End of Summer Weekend

After a great Jamaican/Mexican feast at the home of the Adam's family Saturday night we expected to spend a quiet Sunday puttering around the house waiting for Alyssa to get home from her camping trip with her friends in Winthrop. But that's not what happened. Forrest and I picked up some delicious looking Sockeye Salmon from Costco. It was way too much for us to eat so we invited our friends, the Brysons. A few extra kids joined us for the feast. Forrest makes amazing barbecued salmon on a cedar plank. A green salad and red potatoes with dill and butter rounded out the meal. Tracy Bryson brought her famous fruit pizza and the kids also made s'mores and pie iron pies. It was a lovely evening with a gorgeous sunset. Since Forrest is going to visit his mom over Labor Day weekend this is the last big gathering of the summer of 2011 at our house. It's been a busy summer of basketball and driver's ed for Noah and work for Alyssa and Forrest. My main jobs were to run errands, drive Noah around until he got his permit (now he drives me), keep up with the laundry, and cook. I walked lots of miles during Noah's driver's ed classes, and once the weather cooperated I did get in some relaxing time on the deck with some good books. I realized that I haven't taken many photos this summer so I grabbed the camera and took a few shots last night.

Update

My dad told me that people are noticing that I haven't been keeping up with my blog this summer. Well that's because we haven't done much lately. Alyssa is working four days a week at the daycare, Forrest is also working, and Noah has driver's education classes three days a week plus drives. Noah is taking his class with his friend, Kaleb, so I usually walk with Kaleb's mom during their classes. We have walked the full Arlington Airport Trail which is 7.3 miles and parts of the Centennial Trail where it cuts through Snohomish County. After classes Noah and Kaleb usually go to the gym and lift weights or I drop them off at Lake Goodwin so they can meet up with their friends (mainly cute girls in bikinis) and work on their tans.

I have spent two days in my classroom getting it ready. I am having trouble getting motivated to spend more time there right now. All of the teachers in our district are waiting for news of negotiations. The state has given us a 3% pay cut, but we don't know how that is going to be worked into our current 3 year contract. Some districts are having furlough days. Our union president is not doing a very good job keeping us all informed so there is lots of discord and rumor mongering. Hopefully we'll know something soon.

As you can see by the photos Mom and Dad are here for a couple of days. They took us out for dinner last night to our favorite Stanwood, Jimmy's Pizza and Pasta. We are looking forward to our friend's party this weekend. It will be a Jamaican feast prepared by our favorite Jamaican transplant, Cordel Adams.

That's all the news for now. I promise to do a better job of keeping this blog up to date.