Phew! What a weekend!

Wow, this one was a doozy. Spent the third straight weekend messing around in the garden -- ripping out the owners' dead stuff and planting an herb garden, a shade garden, strawberries/cucumbers/pumpkin in one planter, tomatoes in another; weeding the front (as much as I could; I finally gave up, marched into the house and told Drew that we have to hire someone to do some of the clean-up because I simply can't manage it all by myself, this is why we are definitely not gardeners) because we had houseguests this weekend and another couple coming for dinner next Saturday night; ran over to Ingleside to visit Beryle for a bit (knocked on the door of Dan's apartment, but apparently he was at dinner); cleaned the inside of the house; did about five loads of laundry...and insisted on some family time, so Drew, Rachel and I all went to Great Falls Park.

We have an annual pass to Great Falls, and Rachel met a little girl there named Denali (very Portland to name your kids for a park in Alaska), who was getting her junior ranger badge, so Rachel decided SHE wanted to get a badge, and so we got a booklet from one of the employees and off we went. Rachel had to identify things she saw and smelled, as well as her favorite parts of the park, and she had to follow a map to get places. We were going at quite a clip when it started raining very lightly, and she had a playdate at 5, so we piled back into the car and took her to her friend Sidney's house. Then Drew raced out to do grocery shopping while I finished the cleanup for our guests, Peter Letsou (my former boss at Willamette, now dean of the University of Memphis's law school); his wife, Felicity, and 16-year-old son, Ted). They were on their way back from South Carolina to visit Felicity's parents in New York.

We had a great time with them. They used to live here when they were young and Peter was starting his law school teaching career, and they took me by the two houses they lived in near ours before they left for Oregon. We ate dinner at Lebanese Taverna, which was here when they were and they loved the food. We gave them our bedroom and guest room, and Drew and I slept downstairs in the TV room (which, though very cold because of the air conditioning, was actually incredibly comfortable and I got a great night's sleep!). Drew took Rachel to school this morning while I talked at length with Peter and Felicity and gave them some homemade strawberry bread. I sent them on their way 30 minutes ago.

Next weekend will hopefully be a bit calmer than this one, but it's great having people in the house!