MIdsummer Fun......

Need a new house??



 

Recently the "Terrific Trio" got together again for lunch visit and craft project.  We hadn't enjoyed each other's company for several months.

We savored a gluten free meal of beef/vegetable/rice soup, blueberries, potato salad and frozen fruit bars..YUM!
Then it was "arts and crafts" time.  Jo and Nancy mixed up and created a new memory stepping stone for me!

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Thursday, July 12,  I joined the senior trip to the Pacific coast!

giant redwoods!







We sat on the Fremont bridge for 30 minutes with backed up traffic..... 

 Visiting the newly remodeled Tillamook Cheese Factory...

processing cheese!

Remember Little Miss Muffet sitting on her tuffet eating her curds and whey?  I didn't know then what were "curds and whey".

On to Seaside, OR for a few hours.  I think I was the only senior to walk the beach.....

One happy sea gull caught a yummy lunch! No guests, please....some live entertainment.....

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A few days later our church's senior group visited the
 Evergreen Aviation Museum
in McMinnville, OR                                                    


It's the 

Spruce Goose!!
A one only wooden air plane built by Howard Hughes Jr. 










beach balls used for flotation/Gram G leaving the Spruce Goose.....

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The Spruce Goose (Evergreen Air and Space Museum website)

At the center of our museum stands the original Spruce Goose. Built entirely of wood due to wartime restrictions on metals, this massive airplane stands as a symbol of American industry during World War II. Learn more about the history, first flight, and legacy of this mammoth plane.

The largest wooden airplane ever constructed, and flown only one time, the Spruce Goose represents one of humanity's greatest attempts to conquer the skies. It was born out of a need to move troops and material across the  Atlantic Ocean, where in 1942, German submarines were sinking hundreds of Allied ships. Henry Kaiser, steel magnate and shipbuilder, conceived the idea of a massive flying transport and turned to Howard Hughes to design and build it. Hughes took on the task, made even more challenging by the government’s restrictions on materials critical to the war effort, such as steel and aluminum. Six times larger than any aircraft of its time, the Spruce Goose, also known as the Hughes Flying Boat, is made entirely of wood.  The press insisted on calling it the “Spruce Goose” despite the fact that the plane is made almost entirely of birch.

The First Flight

The winged giant made only one flight on November 2, 1947. The unannounced decision to fly was made by Hughes during a taxi test. With Hughes at the controls, David Grant as co-pilot, and several engineers, crewmen and journalists on board, the Spruce Goose flew just over one mile at an altitude of 70 feet for one minute. The short hop proved to skeptics that the gigantic machine could fly.

Perhaps always dreaming of a second flight, Hughes retained a full crew to maintain the mammoth plane in a climate-controlled hangar up until his death in 1976.

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Gram G getting closer to space!!


Moon Lander

Moon Walker

Titan Rocket!!




I Touched the Moon!!!



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Friends, Saul and Kahana, over for Friday evening dinner of ribs, corn bread, pasta and Gram G's secret recipe cole slaw!                                              And game of Labyrinth which Saul won!                 

The summer is evaporating just as quickly as the water sprayed on plants in this heat!  Besides the midsummer fun I am trying to practice piano an hour a day to get back to knowing my original songs.....
I am also busy job shopping.  I haven't found the right fit yet.  It is a full time job just looking for a job.  I will soon be a working lady.
BUT....not before a midsummer surprise!  You all come back now, you hear, to find out what!!

This has been a good 14 "midsummer" fun days in the life of Grandma G.

"Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice."  (Proverbs 27:9)

The Vancouver Connection....

The month of June has more than flown by, it has broken the sound barrier!!  Each year I think that particular year has passed fast and the next year is always faster. Soon my years will be 6 months long....
This week I enjoyed summer in my little backyard garden. There is a large "lipstick" plant that has a resident humming bird.  I was snapping pictures of him and he came to hover by me for a couple minutes....later I caught a photo of a butterfly trying out an artificial tree.  (I have only one "not natural" plant in my yard....left over from last winter.)  Here is a lavender plant overflowing  from my neighbor's yard and the patio view from my window.  

