When is a blog not a blog? (Hi, Margaret)

Technically, I don’t believe a blog ever ceases to be a blog. However, I do believe a blog may cease to be an active blog which has been the case with this blog for what… the last six months or so? So when does a blog cease to be an active blog…perhaps one reason is when the blogger is busy writing 2 two- to three-thousand word papers a week. This may make the idea of writing anything outside of class…ummm…absolutely unthinkable. Yeah, that could be one reason.

So what has occurred over the last six months besides more school papers than I ever cared to write?

Well, for starters, Sarah went away to school(Western Washington University) in January. This was a huge deal for her. She is a complete homebody, a Momma's girl that I thought would never move out! (Ashly, who is quite the opposite, could not get out fast enough).

WWU is only two and a half hours away so Sarah drove home (yikes!) on the weekends. It was an interesting experience for both of us. I had no idea I would actually miss the child as much as I did. With her being at school and Doug working at night,though, the house got way too quiet for me. Now that Sarah is home for the summer, she has already decided not to go back to Western. (I had a feeling....she likes free meals and room and board too much).

I lost Doug for most of the last six months to his Tacoma Freedom Fair Airshow planning. I already had a loose hold on him where his airplane interests were concerned...(truly, I cannot compete...he would trade me for an airplane, anyday, I'm sure)so when the Tacoma Events Commission asked him to coordinate their air show for the 4th of July...I lost him completely. I think I have some of his attention back, now...a little anyway.

When Sarah got out of school in June, she and I took a road trip. We had been craving the sun and Western Washington weather is so bipolar in the spring that we decided to head over the mountains to Eastern Washington. For those who do not know it...Eastern and Western Washington are like two different worlds. The west side (where we live) has cool, rainy, mild weather and the East side (where I'd rather live) is like a desert. That is ... it is like a desert most of the time....but not this time, nope....this time it was just as cold on the East side as it was on the West. We were disappointed but we decided to have fun anyway.
We stayed one night in Leavenworth...a Bavarian look-alike town with dozens of gift shops and specialty stores. They have plenty of German food, accordian players in the park, and yodeling, too.



Because of the fruit growing climate on the East side, there are dozens of fruit stands on the way to Leavenworth. Smallwoods Harvest is our favorite. It has grown to be much more than a fruit stand, though. It has green houses, a playground, and a petting zoo ( my absolute favorite thing to do!).




After our night in Leavenworth we drove to Spokane. It was a beautifully, warm drive (about three hours or so) until we actually entered Spokane, then it rained the rest of the day. Again, we decided to have fun anyway. We swam in the heated indoor pool. The next day was very cool outside but it was not raining. We spent the whole day at Silverwood Theme Park in Idaho.
We decided to swim at Boulder Beach even though it was in the low 70's. Fortunately, the shivering stops after you've been in the water for a while. The next day the weather was beautiful for the drive home. So on this, my four day vacation in June, the only part of my body that got tan was the lower half of my left arm, my driving arm.

In other news...I am only taking one class each term through the summer. This is freeing me up to enjoy the summer some...to play in my garden and to work in my church's counseling program....and maybe...just maybe to keep this blog from going inactive for so long...