July 4th in Corbett & Cascade Locks

We have continued our new July 4th tradition with our friends RJ & Kristy. The last few years, we have gone to Kristy's parents' (Dave & Karen) house in Corbett to watch the Corbett Parade. We watch all the floats & vehicles go by and the kids get candy.

Here is Kai & Dave getting a ride with Shelly to the end of the driveway. Miyana also got the ATV limo service.

Here's RJ, Kristy & Carter making the trek on foot... It's not really that far. Only a few hundred feet.

Miyana solicits the antique car drivers for candy.

It was hot that day. Here's everyone trying to stay in the shade & keep hydrated.... well, except Dave.

We were again blessed with great weather, a great parade & great company who provided great food.

This year, we didn't stay for the fireworks in Corbett so we could visit Bryan's family. On to Cascade Locks to visit with part of the Tsubota clan.

Here's my sister, mom & Jackie fixing up the food tables at our shady plot of grass. Lots of good food was brought as usual. We didn't go hungry.
Miyana & Kai kept everyone cool with water bottles & a spray bottle. Phil was good at coaching them until they started turning on him. Later, Matthew even got ahold of it to "help" keep Miyana cool a couple times.
Chris gets a little cooling off.





Kai & Grandpa "Big Truck" struggle over a bottle of water. I think Kai won that battle.
Miyana sprays mom, who tries to flee, but cannot escape fast enough.
While everybody gets ready for the fireworks, grandpa swats at some bugs. Dig my mom's festive hat...

Then, finally, the fireworks display. This year was another good reminder of how God has blessed us with a free country to live in.

Shad Fishing on the Columbia

Here I am with a shad. This picture is on the label I made for the smoked canned shad that I had prepared at Tony's Smokehouse. MMMMM!!!!

I've been selling the cans for about $5 each, but I prefer to eat the fish instead. It goes real good mixed with whipped cream cheese and served on crackers.

There's a few people who eat fish who don't prefer it, but the general consensus has been, if you like fish, you'll LOVE smoked canned shad.

It was a good year this year on the Columbia River. Dana & I went fishing EVERY Friday in June plus a few other odd days. We caught about 45 on the first day alone.

Others that went fishing with us included Robert, Bin, Jacob, Justin, & Michael. Dana also caught a salmon this year. Robert had hooked into a steelhead, but a neighboring fisherman helped to release it for him by hooking his line & yanking on it.... not good. For the most part, we all had a lot of fun hooking into lots of fish.

Rose Festival Dragon Boat Races

2ND WEEKEND IN JUNE 2007
Well, this year, the weather was a bit wet. As a matter of fact, it was REALLY wet and miserable. For the paddling, it's not so bad, but for the spectating, it wasn't so great. Regardless, the Stumptown Paddlers had a fun time this year.

There was great food by a couple members of our team (two different caterers!). We did well enough to get seeded into a fairly high division (Subdivision 3 out of 5... 60 mixed teams total), but then we were ousted in the first round after a VERY fast & close race (2:55.07).

ALL of the times in ALL subdivision heats in the quarterfinals were slower than ours EXCEPT the other 3 boats in our heat (and Kai I'kaika in Subdiv 1). That made us the 5th fastest boat in the quarterfinals! But we still didn't move on to the semis. And actually, only 3 other boats in Subdivision 1 had better times the rest of Sunday! That's pretty darned good for Stumptown!

Planting tomatoes in June

This summer, we were blessed with many tomato plants & a couple of green pepper plants this summer from both our church (NVF) and Betsy's dad (Russ). So, Bryan & the kids planted them. It was quite a fun little project.

To the right, Kai is bringing the shovel over while Deschutes watches.

Everybody is digging holes for all the plants. We also dug an irrigation trench to make it easier to water the plants.

Miyana loves to dig and cannot go ANYWHERE without some sort of shovel in her hand.

Miyana is helping with bringing the plants over.

Finally, all the plants are in the ground and water is sent to them. Kai has eagerly taken on the responsibility to water the garden once a day. The flow of water makes a nice little waterfall on the way down. One time the water had found some mole holes and "escaped" until we figured it out and plugged them up.

In August, we have had lots of tomatoes, but they haven't ripened all at the same time. Usually, if Kai & Miyana are helping to pick, the ripe ones never make it to the front door.

In September, there are lots more green tomatoes that will soon be eaten by hungry little kids. The tomatoes have been delicious.