My New Love

I’m in love with my new kayak! I’ve been out three times in the last week alone, which speaks volumes because I’m not a “three times a week” of ANYTHING type gal. My maiden voyage was last Sunday with my friend Carol. We went out on Padilla Bay as the evening sun sparkled on the water. We were the only ones out there, rowing along the shore and getting the feel of it. She’s a pro already so she showed me the ropes. I still need to take a safety class, but I can tell this is my thing.




Kaleb and I went to Big Lake on Tuesday to have our first adventure in the kayak together. We rowed about a third of the way down the lake, across and back up the other side. It was so great to go at a slow pace and spy on all the houses along the shore. I love looking at houses and yards and it gave the two of us quite a bit to talk about, which surprised me a little. It was nice to talk to Kaleb when he doesn’t have a book in his hand, so I was pleased with how that day shaped up.



On Thursday, Kory and I had our first shot at being on the kayak together when we joined Carol and her husband Terry up at Lake Padden near Bellingham (see photo of Kaleb and his friend Carter out on the lake in it). It was Terry’s first time out too, so we had fun racing across the lake and just enjoying the heat of the day from the cool of the lake. I’m so in love with the concept of kayaking I can’t stand it. Carol is already plugging the idea of buying dry suits so we can do it all winter. I’m game. Forget buying a motor boat, the slow pace and added bonus of a work-out is just the ticket for me. I’m so distracted by all the beauty surrounding me, I don’t even notice the burn in my arms as I row, row, row that boat. Hallelujah!



Speaking of work-outs… I started going to a friend’s house this week to work out with her on her equipment. It’s a new routine for the fall that I hope gets good results. I’m so out of shape it's embarrassing. I used to walk two miles every morning with my neighbor, but when her husband got laid off and she opted to snuggle in bed with him rather than get up at the crack of dawn to walk with me, I just got lazy. Now it’s payback time.



I got out of my slump from last week by adding many more things to my to-do list this week, so I was in production mode again, ticking them off one by one. I really do like to be productive with my time, so it’s been a good week and I’ve been too busy to write or blog (imagine that!) Time goes by WAY too quickly sometimes.



Kory has some new health “challenges” I’ve spent a great deal of time researching lately, and in my efforts to keep him off antibiotics, I’ve been juicing all kinds of concoctions and pumping him full of vitamin C and Oil of Oregano. I hope it works. I just have to believe that God has provided all that we need to cure ourselves naturally. It’s not always the case, but I like to give His creation first shot at it anyway. I’m just thankful it’s nothing life threatening, as he has enough things breaking down in his body already, he doesn’t need more to add to the list. The next few weeks he’ll have more tests and that should help pinpoint the source of his infection so we’ll know more later.



Kaleb has continued having one friend after another over to our house to play. I’m so thrilled when he’s given the option to go to his friend’s house or for them to come over, he chooses for them to come here since he thinks he has so many cool things to entertain them – a zip line, suspension bridge, tree fort, the woods, biking, bows and arrows and such… I love that he loves our home and wants to be here. I like being home, too, especially when there are people here to share it with. It’s been a good week.

Lazy Dayz of Summer

Now I know why I like to have to-do lists running my life – just sitting around each and every day without a calendar packed full of activities is just not ME. I feel so unproductive and like my time is just wasting away. A few days of it was OK, but a week – way too much! I think I work best under pressure. Now, after having had over a week of blank days on the calendar, I’ve even lost my motivation to finish up the few things on my to-do list. I need more to do!




I’m going to go out on a limb here and just say that I think I have Attention Deficit Disorder, because I so need to have a few dozen balls to be juggling at the same time, as I start one thing and can never finish it because of the pressure I feel to go on to the next thing… then when I get bored with that, I go back to the first thing. It’s not like I didn’t know that about myself before, but I feel like I’ve been at some “self discovery” workshop all week as I’ve had to deal with the inner turmoil boiling around in my soul over lack of things to do. It hasn’t been good. And then I’m struggling with the fact the things I WANT to be doing – like working on genealogy for friends – requires sitting inside on the computer, but the weather has been too nice to do that, so I go outside to pull weeds and the sun is so hot I can’t stand it (especially when a hot flash surges through my body), so I find myself swinging in the sky chairs on the covered porch in the cool of the shade, without even a book to read because if I started a book, I’d just want to sit and read it all the way through to the end without being interrupted, and with Kaleb home, that’s not going to happen. I’m trying to minimize the times I yell at him (especially these last few weeks with his ego in recovery mode), so it’s all the more agonizing to be ME right now. Ugh!



