Lynnette's News

Fun Week With Our Grandson

We met Stephanie half way last week in Kennewick and picked up Curtis for a week. He is taller every time we see him and is changing daily. I had forgotten how much a 13 year old boy can eat in one sitting. Since you all should know by now that he is a bowling maniac, that's pretty much what we did all week with the exception of eating and sleeping. We visited 3 different bowling alleys in 5 days. Curtis bowled a 279 at one of the alleys with a 700 plus series. Most of us who have bowled in our lifetimes will  never see the likes of either!  Regretfully we returned him to his mom yesterday and had a long 8 hour round trip in the car in hot temperatures. We're glad to be home safe and will look forward to seeing him again soon. He's a really fun kid to be around and he kept us entertained with his teenage antics.

Below is a picture of our resident squirrel. We finally caved in and got a feeder since he was performing acrobatics on our various bird feeders trying to eat. We do enjoy him (or her) early in the morning and later evening.

A cute picture of Timi sunning himself in our backyard.

  Steve and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary on July 12th with our good friends Bill and Candy. Their anniversary is just two weeks later, so we got together in Canyonville and had a fun weekend. It seems like we've been going a lot and are still committed to some more. We will attend a wedding in Eugene next weekend and plan a trip to see Steve's mom in early August. I don't know whether there's much time to do more but we always manage.

Alexis, Alaska and Me

Alexis and I returned last Sunday, July 5th, from our week long cruise to Alaska. We had a fabulous week of weather, and I guess we really lucked out. The cruise one week prior was completely rained out, so we were grateful for mostly sunny skies and warm temperatures. Let's see, we managed four days of shore excursions in seven days and enjoyed them all immensely. We went whale watching in Juneau, did a city tour of Skagway, including history of the gold rush days, a lumberjack show in Ketchican, and a city tour of Victoria. We really enjoyed the Butchart gardens in Victoria and managed some great photos there. Below is a shot of Seattle from our balcony on the back of the ship just prior to setting sail. It was a beautiful day!

 Alexis with the Lumberjacks in Ketchican who performed the show with axes and chain saws. These guys were amazing and really strong. She got a kick out of the fact that the one standing next to her was her height (5'4"), but boy could he swing an axe!

            

This was at the Butchart gardens entering the rose section. What a treat to see all of the beautiful roses in the best bloom we were told in several years. It was almost 90 degrees there that day and so spectacular.

           

This is the overlook in Skagway, and this was the only day of overcast skies. It wasn't cold though and we had a great time.

           

All in all, we had the best time imaginable. It's not often that grandma and granddaughter have the opportunity to spend a week together, and for that I am grateful. She is a great girl with lots of hopes and dreams for the future. Alexis will be starting Eastern University Spokane in the fall and will undoubtedly be very busy from that time forward. Curtis is coming to Vancouver next week to spend some time with us alone also and will probably see plenty of bowling alleys while here. Our other concern is how to keep enough food to feed him for a week.............he is, after all, a teenage boy!