Summer Summary

This summer was crazy. Not kidding. I graduated on June 10th and the next two weeks were finishing up piano and harp and going to lots of recitals. The last week of June was wrapped up with VBS or as we say it at our church "VBC" (Vacation Bible Camp). Then the first week of July, we went to La Pine with our cousin and grandparents for a whole week. After living in that dry climate (note: I will never agree to live in a desert), we headed home for a day before camp. Grant and I spent six days there, got grounded in theology and apologetics while Rowan and Rose experienced adventure and horse camp without having to stay overnight. Mom came to pick us up from camp and told me that

1. I'd been asked to play the harp for the pastor's daughter's wedding.... and 2. we were to leave for Leavenworth, a little Bavarian like town in 5 days as a graduation trip together. 

Leavenworth was so beautiful! I had been there only once when I was about ten in the winter but now it was summer and there were hanging baskets, and balconies, and grass covered roofs! We stayed in a little cottage that had a Romans verse written in bold red letters up the curved stairway and an old, ancient piano in a little nook off from the entryway. Here are some pictures of the cottage ~ The picture on the left is of one of the sheds. Notice the grass lavishing the top. The pic. on the right is of the stately courtyard of Abendblume, the cottage's name.

Here is Mom and I having our morning tea in the hand carved dining room

We went to a play the last night in Leavenworth. It was called Sound of Music....I know you know it....and it was acted out of doors in the hills. An orchestra played and the play went on as the sky darkened. During the last part, the stars were out and all the actors and actresses sang Edelweiss while the little band of musicians played on and on. It was very pretty, once in a life time kind of moment. Mom and I traipsed home down the long dark trail, for the play was up in the hills quite a ways, made longer by switchbacks.

 After that night, we went to Parkdale and decided to visit the rest of the family who were scrounging it out camping. They said they were sick of the dogs barking at the other campers so we took them home for the night. Now I'm pretty sure if we hadn't had the dogs, we would have had a cup of tea and gone to bed for the night. But we did have the dogs, and Comet decided that she wanted to make her toilet again before bedtime. So Mom opened the door, Comet rushed out, and we both hear a sharp bark of pain. And then the odor....seeped in through the screen door, accompanied by whimpering. Now I'm not sure it was a skunk, for it smelled like a strong chemical or burnt rubber. There is a fox that sprays an odor around our area so maybe it was that? Whatever it was, Comet was in misery! Her eyes were watering, the smell was overpowering. Mom rushed for soapy water and made me grab the baking powder to annihilate the fumes. We shut poor Commie up in the barn and went to bed exhausted.

Later the next day, Dad, Grant, Rowan, and Rose came home, smelly but happy. Gabrielle came up to spend the night and we all picked blueberries at a local place. After we came back home and had company over, I reunited with a friend from Mexico. We had been pen pals since our trip. Rachel and I walked and talked through a book store together where we met since our homes are so far apart. We had a wonderful time together!

The next day, we prepared food and food and smiles for a family of 13 who were coming over at 5 pm. Well they ended up staying until 12 am! Three of them didn't end up coming (one of them is married) but everyone else came! They're the kind of people who you laugh and smile so much with your mouth hurts....literally.
Two days later we headed to Seattle to meet Great Aunt Karen and Great Uncle Dennis from Texas with their son-in-law and daughter. That was a fun trip!
On Wednesday, the Martins came from North Dakota! We met at a park and then they came over to our house for dinner. We hadn't seen each other in so long but everyone acted the same as they always had.

Farewell time! Order of people from left: Raleigh, Mom, Rowan

Order of people from left: Raleigh, Mom, Dad, Conner

The rest of August was more camps for the boys and Parkdale adventures. And then school came...Grant went to CAM and I started working on Ebay and Rowan and Rose started up school with Mom.

Weather Reports:
Weird weather going on lately! The total sun eclipse came (August 21st) and our grandma is super into all the prophecies along with that and so when Hurricane Harvey came (August 25th) followed by Hurrican Irma (August 30th), she was really getting emphatic about all the natural disasters!

 On September 2nd, our family had thought about going to Eagle Creek Trail but then decided to go hiking on Sunday, the third, to the Oneonta trail in the Columbia Gorge. Well, a fire got started on the 2nd, on the Eagle Creek Trail by some teenagers with fireworks and 140 were trapped between the fire that just started and another fire that had been burning since July. The trapped people had to spend the night and then instead of going 3 miles back the way they had come, they had to hike 14 miles around the blazes! We could have been part of the predicament and adventure! On the fourth, Monday labor day (having hiked the Oneonta trail and spent the night at Parkdale), we headed back down I-84 which was covered in a thick brown reddish smoke that hurt our throats. We could see the plumes from the freeway....they had already evacuated parts of Cascade Locks. Ash fell for 3 days leaving the roads dusted gray. The sky was a weird gray color, even with us living about 60 miles away. The fire grew and has now consumed 37,500 acres of our beautiful Columbia Gorge in Oregon. On our hike Sunday, we went under this massive old wood tunnel, it was amazing! And now we read it was burnt and they're not sure if it's salvageable. We had just walked through it and the next day - gone. Roughly 360,000 acres are being burned in Oregon alone right now, a quarter of all the blazes burning in America at this present time. The summer gave us a long drought but now weather reports are saying rain next week. I learned this summer that I like the sun and I'm not looking forward to the rain! Isn't that strange?

Picture of the eclipse