Hey everyone!

Hi everyone...I'm still alive, even though I've been so bad about blogging lately.

There's lots going on with us. We've spent just about every weekend lately doing fun stuff, whether its boat races, concerts, doing things with our friends, or whatever . . . the last few weekends have been a lot of fun.

Today, I finally finished painting all of the trim on our house. I think I started that project a month ago, but either because of being busy, or the rain we had last week, I wasn't able to finish the painting until today. We painted all of the trim on our house white, because we saw my Uncle Ed's house in central Oregon last summer, which is the same color as ours with white trim. Ours was a dark blueish green and we weren't in love with it. When we saw Uncle Ed's place, we knew white was the right way to go. Thanks to having this project done, we now have two of our three major summer projects around the house finished up. The other is to clean and re-finish the deck. I don't know if we'll get to that or not before the rains hit, but maybe we'll give it a try this week. If there's time. Also today, I finally got a chance to mow my lawn, which badly needed it. I also got some Weed 'n Feed on it, so I'm feeling good about "my" yard again.

Yesterday, we went to Bellevue, Wash., for a boat race, and I was lucky enough to have another good day. 900-plus points, which I badly needed in order to keep my place in the Top-10 standings for drivers and boats this season. It's been my goal all season to finish the year in the Top-10. We have three races left, so barring some unfortunate luck, it looks good that I'll achieve that goal. My goal yesterday was to earn my way into the winner-take-all final heat by scoring enough points to do so throughout the day. I got two second place finishes and a third place finish, and achieved my goal as the fifth-highest scoring driver of the day. The best part about it was that Dawn was there with me, as always, and I got to share my success with her. This year has been by far my best year of boat racing, and it's been a lot more fun because of that.

I'm also working on putting together a race in Woodland. It'll be the Cascade Cup, which is a race where the winner gets to name the place that next year's race is held. I guess it's a little more complicated than that, but that's a pretty simple way to explain it. It's also a race that has a National Championship Sanction from the American Power Boat Association, so that's pretty cool, too. Sponsors have been pretty easy to come by, I think that's because it's a national championship.

Anyway, we're pretty excited about our upcoming trip to Chelan. It's one of our favorite places in the world, and we always have fun. There are a couple of places we always try to hit, including a little hometown pizza place in the town of Manson, and the Mill Bay Casino which is also in Manson. We enjoy playing blackjack up there. Our friend Ron Hartley told us yesterday that he was thinking about bringing his Jet Ski to Chelan with him next weekend, and that he'd let Dawn and I ride it if he did. So that's pretty exciting too. Having ridden one in Lake Havasu earlier this year, I can say how fun those things are.

Work is still going great, and I'm staying busy there, doing the work things I most like to do. All in all -- whether it's at home, at work, or my hobby -- I consider myself a pretty lucky guy.