Well I’m really behind with the blog.  So, after Megan came to visit, we had another 2 weeks in the Bellingham area and so we decided to take a salmon dinner cruise on Bellingham Bay on the Schooner Zodiac - a 169 foot boat built in 1924.    It was a fun cruise and a nice way to spend an evening. Unfortunately the wind wasn’t blowing hard enough to fill the sails, so most of the cruise was using the “Iron Jib”, i.e. the Diesel engine.

 After leaving the Bellingham area we headed south to spend a last week in the Seattle area so as to be at Mom’s 96th birthday.     And this also allowed us to have a ‘date night’ to go see Jeff Kashiwa at Jazz Alley.   We’ve enjoyed Jeff’s work and it was a very good concert, he even had some students of his from Shoreline Community College performing with him.  

There was only one wrinkle in our plans - our car decided that since it was an extremely hot day, and we were going down step hills in downtown Seattle in rush hour stop and go traffic, it was the perfect time for the clutch to ‘go out’.   Dave was able to get it into third gear and we limped into a surface parking lot a block away from Jazz Alley.   We had to spend the night at a rather 3rd rate hotel at an exhorbinant price (it was Seafair time in Seattle), and the next morning the car was towed to Carter Subaru in Ballard.  Thankfully, they were able to take the car right in and gave us a loaner car while they replaced the clutch.  Two days and $$$$ later we were able to continue our travels.

The end of the week was Mom’s birthday and it was a good one.  Mom just wanted her sisters to join her for lunch, but that means that we also got some of our cousins because none of the sisters drive anymore.   The three of them in this picture (left to right) are Aunt Nadine (age 90), Aunt Barbara (age 95) and Mom Clarice (age 96).   All have been widowed for many years and all of them are still going strong.  It was quite a gathering of senior citizens, as all of the  cousins are also retired!   And we all hope that we inherited the ‘long life’ genes.  

We have some additional photos at July 2018 Photos