Sparks Lake

Sorry I've been so bad about posting. You know...there has just been too much going on. But here are some of our photos from Sparks Lake. It was a wonderful getaway, and we are so glad we took the time away for our mini vacation.

Julia and me heading out for a little paddle. Look at the cool rainbow in the middle of the picture!

Amazing wildlife. We saw this eagle, plus an osprey, a couple of herons, and of course, too many chipmunks to count.

Headed across the lake. Mark liked my new hat--said it was very feminine.

Me getting ready for a swim. See the guy jumping off the log on the other side of the lagoon? Check out the next picture...

Will I get up enough nerve? What do you think? (Julia down below, watching.) That's not Mark helping me, it was a dad named "John" who was there helping his kids jump off the log.

Here I go! (Dorothy in the red canoe, taking pictures.)

And here goes Julia off the log (black shorts, yellow top).

Later that afternoon, here I go on my goal to swim across Sparks Lake. I did it! Swimming across the lake only took about 12 minutes, and it was easier than I had thought it would be, so I decided to turn around and swim  back again!

That looks like an otter out in the water, but it's actually Ken Jenson. He decided to swim with me.

Meanwhile, Mark and Dorothy were in the canoe, nearby in case we needed any help. Not that we did. It wasn't a difficult swim, and if we did get too tired, all we would have had to do was stand up. There was only a short distance that was over my head. However, just for the record, I did not stand up--I swam the whole way--with the doubled distance, plus swimming up the cove to our campsite, it turned out to be just under 1/2 mile, total.

Julia was our resident pyromaniac. She was cold a lot of the time, so she was happy to tend the campfire.

Beautiful dawn - Mount Bachelor in the background.

I love this photo - looking across the lake on Sunday morning.

Still tending the campfire...

Another beautiful photo of the lake. Mark took this on a morning hike that we took to the parking lot - heading into town to go to church Sunday morning.

Almost to the parking lot. Dorothy and Ken, Mark and me. We changed into church clothes on the restroom at the parking lot. The mountain in the background is South Sister.

Julia and Mark out for a little paddle.

Mark and me out on the lake.

Mark and Ken back at the dock. What a couple of wonderful guys. Our gear is loaded into the canoe - time to head back to our lives here in Oregon City.

Dorothy and me - goodbye to dear friends. The weekend went all too quickly. We got home about 7:00 pm Sunday evening, and had time to get things put away before climbing into our very comfortable bed.

Grandma time

Grandpa and Arora making waffles

I called Holly this morning to see how she was feeling, and she was kind of grouchy - awake a good part of the night with contractions. I said, ok, I'm coming over to get Arora so you can do what you need to do. Holly was thrilled.

We brought nighttime things and church clothes, so Holly and David can have the weekend free for having a baby, or just to have some time to themselves. If we get Maddy on Monday and Arora is still with us, she can go to her Hamblin grandparents at that time.

She's a sweet, funny little 2 1/2 year old, and I'm sure we'll have a good time together, although it may mean that I'm a little slower on your birthday present. :)

Tonight we're going to a performance of "Star Trek in the Park." We went last summer with Ken and Dorothy, and they invited us to come again this year. Arora and Julia will come along, too.

All of us are really missing Maddy today. I hope the separation won't be too much longer. This is sure hard on Julia, and I'm sure it's hard on Maddy, too. First she lost her daddy in June, and now her mommy. As we were running errands today, I found myself wondering if Maddy was in one of the neighborhoods we drove through.

I'm so glad I can be a grandma! There are the fun and wonderful times, like new babies arriving, and taking the older kids backpacking. There are the just day-to-day times like playing with the little ones and babysitting from time to time. And then there are some really, really difficult times, like having Maddy in foster care and so much drama and chaos in our family.

Mark, Julia, and I all have a peaceful feeling that there will be a good outcome. I hope it will be soon!

Elephant Seals

On our way to Big Sur, we stopped at an overlook to see the elephant seals. They were so amazing. Actually kind of hilarious in a gigantic, dangerous-mammal way.

The tourists, of course, were kept behind a chain link fence. Each of the seals had his/her own personality down there on the sand.

Some were near the water, others up higher on the sand. They didn't move much, except for one of them.

But even though they didn't move much, they were still fun to watch. One of them kept flipping sand over his back. Another one put his fins (hands) together like when people put their fingertips together.

Those are seagulls in the upper right-hand corner of the photo. Gives some idea of the size of the elephant seals.

The most active one humped down to the beach, lifted his head to say something (probably about the annoying tourists), and then swam out into the cove. (If you click on the picture, it will get bigger and you will see his mouth open as he's hollering.)

