Our Super Summer

Israel/Jordan trip: May 12-26, 2008.

I first began this blog to share our Israel trip with many of you. I intended to work my way through our trip day by day sharing photos and stories. I promise to come back and finish that.

But well, I kinda got side-tracked by lots of other trips this summer. Here is what else we did.

Jon Stanley & Rache' Whiteman's wedding: June 20, 2008.

Our summer back at home began with a beautiful wedding right along the banks of the North Fork of the Smith River outside of Reedsport, Oregon.

Our dear girl, Rache' Whiteman married her best friend Jon on this day.

Rache' is the daughter of our dear friends, Ricky & Bob Whiteman. She is one of our "honorary grandchildren". We wouldn't have missed this for anything.

We spent a grand day hugging family, eating, and talking. Then there was a country barn dance down the road. More hugging, eating, and talking. Some dancing too. In a later post I'll include pics of all the family.

We spent the night in Reedsport and the next day we went

On to Bandon: June 21, 2008

to have a nice visit with Fred's mother, Madeline. Shared with her our photos taken in Israel.

Sumpter camping trip: June 27-29, 2008.

I just love camping. Our son Brian and his wife Brenda are members of a wonderful small group from their church in Fruitland, Idaho. We joined their small group for a weekend camping trip near Sumpter, Oregon. Sumpter is in the Elkhorn mountains south of Baker City. We camped with Brian, Brenda & their kids and three other families. Plus we brought Lexie's two boys with us. Lotsa kids, whew!

We had an extraordinary time mining for gold at Cracker Creek Mining Camp along the banks of this lovely creek.

A beautiful, clear, and cold stream this time of year.

The mine operators dug ore and brought in huge bins with heavy equipment.

Then we took turns shovelling the ore into the "highbank".

Here is the highbank. It is a steel box with grates on top and a lot of water piped into it.

As ore (rocks, gravel, & dirt) are shovelled into the box the water washes away the dirt and gravel. Eventually the fine dirt, black sand, and gold fall into the mat lying in the bottom of the box. After hours of shoveling, removing the big rocks, washing and washing and washing you end up with a few cups of fine stuff to "pan out".

That means taking a small handful of black mud and putting it in one of these green colored gold pans. Then you refine your skill at removing the small gravel and black sand with water while not losing the gold that has fallen to the bottom of the pan.

Here we are panning for gold in an oversize stock tank full of muddy water.

Since gold is 19 times heavier than water the principle is that if you are careful you can wash everything else out of the pan and the gold will still be there in the bottom. We did find a little "color". Come on over and I'll show it to you.

We got to meet our new granddaughter Abigayle for the first time on this trip. She was 3 1/2 weeks old when we met. What a little doll. I miss her.

And here is big brother Kaden, chillin'. I miss him, too.

High Sierra Trip: July 19-27, 2008

Walking in to see big, big trees.

Half Dome in Yosemite National Park

Half Dome from the top of Glacier Point which is 7,214 ft. high. This photo is a little hazy from the big fire near Mariposa which had started two days earlier.

Here we are playing up on top of the rim in Bridal Veil creek. One of my very favorite times on the trip.

And here is Bridal Veil creek falling onto the canyon floor. Hmmm. The water we played in up above . . . fell many thousands of feet on the way down.

This was the U.S. trip of a lifetime with our daugher, Lexie, and her family. I had visited Yosemite during the summer of 1967 and have wanted to return my entire life. The mountains, valleys, cliffs, and waterfalls are just as awesome as I remembered. Apparently lots of other people agree with me because there were lots of others there at the same time we were. It is hard to picture a traffic jam in a National Park hundreds of miles from civilization, but that's how it was.

We saw & did lots more cool stuff.

See more about this trip on Lexie's blog: http://chickenbocker.blogspot.com/

Dora's 40th class reunion: August 1-2, 2008

The lady on the right in this photo is Laura Hird Gilbertson, my best friend in high school.

"And a good time was had by all". That about sums it up. Several close friends came to my house before the reunion and we sat around and told stories. At the reunion we ate and talked and laughed some more. A couple of close friends, Laura and Karen, came back to my house to stay the night and we stayed up late catching up on the lost years. Every time we see each other we promise to get together more often. I hope we can keep our promise this time.

Thorn Family BBQ: August 10, 2008

Summer in our family means homemade ice cream. We all got together for a BBQ and homemade ice cream at the Alvadore home of Terry & Karie Thorn.

My brother Dave Sanborn & wife Christine were able to be there.

Here is Fred with my brother, Mike Thorn.

Here is our Dad chillin'.

Baker City/Richland Oregon trip: August 15-18, 2008

I made this car trip alone to attend the wedding of Chance & Aspen Marks in Baker, Oregon. Chance is the son of our dear friends Kurt & Wendy Marks who moved to Richland in eastern Oregon 11 years ago. Chance is another of my "honorary grandchildren" and I wasn't about to miss his wedding either.

An added bonus for this trip for me was that both of our children and their families were there at the wedding.

Our daughter Lexie was there with her three younger children, Delayna, Brenden, & Christian.

Here are most of the cousins together.

Our son Brian was there with his wife Brenda, and daughter Abigayle.

Labor Day Weekend: August 29 - September 1, 2008

And once more this summer we motored to the state of California. To Morgan Hill, California, to be precise, just south of San Jose. The purpose of this last trip of the summer was for my husband to attend his 40th class reunion. He graduated from Live Oak high school in 1968 and had not seen many of these classmates for 40 years! We talked and ate and laughed for two whole days.

We also had a reunion of Fred's siblings who still live within a few hours of each other. We met at Fred's sister's new home and talked and ate and laughed and told stories for hours. It was such fun and I was sad to leave.

Sylvia, you send me the pictures of the 4 Combie sibs and I'll put them here.

We got to visit with Fred's Dad while we were there. That was great. They hadn't seen each other for several years.

Now it is oh so good to be home. Stay at home. Sleep in my own bed. Yes! And plan my next adventure.