Monday, September 1, 2008

The End of Summer

I am a little sad today, as summer officially ends tomorrow with the start of school. Luke and I are still recovering today after our busy end to the summer. We realized the other day, that we have been out of town almost every weekend this summer. With that thought, we vowed to stay home more next summer. We will see if we can hold to our word. It seems that as the summer took up speed the blogging came to a quick end. Therefore, here is one final summer blog with all that has happened over the past two months.
After coming home from Minnesota, my mom, sister, and aunt came to visit for a week. We took on the project of repainting the upstairs guest bedroom and bathroom. Earlier in the summer Luke's family came had helped us repaint the living room and hallway. Now we have painted every room in the house at least once and some twice : ).
Right after my aunt, mom, and sister left, I started a class at PLU called English Vertical Teams (aka Pre-AP for English). The week long course inspired me to incorporate many of the things I learned into my lessons this year. It was also nice to be the student again.
We finished the summer with visits from some good friends. At the end of July Paige and Dave came into town for almost two weeks. In the midst of their busy schedule they were able to take some time to go on a mini trip with us. During our long weekend the four of us went wine tasting in the lower Yakima Valley and spent the night at my aunt's cabin up on White Pass. Before they went back over to Bremerton, we finished off our weekend with some wonderful Indian food in the U district and a nice walk around Greenlake. Before they flew home I was able to catch up with for a Mariner game against the Twins.
After Paige and Dave left, Luke and I quickly drove to Spokane to visit with family. The day after our return, my friend Brittany came to stay for a few days. We had a great time drinking coffee, going out to lunch, and walking around in Seattle. After Brit left, we had just enough time left in summer to rush over to Tri Cities to attend Luke's cousin, John's wedding.
Just as summer was coming to a close we had one more exciting day. Yesterday my entire family came over to share in my sister's engagement. Her fiance Chris had orchestrated a surprise engagement party at Greenlake that we all had the chance to take part in. We were so excited to welcome Chris to the family and of course to hear the engagement story first hand.
As the school year begins it seems our busy schedules only continue. Luke just recently moved into a new position at Boeing, and just last week he started back up with his Master's classes. Hopefully we will be able to carve a little time into our fall schedules for some fun. But before we think about the fall, I have just a few pictures to share from the end of summer.

Brit and I at Pike Place Market
Family picture at John's wedding
John and Kendle
Luke and John
The surprise party The newly engaged couple
Family picture