thoughts from the deep recesses

Today my husband is 45 years old. He's more handsome and well-rounded than he was when I met him... truly, he just gets better with age. Happy birthday, hon! We volunteered last Sunday at the Coeur D'Alene Ironman. Wow. What an inspiration to see all those athletes working so hard... pushing their bodies. We worked at a bike aid station with Kyler's cross country team, giving out water and Gatorade, Power Bars, Power Gel and bananas. We were at mile 40 of the bike ride... which is apparently when lots of athletes needed to go to the bathroom, because there were TONS of them stopping to use the porta-potties at our station. We will for sure do this again next year. It was really fun. We got rid of the kids overnight for our anniversary on Sunday and had such a lovely, quiet time together. We took a nice long walk together on a new trail, went out to dinner at one of our favorite south hill patio restaurants, watched a movie with some Ben & Jerry's, got up in the morn...

Last Saturday my family and I were in Astoria… we were there to celebrate my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. A few nights before we left I was on the internet and discovered that the annual Scandinavian Festival was taking place while we were there. Now - I grew up in Astoria and only remember going to this festival once or twice… it wasn’t huge on my radar, since I am not of Scandinavian heritage. I had lots of friends who were, though, and I knew it was a big event in their lives, so I spent some time online looking at the offerings of the fesitval. On the website, I saw that they now do a race/walk on the Saturday morning of the festival called the Running of the Trolls. And since I have a son who is a runner, and because I like to walk, I went ahead and signed Kyler and I up to do it. Kyler needed to be running anyway, since he was going to miss several practices while we were out of town. The Scandinavian Festival (and the Running of the Trolls) is held at the Clatsop Country F...

"Dear my mom and dad, Kyler, Savannah and Ethan (the Goins family), How are you all? I hope you are all doing well. Thank you all for the letters you wrote to me and the book you guys sent for me. One of my favorites was the album. It was such a lovely designed album. And I also love all the pictures in it. I am praying for you all always for God to guide and protect you all. Savannah, Kyler and Ethan, how is school going on for you all over there? I hope you are doing well in your work. How is Gracie? I missed her so much and can't wait until the time I will see her again and I really love her. Aunty Cathy, Mama Josephine and Aunty Margaret say hello to you. They cannot wait to see you and your family here in Sierra Leone Banta Mokelleh and they are praying for all of you. I am doing well in school. On the 5th to the 14th of July I am going to take my Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). That is the examination that will allow me to go to the tenth grade. It is a n...

Wow. Where has the time gone? Sorry... I thought I'd gotten back on the bandwagon with blogging and then I sort of fell off the face of the earth again. Two and a half more days of school for the kids. Kyler has finals tomorrow and Thursday... hope he's all studied up. He's really applied himself these past couple of months - after struggling to find his groove in high school. School has always come really easily to him - and having to actually study and work for his grades sort of caught him off guard, I'm afraid. But he's managing really well now. I'm proud to see this maturing process in him. He's such a great kid. Looking ahead to next year, I'll have Kyler in 10th grade, Savannah in 8th and Ethan in 5th... Kyler is taking honors classes again, along with his first AP class. Savannah will be in an accelerated math (9th grade level) class as well as a 9th grade level Spanish class and a special science program called MESA - which is designed to make ...