KindlingsFest 2010

The past four days have been amazing. Our church's 3rd annual KindlingsFest has enabled us to host another wonderful guest this year. His name is Bob Bennett, a gifted guitarist, singer and song writer who has a special knack to "tell it like it is" with his songs. We all have fallen in love with him for his transparency, kindness and gentle spirit. Hank considers him his new BFF. Tonight Bob will put on a concert on our church lawn and the community is invited with root beer floats to follow.

KindlingsFest was initiated by our pastor three years ago as "a way to rekindle the spiritual, intellectual and creative legacy of Christians in culture." We have people come from all over the country for this event and we are exposed to incredible speakers who really care about reaching out to others in non conventional ways. To say it's an inspirational time is an understatement. Bob leaves us tomorrow and then the 'ol grandparents here need to get ready for Katri and the wee ones arriving Monday! Where did I put that Geritol anyway??!!

Whew!

We had a little emergency here last week when Deere John became ill and ruptured a hydraulic hose with hydraulic fluid spewing everywhere. BJ had to order new hose replacements but we worried JD would not recover in time for the arrival of Eliah...but thankfully the transplant parts arrived in time for BJ to get JD up and running again. We are breathing a sigh of relief as we shuddered at the thought of a sick tractor when Eliah comes...unthinkable!

Beautiful Day

We took advantage of the great day and packed a lunch and headed to the boat. It was so calm and we had hoped to see some whales today but no luck. It's amazing how we have the best luck seeing whales when we have guests aboard! It was nice to be back on the water, the first time since my surgery in May and I'm quite rusty with handling the fenders and lines but hopefully will improve over time.

Finally, Summer!

How wonderful to finally have it warm!! It's just perfect today and looks like it will last a while. It reminds me of the weather exactly two years ago when my sister and brother in law came for my birthday. My camera does not do justice to this photo but the sea of foxgloves this year is incredible. They are just thick along the slope below the house and so beautiful. And how very nice that the deer do not eat them!!

So You Can Teach An Old Dog....

...well maybe this is not the most appropriate phrase for the thought but it pertains to soccer. Now I have never been a soccer fan. I have always thought watching soccer was like waiting for eggs to hard boil...yawn...but this World Cup event has really perked me up. We sat having breakfast the other day and watched Germany score 3 goals in a matter of minutes...it was riveting. Now I realize that these teams are the best of the best but they have done a good job of hooking me in as a fan. Now I'm trying to learn more about the rules and I have an enormous respect regarding the condition of these athletes, I almost get out of breath myself watching them run full speed up and down the field...course they are not bad eye candy either but I suppose an old dog just shy of 62 is not supposed to say that. :-)

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Maybe blogs should be spelled blaaagg, as in bla, bla, bla. That's the way this entry feels but hey, it's a good way to vent! A very long day off island yesterday going non stop. Costco was included in my things to do and as usual they did a good job of messing up my list. First, NO MEZA BRAND HUMMUS...they had some other brand instead and I tried to avoid panicking!!! Then, no low sodium V8 juice and no packages of those little chocolate pieces that come in a large bag...yes, we like chocolate here...and it is good for you, especially since it's mostly dark chocolate...right? It's a frustrating store when you can't count on certain items being available. So yesterday was July 1, a notorious day to try to get home on the ferry with all those tourists. I arrived at the ferry over two hours early and saw a parking lot of cars ahead of me, couldn't even see the toll booth for at least a half hour. But I did manage to get on the 7:00 boat and got home at 9:30. Hope you all have a sunny, wonderful 4th and don't have to travel by boat anywhere!