So, that’s how my summer is going. I’m glad it’s almost over.



Actually, last Saturday was divine as we had our beloved Grammy J up for the day and we all went out on a speed boat on the Skagit River (thanks to a guy at our church.) It was a hot day and the perfect solution to beating the heat. In all the years we’ve lived here, I’ve never been on the lower Skagit, so it was nice to see it from the inside out (see photo). We went from the mouth of the north fork all the way up into downtown Mount Vernon, and back down again - beautiful all the way. Kaleb enjoyed the parts where we went fast, (and I enjoyed the parts we just stopped in the shade and listened to the birds). We are both still trying to talk Kory into getting a boat, but so far, no luck. If I could be out on the water every day it’s over 80 degrees, I’d be in heaven. And I’d bring a book.



Sunday Kaleb had his buddy Spencer here all day and they were having such a good time, Spencer decided to spend the night. It’s wasn’t a “sleep-over” however, because neither one of them slept. They were down in the basement all night playing video games and watching movies. I could tell by their blood shot eyes and funny daze on their faces the next morning, they got no sleep. By eleven o’clock Monday morning, however, they were both completely zonked out in the sky chairs. Spencer climbed up in the sky chair Kory had attached to the zip line, with the idea that Kaleb would pull him along in it, and as soon as he was in it, he fell asleep. Kaleb then realized he was too tired to pull Spencer, so he wandered over to the sky chairs hanging on the porch, and he fell asleep, too. For three solid hours, both those boys didn’t move a muscle. I had to wake them to take Spencer home. It was the quietest play-date in history.



Tuesday Kaleb and I went out to a play date at Big Lake at the homes of some people from our church. They have nine acres right on the lake and it’s a kid’s paradise out there with water sports, trampoline, tree swings and massive amounts of manicured lawn in which to play. But Kaleb sat and sulked all day that his pal, Carter, wasn’t there with him. He refused to enter in to any of the things the other kids were doing, but I did managed to coax him into a kayak to give that a try. He was a natural, which is a good thing since I bought a tandem kayak for me for my upcoming birthday so we can go out together with Carter and his mom, Carol, since they bought one, too. Mine should arrive tomorrow (woo hoo!)



Kory has been piddling around the house for a week and couldn’t be happier to have nothing on the calendar – although he’s made quite a to-do list to work on. He repaired a rotten railing post, he’s done some work on all the cars, he’s fiddled with the well and pump system trying to get some decent water flow out of it to water the garden, but so far has been unsuccessful, and he’s spent way too much time irritating the moles in our yard. But he’s happy, so that’s good. I’m just thankful for every day he’s vertical and breathing.



We watched the movie, “The Blind Side” the other night. It’s been on my mind quite a bit lately, as it had such a powerful message. It also opened up the opportunity to talk to Kaleb about the elitist system we have here in America, especially as it deals with colleges and universities. I don’t think he realized how the whole admittance system worked prior to seeing that film, but afterwards, he wanted to know if college recruiters seek out “smart kids” like they do athletes. Perhaps that was all the motivation he’ll need to work a bit harder on his school work, as it looks like he’ll be “own schooling” this year - at least for a little while until we see how it goes. With just a little over two weeks before school officially starts, he’s packing in as much time with friends as he can. I’m just so darn thankful he has friends, and I pray they will all last a lifetime.

Camp Nightmares

My decompression time is over and my to-do list is nearly done. Life gets back to “normal” fairly soon around here, but whatever normal is for us, I’ve yet to figure out. I haven’t blogged this week because I was still processing things that happened last week and I wasn’t ready to be objective.




