So we went to the beach with two of our kids and their families. (missed you Dennis, Abby and Gabe!)  We stayed in a rented beach house.  Now this was not just an ordinary beach house, this house was new and gorgeous and full of all kinds of niceties.  It had two bedrooms and two more hide-a-beds.  It was  really really nicely decorated and had a beautiful view of the bay.  Sometimes the view was better than others, depending on if the tide was in or out.  We took turns cooking dinner and had plenty of time to relax with each other on the deck, along with time on the beach, visiting the Tillamook Cheese Factory and we saw the Weinermobile.    

I found out that I could get along fine without my good camera.  I pulled out my old camera and used it.  I knew I could not go without some sort of camera.  It only takes 40 pictures at a time...with my other camera, I have unlimited practically, so I roughed it with the old dinosaur and actually discovered that I CAN get by with fewer photos than I normally take.  That does not mean that I was not rejoicing when I received the news the next week that my camera was repaired and ready to be picked up.  I think I will super glue it to my hand to keep from dropping it this time.

Here are a few more shots of our fun weekend.

HELLO!!!

Yes, I know, once again it has been a month since I posted last. Somehow I just keep getting busier and busier. No complaint, I love all I do, so that is why I can't cut anything out. Below are photos of some of what has kept me busy the past few weeks. Yesterday, I dropped my camera!!! I could not believe it as it crashed to the floor. I ended up taking it in to the camera shop for repair. It felt like I was taking Dennis (he was our accident prone kid) into emergency when he was a kid. urgent. It will be a week to get an estimate and then 2-3 weeks to fix it! We are headed to Argentina in October, so I have been meaning to take it in to have the sensor cleaned. The sensor has been spotting the photos when I take anything with blue sky in it. But I just kept putting off taking it in. There is never a good time for me to be without my camera. I NEED it ALL the time! So now I have been forced to part with it for a while. Sometimes that is how things have to be to get us to get done what needs done.

I made it my goal to learn how to take a good moon shot before the summer was over. I am pretty proud to say that I think I have it figured out. I have a pretty great vantage point to see the moon in all it's phases....and have been able to practice. Next goal...star trails. Long exposures that show the movement of the stars.

Josiah is growing up so fast! Having him here with us has been so much fun! I can not believe how many little things I am able to see as he moves into each phase of growing up. I am constantly amazed at all the things I missed or took for granted as my own kids were growing up. It is such a pleasure to be a Grandma and be able to sit back and watch it happen day by day.

CANBY FAIR!!! It has been a few years since I have been to the county fair. When I was a girl, I used to go every year. I was in 4-H, I did knitting, sewing and cooking. My Mom was my 4-H leader. So was Bonnie's Mom. They lead it together. I remember that all the clubs in the county had to make the same thing for our fair project. Muffins. Our family ate a LOT of muffins...I had to perfect them for the fair. I still have all of my ribbons from my muffins, along with ribbons for my sewing and knitting. I even still have the slippers I made and the apron. Not the muffins, though. A couple of times my project was even selected to go to the State Fair in Salem. It sure brought back memories to see all those plates of muffins.

Josiah is a BIG fan of the fair...where else can you see so many animals in real life? Along with seeing them, you get to hear what they REALLY sound like, not a canned version from one of his toys or one of us adults with our crazy imitation.

I love roosters! One of these days, I am going to get me one! Along with a few hens. Really. gotta do it!

Pigs...well, I don't love them, or even want one...but had to take a few photos anyway. Do you see the smile on this pig in the pen? don't know why I wanted a photo of this other pig's nose.

This Llama was happy to see us!

Joshua got a water dragon. He named him Greedo. He had to work hard to earn the money to buy him, along with do extra chores around the house, memorize some Bible verses and all kinds of extra things to show he was ready to take on a pet like this one. Good work Joshua! I went down last week to meet Greedo. Joshua fed him a meal worm while I was there so I got to see him do his trick. Then, because I had been raving about the flower fields in Silverton, I loaded them in the car and we took a drive. Emily loves to take photos almost as much as I do. We stopped off for lunch and I took a group shot with my new wide angle lens...pretty fancy huh?

Two weekends in a row, I have been invited to a wedding. One at my Spanish church, Seferina and Eduardo. Below them is my pastor and his wife. Then the next weekend was a wedding for one of the sons of one of my PTA friends. These are the friends I have had since our kids were in grade school. We used to get together all the time as the kids were growing up, we even took a few trips together. It is always so fun for us to meet up, wish we weren't all so busy!

