Long Weekend in Redmond

Sharon and I spent a long weekend in Redmond with John and Kristie and Avery and Anika. We got to see Kendra too. The purpose was to celebrate birthdays - mine on January 15th , Avery's on the 31st, and Anika's on the 27th. One visit and we take care of three of us. We flew into Redmond at 11:45PM on Friday and left at 5:10AM Tuesday. This gave us three full days with the whole crew.

On Saturday Avery and John were entered in a fly tying contest and Avery was one of the winners! He will go to the semi-final on February 1st. In this contest the tiers (or are they tyers?) are presented with identical bags of fly tying materials and then one mystery object. They can use any of the materials in the bag but they must incorporate something of the mystery material. The mystery material was a toothbrush!

Avery's Winning Fly

Congratulations Avery!

Saturday was also our birthday dinner. Sharon and the kids baked a cake from scratch - chocolate, with vanilla icing and raspberries between the layers. Yum. And one of the high points of my day was sitting on the back porch soaking up sun while drinking a Red Chair from Deschuttes Brewing. Good company, good beer, good sun - warm and sunny and delightful.We entertained ourselves with music - Avery on the trombone, John on the mandolin, and me on the ukulele. Avery and Anika and I all took turns on the kazoo. We learned that no matter what John is singing, he sounds like Bob Dylan though I think he wants to sound like Jerry Garcia. We ended the day with a delightful dinner, singing "Happy Birthday" and sharing cake and cards.

Sunday was another laid back, lazy day. We started with a pancake feast for brunch. We had buckwheat and sweet potato pancakes. Ever had sweet potato pancakes? I haven't had them before but will certainly have them again as they were a real treat. John and Sharon and Anika were our official pancake artists. Kristie took charge of the sausages, and Avery and I took care of being slugs.

After our big brunch we went for a walk in the canyon to work off our calories. Sharon reported our walk was about 2.5 miles. We had a great time enjoying the beautiful weather. John took a tumble on the long board and became the only casualty on our walk. John and Anika had to hustle back home when they remembered that Anika had a Girl Scout meeting to go to!

The Wounded

Monday was another lazy day. Kristie headed off for work at around 7:00 and the rest of us did nothing but snooze, and read, and play games until after 9:00. It was a cold and foggy day so we were not very interested in going outside. As the outside temperature was not going up the inside temp didn't either until we gave in and started a fire around 11:30. After that it was cozy inside.

Sharon and I along with Avery and Anika headed to Bend for lunch with Kendra. We saw as we approached Bend that the freezing fog made the trees quite lovely. And, after lunch, the sun peeked through the layer of fog in Bend. But, as we drove back to Redmond the fog closed in again. We took the kids to Kendra's at 6:00 and then John, Kristie, Sharon and I headed to dinner. I was not a late night because we had to be out of the house at 4:00AM - we packed and went to bed. Thank you John and Kristie for getting up before the crack of dawn to take us to the airport and, thank you for your hospitality all weekend.