Basically, Kaleb had a terrible time last week at camp. My heart just aches for him and I’ve been pretty bummed out about it. He started crying the minute we picked him up, as he’d been stuffing his feelings all week and could finally let them fly. It’s obvious by his behavior this past week, he missed us terribly. He said he was ready to come home on the second day, so I was pretty proud he lasted all week. He’d never been away at camp before and I was sure he would have as much fun as I did when I was a kid, but our childhoods are/were so different, I guess I should have known better. The biggest problem was that he was bullied relentlessly by his cabin mates, and I just didn’t expect that at a Christian camp.



I take some of the blame for it because I had him get a summer buzz cut before he left, and one of the things they kept calling him was “Gay-leb” because of it. He really didn’t even know what that meant, other than it was a bad name and he didn’t like it. Their counselor told the kids to knock it off, but they didn’t, so the wounds just got deeper and he had no safe place to run each night as he was processing all the pokes, prods and name calling. I also take the blame because he was the lone man out – the other kids knew each other from before the camp, so he was the new guy and prime target for such teasing. They also said everything he did was “retarded” (which he thought was a swear word), so he was distressed by that, too. He’s so innocent, that sweet boy, I hate that he was so emotionally roughed up. He came home saying he is NEVER going to camp again and he just wants to be a loner the rest of his life and not even try to make new friends. That hurt. And he couldn’t understand how in the world I liked camp when I was a kid, but no one ever bullied me, so our experiences were quite different.



On the upside, Kaleb has been very clingy this week, hugging both Kory and I non-stop, sitting on our laps every chance he gets and constantly telling us he loves us. He responds quickly to our requests and has treated us with incredible respect and obedience. I don’t think it’s anything they taught at the camp, necessarily, as much as he just realizes how good he has it at home here, and he seems to be appreciative of that now, so Hallelujah! God promises to work “all things” for good, and that was definitely some good to come out of a bad situation.



To help heal the wounds, I arranged time each day this week for him to be with his friends, hanging out, and just being reminded that not all kids are so horrible. I’ve been indulging him with activities and each night we’ve had family movie or game night. It’s been pretty nice.



I told Kaleb that the things those kids said was a reflection on them, not on him. I also told him he needs to develop some kind of come-back line like Kory uses when people ask him a question he doesn’t want to answer, he responds with, “Why is that important for you to know?” So Kaleb thought about it for a while and said he has a response ready for the next time someone calls him a name. He’ll say, “What’s so bad about your life that you are trying to make mine miserable, too?” We’ll see if it works, but I sure hope it’s a long time before he has to try it out.



We went to the fair on Wednesday and spent more time chatting with people we ran into than looking at the exhibits. I love that small town kind of stuff. Thursday we were in Seattle all day. Kaleb brought his roller blades and rolled around Green Lake while I walked it and talked with a few girlfriends I haven’t seen in a while. It was the kind of day I wish I could have every day – connecting up with people, enjoying the sunshine and being outdoors. Woo hoo.



Kory finished up the work he was doing down at our apartment building this week – reattaching gutters and doing a few other odd things, so that’s a big “to-do” that’s done and off his list. He’s happy with how the roof came out and glad it’s ready for several more years of winters. I’m just thankful he didn’t get hurt in the process. He was pretty wiped out by week’s end, but he’s now recovered and can focus on getting more things done around our house before the weather turns cold.



School starts next week in Norway, and we’ve just begun to think about the Fall schedule and how our weeks will be stacking up with school work and activities. I’ve pretty much decided to keep Kaleb home again this year, rather than put him in school. He wrote me proposal on “own schooling” where he would be in charge of himself, to help take the pressure off Kory and I, so I guess we’ll see how that goes. He made up a weekly chart of all the subjects he wants to study and how he will study them and it convinced me to let him give it a try. Once we get on a routine though, the time just flies by in a fast paced rhythm that ticks off yet another year of events and activities. I like routines on one hand, but on the other hand, having these remaining days in August with nothing on the calendar has been pretty nice. I can’t believe how lucky I am that I don’t have to go to work every day. What a life.

Home Alone

OK, finally there is something to write about. I have been home alone all week. Day one, I slept in until noon. I didn’t know I could sleep that long, but apparently with no one here to wake me, I can. I’m sure I needed it.




