John, who keeps questioning how strong I say he is, broke a hammer this morning.  The head of the hammer.  The all metal head.  He did it by hammering butter.  He Uses it to hammer a food safe wedge into a 50lb block of Cocoa Butter in order to break off pieces and get the proper weight to send to customers.

I just needed to share that.

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I took pictures of Logan’s 4th of July dress. She wore it again yesterday, and then hid behind me when we got to the place she’d wanted to show it off. It will get well appreciated over the next few months, I know because she’ll save it for days she feels the need for stars and fireworks again. She wears Christmas sparkles and easter bunnies and wolves (kids at school like the wolves a lot she said one day), on any day she finds them right.

I cropped one of the pictures closer up so you can see Logan’s hands better. We heard a couple weeks ago that John’s sister Philomena has lung cancer. She’s starting chemo tomorrow, and they think it will get the cancer, but because it’s also in her lymph system, there’s a 3/4 chance it will come back. (I think that’s the reasoning. I get this second hand from John, mostly.) I got white cancer bracelets for us to keep Aunty Phil in mind. They are too small for John’s wrist, as usual. he’s never been able to wear them for me either. You can see Logan has on a white bracelet and on her collar a white ribbon with an angel holding it, which matches one we sent to Aunty Phil.

Yesterday I got two more pictures. We took a couple pictures of a quilt we made for a friend who had a baby a couple days before school ended. Logan came outside just as we finished, dressed completely in clothing that is either mostly outgrown or that she’s refused to wear for the last several months because it’s uncomfortable. I just got her new boots because she found the plastic rain boots so uncomfortable at school and wore her good shoes out in the rain all spring. She didn’t wear these long yesterday, so maybe they weren’t as bad. And there wasn’t a bit of rain. It’s been dry for days and days.

John I got before he knew I was taking his picture, so he’s actually smiling. It was an accident, if he’d realized the camera was pointed at him he’d have scowled.

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People keep asking if I’m enjoying my break now that it’s summer time. What break? I’m busy as hell? Today has been a quieter day, the first one this week, partly because so many things are closed because of the holiday. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Logan and I were in Eugene for very long days. Yesterday Carolyn and for girls came out and played all afternoon, which was great fun without having to drive anywhere. Today we’ll go see the fireworks in Yoncalla again.

Logan has a very pretty Fourth of July dress that Grandma Wilma made her which she’ll wear out to eat tonight and to see the fireworks. We’ll take some pictures so I can post those at some point.

In other news we got a letter in the mail yesterday saying that Michael Wilt had resigned from his teaching position at school, and the school had hoped he would be able to stay but had not been able to work things out with him and his partner. On the back was a photo copy of a handwritten letter from him, to parents rather than children, saying he was leaving with mixed feelings but felt he could find the best for his daughter and his family elsewhere. I am surprised mainly that he chose to leave after the time when teachers gave their commitments to stay or go for the upcoming year, as I understand it. I had not seen a lot that led me to believe he wanted to stay toward the end of the year, and I knew his family was not happy with their daughter in school. I am hoping that a good choice will be made for the teacher for next year, with the children of the class in mind. The College of Teachers wrote a very nice letter saying they would keep parents informed and to contact them with ideas or concerns. I may do that after some reflection, to inquire about the writing of the advertisement for the teacher. I looked up others they wrote for teachers this year and was discouraged to find they read like a commercial for Eugene Oregon, with a very slight mention of the class.

Logan seems to be handling the departure of her teacher fairly well. Her only complaint has been that he didn’t announce he was leaving before the end of the year so that he could go on stage and get flowers the way other teachers who wouldn’t be returning did. Which seems like a fair summation. She would have liked to see her teacher honored before he left. She was concerned about whether she’d meet a new teacher before school started, and I assured her she would as soon as possible. Perhaps we’ll get a teacher who is already familiar with Social Inclusion, which I’d like to see brought to the school to help handle the bullying and exclusion which seems to occur so often with grade school children. The more teachers who are familiar with it ahead of time the better.

