Nelson

Tonight, we both worked our butts off.

After we each had long, busy days at our respective jobs.

We're entertaining tomorrow night...our friends Gary and Karen Tortorello are coming over. Gary and Karen are some of our favorite people, and some of those friends who you always say you're going to get together with and do something, but never actually do.

So anyway, Dawn's been cleaning house, prepping food, vacuuming, etc. I've been working in the yard -- mowing, weeding, edging, sweeping, etc. We always like the place to look its best when we entertain, and I think we've gotten it there. Don't get me wrong, we normally keep the place pretty neat anyway, but you know how things go. These are the times when we go the extra mile at our place...you know, raking out the barkdust that had become matted down from the watering, de-hairing the couch (Lucy still sheds something awful), dusting behind TV's...that kind of thing.

We had a great Labor Day Weekend, and we hope you all did as well. We went camping at Battle Ground Lake State Park, which is really a long way from home. All of about 25 miles (tops). It was really a tough go, roughing it like that. We had a few beers, sat around the campfire, came home on Saturday afternoon to do our dishes, take showers and watch the Cougar game with a pizza, then went back to the campsite in time to enjoy treats over the fire and play Uno for awhile. On Sunday, we made a camping nice breakfast again (like we did Saturday), and then came home to take showers and do our dishes. Not long after that, we were back out to the campsite and a lot of our family joined us. My mom, Jim, my sister Nancy, and her kids, as well as Brooke and Luka all came to hang out with us. Brooke and Luka even brought their tent and stayed the night with us out there. We had stew cooked over the campfire and enjoyed each other's company for a few hours. It really was a nice time.

By Monday after breakfast, it was about time to get packed up to head home...where we could take showers and do our dishes again. :)

Hope you're all doing well! Keep in touch!