Day Two, I took a nap in the sun and crossed a few things off my to-do list, including ordering tickets for a ferry trip up and down the Norwegian coastline for our 20th anniversary next year. It felt good to take it easy for most of the day and I intentionally didn’t push myself to clean house, although I did wash an awful lot of bedding and hang it in the sun the dry. I also went to the chiropractor to get my ankle joint back in place, so now my foot isn’t so sore. It’s nice to have time to take care of myself.



Day Three, I ran a few errands, put a few things away in the house, made up the beds and ordered tickets and hotels for a trip to Colorado next month to attend the wedding of our good friends’ daughter. I even managed to get a few more articles written for my weekly feature “Nuggets From Norway” that runs every Wednesday in the LaConner Weekly News, which brings me to Day Four.



Today I got an email from the editor of the local paper. She told me a woman came by and dropped off a note for me, asking to meet me. She says she’s my biggest fan. I called her and she was thrilled, like I was some celebrity or something. She says she clips every column out of the paper and just yesterday sent copies of them in birthday cards and get well cards to her friends that need a good laugh. She loves my writing and asked if I was going to make it a book. That was a good sign.



But the exciting news was that Sandy, the local editor, asked if I’d come in and talk to her about possibly syndicating the column, so I hurried my not-so-little butt into town to find out what that was all about. She said every single person that calls into the office for something, always mentions how much they love my column. There is another columnist in the same paper that sometimes gets comments, both love it, and hate it, but she said mine is consistently the thing people love the most about her newspaper, so she thought we should try for the big time. She buys features from King Syndication so she asked if it was okay if she sends in some of my articles to them to see if they would be interested in carrying my column. Well, yeah. She also said she wanted to contact the Paulsbo newspaper to see if they would like to carry it, as it does have quite the audience with those of Norwegian descent, and Lord knows there’s enough of them over there. So, that made my morning, and I just had to share it with those folks who like to peek in on my life from time to time and read my blog. That bit of news was way more exciting to share than to write that I have now completed 34 items on my to-do list and have 55 left to go (but the list keeps growing), or that all I’ve eaten this week (no kidding) are luscious juice-bomb golden plums (see photo) that are now ripe and ready for picking on our plum tree. Plums are good. So is life.

We set the alarm for 3:30 this morning in order to say goodbye to The Visiting Norwegians. Kory drove them down to the airport with the back of the van sagging under the weight of those eight 50 pound pieces of luggage (see photo). For a minute there, we weren’t sure it was all going to fit, but that Bjorn is pretty spatial and he miraculously got it all in there. Kaleb and I went back to bed as Kory headed down I-5 with a cup of coffee in his hand, ready to deliver them safe and sound to Sea-Tac.




At this point, they are still traveling, as they had a few long layovers getting back home, so I don’t expect to hear from them until tomorrow. I trust all goes well. They apologized for the amount of trash they left behind as they had to take many things out of their packages in order to get them in their suitcases. It’s pretty funny to see what was left in their wake. They had to make last minute decisions to leave their beach towels here (that they brought with them), and a few kids toys that wouldn’t survive the pressure of a fully loaded suitcase. And there are all those shoe boxes, which I assured them will be used again and again before they find their way to the dump. I think I’ll wait a while to clean up the mess, so I have some reminders they were here. I hate it when company leaves. The house is so quiet and I have nothing to do. Well, I always have something to do, but it’s not the same.



After church today I took Kaleb over to His Place Church to drop him off for a week of summer camp up near Bellingham (see photo of Kaleb and his pal Riley on the bus). It’s his first time away from home for that long, but I’m sure he will do fine. When one of the other parents told me I could follow the bus up to the camp, I jumped at the chance, since I had no idea where I was sending him off to and I thought if anything happened, I’d know where to find him. I have more angst about his week away than he does. When I was a kid, off to summer camp one year, a bunch of us kids were out jumping waves off the Oregon Coast and we got caught in a rip tide. One of the boys drowned, another died but they revived him and there is no reason in the world why I’m still alive, as I should have been dead too, so I know all too well that “things happen.” I’ve told that story to Kaleb many times, hoping he is careful and doesn’t do silly things around water, but I can’t help but think of it. The boy that died told his mother not to make any blackberry pie before he came back from camp, and to this day, she won’t make a blackberry pie because he never came back.



