Thursday, July 02, 2009

Visiting the Smale's in Oregon

Julie and I traveled to Hillsboro, Oregon for a long weekend to visit with Julie's sister and her family. We were wonderfully lucky. The three girls were all home from school and none were off at camps. Marty had time off from work and Sue didn't have her thousands of errands. As always, they were wonderful hosts and we had a lot of fun.

Here are the three sisters: Kelly, Jacky and Laura. This was shot on our visit to the Lake Oswego Arts Festival. Nice to see the art but no purchases other than some ice cream cones.



Quite a change from this earlier picture.



Jacky and Laura at home.



Kelly, being patient as we made a visit to the Rogue Brewery. Damn Portland has a lot of breweries!



Kelly was off doing some volunteer work but the rest of us packed up to go watch Laura play some soccer.



Laura has really been getting into soccer and has been getting playing time on both the JV and Varsity teams for her school. That's her about to kick the ball.



They wouldn't let me join the girls soccer game, but I did manage to get a 12-mile run in. That's my longest this year and I managed to do it at a better clip. Lord knows I love the oxygen at 500 feet!

We made a trip to a local park. After a short hike, we ran into another moment of indecision about what came next.



Demonstrating physical fitness, Julie, Marty and Sue all did a nice job of cartwheels. This is Sue with near perfect form.



The kids? Not so much. Here is Kelly executing a nearly perfect flop.



Jacky did something that only resembled a cartwheel if you were standing a long, long ways off.



Our weather for the trip was perfect. No rain. No clouds. Low of 50. High of 75. Every day!

We end this entry with a picture of the sun setting on a house in a neighborhood about a quarter mile from Sue and Marty's. (Note the perfectly clear skies) They know it as "the crack house". In an otherwise great neighborhood, this house has junk piled up in the yard, windows missing, and a lovely Pods container to store the rest of their crap. It was just so out of place I couldn't resist. Sure would hate to live anywhere close.

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