Boy Scout Awards Banquet

Here I am at the awards banquet receiving my "Golden Scouter Award."  It is given to one person a year who had given a lot to scouting for at least 20 years.  I am standing beside John McNamara who is one of the local leaders in our district.  He was the scout master of a troop in Pullman for many years.  He looks like a mountain man right out of the history books.  Actually he is a professor at WSU and I quite enjoy working with him.  Can you find the mistake?

We're Home Again (for a while)

We left Moscow, Friday the 17th, after the Boy Scout Awards Banquet and drove to Seattle.  Arrived at Seth and Lacey's at 1:00am Saturday morning.  Grabbed a few hours of sleep and then Mom and Lacey went to the baby shower for three women in the ward (Lacey and two others). 

 After the baby shower we drove to this skate park and skate boarded, climbed, and rode bikes.  Sunday we attended church and then just enjoyed a few days until the Pinewood Derby on Wednesday.

 Weston with his Seahawk colored Lamborghini

 Weston and car at the race

 Lacey, Grandma Z, and Grandma J, (I think that is Weston across the track just in front of Lacey)

 Thursday morning we headed home but made a left turn at Ellensburg, drove over Blewett  Pass and arrived in Leavenworth (we had booked a room a couple of days earlier when we made this last minute decision.  This is what you do when you're retired).  We walked the town, shopped at Mom's favorite Christmas store, ate at our favorite places, golfed, and relaxed.  Friday morning we got up, ate their delicious omelets, listened to the owner play the Alpenhorn, and headed to Wenatchee.  We stopped at Lowes in Wenatchee to buy some sweet potato vine plants (thanks to the Internet) and then headed up the Columbia River.  We drove past Rocky Reach Dam (where we used to visit the museum in the dam and play on the playground equipment), past Entiat (where Grandpa Z, Brant, Erik, and I went to Fathers and Sons Outing while living in Quincy), past Pateros (where there was the largest wild fire in Washington's history last fall).

 This is looking up Lake Chelan (when I was in high school our Honor Society took a boat trip up to Stehekin at the north end of the lake). Then we drove across miles of scab land to Grand Coulee Dam.  I had been wanting to go here again because I am fascinated by the shear magnitude of the construction project and because it created the area where I grew up.

 We were too late to take the bus tour across the dam but enjoyed a film about the history and construction of he dam.

 This was taken from a vantage point a couple of miles down stream.

 This is the beginning of the canal that carries water to the Columbia Basin.  We then drove across miles and miles of wheat country, through small towns I had heard about growing up but never visited, and finally home

 The crab apple tree was in full bloom.  None the worse for wear due to the earlier freeze.

 The flowers were flowering.

 Not bad for the first year of our new Daffodils and Tulips.

We love the Phlox although it is very short-lived.  We're glad to be home.  Love to all, especially Garrett Scott in Denver.