Kory loaded up his work van this afternoon, preparing for the work he’s going to do on the new roof for our apartment building in Seattle, then he took a nap. It was quiet around here this afternoon. I sat down and made a list of all the things I really need to get done, most of which are long overdue but I’ve had no time to do them. There are now 59 things on the list and it keeps growing, and that doesn’t even include cleaning the house, which is my number one goal this week. Yikes.



I’m not sure there will be much to blog about now so I won’t be posting every day, unless something strikes my fancy, so at least now I can cross “blog” off that list. Whew.

Their Last Day

We all slept in this morning, which was more than blissful. We didn’t have a thing we HAD to do or anywhere we had to go, so we just played it by ear. Everyone requested I make those sourdough pancakes for breakfast again, so I did, and they were just as yummy as the first time (thank you Dal for that sourdough starter!). The Norwegians bought some sourdough starter in San Francisco, so they are all looking forward to making pancakes when they get back home. Inger bought a special book for me to write down their favorite recipes to take with them, so before everyone else was up this morning, I wrote down the pancake recipe as well as some others. At least they liked the food. I can’t always say that about my trips to Norway, but I do have some favorite things, so I’m happy to oblige.




Our friends, Nancy and Willie Schaub, live down the street and have the kind of house that you only see in magazines. It has high ceilings and is immaculately decorated. Anyone would be impressed by it, but especially a Norwegian, because of the size and style. I called Nancy and asked if we could come on over for a little tour. It’s a shame to have a house as nice as theirs and not share it with the world, and I was thankful they are gracious enough to do that. I think it should be a regular stop on the tour of the Northwest that we do with other visiting relatives and friends from Norway, as it’s about as impressive of a house as it gets. I could tell they agreed with me by how far down their jaws were hanging as they walked from room to room. Even her laundry room is a showplace. Go figure. I want Kaleb to hang out at her house for only one day, and then see what it looks like after that. I try not to be jealous of such a masterpiece, but it is a pretty dreamy place. I’m just thankful I don’t have to clean it and since it’s right down the street from where we live, I can go see it anytime I have a craving for perfection. Even the twins were impressed as one of them kept pestering his dad to get the floor plans so they could go home and build the same house in Norway. Bjorn used to be a carpenter, but I don’t think there is even a building lot in Norway that could hold the footprint of that house, as it’s pretty huge, and they don’t really do HUGE in Norway – that’s an American thing (see photo of the Norskies in the entryway).



So after that tour, when they were mightily impressed, we took them over to another friend’s house to see her art studio. Sharyn Sowell is an incredibly gifted artist that I am humbled to call my friend. Her medium is paper and scissors – she cuts out images that blow my mind. She’s pretty famous and her work is on everything (including all the new Kindle covers coming out of Amazon.com). She designs cards for many companies including Hallmark. She designs fabric, scrapbooking supplies, stamps and all kinds of beautiful things one would have in their home. She’s incredible (see her website at www.sharynsowell.com). She is often under deadlines to get her orders done and yet she begged me to bring the visiting Norwegians over to see her studio. She has an antique printing press she wanted the kids to try, which they did, and loved. Right in front of us, she cut out an absolutely beautiful flower and gave it to Inger. She’s also one of the most generous people on the planet, and Inger was more than a little pleased to get an original piece of art. Sharyn actually gave her several, as well as a really cool memory book (which she’ll use for Tobias’ confirmation next year) and a Cricut cartridge with her designs on it. (Cricut is a cutting system that scrapbookers and artists use). It was probably Inger’s best day in America as she got to spend time with a kindred spirit who loves art and making beautiful things, and as a bonus, her boys got over their long held fear of dogs. Sharyn has four of the sweetest pups on earth and the boys were terrified at first, but by the time we left, they were hugging and kissing the dogs – truly a miracle. Bjorn busied himself working the press and making copies of different images Sharyn had put on printing blocks. What an unforgettable experience (see photo).



