Bob came over yesterday to picks some apples for us and for him. I said previously the harvest was much bigger this year than last year. The pruning we had done must have helped a lot. We thought we had not done so well with the pears because they were really pretty small, but the ripened up nicely, so Kelly and Lorena are going to try to make something with them today. We also got an amazing plum harvest, but only a few peaches, but the peaches we did get were great.
Category: Friends Page 3 of 4
Christian had been in Washington for a little over a week and flew home yesterday on his birthday. It is getting harder and harder to find cool stuff for gifts, but cool new sunglasses are always appropriate no matter how many you already have and especially if you live in Tempe, Arizona.
He got some very cool things from some very cool friends (some books I actually want to read, a book strap that I also want, and other amazing things). We had a small(ish) party at our house for him and his friend Aaron. It went well enough we want to do it again next year.
We are really grateful our friends Al and Michele Rizos came to spend the weekend with us. They were a huge help at our weekend party and we had a chance to catch up a little after everyone else left. We absolutely need to plan to do this kind of thing way more frequently. We ate entirely too much really good food which seems to be a fixed feature of every time we get together and we solved all the problems of the world (in our minds). Not saying it is an echo chamber, but, well, it kind of is. It is a good kind of echo chamber though.
We had quite a nice party of mostly twenty-somethings over the weekend. The shoes and purses were piled up much higher than this at the peak of the party. We cooked hamburgers and hot dogs with very spicy guacamole on Sunday evening and and then quiche with Lorena’s special, extra spicy salsa on Monday morning. I do not think people got a whole lot of sleep, but the “kids” all seemed to have a nice time. We inaugurated or new fire pit and made gallons and gallons of coffee. We were thankful to have an extremely nice Canadian contingent (maybe that statement is a little bit redundant) and a strong showing from the very polished California young urban professional crowd. We are looking forward to doing it again next year.
I am on the plane flying to PDX from Boston. Lorena worked frantically for the last week getting the house ready for an influx of twenty-somethings. Fortunately we have a couple of friends to help us as the hired servants. Actually, we look forward to it all and are looking forward to meeting a few new young people and to hang out and talk about life with old (in both the “we have known them for a long time” and the “they are getting past middle age” senses) friends.
Our dear friends from Chula Vista to spend one night in Centralia with Lorena. I wish I could have been there, but they will be back in a few days to stay one or two more nights. They are family and we hope this becomes a habit.
Kelly and Christian are getting ready for a celebration of sorts. The party games have started to arrive. They are not horseshoes, but similar and we already have an amazing croquet set we got for our wedding and has been used for only seminal events like this one. Lorena and I are pretty much the hired servants, but our buddies Al and Michele will be here to suffer with us, so it is all good.
Lorena, Kelly, and I went to a church convention yesterday. She got asked to translate from English to Spanish for one of the meetings. It was a two hour long meeting, so she asked me if I would be willing to translate for the last speaker. I had actually not done it for awhile, but said yes and had a ball. I forgot how fun it is to translate. The funny deal is that I seem to focus on what is being said better when I translate, too. I hope I get to do it again soon.
Christian flew in from Tempe on Monday night, then took Amtrak down from Seattle to Centralia with Kelly after she got off work on Tuesday. It will be a whirlwind trip because they have a friend flying into Seattle on Friday to hang out with them. Our time together has been very relaxed time with them and, as usually, has centered on cooking, food, conversation, reading, and music, not necessarily in that order. Exercise has been on hold for a couple of days which affects all of them, but (shame) me because they all work out at least five days a week while I give lip service to working out five days a week. Is there such a thing as a Fourth of July resolution?
Yesterday, Lorena and Kelly picked 15 pounds of blueberries while I worked on some stuff for my new job and Christian worked on his dissertation research and comprehensives preparation. We spent a lot of time doing similar things growing up so it was very nice and relaxed. As for the blueberries, my understanding is that there will be pie sometime before they get back on the train to head back to Seattle later tonight.
After the blueberries picking, we all headed off to Bible study in Olympia. It truly is a gift to be in that Bible study and with our new church community here in the Olympia-Centralia-Chehalis area. We really think this is a good place for us to be for the foreseeable future. God might have other ideas, but we are certainly happy with where we decided to settle in.
We got home at between 9:30 and 10:00 PM last night. The Centralia neighborhood fireworks that were so spectacular last year had already started, but I have to admit we were a little disappointed relative to the experience we had last year. Maybe it is because it was on a Wednesday night. We are hoping for more next year when it happens on a Thursday with a possibly a bridge day off for a four day weekend.
By complete accident, I have been in Mexico for at least part of this and the two previous World Cup’s. I am not that much of a soccer fan, but this is definitely and iconic event. Today, because of my delicate skin, I sat in the lobby next to the Starbucks, drank coffee and sparkling water and watch Argentina squeak past Nigeria (Argentina does not deserve to be where they are) and France play to a 0-0 tie with Denmark (what do you expect from France). Tomorrow morning it should be pretty fun here with Mexico playing Sweden. Definitely not a fan of Sweden and have great hopes for Mexico. Not knowing anything about soccer I just go by my most recent feelings about the countries playing and the people watching to help me to decide for whom to root. It is also kind of fun to be the foil for all who wish to pontificate about the intricacies of the game in general and this World Cup series in particular–EVERYONE here, including the little kids, knows more than me about this stuff. It is all professional wrestling to me (especially Argentina).
