Coffee With Elly

In an odd twist of fate, my parents now go to church with my Matron of Honor from our wedding 18 years ago! So when Mom's church had their annual women's retreat in Spokane, and somebody invited me to come, it was a perfect opportunity to kill two or three birds with one stone. For the small price of a 12 hour drive (round trip) to Spokane I got to see many old faces from my teens (now *much* older), my dear friend, Mystie, my mom, and my sister, Katy, (who lives in Spokane) all in one weekend! Extra bonus: Mom and I got to go wedding dress shopping with my little sister, who is getting married in May 2020! The Bozarth Mansion where the retreat was held - gracious old place! Wedding dress shopping - she didn't end up with this one, even though it was gorgeous, so it's not a spoiler! The dorms where most of the women stayed! Getting cozy for one of the sessions! 

Of all of our children, Monica is the one who loves swimming the most! She enjoyed her swimming lessons, though she had a bad experience in the summer with a teacher who rather rudely told her she should be two levels below where she was, which kind of crushed her enthusiasm for a little while. However, she does love to be in the water, so I signed her up for swimming lessons in the fall in Canby and she thoroughly enjoyed them! Unfortunately, she is quite nearsighted so at one point she didn't even realize that she had a substitute teacher one day! I finally ordered her prescription goggles - thrilling!  Monica in SunRiver, OR, in August, 2019 Since Monica has difficult feet - high arches, pronated, planter fasciitis - swimming might be her best option for life-long exercise. *sigh* Not the easiest one to do from home! (though Monica would be entirely pleased if we dug up our backyard and put in a pool!!)

Even though we didn't take a lot of photos, Michael and I definitely enjoyed our short trip "away" to Silverton, OR. We took the kids up to Michael's parents' house on Saturday morning and retrieved them on Sunday evening. In between we got lunch at the Oregon City Farmer's Market, stopped for a wine tasting at Vitus Ridge on our way to downtown Silverton. We walked around downtown Silverton, walked around the Frank Lloyd Wright house, (unfortunately we couldn't take the tour) and enjoyed our dinner and stay at The Oregon Garden Resort. I particularly enjoyed our walks around the Oregon Garden, even though in October there's not a lot still blooming. But there are a lot of fruit trees and bushes of interest and I love reading all the little signs and seeing the demonstration garden type things (composting can be so interesting, right?!) On Sunday we attended a local evangelical church service then spent several hours hiking around Silver Falls. Then b