We stayed much longer at Sharyn’s than I anticipated, and I felt kinda bad because she was working on a huge deadline, but she never once made us feel the pressure to leave, because that’s the kind of person she is – gracious in every way. But when we finally did leave, we went into LaConner and dropped Inger and Bjorn off to have a look around while we went back home with the kids. Kory let them fire off the potato cannon and they played on the zip line and hopped on the pogo stick and walked on stilts and just goofed off around the house, which is something they all need before they spend 24 hours heading back home tomorrow.



We bought a Greek dinner at an auction a while back, so tonight was the night it was delivered to our house (see photo). We invited Willie and Nancy over to have dinner out on the deck with us and the Norskies. When one of the twins sat down to eat he raised his hands toward heaven and shouted “Hallelujah!” The other one copied him. I guess they’ve caught on to Kory’s mantra. It was pretty cute. It was our last meal with The Visiting Norwegians, and it was a good one. I’m going to be sad when they are gone. They promised to return, however, so that’s a good thing.



We visited with Willie and Nancy while Inger and Bjorn tried to get the boys to bed, and the last of their things packed up. They bought more than they expected, and now they have eight very large suitcases to lug home. Bjorn is quite worried about it all, since he’s really the only one that will be handling it, but I know he’ll do fine. They more than paid for their trip with all the money they saved in the process. Their time spent here wasn’t just about good memories, it was about good bargains as well and they have 27 new pairs of shoes to prove it. They might need to build Willie and Nancy’s house afterall, just to have a place to store all their new stuff, however.

The Last Hoorah

Bjorn wanted to get an early start today so we could get home in time to pack up their things and then have tomorrow (their last day) be a relaxing one. I woke up at seven and started cleaning out the cars, preparing the way for our long ride back home. We all pitched in and got everything loaded and the camping trailer cleaned and by 8:30 we were dropping off the keys and heading out for breakfast. It was a good start to another day of driving the endless roads in America.



I pointed out the “Goonies” house to Tobias and Kaleb as we headed out of Astoria. It was a movie, filmed mostly in Astoria 25 years ago and is still popular today. I bought that DVD last night so they both watched it on the ride back north. The twins rode with their parents in our Honda van, as we had so much stuff from all the shopping, we needed the entire back end of the van just to get it all home.



I thought they might want to detour off and see Mt. St. Helens on the way home, but they opted out of that, and it was a good thing they did.  Right after we passed by Centralia, there was a huge accident involving many cars and trucks and they shut the freeway down for hours. The backup was 15 miles long. As heavy as the traffic was heading into Seattle, I wasn’t complaining when I heard on the radio about that accident behind us – we were just lucky we weren’t caught in its aftermath. God is good! And we even drove into sunshine on our way back home, so our bones started warming up and drying off a bit from all that fog we endured for days on end at the coast. Bjorn still doesn’t believe that the sun does shine down there, but I know better.  (The photo today is looking across the Columbia River from Oregon over to Washington).



We followed each other up I-5 but then parted ways at Southcenter Mall, south of Seattle. Bjorn and Inger had “just a little more” shopping to do, so they kept the twins and we took Kaleb and Tobias on home. With all the Friday rush hour traffic, the trip home from there took three hours, instead of the usual hour and a half, so we were all pretty weary by the time we made it back. Kory called Bjorn and told him not to rush, since they’d just be sitting in traffic anyway, so they didn’t get back to our place until about eight o’clock. So much for getting home early. They did more than “just a little” shopping, but they were also more than pleased with the bargains they got and all the money they saved from not having to buy things in Norway. They got all the kids clothes for the school year, and at last count, they have now purchased 27 pairs of shoes. They bought towels and sheets, wall decorations and gifts. They bought electronics and toys, backpacks and crafting supplies. They are hooked on American consumerism and I think they’ve begun to drink the Wal-Mart kool-aid, as they just love the prices at that store as well.



We had a late chicken BBQ dinner waiting for them when they got back home, and after a few cold beverages, they settled down for the night. Tobias finally had time to show us how cool his new iPad is, and when he fired it up and turned on the “Kindle” feature (where you can read a book right on the computer), I recognized the art work displayed on the cover page as that of a friend of mine that lives here in the valley. Tobias was impressed, and even more so when I told him she had invited us over to her studio tomorrow, and if he wanted, we could go over there. I got a most definite YES on that one, so their last day here in America might not just be sitting around relaxing afterall, but hopefully, it will be a memorable one.

