Karen and Loren took Ashlyn away for a long weekend to celebrate her 13th birthday. They went to Joshua Tree in California to do some rock climbing. (Ashlyn Rocks!) But we didn’t go, so I won’t tell you anymore about that.
We got to spend the weekend with Bryan. On Saturday afternoon we took Bryan and his dog, Hunter, for a drive – and checked out Upper Columbia Academy. It’s only about 20 some minutes from their house, but feels like a different world. The campus was very green, and beautifully decorated with red and gold leaves. We didn’t see a living soul on the grounds – I think it was fall break. So since I know nothing about the school or its buildings, you’re spared hearing all about the history here.
Maybe it was the absence of people moving around, but the whole place felt like a miniature; maybe something you’d build around an elaborate model railroad.
The colors were fantastic, and the sky was beautiful even up to the time it started to rain!
The Church 
Another thing that added to the unreality, was that this pretty campus is exactly in the middle of nowhere. OK, not really… but it’s surrounded with thousands of acres of farmland. The farmland had interesting patterns as viewed from the sky, but again no people moving around. A very quiet day!
In case there are not enough photos above, I present this 55 second video tour of a bit of the school.
Near Upper Columbia Academy
Sunday Bryan was offered the chance to go help work on a project at a friend’s house. They are building an Ice Rink in their yard! Is that cool or what?! (Do I have to mention they are Canadian?) So the rink area is leveled out, concrete pads prepared for the two chillers, and we helped make the boards that will be the edging for the rink, and the poles to hold lighting and safety nets.
View from Ice Rink site
Ice Rink goes here 
Front of house – Rink will go on the right
When the boys got tired of shoveling rocks and dirt into the barrels for light posts, they gleefully dug tunnels in the dirt pile. They worked far harder playing gopher than they did working!
Bryan stayed with us while his parents and sister were away, and he slept very well that night!
I never got around to carving up the pumpkin the family got for me, but I did do a much smaller one… a mandarin orange masquerading as a pumpkin.
can’t imagine how fun an ice rink would be in your own yard! The school campus looked nice. How far is it from their home? I had a friend whose two sisters went there years ago and really liked it.