Logan is continuing her swimming lessons over the summer, and seeing some friends regularly at a weekly play group. We also see others who have swimming at a time near ours, and last week someone from her class arranged for a group strawberry picking to happen, so we saw about half the class there. It’s hard to know what to call them. They’ve been Grade One, now they are Grade Two. They were Mr Wilt’s class, now they are in limbo not knowing whose class they’ll be. EWS Class of 2015 I guess. That makes Maisie’s 2016 and Sandy’s 2017. And Carolyn’s Lilly and Matilda the two down the other direction 2014 and 2013 respectively. Phew!

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At long last I’m posting the pictures from the last day of school. We’re already well on the way to memorizing the Birthday Verse, as we read it before bed each night. Logan’s working at reading in chorus with me.

I think the close up is big enough so you can read the birthday verse if you click on the picture. I’m not quite sure of the reason it’s written with the words dropped off at the right, but haven’t gotten back ahold of Mr. Wilt to ask him. Once I feel caught up from the past week or two I’ll try to call him. So far I haven’t tried.

This is the view to the right and the left of the door in to the class room. The front of the room would be a full 90 degree turn to the right from the first picture. The second shows part of the back of the room where the sink is and mugs all hung (most were gone when I took the pictures). Those are some of the kids paintings still up, We’ll see those come home at the beginning of next year, or used on next year’s lesson books.

Logan spread out her paintings and lesson books on her desk for the picture. Some work is visible if you enlarge them. The knit items are two cats she made during handwork this year, Kitty Longtail and the kitten, Cute Chub. She also made a needle book in stockinette stitch which she’ll get back at the beginning of next school year. It has knit covers and felt pages sewn in to hold sewing needles. At the end of the year she was working on a Golden Chicken, which she’ll finish at the beginning of next year. The green case holds her flute.

If you want to see something closer up let me know and I’ll resize a picture or take another one happily.

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It’s Monday, we’ll be heading home from Portland as soon as Logan’s out of the hotel pool and back into dry clothing. The zoo was there but not as exciting as last year. We’ll have to find something different to do next year if the Coffee Gathering is in Vancouver WA again. We got to ride in the hotel’s Hummer to get to and from Portland’s electric train system to get to the zoo, and that was exciting. Not having the car when we got back to the hotel didn’t work out so well, we’d planned for John to pick us up so Logan and I could go to the evening part of the Gathering. Logan felt bad at that point and we probably both needed to eat, so we opted not to go and made the mistake of just waiting for John to get back to eat. Another time perhaps I’ll plan ahead enough to have snacks in the hotel room to be able to raise my blood sugar enough to think clearly.

Sunday we tried to eat Ethiopian food and found the restaurant closed. We ended up at a Sushi place which wasn’t bad but wasn’t really thrilling, especially after the amazingly good one we’d eaten at on Friday. The good one was Oishi Japanese Restaurant, with both Sushi and hot foods. They were out of Logan’s favorite Quail Egg, but had many other things that were very good, and were just a couple blocks from the Heathman Lodge to boot.

We missed going to the Portland Saturday Market, which hadn’t really been in our plans, but will be another time, and going to the Green Dragon Pub in Portland, partly because the person John had hoped to go with ended up with other plans, and we forgot about it as an option to eat at Sunday night. We tried to call on Friday to find out if there were hours that children were allowed, and got a voice mail simply giving their hours, with no choice to get a human or leave a message, which was frustrating. At some point we’ll have to get up here again when we can get more information. Portland is doable as a day trip, but we don’t try that often because it’s a long one, especially when Logan wants to know if we’re there yet ten minutes out of Eugene. (Portland is about three hours from home!)

Logan has a swimming lesson this afternoon and then we’ll get home and have a day off for me and her tomorrow and a regular work day tomorrow. John and Logan are now back from the pool, so it’s time for me to stop typing.

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