Bonnie and I have been out shooting. We heard about some fields in Silverton. The Silverton Seed Company. Wow! Was it ever worth the drive out there. Unbelievable. We were shooting and shooting and finally had to just say ENOUGH!! We also went on a night shoot in downtown Portland of 3 fountains with a Flickr group that meets regularly. By the time our group made it to the last fountain, it was shut off for the night, so one of the guys in our group entertained us with a light on a cord that he swung around...it was a new experience for me to shoot something like that. (it is the green ball in the bottom left photo) You can't even see the guy, only the green ball he made as he slowly turned while we shot.

The last of July was the 1st McCool family reunion. I met family that I didn't even know I had...well, OK, I have heard names, but had never met them. Can you believe they only live a few hours away? Weird how that happens, huh? Anyway, it was good to meet the ones I had never seen before and especially good to see my aunts, uncles and cousins that I really knew and grew up with. The top photo is of the McCool kids from my grandparents. My Dad is the guy without the hat, he is the oldest, then comes my Uncle Mick, who is next to him and on the other side is my Aunt Marg and on the end in the hat is my Uncle Dan, he is the baby of the family. Fun times!

It has been a busy summer...fruit and flowers have kept me busy!

While Emily was off to church camp, Joshua was due to run in the Regional Track meet in Spokane, but while they were gone, Emily needed picked up from church camp and got to spend a couple of days with us while Joshua ran. He did a great job! He broke his own best time and even qualified to go to Nationals! While Emily was with us, we went to Sandy Mountain Days. Emily had a riot on the rides, but as you can see in the photo, Josiah didn't quite make the measurement to ride them with her.

Oregon is full of so much beauty!
It has gotten such a bad rap because of all the rain, especially this year, but even with the rain, and most likely, because of the rain, it has some of the most beautiful sights that I have seen, including the places I have traveled to outside the state and country. A while back I told myself that I need to start going to the places that are right here at my own doorstep. I need to take more pictures of where I live. Not that I plan on giving up traveling away from here, I'm just gong to make sure and use my 'Oregon time' more wisely.

Bonnie and I went on two hikes in the last two weeks, both less than an hour from my place. The top photos are of

our hike to Mirror Lake on Mt. Hood.

This is Little Zigzag Falls.

This was on the way up to Little Zigzag Falls.

It was so amazing to see the places that I have only seen in photos. Now I have MY OWN photos of these places.

This was the end of the trail for us.

I bet you didn't know the had gators in our lakes!!! : )

Mt. Hood was not the only thing Mirror Lake mirrors. It was so beautiful from all directions.

These flowers were growing in ROCKS!

Why did it take me so long to see these places for myself!???!!!

I KNEW it was going to be fantastic to have all the kids home, but I didn’t know how fantastic it was all going to be. We didn’t do anything really, mostly just stayed here at our house and enjoyed our time together. It is such an indescribable thing to see your children as adults, with their families all together talking and laughing and having fun. I didn't once have to tell the boys to leave their sister alone, everybody ate what was on their plate and they all went to bed on their own. After all the years of raising them, it is unbelievable to see them now raising their own families.
One of the things that was really fun for me, was a couple of weeks ago, I asked each couple to take one of the nights and cook dinner for everyone. I love to cook, especially for my kids, but they are always telling me to sit down and be with them, but HOW can I do that when everyone is going to need to eat? Plus, they are all good cooks and I thought it would be fun for them to have a chance to cook something they like to make for everyone. That was such a HUGE success that I plan on repeating every time we get together. Dennis and Abby were the first to cook. They made a Greek recipe called ‘Chicken Souvlaki’ with ‘Tzatziki sauce’ and Pita bread with a Greek Salad. Jessi and Ariel roasted 3 whole chickens over an open fire with two kinds of rice and fried plantains and yucca, all Dominican dishes. John and Rachel barbequed steak and also barbequed romaine…I have never heard of barbequing romaine, but it was really really good. On the 4^th of July, I made ribs. My parents and John’s parents and my sisters came over too. We ended the night with some really awesome fireworks. My pictures of the fireworks didn’t turn out as good as I hoped, mostly because I was not sure WHERE they were going to be in the sky, by the time I figured it out, it was too late to shoot.

