When I was in High School (several years ago) I knew a couple named Tim & Cheri Windemuth. It turns out they live in Spokane, like our kids do, and they invited all of us over for an adventure at their lakefront home. We had a delightful time – cruising the lake in their party boat, some paddle boarding, and a nice evening roasting hot dogs and S’mores. Again, I was having so much fun I forgot to take pictures of this gracious couple and their beautiful home. At least you can get a glimpse of them here: Tim at the helm and Cheri standing.

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Bryan’s Biking Birthday Party

My grandson turned 12! How do these kids grow so fast?? He had a party at a BMX track – Several friends and a fun track to ride bikes on. What could be better?

His cake had fun alphabet candles, spelling “Happy Birthda.” Because that’s 12 candles! Fun!

Lunch and presents are fun, but the real attraction was the bumpy BMX track!

Bryan has a hard time keeping the bike wheels on the ground! Look at his expression… He’s having fun!

Below is a little video of the kids at the track. You’ll notice Bryan catching some air, Ashlyn getting in some running, and the boys trying loops with their new airplanes.

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#46!

The next day was a special one… our 46th Anniversary! Karen and Cherryl made us a fresh peach and berry pie! Fabulous!

46th Anniversary Escape Room

We are definitely not trying to escape our marriage, but we do like the challenge of an escape room. Loren and Karen treated us to an evening in the jungle, trying to solve puzzles to find our way out before time ran out. It was a really well done setup, and we did pretty well – we escaped!

More Motorhome Maintenance

We had a fabulous time in Alaska, but also some challenges. We had plenty of rain… It rarely got in the way of our planned adventures, but still, it was a lot of rain. And we had a leak in our motorhome. We first were afraid the shower drain was leaking into the basement. But it could have been the washer… or the sinks in the back bathroom. It is very hard to follow all the plumbing! We have one compartment that is only a few inches deep, with pegboard and shelves hiding the tanks resting behind it. I took it apart years ago when I installed additional tank gauges, and remembered it as a colossal chore. But that was the compartment getting wet, so I took it apart again. We finally decided it must be the roof that was leaking, or possibly the bedroom slide. But how can I seal the roof when it rains all the time? In Spokane, we had several days of dry weather, so I coated everything on the roof with liquid rubber stuff. We eventually got the compartment dried out, and we’ve been through a bit of rain since then, and it seems to have done the trick! I painted the pegboard to get rid of the ugly brown, and reassembled it. Now all the stuff that lives in those shelves is back in place and not in boxes in the Suburban. 🙂

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Arduino

Some crazy old guy got Bryan an Arduino kid for his birthday… so I got to play with it too! If you are not familiar with the Arduino, (and even if you are) it is a small (palm sized) computer that you can program to do all kinds of interesting things. You can learn its programming language and get creative, inventing who knows what kind of fun stuff. I had fun working with Bryan on it. He seems like a natural! I think he’s going to do really well experimenting with it!

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We travelled all over Alaska, on the lookout for interesting wildlife. Here at our kid’s house, we saw two Moose (Moosen?) in their back yard!

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Susan Butcher was a sled dog musher, and we met her daughter, who signed this book of Susan’s Iditarod training and wins. (You can read a bit more about her in this blog.) Here Ashlyn and Bryan get into the story.