home!

July has pulled a disappearing act on me.  But!  What an amazing month.

For the Fourth, Justin and I met up with a bunch of friends over at Paradise Creek (near Vancouver, WA, but way out in the boonies) and camped for five wonderful days.  When my brother, Kevo, and dear friend Julie also joined us, I was very close to having all my favorite people within arms reach at the same time.  There were no fireworks (alas!), but a frightening incident involving bacon grease + Dan, our very own Fire Guy, more than made up for them.

Pictures of the trip are posted in my web album — click on the photos to your right!

The very next weekend, I was already in Port Townsend for the Writer’s Conference.  I want to devote more time to writing about that, so I’m going to wait til tomorrow, when I’ve caught up a little more on my sleep.

In the meantime, I’ll just say that after Justin picked me up from the conference, we met up with Chris and his girlfriend Jess, who is out here from Washington DC.  Our grand adventure?  The Olympic Game Farm in Sequim (an entire city obsessed with all things lavender, we noticed).  I haven’t giggled so much or shrieked so loud in a very long time.  There are certain things that feeding wild animals by hand will cause… most often a quick revert back to the kind of pure joy you haven’t experienced since the age of three.

Yes, that’s drool in the above photo.  It landed in a little pool on the fabric seat.  Luckily we took Chris’ parents’ car.

The buffalo know just where to stand to get fed…

And they are too huge to be ignored.  Even by people in large SUV’s, who often have a tendency to ignore everything.

I’m sure I’ll be subjecting you all to more of these photos in the coming days.  Surreal experience.

One other thought: if the teacher/writer gig doesn’t work out, perhaps I should try my hand at training Kodiak bears.  I’m not kidding.  Carrot in hand, I said (calmly and assertively a la The Dog Whisperer — hey, it could work), “Up!  Up!” and he sat up on his haunches.  When I waved my carrot, he began waving his paws. 

Seriously one of the (largest) cutest things I’ve seen.  I was in love.

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Seriously.  How can you not love this guy?

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These are two people happy to be back together after a long week apart.  More soon!