Back to Normal

I’ve gotten several messages from friends, wondering where I am.  I’m here - I  just haven’t posted in a few weeks.  I guess they are worried they have missed something.  Well, they have, but while the Norwegians were here, I had no quiet time to sit and write about it, and once they left, I needed time to recuperate a little.  It’s been almost a week since they went home so life is slowly getting back to normal.  I’m back on the computer and pondering what to write.

We had a great time with the Bjerknes family from Norway.  They got to see and experience a lot of things, which meant, we did too.  We drove them to Mt. St. Helens on the way home from Oregon so they could see that historic sight.  I was just south of there on the day it blew, taking photos and watching it blow.  I’m not sure the enormity of it all was understood by them in just a few hour visit, but it was nice for me to see how much plant life has returned after that fateful day.  We visited the park about 20 years ago and it was still desolate and gray, but now the wild flowers are gorgeous, trees are in bloom and most of the tree trunks that were blown over are half buried in the dirt and hardly visible.  Amazing how nature takes over. 

Kory took the Bjerknes’ to the torchlight parade in Seattle, as well as to the hydroplane races and to see the Blue Angles.  I had to stay home a lot to do the behind the scenes work in keeping the house going – laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning up messes – but it was okay.  I’m not big on crowds anyway.   Janne got her day of rest in the midst of it all too when she stayed home and I took all the boys to a classic car show in Issaquah where Kory entered his Avanti, then on to Seattle so they could see the Experience Music Project.

We all went together to Seattle one day and had lunch at the Space Needle and then to a Mariner’s game.  I think we annoyed the people around us as I tried to explain all the rules of baseball.  I noticed by the third inning, we had no one around us any longer.  Maybe they were just looking for better seats.  Ha.  At least the Mariner’s won and from center field it was easy to see if the pitches were any good or not so I was calling them even before the umpire.

Kory took the whole family on the Boeing tour one day and I’d planned to take them to a water park, but when I told them they’d have to stand in long lines, they opted to stay home and go on our homemade slip-n-slide, which provided a wonderful day of entertainment for all of us.  Then Kory took them on the Cascade Loop one day while I stayed home with Kaleb and Andre so they could have a Pokemon tournament with a bunch of other kids.  Everyone loved that day.  We went bowling a few times and were invited over to a few friend's houses to tour the inside and see how Americans live.  It was all good.

One night all the boys went to the car races and Janne and I went to the spa for a massage.  We have our own priorities.  We needed a bit of downtime after all the running around and a girls night out was just the ticket.  But now they are gone and the house is quiet again.  Actually, too quiet since Kaleb is off to camp this week and Kory and I just don’t know what to do with ourselves.

It’s taken several days to get caught up with normal life stuff – I’ve had to get Kaleb’s school schedule figured out and order his books for the year.  Kory finally got a hearing aid so that took half a day, getting it adjusted and learning about it.  I don’t think he’s listening to me any better, but at least I don’t have to repeat everything I say now as he hears it on the first go-round.   We’ve been out picking blueberries, working in the yard, and soaking up some Vitamin D.  Kory’s getting ready to take Kaleb salmon fishing when he gets home from camp, since there’s supposed to be a record run in the next week.  Neither one of them have been fishing in a river before, so that should be interesting.

I guess the big news today is that I won some kind of award for my writing.  The local paper submitted some of my stuff to a Newspaper competition and I was notified I’m a winner, but of what, I won’t know until the ceremony in October.  That’s cool.   So I guess I better get back in the swing of writing again and update my blog more often than not.  I’m back, people, I’m back!  It was nice to be missed.