J and K Adventures: Off to Europe via Seattle, Reykjavik and London

Kathy here: Finally after months of planning we are off on our grand tour of Europe. I could hardly contain my excitement as we boarded the plane for Seattle at 11:30 today (July 13). Before we left, the summer could have hardly been more full of activities and challenges.

We just about finished the house remodel, at least inside. The floors, and kitchen are finished. Moving the fish tank and pool table was challenging but was accomplished without too much angst. The fish survived being kept in a trash can overnight! We just have a little more touch up on paint inside and we can put everything back together again. Currently the garage is filled with boxes that still need to be sorted and the office is still in upheaval. I vowed that nothing would come back into the house without being vetted for need. How did we collect all this junk?

There is still outside work to be done. The painting of the house and outbuildings will be supervised by Max. The garden/exercise room building was found to have carpenter ants and dry rot, so that is being fixed in our absence. It will be nice to come home to a new colored house.

Meanwhile, between visits by workers and remodeling and sorting, we went to Fred's graduation, did some camping at Baker Bay with Fred, Emily and Ru in June. We also did tie dye, went to a picnic that Robert's work put on, saw fireworks and "Asleep at the Wheel" at Island park, took a trip to Portland (and sold $130 worth of books to Powell's) had a wonderful hike at Silver Falls State Park with Ruben, Em and Fred for Ru's birthday and celebrated my birthday with a sunset/moonrise boat ride. Whew! Now I'm ready for a vacation!