Our Fourth of July at Jean and Joel's

The family celebrated the 4th in fine weather in Berrydale.

Jean and Joel's home continues to be a great spot to entertain eight grandkids.

In a rare switch, Nancy chose to return on the 5th, driving home our van that Jean had borrowed.

Back in Bellevue, Steve White came by at 8:00 PM and we shared a few imported beers and then went down to the Bellevue Downtown Park to enjoy the 10:05 PM fireworks.  We decided this tradition has been going on for about 25 years!

God's Gift Due in the New Year

On the 6th, Annie had an appointment with her own doctor, and one earlier in the day at Susan's 3W clinic in the U-District.  Susan likes to train her nurses on the Ultrasound equipment when she can find a willing pregnant lady.  Charis, Valerie, and Nancy accompanied Annie.

A due date close to January 12th was estimated at both visits.  And while Susan seems pretty sure of the gender, Annie's regular doctor likes to make that call a few weeks further on.  [ VIDEO ]

A Play Date in Lake Stevens

On Saturday July 2nd, Annie and Nathanael's families drove up to the Pastrick home in Lake Stevens for a "costume party" play date.

Four hours of random play for all the four-and-under kids, and some good chats between Annie, Nancy and Alicia Pastrick were enjoyed.

It was good for my diet that this was not one of Alicia's dessert events.  This photo of Corvin on my lap will always remind me how fond I am of this little fellow. 

Before we left, Annie, Cynthia, and I filled up a dumpster with a huge pile of cardboard that had accumulated in their garage.  The kids, of course, enjoyed playing in the largest of the boxes until those boxes too joined the discard pile. 

Books!!!

Someone decided it was time to clear out the boxes of books stored in the garage attic.  Who knew there were so many?

We have stored books from high school and college, deceased relatives, church gleanings, and children's books from our own kids. 

We had already mostly filled our new Library shelves before we loaded these other hundreds of books into the Library, Dining Room, and Living Room.

Step #2 had us (meaning Annie) sort these books into categories.  Step #3 required us (meaning mostly Annie) to select the books we wanted to keep from each group.

I'm enjoying reading The Wizard of Oz to Charis. I credit it as the first big "chapter book" I read.  I'd forgotten how it is so much simpler than the 1939 movie.

Hot Garden Days in Late July

This month I planted chives and more Zinnias. 
I also got the store bought peppers into their pots, and the cucumbers in the ground.

Every tomato plant has set fruit, and some are over seven feet high.  Unlike last year, I may have over 1000 tomatoes on the many vines.  I counted over 55 cherry tomatoes on one plant.

I've been regularly harvesting the large green onions for salads.

On the 25th, I showed Charis how to water the garden using the fancy seven-setting hose nozzle Joel and Jean got me as a Father's Day present.  She had lots of fun, even as I worked with her on her reading with the words MIST, CONE, SHOWER, CENTER, JET, FULL, and FLAT.  She watered most of the big garden herself, until she knocked over a young cucumber plant with a strong spray.

Charis did help me find the first two ripe cherry tomatoes of the season.  The Early Girl tomatoes are "late girls" this year because of the cool weather in April, May, and early June.  We'll harvest many of those too, but I've already found two the birds have munched on.  I moved and refilled the birdbath so the birds might be less inclined to go for the tomatoes.

Harvesting Potatoes is Family Fun

I planted two small seed potatoes in each of three 5-gallon buckets in late April.  The vigorous plants were finally showing the end of their growing period so it was time to see what had grown beneath the soil.  Many sources said this was the time to get the little ones out to do the harvesting.  Indeed, the whole Disher family enjoyed the treasure hunt for the golden tubers.

The two small original potatoes produced fourteen suitable for the dinner table and thirteen more very small ones.  We had similar results in the other two buckets we harvested a few days later.

This was so much fun, I intend to plant more next year in the 7-gallon grow bags I bought for this year but didn't use.  (I'd run out of top soil and compost.)  I'll add, "Make soil/compost" to my post-harvest calendar.

A "100th Birthday Party" for Ginger

Ginger Rutherford passed away in February 2019.  We celebrated her life with a party at Susan's on what would have been her 100th birthday.

All of Ginger's great-grandchildren were there, with two pending and four more little ones to add to the pandemonium.

Alicia brought Rowen, Corvin, and Vivienne.  Joel's older sister Amanda from Massachusetts was visiting and came with the Sittes.  Tramoya and her daughter Nailani were there, as were Julie, Randy, Helga, and Dave and Heidi.

