What I Did This Summer

I have been a slacker on the ol' blog, as my dear friend Abbe has pointed out. I have been busy in the past month or so.
Here are the highlights:

-I spent a weekend at Puget Island at Nathan & Telia's family "cabin" on the Columbia River down south at the border of Washington and Oregon at the annual friends weekend. This was my second year. We had a great time hanging out on the beach, being entertained by Telia's 14 month old nephew, playing games, eating glorious food, talking politics (revolution!), and enjoying each others' company. I would say one of my favorite parts was learning to play horseshoes. I had never played before, which is surprising, I know, being a Mennonite girl. Anyway, I started off pretty shaky, with many out of control throws where people literally had to jump out of the way of the trajectory my horseshoe took. But I got much better and more consistent and actually ended up with a couple of ringers! Woohoo! My eternal horseshoe partner Danny deserves many thanks for his patience, coaching, and risk-taking/quick feet (for standing by the pit I was trying to throw at). So the weekend was great fun, once again, and I was struck again by how grateful I am to have connected with that group of real quality people.


-Immediately following Puget Island, I went to Portland and met up with Erica and Jake. We walked around downtown and the Pearl District a lot. We spent some time in the wonderful huge bookstore, Powell's Books. We also took in the Rose Garden and Japanese Tea Garden. We spent our evening hours watching Olympics and reading books at the same time. After a few days, my parents arrived in Oregon and we all met up at Cannon Beach. The skies cleared and temperatures rose just in time. It was so beautiful! We all went a little crazy with the cameras (well, especially Dad and Erica and Jake). We spent hours just walking on the beach and enjoying the scenery. It was my first time at the Oregon Coast, which is sad to say since I have been living in the Pacific Northwest for 6 years now, but I am definitely hoping to go back again before long.

-I guess the other thing that happened in August is that I met a guy, and I guess he's my boyfriend now. :) We first went out to a Mariners game together at the very beginning of August and hit it off. We have enjoyed going to more baseball games, watching movies, mini golfing, pitch 'n' putt golfing, playing pool, biking, going for walks, eating, and just hanging out. It's going well, and I am just taking it one day at a time and enjoying getting to know him.

So now it's the middle of September and it's becoming clear that the last summery days are upon us. I spent yesterday afternoon and evening at a beach with my boy and his parents and sister. We had a little picnic and watched kite surfing and watched the sunset over the Puget Sound and Olympic Mountains. It was a beautiful sunny day. However, the cool rainy fall weather is on the way. The summer goes way too fast.