Friends and Family

 The past week has been friends and family time. We first visited friends who are involved in a ministry called Sanctuary Inn, that receives hurting missionaries in community. It is a lovely little lodge near Mt. Hood.

Our friends' daughters were excited to show us the playhouse Daddy built.

We also visited our old friends Mark and Helen Downing whom we have known since Ethiopia in the mid-'70s and who lived in our house in Camp Grande after we had moved to Mozambique. But we were so busy talking and eating Ethiopian food that I never thought to take a picture until we were gone.

Next stop was Puyallap, WA, for the wedding of Steve's nephew Adam, days crowded with get togethers for the out of town guests.  Relatives were not the only ones whose relationships go back decades.The Hardy cousins who were able to be there took a picture with their grandma who just turned 97.

My daughter tells me this is not the kids' table. It's the cousins table from both sides.

While everyone was sleeping or watching football Sunday afternoon, I ran off and hiked at Swan Creek Park. The trail along the creek had lots of ups and down, but, funny thing, ups and downs at 3200' are an awful lot easier than at 75-7900'.

This morning I dropped Steve at the Seattle/Tacoma airport for the first leg of his journey to Angola. He will be teaching seminary classes and a conference for educators as well as meeting with students he has been mentoring in various ways. I had a long day of driving through mountains and across plains to Kalispell, MT, gateway to Glacier National Park. We tried to get here a couple years ago and couldn't get in. This time I am alone, but it is how I chose to break up my return journey east. I have no doubt we will come back someday with Steve,  but it doesn't hurt to check it out first.