.


If we hadn't stopped to take a picture this morning I don't think we would have made this discovery.

It has to be the skull of an elk - it's just so big! We brought it home and will try to place it somewhere in the backyard landscape where the dogs can't get to it.

Hopefully, Amy will not be too grossed out!

Musings from Late Summer

Summer is essentially over so I thought I would add some thoughts from the past few weeks.

While we had a good time in Florida during our annual visit, it was different in one regard. About the second day there we were all anxious to get back to Oregon rather than wishing the beach vacation would not end. Anyway, there were some highlights in Florida. The first was meeting up with Nancy and Amy in the Orlando airport; they flew from Albany and I flew from Portland. We ran into a really good hotwire deal (more than $100 off the going rate) and stayed at the hotel right in the airport, which turned out to be a 4-Star hotel. The photo is of Amy on our balcony above the main area of the airport; notice the fashionable hat.


A second memory from Florida concerns the ocean. The surf was pretty rambunctious, as shown in the pictures in the post below. Hurricane Bill was hundreds of miles away, but ol' Bill raised a ruckus on the beaches. On the last day, one of the larger waves got us all, but especially Amy. It battered her to the point where she thought she was going to drown and left her with a really sore arm for a couple days. Otherwise it was really fun getting blasted by the waves.

This is an aside, but one of the news items I read this summer was that "global warming" had raised the temperature of the ocean to the low 80's as far north as New Jersey. What the anthropogenic global warming believers fail to mention, however, is that the ocean in Florida is unusually chilly this year. Whereas we normally look forward to water temperatures of 80-82 degrees in Florida in August, this year it was only 74.

The third memory from Florida: On our last Sunday we stayed in Orlando while waiting for our flight home. We decided to take advantage of proximity to St Andrews Church, where Dr RC Sproul is the teaching pastor. It was like a little bit of heaven. The parking lots are a couple blocks from the church building, which looked to me like stereotypical Scottish architecture. The walkways to the church wound around ponds with fountains, and it was almost magical to walk along with others on the way to worship while listening to bell chimes play familiar sacred music. During the first 15 minutes of the service, the well dressed congregation sat in reverence while the church orchestra played familiar classical music written by Bach. RC Sproul spoke on the miracle of feeding the 5000 and somewhere in the middle of his sermon he quoted from a Nobel prize winning scientist who had written something to the effect that science has progressed to the point that it can now be concluded that spontaneous evolution of life took a miracle. I think he said that it might be called the greatest miracle, where a miracle is something that is rare and does not obey the natural scientific laws. It was really enjoyable listening to a man who is well read with a great mind talk about the real truth of things. Anyway, the service concluded with a piece from Handel's Water Music, one of my favorites.

On a lighter note, we went to Crater Lake National Park on Tuesday of this week. This year, there was hardly any snow left, which is a little surprising given that the average snowfall each year is 45 feet. It is a spectacular place with the bluest water I have ever seen. Amy delights in scaring the petunias out of her parents by perching on rocks. In the photo below, she was feeling her oats after being cooped up in the car for 2 hours. This particular location was not too scary,

but the one in the picture below really gave me the heebie jeebies. It is a long way down, straight down!