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.