Summer's Gone

I have been in summer mode since school ended the first week of July. I changed tracks (start day, vacation times, etc) this year and I start up teaching in 4th grade on Monday, August 15. Because I had to change to the fourth grade hallway, I spent a lot of time at school trying to arrange things and get things in order. I would usually go in in the morning about 10 am and come home about 2pm. I really didn't get as much done as I wanted.

We took a little trip to Round Valley for a half day. Joe and family moved to the Lakeside area to work in the Whiteriver Hospital radiology department. We helped them move and clean up the rental place they are in. I generally watched the kids while Alisa worked. They had a nice porch deck in front of their rental. I gated the ends and Meghan was able to walk around and enjoy walking around everyday. He is considered to be a Government employee, and they were moving their things, but they took some things so they could live in the house --camp-out style. Hopefully their things will arrive this week.

On our way, while pulling out RV trailer with some of their things in it, the truck began to make noise and we had to check into it. We didn't want to travel back home and get stuck on the Indian Reservation without a way to get it fixed. So we ended up staying there the whole week. We had planned to stay for four days, but ended up staying 9 days. Joe went right to work, so Alisa had the chore of getting things liveable. We did get the truck fixed but had to wait for parts which extended the stay.

Greer was looking good. They had a lot of rain since the fire and you couldn't see a lot of the burn because it had greened up nicely. Nothing really happened from the bridge to Big Ten on West side of the river. Across the valley though, you could tell where the fire came over the mountain and see where some of the houses were lost. Most of the big damage happend across the river from Grandma's old cabins. It was interesting how the cabins that burned were so spotted. One burned and right next to it one was standing. East Fork (where dad and Smitty would go fishing) was hit the hardest.

We went to Eagar first to see the Post Office people, then to Shelley and LaVerls and Edna and Darvall Nelson. Edna had had knee surgery so she was on the men. We happened to see Linda Lund who lives by Edna and Darvall as well. We wanted to get over to Wayne and Justines, but we needed to get to Greer also. So we headed up and spent about and 1 1/2 to two hours there. We had some nice visits. Mary Jo, Ann, and Ruth have decided to sell Grandma's house. They are not going to be going to Greer much anymore and no one in the family really wants to buy it. So when Jody goes home this summer, I guess it is going up for sale. It is sad, but most of us are getting too old to get there and keep it up or it is just too hard to travel that way any more.

They have had to work on the house this summer because of the stability of the roof and some other things. It looks really nice the way it was fixed. At least we have our memories of things. It saddens me that only Susan and I will have "Wiltbank" property and we hardly know anyone up there anymore.

We are still trying to sell our land. But I am not going to give it away, so we have to wait until the economy gets better. It is ok for now, but if taxes go up too much then we will have to reconsidered that as well.