Portland!

 

Every summer my sisters and I get together and this year was no exception as the city of Portland called to us!  We stayed at a hotel in Vancouver, Washington, very near to where my Uncle Don lives.  His daughter Becky drove in to spend the week as well.  In addition, my sister Linda brought her granddaughter, and my own daughters Ash and Lys flew in from San Francisco.  We gave Uncle Don fair warning that he would be greatly outnumbered by all the women with our chatter and giggles, but he assured us he was up to it!  Don is the brother of my father who passed away two years ago.  Their mannerisms, dry sense of humor, and quiet but wise ways are so similar, we wished we'd had a dollar for all the times we remarked to one another, "He's just like Dad!" 

We visited, played cards, went out to dinner, pored over family photos, hugged, joked, and generally had a ball just being together!  On Saturday night Uncle Don treated us all to a cruise on the Columbia River through the Columbia Gorge.  The problem was -- he came down with a cold and didn't feel well enough to go with us.  Bummer!

We passed the famous Multnomah Falls on our way to the Sternwheeler, but only had time for a quick photo opp from the parking lot before needing to hit the highway to Cascade Locks.

We boarded the beautiful Sternwheeler, mesmerized by the rotating paddle and the gorgeous scenery.  We were served a delicious dinner and savored the tasty desserts!  (Our family rule -- when we're on vacation we throw calorie counting out the window!)

 

 

Here's our route:

We went under the Bridge of the Gods, which joins Oregon (on the left below) with Washington (on the right):

It was a "see through" bridge ~

 See the semi truck going over it ~ yikes ~ not appealing to my fear of heights and tall bridges!

There is a beautiful Native American legend about the Bridge of the Gods, Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams. You can read about it here:  Native American Legends: Bridge of the Gods.
We also passed many of these crude docks, built by the local Native Americans for fishing per the Columbia River Inter-Tribal fishing rights.

Wind surfers and kite boarders also kept us entertained.  It was really a lovely cruise and all too soon it was time to dock.

 

In fact, we enjoyed it so much that on Monday we took another cruise -- this time on the Portland Spirit along the Willamette River.  And the good news was that Uncle Don was well enough to go along this time!  The wait staff even entertained us with a song or two:

 

 We left the city behind and motored past the hills, homes, and boats of the Willamette River,  It's hard to see in this picture, but there is a row of houseboats in front of the condos below:

 

Portland is a city of bridges ~

 And then the city came into view and we returned to the city shores ~

So far I've been telling you about visiting my dad's side of the family, but we also have relatives on our mom's side of the family in Portland!  Stay tuned for another post about those escapades! 

My daughters adopted two adorable kittens this weekend and have been texting me pictures of them!  Brothers -- aren't they sweet?

Sherlock

 Sisko

Here's Sherlock playing with Ash's shoelace, Sisko is in the background.  So far Sherlock seems to be the ring leader, while Sisko is a bit shyer. 

But "Sisko (Cisco) the Kid" did catch a little of "Breakfast at Tiffanys" on TV on this lazy Sunday morning:

So ends my lazy Sunday morning -- time to get busy around here!  Have a wonderful rest-of-the-weekend!

Three Glorious Weeks

Summer is in full bloom.  In Monterey, that means temps in the 60's and generally wonderful walking and working weather!   I spent four weeks at the beginning of summer providing summer school speech therapy.  Two of my colleagues and I job-shared two positions and ended up working half days on four day work weeks.  One of the best parts was sharing therapy ideas, materials and organizational tips, making us almost (note I said almost) look forward to starting the new school year. 

In July I flew down to Southern California for a weekend to join DAR friends at the State headquarters in order to plan for the new year.  We had a great time and they gave me the same room I had last year.  See the window under the chimney in the dormer room on the right?  That's the one!  It's a small bedroom with twin beds and a dresser, decorated with antique dolls, toys, and quilts. I can crank open the window at night and feel a cool breeze, so refreshing!  All 15 of us stay right in the headquarters -- an old Craftsman style house with many bedrooms and bathrooms and a large dining room where we can sit around the table, discuss and take notes.  At night we ate supper al fresco on the shady back patio.  For lunch we walked the two blocks to a cafe in the historic downtown.  My favorite "take five" place was that covered front porch where there is wicker furniture and soft cushions -- no one else seemed to go there so it was a nice quiet spot to be alone and think.  It was really a lovely weekend.

Now I have three glorious weeks left of summer vacation before heading back to the therapy room.  As always I have lots of projects to complete, including a top to bottom re-organizing of my house.  I tackled the kitchen earlier this week, taking every thing out of the cupboards, washing things, purging, reconfiguring spaces. Now three boxes of old mugs, vases, platters, and other such items are waiting for the Goodwill (making that trip today), one box is for my daughters' apartment, and the rest is so junky no one would want it so it's going in the trash.  Out with the old expired food, in with reorganizing the spices, meds/vitamins and food cupboards.  Even the junk drawer got an overhaul.  (Can you tell I like to organize?)

