ALS bucket challenge

Odd to me is that though there are only thousands of people in the entire US affected by ALS, two men live here in our small southern Delaware area.  Therefore, the bucket challenge to bring awareness to this disease, is all around us.  Many challenged and challenging others.  Huge amounts of money raised and ice tossed over the heads of many.  Jim performed it well!

He was challenged by a church friend, and dedicated his icy splash to our property manager here in Westwood just diagnosed this spring.

Palouse food

Oh, my!!!  Small town food is DELISH out west.  Every small deli or restaurant or breakfast spot or diner presented us with food that was very pleasing to the palate, served with a smile.  Mostly, it was just comforting to sit awhile out of the HEAT of the day and talk among ourselves, always about where we had been, what we had seen and photographed, and how we were going to work with our photos.  I listened and absorbed as much as I could.  After all, I was the novice and these were the people I could learn a lot from!

Cherries are Washington's signature fruits.  The chef of this diner where we dined on our last meal together made this excellent cherry pie enfolded in the flakiest crust ever!

Lunch here on the main street of Colfax:  good coffee with  cream cheese, turkey, and cranberry 

on a croissant.  That's Jim's peach smoothie in the picture.

Greasy spoon diner also called TOP NOTCH DINER breakfast of eggs with everything and rye toast.  The chef here kept a large tub of butter next to the grill.  We also ate at another bistro on the main stretch that featured fresh scones and big pieces of yummy quiche.

Also on the main street of Colfax was a Mexican restaurant with good margaritas and a great taco salad.

More great meals were enjoyed at BREAKFAST CLUB in Moscow, Idaho and FIRESIDE GRILL in Pullman, WA.

Summertime

Ahhhhh!  Summer!  Roads in and out of Bethany get busy, super market lines long, and our beach crowded, BUT the weather has been perfect with few very hot days and many just right.  And it has even rained this summer, so we have had to water our vegetable and flower gardens infrequently, and still their output has been great.  This year our neighbors actually took our invitation to help themselves seriously and many have shared in our bounty....even a bunny who got stuck in the garden trying to scurry away from our neighbors who were picking.  Our garden and the local farmers' markets have kept us happy with fresh fruit and veggies.  I have frozen tomatoes and zucchini (one of our garden zucchinis weighed 5#) and put up peach jam with the best peaches ever from Bennett Orchards......all the rest has been eaten!
Besides loving the steady flow of grands and kids through our house and Jenni and Larry's and Will's, we had a great time traveling out west to an area called The Palouse in southeastern Washington State on a photo taking workshop with our leader and seven other people.  Words cannot express the beauty of the place, so our pictures will have to suffice......and believe me, it is hard to post just a few!