We are home from our trip to Casa Grande, AZ and Burnaby, B.C. We are grateful for our friend, Bonnie’s, help with Kiwi the surviving, twin cat sister. It was a trip for which to be thankful. We had the family all together for a few days, we spent some quality time with our friends, the Rizos, we got some new spiritual insights, we got new Pixel 2 XL cell phones, and when we got home, our new phone cases were waiting for us in the mailbox. Fortunately, neither of us dropped our phones hard enough to make them break (an unusual source of satisfaction) before we got them into the protective cases. Even more cool, the cases have the piece of metal in them that allows them to mount on the windshield fixture we have in our car. We are a little worn out, but plan to hit the hay early tonight and reengage at the salt mines in the morning.
Lorena and I drove up to Lacey this morning to have breakfast with our dear, life-long friends, Brent and Susie this morning. It reminded us we are not doing nearly as much of that as we should. Had a breakfast that broke the diet pretty badly, but talked about life old times, and trials with our kids. We are so glad to have them close by. Susie came to our wedding in Mexico 25 years ago, but we have been close friends for a lot longer than that. We have common connections in Virginia, North Carolina, Oregon (of course), and many other places around the country.
Lorena sent me this photo today. It is the same grill we had when we lived in Albany. Well, I am sure it has some revisions and upgrades. We loved that grill. We got one in North Carolina that was nice, but we did not like it nearly as much. This is kind of a big deal for us. We (and I am using the royal “we” in this case because I am really talking about just Lorena) LOVE to cook on the grill–even in the dead of winter when it is snowing. This is the grill that has five burners–four main burners and a side burner she used mostly to cook corn on the cob while grilling carne asada.
The back story is that she went to Costco because we are having company over on Sunday for lunch. The thing is on sale for around $200 off. I don’t know if I quite have the budget for it, but we will tighten our belts for a month or so to assure we have room. This will be great for future invites to the house. Hope we can get Bob, Gena, and Bonnie over to inaugurate the thing.
Spent a great weekend with our friends Luis, Susan, Tom, Stacey, and a bunch of kids (using the term loosely) in Gearhart. After meeting we all went to eat in Astoria where this picture was taken. It is an amazing thing. We studied Astoria frequently in school (the oldest town in Oregon) and I even played sports against them in high school, but I had never really been there during the day. It is very, very beautiful with lots of quaint little shops and restaurants. It is less than a two hour drive from our house and we hope to go explore there some more during the summer.
Kelly and her roommate Shani are taking their mothers to dinner and a musical tonight. Mama Mia. Should be memorable.
It is about as good as you gets if you are living in Seattle, but just happen to plan a weekend trip to San Francisco, the sun is shining , AND you decide to make pie, all the while it is raining and dismal in Seattle. The sad, sad part about this sorry saga is that we will not even get to try any of the pie.
All the guests are gone, Kelly has driven back up to Washington and Christian is set to fly out tomorrow. Thanksgiving was a great success. We had different groups over for meals and dessert on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It was really nice. I got to cook the turkey and make the turkey soup. Both of those are a 50/50 proposition for me, but we hit the lottery this year so we had a moist turkey that was cooked enough and soup that was neither too greasy nor too bland. I guess the stars were aligned. Even Kiwi got hit with that tryptophan snooze button this year. Here are a few more photos of the weekend (sorry we had none from Friday night).
People will start arriving in an hour or so, Lorena has started in on the Thanksgiving Quiche–the holiday has officially started for the Chapman household. We are having a little bit of a topsy-turvy weekend and will be out as much as we are in, but this is the first time in three years the whole family has been together and we actually have a house instead of an apartment to celebrate Thanksgiving. We even have two turkeys!
Lorena and I attended the funeral of a young (43) woman we had met as a healthy, engaged wife and mother only six months ago. We met her and her little family at our Wednesday night Bible study and knew here as an engaged, thoughtful person who enjoyed life and loved God. She was diagnosed with cancer only a couple of months ago. She was buried this afternoon. The service was uplifting and hopeful. The day was beautiful and sunny. Our mood is melancholic.
It is so sad to see a young life taken in such a way. It is also a timely reminder that life is short with no promises of even one more hour of life. At our stage in life–kids out of the house and successfully making their own way–these kinds of event are a catalyst for healthy reflection on what to do for these later stages of life. Material good do not seem so important. Connections to other people seem more important all the time.
The last time Bob and Gena were here, Bob dropped off his spotting scope for us to try for a little while. We knew we had pretty bad optics on all our cameras, but now we are beginning to understand how bad they really are. The scope he brought by is nothing short of amazing and WAY too addictive. We have all been taking turns. Now if I could only figure out how to take a picture through the thing. I can hardly wait until the eagle comes back.