Orofino

Every late summer for work we get to go over to Idaho to inspect about 30 bridges for one of our clients. This past week my boss and I spent two beautiful summer days up in the woods crawling around on all kinds of bridges.

One day we were lucky enough to get to drive through Orofino, Idaho up into the Clearwater forest. It was really fun being in that area. I gave my boss the grand tour of Orofino.

I drove by our old house which looks the same, but different. Now it has a garage and a front deck. (The picture I'm showing is actually from our trip down with my sisters two years ago.) The neighborhood is actually a lot more run down than I remember. So it has either gone downhill, or it was always like that, I don't know. And remember the swimming pool near the school? Well, it was completely gone, nothing in its place! I had a lot of fun memories there.

My perspective on many things was definitely different as a child. I always thought the elementary school was so far, yet it was only a short block away. And the drive to Lewiston seemed hours as a child, but it was only around 45 minutes.

Anyway, it was fun to see things again and reminisce about my childhood.

Update on the girls

Elizabeth is increasing her vocabulary each day. We even get to play detective trying to figure out what some of her scrambled words mean (ex. "Nowa" means "Down") She's going to start going to morning preschool in a few weeks.

And Katherine has learned to sit up. She also had her first swim (at cousin Evan's pool) last weekend. She's such a cutie, always smiling and being content.

Blog is Still Alive

Someone I know (starts with CH and ends with RIS) recently expressed that they hate when blogs go stale. So I realized I had better get back to posting or no one will even check my blog anymore. I've had things to post about, but I find myself seriously lacking time to post. So if anyone has any ideas how to get more hours in the day (preferable sleeping hours!) I'd love to hear. I know a lot of you have the same problem.

Busy Week

Seems like we had a very busy week. Here's some of the highlights...

- I got to fly over to the Columbia River in my bosses Cessna 172 plane. It was an hour flight. We had a business meeting at a bridge site. The flying was fun, but it did make me a little nervous. It was bumpy flying back to Spokane and turbulence definitely feels different (worse) in a small airplane. We were at 5000 feet - it is so neat to be able to see everything on the ground. You truly realize how beautiful earth is - even miles and miles of wheat fields.

-My best friend Jen is staying with us this month. She and her husband are going through in vitro fertility treatments to have a baby. We are having a great time with her. She's such a great help!

-Friday night the whole gang had pizza and went to Liberty Lake park to watch a free movie (this week the movie was Airplane, the comedy)

-Saturday we (with the Bybees and my friend, Jen) made a trip up to Priest Lake in northern Idaho. It was a 2.5 mile hike up to Upper Priest Lake. We had fun eating a picnic, wading in the water, and lying on the beach.