Susan cooked a big beef tenderloin and others brought a variety of dishes. 

I had my first chance to talk with Helga from Austria and learned that her slim but strong connection to the Rutherford family was due to her late husband David having become a good friend of their Austrian ski instructor Helmut.  Her vital Christian faith was so refreshing.

Jean was cast in two roles in this summer's production of Shakespeare's Henry V put on by GreenStage.

Corporal Nym (left) ―  "In Henry V we learn that Nym has been courting Mistress Quickly. He gets into an argument with Pistol when he learns that she has married Pistol. Pistol tells him to find prostitute Doll Tearsheet and marry her. Bardolph reconciles the two. The three of them join Henry's army, hoping to profit by looting in France."

Montjoy (right) ―  "Montjoy is the French Herald. He's got a pretty terrible job (it's his duty to deliver the Dauphin's snotty messages to King Henry), but he somehow manages to be dignified and polite. In fact, the guy's so likeable that King Henry tips him after Montjoy delivers the following message to Henry from King Charles: "Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep." (Translation: Even though you defeated us at Harfleur, we're going to stomp all over you at Agincourt.)"

Jean said she got the job as drummer in the opening scene because she was the last one to arrive at that rehearsal.  Those we sat near complemented Jean's performance.

Nancy and I shared our two-person camp chair with a ground level view at the Magnuson Park Amphitheater.  The sun was setting in the audience's eyes, but my Nikon D750 with an old 28-200mm lens and some editing with Photoshop got theses good shots.  I mostly cropped out the heads of the few "groundlings" seated between us and the actors.  As usual, the Bard's dialog went by very fast, but the story was still reasonably easy to follow.  I enjoyed the play very much.  Now I want to track down the many poignant quotes that got my attention.

“Every subject’s duty is the king’s, but every subject’s soul is his own.”

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.”

"This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother."

“If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will, I pray thee wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold.”

“God shall be my hope, my stay, my guide and lantern to my feet.”

“Wear me as a seal over your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, passion cruel as the grave.”

Chris Sleight and Melissa Briscoe are Wed

It was like a family reunion on Saturday night, July 30th.  Don and Judy's younger son Chris married Melissa at the Seattle Aquarium.  This is the second marriage for Chis who raised three sons from his first one.

This was an amazing venue for a wedding.  After pictures were taken, the brief ceremony was held at the end of pier 59.  This was followed by first a small reception and a tour of the aquarium, then by the full reception, dinner, dancing, toasts and more that continued past 11:00 PM. 

Don, Judy, and Randy left about 9:00 PM and Nancy and I followed them soon after.  Don greatly approves of Melissa who has been close to their family for a few years.

Wedding guests had to compete with folks heading for the Seattle Seafair Torchlight Parade.  But Nancy spotted an on-street parking spot she squeezed into just a block south of the aquarium.  Praise God.

Alas, my weight and blood sugar were way up the next morning!

Bits and Pieces 

Nancy finally joined the rest of us by upgrading to a Smart phone.  She managed to move her contacts from her old flip phone to her new Samsung Galaxy A42 5G all by herself.

Yikes!  Ted Foss, President of the West Seattle Monogram Club asked  Randy and I to present yet again on August 4th if he can't track down the promised guest speaker, the West Seattle High School Athletic Director.

This month, I added Chia seeds to my regular diet.  I have one or two teaspoons of them daily, generally in my water bottle.  I'm not averse to buying a few year's worth at $3/pound instead of its normal price twice that high.

The West Seattle High School 50th Reunion committee met on the 12th and 26th using my Zoom account.  We'll meet again on August 16th.  We are zeroing in on hosting another luncheon at Salty's in West Seattle on Saturday, August 26, 2023. 

I especially enjoyed chatting with Rick Rose for over an hour afterwards.  Rick ran third on the 1972 West Seattle Cross Country team behind myself and Kevin Adams.  He told me he became a Christian in 2nd grade.  We also share conservative political and social ideals.

My Quotes from July

Quotes "Experience is a comb life gives us when we are bald."  ― Chinese proverb "Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire." ― George Bernard Shaw "Remember that your children are not your own, but are lent to you by the Creator."  ― Native American proverb         "There are two wolves fighting inside all of us. The first one is evil. The second one is good.  Which wolf will win?  The one you feed."  ― Native American proverb "Don't hold on to someone who's leaving, otherwise you won't meet the one who's coming." ― Carl Jung   “A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.” ― Rudyard Kipling (As I age, I no longer agree with Kipling.)