On Monday the 16th of July, we arrived at Dana's apartment at about 11:00 a.m. We received the grand tour of the apartment by the kids...they were so excited to show us their rooms! We couldn't believe how the kids are growing. And we'd never seen Eli and Kaytlyn. Dana gave us the grand tour of Just 4 Kids - where she works. Nice facilities and really nice people to work with. Dana and Ron have a new car (new to them) - the old van just died a sad death. I like the Chrysler Pacifica. The bottom picture is everyone at America's Favorite Pizza - what fun to watch the kids play games and drive the bumper cars. Nice to meet Ron's parents. Next day we drove back to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to catch our flight home. It was delayed and we missed the Denver connection to Portland. So we camped out at the Denver airport until the next morning. We caught the first flight out (Frontier) at 8:30 a.m. So glad I took the extra day off of work! What a nice trip...fast, but it was worth it to see everyone! Love and miss our family and friends! More to come.

Last weekend we left Oregon for Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We picked up our rental car and our first stop was to see Ken and Chris Petersen in Beach Park, Illinois. Ken bar-b-q'd  and we had a great meal. We told them not to fuss, but we had more than enough to eat! They have a new puppy - Ellie May. Then we talked until evening. The next morning we went to our old church and visited with lots of friends including Mike and Betsy Lonchar, Pastor Joe and Debbie Boreman, and Tom and Diane Veretti. After church we visited the Veretti's at their new house - very nice time! Then we returned to The Petersen's to have dinner with the whole family...Great time...good food! I ate way too much. We got an early start to Dana's place the next morning. Thanks to everyone for the great food and hospitality...we love you all!!!

Yesterday we thought it might get a little hot in the valley, so we asked our friends (Jim & Vonnie Lash) if they wanted to cruise out to the beach :) It got up to 87 degrees, but the beach was a cool 68 degrees and a fairly brisk wind. That didn't stop us from planting our chairs in the sand and enjoying the ocean! Lots of kite flyers were out. We had  buffet lunch at Grande Ronde, Carol really likes the turkey. Then we came home and played Pinochle - great day! 

We're getting ready for our trip to Illinois next weekend :) Can't wait to see Dana, Ron and all the kids. We're also going to visit Ken & Chris Petersen, and hopefully, more friends from our home church in Waukegan. I'll post more when we return.