Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Visit with Gary's relatives July 07

Visit with Gary's relatives July 07


We visited almost all of Gary's relatives on this trip to CA and OR. I've added an album of them in my online photo gallery which you can see by clicking on the above photo. More trip photos in the coming days.

In other news, Gary put his new office chair together as soon as he got home. He's been having some neck aches, so we're hoping this helps.


Tonight he sprayed 7 wasps nests on the front of the house. The neighbor kids were getting afraid to come visit.

We also have to replace the front door knob/lock. It just came off in Gary's hand today--not much for security!

In still other news, Rachel awaits news of two different teaching possibilities. She hopes to hear something positive on Friday. You may or may not have heard that she was in a small car accident while we were gone; later this week we'll try to see if her car is salvageable. No one was injured.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Visiting The Dalles


At the moment we are sitting in the Portland airport for three hours, waiting to begin our flights home. I'm already exhausted so I'm going to feel miserable by the time we are scheduled to arrive in Dallas at 6am.

I'll will spend time later this week to organize and upload my photos. We got lots of nice photos of friends, relatives, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, and caves.

We dutifully went back to take a photo of Wendell and Judy's old house. It looks like it might be in the middle of a paint job.

Soon we need to go find something to eat, but my stomach is still kind of queasy from driving part of the way on the old scenic highway. Half of the time I felt like I was going to drive our little rental car right off into the mighty Columbia or that I was going to be sick on the side of a hairpin turn. I'm looking forward to the flat massive highways of Dallas!

I'm posting this from the free wireless internet inside the Portland airport.

p.s. to W&J Lots of people in The Dalles send their greetings.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Traveling, days 2-5

All is going well (except for the driving--that is the worst part). We've seen two of Gary's real aunts and one fictive aunt as well. They all fed us well, and we enjoyed the visits.
Summer 2007 trip to CA and Or, Days 2-4


On Friday, I met up with a woman I met on the internet, via MaHoyt. She is not an ax-murderer! She and her husband own and operate Bamboo Giant in Aptos, CA. I drove there without getting lost, and I got home via the wrong road, but I did get home.

Day 5 Visit to the Bamboo Giant

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Traveling, Day 1

Summer 2007 trip to CA and OR, Day 1


It was a long day, including a 30 minute traffic jam on the way to the airport, but I made it to San Francisco safely, we got a rental car, drove to Golden Gate park for a cup of Japanese Tea, drove to Tiburon for a late lunch with Gary's Aunt Louise and cousin Janet, drove to Concord then on to another town to friend Phil's new deli for dinner. Then a good sleep, after a very long day.

Today I'm doing Gary's laundry and blogging while he took the train into San Francisco to have a lunch meeting with some folks at Google. He's hoping Google will start using the Ethnologue information as part of their search.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

90 Years Old

Maude Moore's 90th birthday

(Click on the above photo to see several more.)

This afternoon Rachel and I went to Maude Moore's 90th birthday party in Arlington. Always great to see friends from our old church.

Before we did that we worked like dogs out in the yard. Since our gardener is off in California, we had to do the mowing and tree trimming ourselves. It all went well until I hit a very large rock and bent the mower shaft by a few degrees. Gary is not going to be too happy about that when he gets home since we just bought the mower last year. By hiking the wheels up to their highest position we were able to finishing the front yard.

Tonight Rachel's off to a formal event and I'm trying to get ready to leave on Monday morning.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Happy Birthday Mom

I'm a bad girl since I forgot to call my mom earlier and wish her a happy birthday. Here is a cake for her. No calories!


Gary had a better day at Stanford today than yesterday. I think he's nearly finished with his speech preparations. And it looks like one or two folks from Google may come over to hear it, and he may go visit their office and have lunch with them on Tuesday next week.

In other news, Rachel's car quit again, this time less than a mile from the garage that put the alternator in it a month ago. I was able to get it jump started, and she drove it to the garage. :-( She has a couple babysitting jobs tomorrow, but still looking for a real job.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Gary Has Arrived in California

Gary left yesterday afternoon for Stanford, where he will hang out with his friend Steven Bird until his workshop starts on Friday. He is giving the opening address, and he hasn't got it finished yet, so he'd better get busy.

I haven't yet had a chance to hear how his arrival went, but he was suposed to be picked up at SFO by Larry Wall, the guy who invented a programming language called Perl, whom Gary knew from SPU. Larry nearly joined Wycliffe back in the day, but ended up not doing so for health reasons.

Gary did phone me today in a grumpy mood because he had a rough morning getting set up on the Stanford. First of all, the phones in the dorm only make incoming calls. And he had to walk two blocks to even find a pay phone. Wow, what does that tell you about cell phone usage? Then the pay phone used up nearly all his prepaid calling card minutes for instate calls. Then he couldn't get his computer to hook up to their wireless network. He had the password, but it won't work in the dorm, so he had to wander around looking for a place it would work. And he hadn't had anything to eat except two oreos for breakfast. Anyway, he finally got ahold of me, and I emailed his friend and finally he was able to get online and finally get some food. His friend gave him an office to work in until Friday and the internet works well. (I need to buy him one of these, made for visually impaired folks.)

Eventually I got him set up with gmail chat, so he can talk to me via instant message anytime at all. For free.

He is also having some neck aches and pains from a bad chair, he thinks, so I've ordered him an expensive new chair which should be here by the time we return. When I told Andrew about it, he said, "You must love him." :-)

In other news, Rachel is helping out every night this week at a Backyard Bible club from our church. She is in charge of teaching the lesson tomorrow night about the apostles. She's got a story, role playing, games and songs organized around that theme.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

They're Engaged!


No date has been set, but as of last night, David and Sarah are engaged. Our congratulations to them! We look forward to getting to know Sarah better, and for her to get to know us better too. (Hmm, I hope getting to know us better doesn't make her change her mind!!)

Take Me Out to the Ballgame


We've managed to hang out with this group of friends quite a bit lately. I didn't have time to post about it, but the night before we attended a 60th birthday party for Dave Martin (not-very-good-photos here). Then tonight we joined them again because somebody got free tickets for the ball game.

After weeks and weeks of rain, we had beautiful weather for the dot race.

We watched the Rangers give up the lead in the top of the ninth due to a run scored by a Duncanville HS graduate Brandon Fahey. Andrew played little league with his older brother, I do believe.

But the Rangers pulled it out in the bottom of the 10th, so we didn't have to stay too late.

We had parked our car a mile away so we had a nice long walk back, at which time we got a very important phone call, but I'll save that news for another post.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Flowers for My Birthday, and Chocolate too



I was happy to answer the door bell on my birthday and see these beautiful mums sent to me from Andrew and Laura. I also got some yummy dark chocolate from Rachel. And best of all, I got to talk to all of them since they all called me.

Today is a holiday, but we aren't really doing any celebrating. Gary has a big presentation to finish for his upcoming Stanford lectures, so he's too busy making ower point slides. Besides, it is hard to go picnicking when it just won't quit raining!

I did pull a few weeds in the lawn and wash a couple loads of laundry before making some homemade pizza.