Wednesday was pizza night with the Vancouver/Gresham Miller clan.....










Thursday featured lunch out with 11 Red Hat Mamas and 1 James.....
Gram G went shopping for a stouthearted man.  Found One!!

With the warm, sunny weather the weeds made a second appearance. Time for another round of vinegar/Epsom salts/ dish soap weed annihilator.  Works great.  Fun to spray....

Summer is not complete without at least one trip to the weekend Vancouver Farmers' Market....

drum duet featuring plastic bucket drum

LOTS of fresh veggies

blueberries

clown and facepainting

Take care of that beard!!

Thai iced tea and chicken/nooles









Parrot on your shoulder?

Lizard on your shoulder?

Better than a chip on your shoulder!!



Friend Zeek
3 generations...
Gram G, daughter Debbie
granddaughter Micaela

A Doctor Suess tree....











Gram G rose....

....LARRY LIZARD LOVE....

Larry Lizard came visiting on 4th of July.  I decided I would hold him and pet him.  OK.   Then someone put him on my shoulder. I was brave and friendly.....until he started climbing onto my neck and I couldn't see him.   FEEL him I did.  Larry Lizard was turning into a vampire lizard.  Time to get him off of me.  Please....The End

This has been a good 12 Vancouver Connection days in the life of Grandma G.

"Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths...you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds."  (Psalm 148: 7-10)

KA....BOOM!!!

  Already summer is well underway. We have past the summer solstice which is a bummer for me since it means daylight is starting to wane again.....even the sky seemed to agree with me that day....




Yet there is still plenty of summer living to come....

Such as getting outside to walk... went 201% of my goal, thanks to unruly technical settings...  

Time for taco B-day party!


And a guys' red letter day hamburger dinner at a friend's house...(matching shirts not intended)

Including a breakfast of PNW steel cut oatmeal with almonds, walnuts, craisins, butter,  half and half.  Yum!  Note the left handed spoon, ya-all!! 



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  In our park there is this ground cover nasty weed that grows and spreads like......a weed.  I've used commercial weed killer before but don't like the harm it may be doing to our environment as well as to me.  I have heard rumors of a "natural" harmless (unless you are a weed) concoction of white cleaning vinegar, Epsom salts and blue Dawn dish soap.  A friend gave me the formula awhile back.  I thought I would experiment with it.  I only mixed a half recipe in case it didn't it deliver the goods.  

                                                                     



Weeds Gone Wild!/      Vinegar Treat!  KA-BOOM!/  ALL dried up!!  Now I can enjoy spraying all those nasty varmints invading my yard....maybe I'll walk around the park with my spray bottle in tow and be Georgie WeedKiller....kind of like Johnny Appleseed.....
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A few evenings ago I enjoyed a trip to MOD pizza for a fund raiser for Jake's La Cross team.  I've had their salads in the airport but have never tried their pizza.  It was yummy!  And Jake, you ask?  Poor fella,his folks had to rush him to the emergency room last night with  possible appendicitis.  Turned out it was a kidney stone.  Ouch.....  He is home sleeping now instead of riding the bus with his football team to camp.  Bummer.....  Yes, football camp.  He is a double athlete.
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Gram G is on the fast track looking for the perfect job to fill her needs. That is taking a lot of my time these days.  And now my email is bombarded with potential jobs....some authentic, some scammy.

I've also been trying to get back to practicing the piano everyday for at least an hour.  I'm hoping to do a show in the fall.  I find I forget my own compositions when I don't keep playing them. OH..

This has been a good 14  KA...BOOM days in the life of Grandma G.

"Find rest, o my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.  He alone is my rock and salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken."  (Psalm 62: 5& 6)