We started July with of course the 4th of July festivities here in town. I mean after all we do live in INDEPENDENCE Oregon. The one of a kind weekend is full of a pancake feed (we didn’t attend), small town parade, mini carnival on the river, and lots of fireworks. This year we also skipped out on the carnival but made sure to see our friends little boy in the bike parade, and then grabbed Dudley and headed to meet them again for the main event. There is just something special about parade that includes horses, political floats, the Shriner Club, and a group of cars with hydraulics. Talk about small town hype. Our evening was topped off with a fantastic holiday BBQ at one of the WOU donors houses. We enjoyed amazing food, great beer and wine, and awesome conversation with all our WOU friends.
The next weekend my parents were in town. They came down to hang out with us before they headed to the sand dunes with their camper on the truck and ATV’s in tow on Monday morning. While they were here we took them to the local pub, celebrated Dudley’s birthday, and had a great Sunday dinner Michael cooked on our BBQ. I think they are still not liking the whole empty nesting thing too much, so they come to visit pretty often, and we love it.
The following week we joined my parents and Chan and Ash and some other family at the sand dunes for some quad riding and camping. That’s right… Michael Feuling actually went camping!!! Believe it or not he hardly complained. J Dudley and I headed over Tuesday morning and Michael joined us Tuesday night. He only stayed for one night, but hey that is serious progress for him! I was more than thrilled. We even got to use my new tent my parents bought me for an early birthday present. As you can imagine Michael wasn’t so thrilled about that gift. LOL. The weather the whole week was up and down but we had a great time. Dudley would choose to live on the beach if I would let him. He ran and ran and ran some more. Then sadly he and I left Thursday night just in time for me to work on Friday and for company to again arrive on Saturday.
I spent all day Saturday up in Hillsboro watching our good friend Lauren coach her little sister’s fastpitch team. After the games Lauren came home with me and stayed with us until Wednesday. We went shopping, hit up Taco Tuesday, did some cooking and chair building, and had a blast hanging out. The only thing missing was Lauren’s husband Tom. He and Michael are like 2 peas in a pod- and the 4 of us make up quite a group.
Lauren left on Wednesday and then Michael’s parents came down on Saturday with his Grandma and Auntie Jean from Butte, Montana. Those two sweet old ladies were a total hoot. We were so excited to show them the house and they were so excited to be in Oregon. Who would have thought we’d have so much fun at the WOU bookstore and eating brats and hot dogs for dinner. We got up early Sunday morning and went to the Eola Hills wine brunch with them. As usual brunch was amazing and we were all stuffed! After the winery they headed out to the timeshare in Depoe Bay Sunday afternoon. We stayed home and napped of our big brunch and got packed for the next day. Monday morning after dropping Dudley off at the boarding facility, we also headed out to the beach to spend a night with them. The timeshare Mike and Danette have is absolutely beautiful and we were so excited to be out on the beach. While in Depoe we had dinner at the Inn at Spanish Head where we ate an amazing dinner while looking over the water, (I highly recommend the coconut and macadamia nut pan roasted cod with curry sauce) and went whale watching. When Mike told us we’d be in a Zodiac boat I had no idea what he was talking about, but when we walked down the pier to what looked like an oversized blow up life boat I can’t tell you I was very sure of what to expect. All I can say is the Zodiac was AMAZING! The skipper took us right into where he saw a whale shortly before our reservation time and within minutes the giant mammal was right in front of us. I have never seen a whale that close before. IT WAS SO COOL! If you get a chance, definitely try a zodiac tour. Sadly we left the beach and headed back home on Tuesday night so we could get a few days of work in before we headed out on our next adventure. Our busy month concluded with a big celebration for my Dad’s 50th birthday. My mom and I had had the party in the works for several months and it was hard to believe that it was already here. Michael and I drove home Thursday night and I immediately went into party mode. I spent all day Friday making food and appetizers, thank goodness with the help of Lauren and our family friend AshLeigh. We finally quit at 2am on Friday night. Ash and I were exhausted and had gotten so sleepy giddy that making the salmon dip was quite an experience. One shouldn’t be so tired when trying to make something look pretty, but I don’t think I have laughed like that in a long time. Saturday morning rolled around way too quickly, and after a few more hours of food prep we finally headed to the picnic area with about 4 truckloads of food and deco. It was a lot of work for sure, but worth every single second of it to see the look on my dad’s face when 44 people sang him happy birthday. The party was a total success and I was so happy to celebrate my dad. He’s a pretty cool 50 year old even if we did tease him about being old.
July came and went in a flash, but it was so much fun. Here’s to a busy happy summer, and hoping that August is just as awesome!
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