Summer has arrived!

Summer officially arrived on Saturday, June 21st which is also the annual Woodland Planter's Day celebration (and Ellie's birthday too). The weather started out a little threatening but turned warm as the day progressed. We invited friends and family to join us to watch the parade which goes right by in front of our house. We typically start out with breakfast and then serve lunch after the parade. Something we started last year was airplane rides for those interested from the local Woodland airport. This year we made three trips with eight people getting rides around the area.

Ellie with her birthday cake and before her birthday plane ride.

This was Caroline's last weekend in the US before heading back home to Germany. We have enjoyed having her living with us but all good things must come to an end. She had not been out to the beach (except for a quick flight over the beach one afternoon back in the spring). So on Sunday we took her down so she could put her feet in the Pacific Ocean. We also took her to see Jake the Alligator Man at Marsh's Museum and checked out some of the stores in downtown Long Beach. The weather was beautiful and we had a good time on our last outing with Caroline.

On Tuesday we took her to the Portland Airport and shipped her back to her parents. We will miss her but plan to visit Europe in the summer of 2010 so we will see her again then. You can checkout her blog for her story on the trip home.