I'm relaxing in our little piece of heaven in Coarsegold, with a smile on my face just thinking about what a fabulous summer we've had. So I thought I'd just give you a recap of our adventures.
MAY
• With trailer in tow we spent ten days at the Russian River TTN Resort "playing" with R and J.
JUNE
• Ten days in Mendocino with G and C, volunteering our time to making abalone wreaths for them to sell at the Ford House. A great abalone diving adventure brought in three abalone which are like jewels from the sea.
• One of K's clients suggested to visit Fern Canyon since we were so close when camping overnight in Trinidad . . . are we ever glad we did . . . awesome hike!
• A week in Florence, Oregon at South Jetty, another TTN Resort. Beautiful accomodations with hot tub and pool to enjoy. We explored the pretty beach town, which has been on the ten-most-desired-city-to-retire list.
• A week in Newport, Oregon at Whaler's Rest Leisure Time Resort - another great place with a walking path to the beach. It was pretty windy, though, which made for some time inside enjoying reading and quilting.
JULY
• Our Cascadia stay started with a fun Fourth-of-July birthday party with our friends of over 40 years. T turned 43 this year . . . doesn't look a day over 30!
• Daughter J with three fun grandkids came up for a five-day visit. We crammed as much fun as we could into the short time we had together. Their accomodations was our "guest house in the woods" - a large tent which housed them quite comfortably.
• Blueberries, raspberries, marionberries . . . you can't beat 'em . . . and we picked, with J and the grandkids, about 16 pounds of berries!
• Sister's Annual Quilt Show was a highlight of the summer, especially fun to attend with daughter JJ and granddaughter KL.
• Did lots of sewing . . . Christmas projects . . . and a couple of quilts. . . I love my sewing machine.
AUGUST
• Spent a week in the midwest with daughter SS and family. We had lots of fun with them, including a trip to the zoo; a warm and humid morning at the Children's Garden; a trip to the "club" to enjoy the lake-side beach watching the kids swim until they were shiffering cold and wrinkled, and watching the guys sailing Yankee Doodle, enjoyed a picnic lunch and then a nice dinner lakeside; teaching T how to make a fruit tart which he was thrilled to be able to make all by himself; K had an exciting morning playing Battleship with R . . . lots of fun! Plus I really enjoyed creating cards in S's new craft-room in the basement . . . the whole trip was busy and loaded with fun. Our last evening out on the deck we tried something we've never tried before . . . a litre bottle of Diet Coke (it HAS to be Diet Coke) with a couple of Mentos (the mint candy) creates a fascinating chemical reaction:
It must have reached about 5 feet!
• Shortly after returning from the midwest we headed up to Seattle for Mom R's 90th birthday party, Samantha's 1st birthday, and a celebration of our 43 years of marital bliss. It was great to see the whole R family together at one time . . . it had been five years since we enjoyed all of them at one time!
• Got in some Kokanee fishing, and some salmon-smoking time.
• We discovered we had a hazelnut tree! We were able to harvest just a small bowlful due to the fact that the blue-jays had discovered them first.
SEPTEMBER
• More sewing fun . . . finished up sister's quilt made of yo-yo's (We just spent a couple days with them and got to see it on the guest-room bed. It's pretty cute, if I do say so myself!) I discovered a local quilt shop and took a class learning to make placemats in using a nice pattern. And I learned that the owner does machine quilting! I'll be using her a lot in the future, I'm sure.
• We discovered a great local farm, called Grampa's Produce, where we bought some gorgeous peaches and using them I made a dozen jars of peach jam...yummo!
• Time to make blackberry jam . . . ended up with just over a dozen jars.
• K finished up some cabinets he had started at the end of last summer for his shop. They really are nice and will be put to good use.
• We packed up Cascadia on the 20th to start our trip south, via Winchester Bay.
• A week with the RoVing Rods camping along side good friends, G and C, and R and J, bringing in over 130 crab. That made for a whole lot of steaming and picking! But the results were awesome: fourteen jars, and about the same in frozen packages. . . it'll be fun to share with family and friends.
• We began the summer and ended it with a fun trip to Healdsburg.
A great summer . . . Life is Good!
