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September 5, 2008

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

I am writing this from our room in Ashland, as we are on a vacation enjoying the marathon of plays that we are seeing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and just relaxing in the warm southern Oregon sun. We make this trip twice a year, once in the spring and again around Labor Day. We've been coming down here ever since 1983. I'm not sure how much longer we will do this. We enjoy it, but it's getting to be very expensive. We're committed to doing this again next season, but I'm not sure after that.

We actually left our place on Saturday to attend our first granddaughter's 9th birthday party in Silverton. It is really hard to believe that Ashtin is that old already, where does the time go? There were lots of cousins there from both sides of the family and they had a great time eating hamburgers and swimming in the pool. It's a good thing Leslie and Jason have a big place!

We spent the rest of the weekend at Lara's in West Linn. We didn't want to go back home on Sunday and then turn around and leave again on Monday to begin this trip. We attended another birthday party on Monday for Dave's aunt who turned 90. We had about eight join us for lunch to honor her and that included one of her daughters that lives in Bozeman, Montana. The lunch was at McCormick & Schmick's Grille in Tualatin and it was very nice.

While at West Linn, I got a chance to do some shopping and Dave had a couple of things to do for Lara & Greg. He had to help Greg move a new refrigerator into the kitchen and then fix the light switch in the garage. Getting away to go shopping is a real treat for me, as living at the coast; one does not have access to any shopping malls (Dave likes that because I don't spend any money that way). Lara doesn't get away much either without dragging three kids with her and that isn't any fun. So it was a treat for both of us. We did take the baby with us, but she slept most of the time. Lara ended up talking me into a new fall outfit and I also picked up a couple of room floral scents that I needed at the bath shop. Lara got the school supplies that were needed for her two older girls to start school.

Jadyn and Jaysa are going to school this fall. Jadyn was counting the days and could hardly wait for the first day of school to begin. She started kindergarten and was excited about riding the bus after school to the babysitter's house. Jaysa, who is three, is in pre-school and was a little clingy at first, but once the activities began, she liked going to school too. On the other hand, Leslie who works for Silverton High School, ended up being evacuated from her school because of a bomb threat. I guess some nut in Georgia decided to send email threats to schools across the nation and Silverton was one of them! It sure makes life interesting. Leslie's two girls began 1st and 4th grades this year and are real pros as far as going to school. I think they were glad to be back in school just to see all their friends they had missed during the summer. Of course, soccer starts and both girls will be participating in that. We received their schedules already and hope that we can see some of their games.

As I mentioned earlier, we have been in Ashland since Tuesday and are seeing the usual six plays in three days. The first two plays were kind of disappointing. The first one "Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner" was not as much about weight gain and loss (as I expected) but more on philosophy. "The Comedy of Errors" was set in an "Old West" musical theme. It was well done, but it certainly wasn't Shakespeare and it wasn't "Oklahoma" either. I really do wish they would quit trying to "re-invent" Shakespeare! The rest of the plays have been outstanding and have made up for the first two. Arthur Miller's "The View From the Bridge" was excellent; Othello was a bit tedious but also very well done. Yesterday, we finished with "Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler" and Wilder's "Our Town". "Gabler" was an absurdist view of Ibsen's classic and "Our Town" was a great way to wrap up this visit. While in Ashland, we also celebrated Dave's birthday on the 3rd. I took him out for breakfast and to a couple of plays for his birthday (Ha! Ha!).

Today, we are headed for Crater Lake where we will spend a couple of days and nights at the Lodge. We went there last year on our way back from Ashland and thought so much of the place during our brief stay that we decided to come back and spend some time. We'll leave there on Sunday and drive up to Redmond to spend a couple of hours with our friends George and Margie who visited us last month. Then it's on to Dexter for the night at Ed and Diane's. It will be back to reality and the Coast and home on Monday.