7/24/05

Boy it's nice to be home and out of the heat. I hate to gloat but it's been in the 70s all week. It's so nice to leave the bedroom windows open at night and then open everything up in the morning and let the cool (50s-60s) in.

Riley got home from scout camp yesterday afternoon. He left last Monday morning at 5:00 after a quick rearranging of suitcases and short night's sleep. He said that he got homesick after being away from home for so long.

Thursday night Kelly and I went to a free concert at Lake Wilderness here in town. It was a smooth jazz band featuring Darren Montamedy who was awesome on the sax and flute. He is quite famous in the smooth jazz scene and has played with and opened for David Lanz and other big jazz artists that I can't remember now. He grew up right here in Maple Valley. We really enjoy the concerts at the lake. It's so "Americana" to spread out a blanket and lie there looking out at the lake, listening to the music and watching little kids dancing on the grass. Some people bring picnics, some bring their dogs. We take our shoes off and watch people and watch for the eagle that usually flies over the lake in the evenings. For those of you who know what me and Alisa mean by a "blue moment", this is about as blue as they get.

Friday morning Valerie went with friends to stay in a condo in Long Beach, WA, almost to the Oregon border a block from the ocean. It was one of her friends' birthday and she had a relative that had a condo there that they stayed in. She had a good time.

Kelly and I took Brennan to the Seattle Center Friday afternoon to Bite of Seattle. Lots of area restaurants had booths there with reduced prices so you could go around and taste a lot of things. Some had free samples and we made sure we hit all of those. There were also 4 different stages with live entertainment. We sat and listened to a couple of them for a while and watched the elevators go up and down the Space Needle. After that we went driving around the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle and looked at the neat old homes, then went to Gasworks Park and watched them fly kites and watched the sea planes take off and land on Lake Union. The three of us had a really nice time.

Have I ever mentioned how much there is to see and do here? We are having a great time and have barely scratched the surface. I love it.