Beautiful Oregon

We held our annual Branch Leadership Retreat on Saturday. Most of the Leadership was in attendance. We really did have a wonderful time breaking into committees to discuss our plans for the coming year and then gathering together to share our thoughts and work on a preliminary calendar.



I quickly took this picture of the table before a lot of the food arrived because it seems that I tend to forget pictures until it is too late.



I made a delicious chicken salad full of cubed chicken breast, grapes, celery, and pecans. Colleen and Brad brought a tray from Costco full of croissants filled with different meats and cheeses. There was cream of potato soup which I made and Leanna baked lots of cookies.



We had planned for the Retreat to be from 9:00 until noon with lunch following. Everyone was gone by about a quarter to 2:00.



I picked up the house while Neal got all of the equipment out to paint the house. Finally, a clear day and time to work on getting the house ready to sell. Just as he was ready to load Don's sprayer with paint the telephone rang.



Within a few minutes everything was put away and we were headed for Don's and Gaylynne's home. I was delighted to have some time with the kids. The sky was the most beautiful blue and the air was perfect shirt sleeve temperature. Well, at least for me.



Don had done an amazing job of clearing some of his property and was on the downside of the work when he accidentally cut through a telephone line. Since fixing low voltage wiring is what Dad does and he has all of the tools for it it seemed logical for us to head for Camas.



Time went quickly by and when we left their house we looked at how low the sun was in the western sky. Ahem, another day gone that we didn't work on the house. It was a quarter to six and we consoled ourselves that he had been in the service of others and I had had a blast with the kids and enjoyed my visit with Gaylynne. God would reward us.



I went into the house and picked up the rest of the dishes and straightened the chairs. Neal hadn't come in so I went to the door to check on him. He said, "I'm going to get as much painted as I can before it gets dark". I figured that he'd no sooner get everything out and it would be time to clean up but I didn't tease him too much. "Well, I'm going to take a walk before it gets to dark", I said. I grabbed my IPod and off I went.



A half hour later I returned and it didn't look to me like he had accomplished very much yet. I went inside to do some work on the computer. I worked for a while and then the telephone rang. It was Dad, "Well, I finished the house!" I was so surprised. "Yeah, and I finished the garage too". Unbelievably, he had painted the house and the garage and it looked so good. I helped him put some stuff away just as it was getting dark. We both felt so blessed.

On Sunday after church we both felt so exhausted and so decided to take a walk to perk up. I had promised to send Lori some pictures of the trees beginning to turn colors.

The leaves are just beginning change but I was able to get a few nice pictures.

We have been walking together almost every evening after Dad comes home from work. It is a very enjoyable experience for us and it is keeping our doctors happy too.

We chatted about the activities at church and it became almost a meeting. I reported what was going on with some of the sisters and he gave me good counsel as to how to handle a couple of touchy situations.

We greeted neighbors as we walked and really enjoyed the sort of neighborhood friendliness that we both remembered from our childhoods.

One of the things that we noticed was that there is an infestation of spiders this year. Last year was so moderate that none of the spiders had died and this year they are just everywhere.

I was not about to take a picture of a spider. You'll just have to take my word for it. They are big and ugly!

We walked longer than we are used to but at a slower pace. When we got home we met up with Bishop McEuen. What a nice man! He has a great interest in the Civil War. He has many stories to tell. He travels a lot and has been to a lot of the same sites that we visited while we were in Virginia.

We promised to let him look at the diary that we transcribed from Dad's Uncle. Unfortunately, it is all packed away now.

This almost perfect day was topped off by one of the best meetings we have attended. Elder Woods of the Second Quorum of the Seventy spoke to us. His wife, Elizabeth also spoke and we couldn't help but chuckle as she reminded us a lot of Barbara Jean on Reba.

As we were leaving, you know how it feels like being a salmon going upstream, someone poked me on the arm. I turned around to find President Platt standing there. It was so good to see him again. He said that Arlene was on her way to visit the grandchildren in Utah. We chatted for a few minutes and then we headed home. What a great day!