At Last!! (From Mom/Jan)

I haven't been able to log in in awhile, hence the silence from here.

The Manger family are sure a good lookin' bunch, and that Noah is the cutest of all. So glad you could all be together for awhile.

We are looking forward to our get together at the beach. We are going low-maintenance on the food this year. Grandma Far Away is bringing her taco soup. I have some cookies left over from the reunion, and Dad has requested some potato salad. I may get that made if he gets the eggs and potatoes cooked, and everything cut up. In other words, I would be able to stir it all together. I'm going to pick up some hamburger & buns there so we can barbecue one night. I think Melanie has decided on picking up a lasagna from Costco.

I talked with Traci today and they are moving into a bigger home October 1st. I'll let her tell you the rest of the news plus details.

Work is very busy this week. Lots of people roaming around wanting to catch up after summer break and lots of meetings. Also, my boss's mother has taken a bad turn, so he took off for California yesterday & doesn't expect to be back for in-service week. That means I get to get up in front of 300+ people to welcome them back to work, facilitate intros at the new teacher lunch, and be responsible for the board goal-setting meeting on Wednesday evening. It doesn't have to be wonderful -- I'll be very happy if I just don't do something totally stupid or embarrassing, like trip and fall down or forget the school board chairman's name, etc. There is an endless list of possible mess ups.

Looks like my school is going to get a "strong" rating this year based on last year's performance. The possibilies range from unsatisfactory to low to satisfactory to strong to exceptional, so its like getting a "B" grade -- I'll take it.

Not much else.

How's the weather in your neck of the woods?

Wonderful birthday and visit with Stephanie's family

Thank-you, Larry, for your happy birthday wishes.. It was definitely the best birthday yet. As I wrote before, Stephanie and her family came for a visit and it was over too soon. Steph was in a wedding of a college friend in Santa Cruz. We visited with cousin Carolyn and her husband at that very unusual home. I will put on pictures of there yard, garden and koi ponds as a separate blog. Hope you get to see their home, someday.

Then we took the kids over to San Francisco, as Nate had not seen the city before. You can imagine how fun this was as Noah is 4 months old and just a delight. Happy from the time he wakes to the time he goes to sleep. And Grandma and Grandpa got lots of good time and babysitting. Michelle couldn't wait for us to get back to Simi Valley so we could all go to Malibu in the RV. She loves being an Auntie and got her own special bonding time with them as Phil and I hosted the over nighter. It was a blast and the Malibu RV site was fantastic.

Steph met with some friends from highschool at one of our parks. Today was even more special as the baby was baptised and also Nate. You can imagine that this was a very wonderful week for this family. So hated to see them go.

Love to all,
Chris

Happy Birthday Chris

Dear Sister,

Hope you enjoyed a wonderful day, Wednesday, August 8th celebrating your ____ birthday. I have been going insane trying to be able to post this greeting since Monday the 6th and today (11th) I figured out how to reset my goggle account and password so that I could post to our SPRAD blog. Anyway................ I hope your husband took you out to dinner, etc. It is the "etc" that is the hardest. I just ask Janice to get something that she wants and forgo mistakes in color, or size, or usefulness, or ........... . Janice, Hazel, and I will be doing the reunion thing again this Sunday. Hope the relatives show up since last year we had a very small turnout. We have reservations to stay Saturday night at the Red Lion Inn in Kelso, but I was not able to swing the deal I did last year thru Priceline.com 50% off "name your own price". The internet site said I was to low and try again in 24 hours. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm , I could just see us with no place to stay for the night prior to the reunion. I worked three days on getting rooms and gave in on the 3rd day and booked at a much higher price than I wanted to.

I have been mowing, weedwhipping and chainsawing at Holley School at my wife's request. Next week I will continue and then pressure wash the entryway and concrete steps. My mower is in the shop again, but when it is fixed I will mow next to the school's fence where the custodian can't access with the district's tractor. She also asked me to chainsaw some more dying trees and remove limbs that get in her way when she is mowing. The burn pile is growing! Well.............. happy birthday again, Chris. Keep on posting!

various stuff

My brother Marty and his wife Janie sent some new gear for the babies. We took this pic for them, and I thought I'd share with you guys.

Other than that, I'm doing work for the port and chamber of commerce for Skamania these days. I will be working on bahma coffee bar's website in the near future.

And I am helping assemble the port of skamania's first official ordinance of conduct for the waterfront property as commissioner. People have been jumping off of the Stevenson Landing pier into dangerously shallow waters, and my particular focus has been on that. we'll start handing out $250 tickets to those that continue to break those rules. I think in my day we did things like that, but now, there is a great invitation for multi-million dollar lawsuits. Helping introduce the CMA concept to the port.

Also, I'd like to put an invitation to the family for a large network game day, as the weather begins to sour. Halo 3 arrives in september, but we have plenty of non xbox 360 options also. We also have a less intense game called bomberman for 4 people at a time, and it's quite fun and simple to play. I'm thinking late september some time, but you guys let me know if/when or if you even want to make it. Pinnochle is always an option as well, and for some of the day, we could keep the louder network Halo games exclusive to the upstairs and weight room location, while people can visit, play cards, and do other lower key things.