It was a good stop to stretch our legs, and so interesting to see these huge creatures!

Bad blogger

Sorry I haven't been making blog posts! It's been tricky to get internet connection here in Atascadero. Mark finally rigged up a connection for me this afternoon so I can do my Skinny post for Saturday ahead of time.

We spent all day making food--cooked carrot salad (very yummy - recipe coming in Saturday's Skinny post), broccoli salad, carrot cake, pineapple pudding cake (the nickname for it is "better-than-sex cake" - hee hee), and six batches of vanilla ice cream for the 3 ice cream freezers. We brought two and LaVerne has one. I won't be counting calories on Saturday!

While we were making food, Mark did some fix-ups for LaVerne. He replaced the ventilation fans in both bathrooms, installed two light fixtures, added more memory to her computer, and deleted some files from her computer that were making in run really slowly.

The weather has been hot, so we are moving the party on Saturday to 11:00 am. Hopefully we won't end up with the 80-somethings in the emergency room with heat stroke. We'll be at a lovely park right close to LaVern's mobile home park, lots of oak trees to shade the area she has reserved, and good play equipment for the kids.

Family who will be here: Michel & Julie Haynie and their son David, Greg & Cheryl Haynie, Angela & Tim and kids, Josh & Hillary and Ethan. Greg and Cheryl should be arriving any minute; they left Portland early this morning and have been driving all day (Thursday). Everyone else is coming tomorrow (Friday).

Bill, LaVerne's next-door neighbor and special friend, took us to lunch in Morro Bay today. A cool reprieve from the heat here, and some yummy fish and chips. Here are a couple of photos. Love you!

Bill and LaVerne at the restaurant.

LaVerne and me near Morro Rock.

Early harvest

Remember our eager-beaver volunteer potato plants back in early May? (You can revisit that blog post here.)

Yesterday I dug up these...

21 pounds of potatoes from those volunteer plants! Wow! They are delicious.

Busy Little Bees...

We had a nice day. Fairly quiet, a good meeting at church, and then a nice crockpot lasagne with just the two of us. Ken and Dorothy Jenson stopped by on a walk this evening to show us some photos of when Ken hiked Mount St. Helens nearly 20 years ago. We had a nice long visit with them. We are savoring these last days on our own before Julia and Maddy come back Wednesday night. It has been such a treat to have some time alone in the house and get things back to the way we like them.


This last week we have...
...cleaned off the kitchen counters, returned our refrigerator to its spot, reorganized several drawers, returned a desk to the nook off the kitchen, completely cleaned out the refrigerator, cleaned off the window sills...


...moved the piano back to the family room, also the hide-a-bed and television, and moved the kids' dresser from the back porch to the family room, cleaned the family room carpet, painted both doors to the family room...


...cleaned out the kids' toys in the living room, sorted old toys for the thrift store, reorganized our bookshelf in the living room, returned the narrow table to the living room and replaced the furniture the way it goes, vacuumed under the sofas...

...made the back porch into a nice entry way again, installed the moldings around the back porch, repaired the broken bead board on the steps...

...cleaned and organized the kids' computer area in the dining room, cleaned off the china cabinet, removed the bookcase next to the printer...

...cleaned and organized the downstairs bathroom, installed a new tp holder, thoroughly bleached the fixtures...


...thoroughly bleached the fixtures in both upstairs bathrooms, emptied the cupboards and sorted / organized the contents in both upstairs bathrooms, repainted the floor of the big upstairs bathroom, painted the door to the big bathroom, cleaned the tile grout in the upstairs big bathroom...


...vacuumed, swept, mopped, dusted, polished...


Tomorrow I'll go hiking on a short day hike with a couple of the women from church who want to try out a hike. Tuesday afternoon Mark and I will hike to Mirror Lake for a short shakedown backpack trip, to prepare for taking the grandkids backpacking later this month. Wednesday night Julia and Maddy arrive, and we will help her with packing and sorting on Thursday and Friday. Saturday she will leave for Colville with the kids, and Monday morning we will head to California.


This last week and a half may turn out to be our only time alone in the house for the rest of the summer, and we are SO glad we stayed home this week to get our house in order again.

Arora's half birthday

If you haven't already read it, I know you will love Holly's beautiful half-birthday letter to Arora on her blog.

I always loved when you wished me happy half birthday when I was growing up. And I was always intrigued by your story about Grandma Polly sending an old birthday card cut in half to commemorate half birthdays.

We're painting doors here at 916 today. The interior doors never got finished off with the final coat of paint when we did the remodel, so today is the day.