The Last Hoorah

Low tide came early again today so Inger and I took the kids down to the beach to collect even more beach treasures, while Kory and Bjorn had a little male bonding time over a hot cup of coffee and a warm breakfast at the local diner. They both fail to see the beauty in God’s creation called the sand dollar, but it got the rest of us pretty excited. We collected more today than yesterday so we now have well over a hundred of them, which should suit Inger’s plans just fine.




I was certain we would see sunshine today, and I kept telling Bjorn we would, but he just laughed. The constant 58 degree temperature was the only thing that could have been better, otherwise, it was a wonderful day on the Oregon Coast.



We drove up to the Astoria Column (see photo) and went from hunting for sand dollars at the beach to hunting for balsa wood airplanes in the woods. The gift shop at the column sells them for 75 cents each and people climb up the 167 steps, then send them out into the wind to see where they land. Often they land in the woods to the east, so that’s always our first stop. One time we got 53 of them, but today we only found a few dozen. We also brought along the ones we had from our last trip down in April, so there were plenty of planes to fly. The twins got a real kick out of it. Kory, Inger and I stayed on the ground trying to retrieve as many as possible, but with the hoards of tourists this time of year, many got picked up by them, never to be seen again. Most of the planes were flown a few times from the balcony, and will live to fly again. I think the boys could have flown those planes all day as the wind wasn’t too strong and it was fun to watch them gliding ever so peacefully toward the ground below.



I know for a fact God has angels watching out for Kaleb, as at one point he climbed up very high in a tree in the caretaker’s back yard, retrieving several planes that landed in branches of that tree. I didn’t see him until he was climbing back down (wearing Crocs, no less), and when I screeched at him, the guy next to me said, “It’s a good thing you didn’t see where he was earlier.” Yikes, and thank you Jesus for saving my boy. We hung out at the Column just for a little while after we retired the planes because the sun began to peek out from behind the clouds and Bjorn wanted to soak it in and just relax for a few minutes. He was rightfully tired and needed a little break from that drive to and from San Francisco.



When I stopped to get coffee at my friend’s coffee shop, I told the woman taking my order that we had company here from Norway. She responded with, “They have no idea of the distances here in America,” which I thought was pretty funny because that is so true. It’s hard to imagine a country as big as America, when coming from a country the size of Norway, but as they say, “Everything is bigger in America.” It’s just hard to imagine it, until one actually experiences it.



We drove around Astoria a little and I showed Bjorn and Inger the house I gave away to be a battered women’s shelter, and the “safe house” that was named after me. I wasn’t going to mention it, but Kory thought I should tell them, since we were in the neighborhood and all. Now they know.



Kaleb insisted we eat lunch at Subway, so he was thrilled to finally have a say in some of the agenda. He’s used to calling all the shots, so he is having a hard time adjusting to the democratic way of life where majority rules. Afterwards we headed out to the Peter Iredale beach again because our God in heaven loves me and finally sent sunshine our way. Everyone went back to the campsite, changed into shorts and t-shirts and hit the beach. Unfortunately, it only lasted twenty minutes before the next wave of fog rolled in, then everyone was freezing and wrapped up in beach towels to keep warm. I left for a while to go visit my friend Gail, who lives just down the street, so I even missed the sunshine and taking any blue sky photos. Darn.  The boys all had fun flying kites in the breeze that kicked up, so it was good to make lemons out of the lemonade, as it were.



We had a yummy dinner out then made yet another trip to Costco for those last minute tax free shopping items. Bjorn bought a new set of luggage as he realized he’s not going to make it back home with the four pieces of luggage he came with. Too funny.



It was our last day on the Oregon Coast. We didn’t drive around too much so we had a few minutes here and there to catch our breath, so all in all, it was a good day, but it would have been even better if we’d had more than 20 minutes of sunshine. I guess I’m just thankful it didn’t rain. Hallelujah!