Then I decided I better venture into the garage.  Crikey!  My rule of thumb was that I needed to be able to park two cars in the garage, but when the girls moved out three years ago their car space began collecting an item here and an item there until -- yikes -- half of that space is a hodge-podge of clutter.  So much "stuff" has accumulated throughout the garage again that it's almost overwhelming to figure out where to begin.  So I decided to tackle it one section at a time, starting with the two large work benches.  Under one work bench was old paint -- some from 10 years ago!  I filled my entire trunk with old paint and pesticides and made the trek to the city hazardous waste center.  That opened up a tremendous amount of space!  Studying the work benches I realized that two shelves were filled with power tools that I will never use.  They were my husband's and if I haven't used them in ten years, I doubt I ever will -- plus some are starting to rust.  So I called my gardener and asked him if he wanted to stop by and he could have any of these tools he wanted.  He took them all, to my delight -- I love to see things go to a good home!  I stored the drill and bits in a plastic storage box, and of course kept the saws, hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, nails, etc., etc. that I do use regularly.  Work benches are done.  I reorganized the garden tools and other items in the open storage shelf section on that wall and called it a day.

I planned to dive back into the garage the next day, but the tendonitis in my left ankle has been bothering me all week and yesterday I could hardly walk on it.  Using the RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) method, I stayed off of it and did computer work for a day.  By the way, never underestimate the power of compression.  It wasn't until I wrapped my ankle with an elastic bandage that I really experienced a significant difference.  Today it is much better and I am going to gingerly move back into organizing the garage after I drop off at Goodwill and visit Target for some more good storage boxes.  I've got loads of old papers to shred, so if I need a break I can always sit down, rest my ankle, and shred away. 

This has not been a particularly fascinating post, but I do have something much more fun to report!  Toward the end of July I flew to New England for a vacation with my two sisters!  We had so much fun!  Watch for my posts about that!  

That's all for now!  Have a wonderful day!

Celebrating at Mimi's

Last Friday was the last day of the school year in my district, so I got together with some colleagues for beakfast at Mimi's Cafe -- a last hurrah before parting ways for the summer.  I'd had lunch and dinner at Mimi's before, but never breakfast and was I in for a treat!  Yummy french toast with cinnamon and orange zest, scrambled eggs, and this big cup of cocoa. 

Bon voyage to all who will be traveling this summer, and have a lovely time unwinding and relaxing for those who are hanging out at home.

Sum-sum-summer time!

Summer has arrived at last.  After an exceptionally busy April and May the end of the school year couldn't come soon enough.  Dozens of student referrals papered by work desk, my calendar began to whimper every time I touched pen to date, and my days were filled to the brim with have-to-do-by-tomorrow's!

Topping it off, this spring our nonprofit organization took back all of the sponsorship programs for the schools in Kenya we help support -- an unplanned undertaking, but one that is rewarding -- especially now that we are finally able to look up from our spreadsheets and emails and truly appreciate what we are doing for the impoverished kids there.

June 10th the school bell rang for the last time and like a kid, I ran for the door (at least mentally).  Once again I am moving to a new school in the fall.  The district had to replace a couple of therapists and like a domino affect, some of us got shifted to new assignments.  Next year I'll be back in an elementary school (from preschool level) which I'm very happy about as that is my favorite age group to work with.  It meant packing my boxes of therapy materials once again and hauling them home to the garage for the summer.

Summer projects await so better get busy with them soon.  Lys has been house sitting for a family here in my neighborhood since Friday so we've gotten together daily to have lunch and get out.  Yesterday it was pedicures, Sunday it was antiquing in Carmel and Moss Landing.  Ash will be home for a few days this coming weekend -- love spending time with my daughters!

So many springtime pictures to upload to my blog here -- I will get caught up and back to schedule here soon.

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

It's official--I'm on vacation! The school year ended last Friday, and until the middle of next week (when I do a four week, half day stint of summer school), I'm off work. This morning I spent time in my yard, trying to figure out which sprinklers were out of whack and leaving behind the dry patches. Lys is on a road trip this week, Ash moves back home from college the end of next week.... So I have a list of sweet nothings to do during this time off:
-sleep in (this usually means sleep 'til 7:00 instead of 6:00)
-listen to music (any kind I want, when I want)
-sing to the music (any way I want, when I want)
-work on photo albums and journals
-walk on the beach
-catch up with friends
-watch guilty-pleasure TV (including reruns of Desperate Housewives and sappy romantic comedies)
-send letters to my school children/friends in Africa
-yell out loud at the missed baskets while watching The Lakers vs. The Magic finals
-have a pedicure at the salon
-meditate
-write articles and poetry
-play with the dogs
-perfect the art of all the ways to serve strawberries

Ahhh--the sweet days of summer.

Mark Twain was right

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Mark Twain's words. I would like to add our fair city 90 minutes south of San Francisco to that, as well. It is another cool and overcast weekend here in Monterey, and we are donning our sweaters and jackets once again.