I opened a
new blog with Google called Greg’s Monthly Updates. It’s at http://gregsmonthlyupdates.blogspot.com/
with a great picture of Mt. Rainier as the background! I’ll post these
updates there each month as well, and there may be a few extras there that
don’t work well in email.
We’re back
into our fall programs: school and Awana, with some sports still
continuing. Abigail and Amelia are still playing soccer, and Levi is
still playing football. I think they’re all enjoying it. I haven’t
been able to go to any of the girls’ games since they’re during the day when
I’m at work, but they report fun kicking people and occasionally the ball.
I’ve been to
all of Levi’s games, except one he and all of us missed because of our
vacation, which I’ll talk more about later. I have yet to see them win,
but he’s doing very well putting hits on people and holding his blocks.
He made a first down on one run in his first real game, and I can’t wait to see
him break one open for a touchdown!
This past
Sunday was a fun day of football starting with Levi’s game, then the Bills
great comeback win in the last seconds, and ending with the Seahawks crushing
of the 49ers. I even won my fantasy game! I remembered Sunday that
Dad would have been 85 if he were still suffering with us on this earth.
I’m glad he isn’t! I wonder if they celebrate earthly birthdays in
heaven. Somehow I doubt it, but who knows? I also remembered back
on August 23, that Mom would have been 85.
Earlier this
month, as I mentioned above, our family went on a vacation to Assateague State
Park in Maryland. Cai wasn’t able to go since he had just started back to
college, but Hannah and her husband, Kevin, flew in from Texas for it, and
Ella’s fiancé, Cody, joined us too. Kevin had been there before and
recommended it to us, and he was totally on with his recommendation. He
pretty much planned the whole thing before all of the circumstances led them to
move to Texas, so we were really glad when they could still come. We had
a fantastic time of playing on the beach and in the ocean, seeing sites, taking
hikes, fighting off wild horses, flying kites, and trying to sleep through wind
storms.
No, I’m not
kidding about fighting off wild horses.
How they got
there is a matter of debate, but there really are wild horses on Assateague
Island. You don’t have to worry about bears there, but horses, yes.
So, the same rules apply to keeping your food locked up and your campsite clean
to avoid attracting them. Although, they are a bit more docile than your
average bear (who, as you know, is not as smart as Yogi). Mostly, unless
you bother them, they’ll leave you alone, but they have been known to bite or
kick campers. We got some pictures with them nearby us that I’ll try to
post along with the web version of this update.
This one's a horse we saw on the road as we were driving
We saw these when we were playing on the beach
Once we were
sitting around in our campsite, and we had the back of our van open where our
food was. There’s no shade trees there, and we had all gotten at least a
little sunburnt the day before, so we had rigged up some shade by draping a
tent rain fly over the open back doors of the van. All of a sudden, a
horse runs into our site and heads right for our food in the back of the
van. We yelled to try to scare him away, but he grabbed a bag of
food. I grabbed it back out of his mouth (he hadn’t gotten a very good
grip on it with his teeth), and he ran off. Some of the food had spilled
on the ground, and I thought about picking it up, but I would have had to turn
my back to the horse and bend over, and even I know that’s not a good
idea. So, I asked Krista to pick it up while I closed the van doors, and
someone else (I don’t remember who) made sure the horse had left. The
kids thought it was funny that I didn’t want to risk myself picking up the
food, so I made Krista do it. What can I say—she’s braver than me.
We spent
Labor Day with Krista’s sister, Conny, and her family. As it is every
time we go there, we had yummy food and tons of fun playing games and talking
with family we don’t get to see too often.
Krista and I
celebrated our 33rd anniversary on August 22 by going away by ourselves.
We went camping at Whetstone Gulf State Park near Watertown, NY. It has a
beautiful gorge that I scared Krista at several times because I kept wanting to
look down into it while we were on a 6-mile hike along it. We managed to
find the park even though Google maps’ directions would have sent us down a
dirt road for miles in the wrong way. Fortunately, OK providentially, the
road wasn’t where they said it was, and we found the real entrance before
trying it. While there, we went up to the 1000 islands area on the St.
Lawrence river and visited Boldt Castle. It’s a real live castle that was
originally begun being built around 1900. Mr. Boldt was building it for
his wife, but she died suddenly before he finished it, and he was so
broken-hearted that he left it unfinished. It sat there falling apart for
about 70 years until the state bought it and started restoring it. They
still aren’t done, but it’s still impressive and fun to visit. Maybe I’ll
put a picture from this trip up on the website too.
My beautiful wife in front of the beautiful castle
I guess
that’s it for September. Now to see if I can figure out how to use this
new weblog site…
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