It has been so much fun spending time with Gabriel. I was not sure how it would be to have a grandchild so far away from me, but now I know that even though we don't get to spend time together all the time, like if he lived close-by, the time we do get to spend together is really special. He was a little shy at first, but in just a little while, he was back where we left off at our last visit. I've had a few times so far to spend one on one with him while Dennis and Abby work and the night they went out to celebrate their 11th anniversary. He has changed quite a bit from the first meeting with him, just after arriving from Korea, then he was pretty reserved but now he is just as outgoing as any other kid, running, laughing, eating all kinds of things he had never eaten before, swimming and learning about life. We will all drive up to Oregon on Wed. and the next fun begins....meeting the family he still has not met, aunts, uncles, cousins, older and younger than he is, great aunts, and uncles, and even more family. To add to that, Ariel will be meeting Dennis and Abby for the first time. This is going to be a 4th of July we won't forget.

Soooo...since returning from Alabama, life didn't really get back to normal. I came home sick, at first I thought it was just from being tired, but after the second day of headache and fever and wanting to sleep nonstop along with a zillion other symptoms, I knew it was more than that. After 10 days everyone convinced me that I needed to see the doctor. He tested me for West Nile Virus. I was just a hair below the level needed to be diagnosed with it, but he treated me for it anyway. Three weeks later, I was feeling pretty much normal again. I was able to go out and buy my flowers for the yard. I took my good friend Irene with me. We found this gorgeous plant and she was determined to buy for me. It looks perfect on my porch. After getting the yard in order for the summer, I began getting ready to go to visit Dennis and Abby and Gabe, and prepare for them returning back with me, cooking all of the food I could that could be stored in the freezer until everyone got there. All the while Jessi was trying to get herself, Ariel and Josiah prepared for her to go back to work nursing. Her first day back to work, she came home and collapsed with pain. We took her to the ER and they said she had a kidney stone. Two days later, we were back to the ER and they did surgery on her. She is all well now. I managed to finish everything on my list before I flew out, including go out to dinner for my 37th Anniversary. I don't see how it could be 37 years...I feel like that is more like my age, not the amount of years married.

the untaken photo

I took 800 photos in Alabama...not all of the tornado, as unreal as the tornado devastation was, there are so many things to take photos of, I could not stop there. At the time when I was taking them, they all seemed so important...I could not take it all in and I thought maybe I could really capture it as I was seeing it. Impossible! There is no way to get the peripheral, the smells, the sounds...all of it together makes those pictures so disappointing when trying to bring it home to share the moment with others.

There was one photo that I didn't take...why is it that the one I didn't take is the one that I think about the most, the one that keeps showing up over and over in my mind since I returned and tried to get life back to normal again.

It was my first day in the field doing casework. I divided my team up to canvas an area completely wiped out, since you could see across the whole area emptied homes and trees, safety was not a problem, so I sent each of us in a different direction to post fliers. As I came to an area that once held a large trailer park, whatever had been left by the tornado had been scooped into piles along the road. There halfway down what used to be the roadway, was a family. I made my way to them. They didn't see me walking up. Their backs were to me as they stood examining what used to be their home. I paused for a moment, so tempted to snap a photo, this was such an intimate moment, so touching, so much a part of why I became a volunteer. To be able to be there to comfort, to do what little I am able to ease some of the hurt that has happened to them. I did not take my camera out, no, that is not why I was there, I was there to help them, not bring home a trophy photo. The mother noticed me finally and turned around. I asked her the usual opening questions and began opening a case for them. I didn't even get past the first few questions before the Mom and I were both in tears. It was such a sad case...I could not help but put myself in that woman's place. There were so many similarities. She and I are the same age. She had her daughter and son-in-law and grandkids living with her. When the storm hit, they took cover in the bath tub as so many other families had done. They had a mattress over them. When it was over, the 5 week old baby boy was injured. He died 3 days later from head trauma. As I tried to put the story down on our form, she handed me a little paper from his funeral. His tiny little eyes looked up at me from the photo, I could hardly make out the details because my eyes were so watered up. He had been buried just the day before. I stopped all the paperwork, dropped my pen and just hugged the crying grandmother. She assured me that they would be OK, that they knew God was in charge of their lives and He would help them put their lives back together again. Eventually, I managed to finish up the casework, gave her the Red Cross supplies and she walked back to her family that was still sorting through the pile. That is when I noticed the bathtub that had held them through the storm. It had a huge X in orange in it, showing that the rescue searchers had been there. I wondered how in the world 3 adults and 2 babies even fit in it...maybe that is part what saved them. The son-in-law pulled out a stuffed animal, he held hit up, looked over at the rest of them and tossed it back into the heap. The Mom had her arm around her daughter, the daughter had her surviving child on her hip and the son-in law reached over and took ahold of his Mother-in-laws' hand. Then they all turned and got into their car and left. I didn't see them put anything into the car. I can't help but think of this family each day. Their silhouetted backs against the devastation. A picture forever in my mind, love, sadness, a family bonded, hope and faith.

