where to begin? its been entirely too long.
well, one of the most exciting things for july was that i got to make a last minute trip to oregon to see my family and friends. i had so much fun. it was just absolutely wonderful, and i feel like i really needed it. even though portland's not where i grew up, it still feels like i'm going back home when i go there. and it was such a blast to hang out with kennedy. she's at the best age. she's so much more interactive than she was the last time i saw her (march). we had so much fun together. if you ask her what sound different animals make, she imitates them for you. my favorites are the owl, elephant, and pig.

on saturday night we went out to dinner with susan's parents, joe and rene. we had a great time, and kennedy was the center of attention, of course.

robin and shelly were in seattle for a week, so robin jumped on the train and came to portland for a couple of days. here are kennedy and i waiting to pick her up.

and this is a picture of mom and robin before we went to go pick berries. we had such a great time doing that. i'll put up some pictures of that next time.

on saturday night, robin and i met up with some of my friends that i haven't seen in ages. here we are before we met up with them, having girl talk. we had a lot of fun, but the night ended not so great because robin's purse was stolen. it seemed horrible at first, but everything has worked out.

somehow i left town without any pictures of susan. i don't know how that happened, but i'm pretty bummed out about it. sorry suz.
until next time......

Kirsten and I finally got to do something together on Thursday. Our work schedules just never mesh, so we hardly ever get to have time together. So on Thursday, I picked her up from work at 2:30, and we headed to Mountain Breeze. Its on the Guadalupe River, and we try to make it there at least once a year. We had hoped to be able to float the river, but the water is not moving- at all. They ended up giving us some tubes so we could at least sit in the water, and we never had to paddle. We stayed in one place the whole time. It was still super fun though.
After the water, we went back to camp to set everything up, and we realized that I had forgotten to bring the tent. I brought the poles, but no tent. Kirsten almost peed in her pants. Luckily I brough a blow-up mattress, so we just blew it up and slept in the open air. And it actually turned out to be quite nice like that. Except that I got bit by something bad, and I have a huge, red welp on my back that won't stop itching.


Here's a picture of the little fire we made. We cooked hot dogs over the fire, and they were so good.

Then we just played some cards. That's pretty much a tradition now. We had a really great time. Hopefully we'll be able to go back again before the summer's over.