The stories are unending...all such great loss. Fear, pain, mourning, some questioning WHY they were still alive when others died, why the home in the middle was fine, but the rest gone. One older man said "Sure I was scared...I'm not afraid of going to Heaven, it is just the getting there that scares me"

Sunday...Mother's Day...this year it seemed even more meaningful as I saw so many families hurting, thought of the mother's who lost children and children who lost mothers. It makes me realize even more than I already knew how blessed I am! Each of them called to tell me Happy Mother's Day and to top it off...my most wonderful kids had flowers delivered to my hotel!!! Now how special is that!!!!

I was sent to Tuscaloosa to start client casework. My first day there, I had the morning free, it was Sunday and normally Red Cross has us take the morning off so that those who go to church can do so. I asked at the front desk of my hotel for directions to one and set out to find it. On the way, I came to one of the areas that was severely hit by the tornado. It cleared out everything! It didn't matter if it was a home, business, fancy or poor home, it tore down trees .

and light poles and churches. Clothes still hung in closets, books on shelves, roofs off and windows blown. That is in the homes that were still standing, other areas had NOTHING LEFT! It was clear from one side of the neighborhood to the other.

As I was driving through one area, there in front of me, in the middle of it all, was a church. It was not the church I was headed for, but I decided THIS was the place I was going to attend that morning. I was so happy that I had. It was the first service that they had held since the tornado. It had been hit as well, the whole recreation hall and office wing was totalled, one side had all the stained glass broken out and boarded up, you can see in the photo how the it looked before the storm by how the other side looked. The photo with the pillars is the front of the church. It was an awesome service. Beforehand, I could hear small conversations whispered between the people, "How are you?", the answer (add in a southern accent as you read these) "Tired, everybody's tired". "Did you see Shelby's place? I don't see how in the world she ever survived!" "Elvin didn't make it" "I hunkered down in the tub" "I know God was with me, but I was still scared!"...I just sat there absorbing it all. There were hugs and tears and smiles and hugs. There was a hushed atmosphere. One of the songs they sang was so meaningful, I have sung it before, but I will never hear it again and not think of that day and that service.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Your perfect love is casting out fear
And even when I'm caught in the middle of the storms of this life
I won't turn back
I know you are near

And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?

Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
We'll live to know You here on the earth
Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

Yes, I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You

by Matt Redman

I never really thought about what would happen to a cemetery in a tornado. I found out yesterday as I rode through with my team to meet clients outside the city. This little cemetery used to be fenced...but there was no sign of it except the gate and a few sticks. The marble headstones were in pieces. Some of the headstones were ancient. I hope that the families of these people are around and can help put this graveyard back together again.

Here are a few shots of the damage I have seen so far. This shot really made me smile...something much needed around here...I spent most of the first week in a rural area, not many homes, but the ones hit were a mess. There was one life lost. It just amazes me how a tornado can totally destruct a metal building and leave flowers blooming...bent metal around a tree, but leave the tree standing, take a roof off but leave up the walls, take off a wall, but leave the photos hanging on the other walls. It will take one home and the neighbor's home is not touched. I saw one neighborhood wiped out but ONE home was left. I stopped and talked to the man sitting out front of that house and asked him what he thought about that, he said, "God just didn't want me to go yet"...he had waited out the tornado inside holding onto his aging mother. From the front, this place didn't look too bad, except for a tree on one side of the roof. But looking closer, you can see how the pressure cracked the bricks and popped up the roof. From what they tell me, the whole house gets squeezed.

This empty pad is where a mobile home used to be. It was lifted up and tossed across the street. The man inside was 98. He was a leader in his community and the funeral was HUGE!