Lisa left on a plane for San Fran this afternoon. We are all missing her – even Maggie the dog. She was always the member of the family that got us organized and out there doing stuff. I think this is why Steph and I love to have her around because there is never a dull moment.

Here she is with her best friend Nathalie at dinner last night. Lisa is in the bandanna. She got her hair cut really short and is not quite comfortable with it yet!

This morning M and M said they needed some American flags to celebrate the Fourth of July. I found some and the celebrating began:

Here they are on the deck later hanging  out with Grandma:

They are leaving for North Carolina on Thursday to go to their Aunt Katie’s wedding. Mia will be the flower girl. I am going to miss them soooo much.

Here are some flowers from my garden. It is always fun to move to a home with an established landscape and have new discoveries every month of new flowers.

I was going to do a rant in honor of the Fourth of July, but will save it for another day. It has been a lovely family time and I didn’t want to spoil it. But truth be told, there is not a lot to celebrate about our country. I think the writers of the Declaration of Independence would be pretty p___ed off with us. More on that another day.

We have had glorious weather and it has been a wonderful, if long, week-end.

Lili (my daughter Lisa of Bird in the Hand) arrived on Friday morning and it has been non-stop coming and going around here. M & M were here for her arrival. In the afternoon, Lili, Mia and I had a girls time together. We went to Alberta Street, a relatively new and up  and coming artsy area on the NE side of town. We spent some money at Bolt, a wonderful fabric store and at Grasshopper, a children’s shop. I also found some great beads for the latest fish quilt at Picasso Beads. We visited a few galleries and bought Mia a delicious strawberry milkshake (we had water). On Friday night we had a family dinner. Lisa managed to fit in a swim session to keep in shape for her upcoming meet in Chicago. M & M spent the night with us and Steph and Jack got a night out and went to a concert.

Saturday AM at Grandma’s:

On Saturday, the girls went garage saling and Milo hung out with the old folks. On Saturday night, Lisa took us out to dinner at Caprials – had a great time and great food. Then she took off to meet up with some of her friends who are also here for the week-end. Ah! Youth!

This morning she and Steph and the kids went to the Goodwill and then off to the pool for some more swimming. She buzzed in this afternoon to change and was off to meet up with her friends for a BBQ and then off to spend the night at Steph’s.

Mr C and I took a 10,000 step walk this morning. I have a book titled: "Portland Hill Walks". We took one that started along the Willamette in Sellwood and wandered through the town to another park along Johnson Creek on the other side of town and then back through town to the river again. Here are some of the things we saw (all photos are clickable for larger view):

Along the river: Portland skyline, floating houses, kyakers

We then walked through the Oaks Park Amusement Park. A place that conjured up memories of an amusement park from my childhood. This is the Oaks Park Dance Pavilion:

We exited the park and  into a wildlife refuge, along a lake and across a field and climbed the bluffs to Sellwood Park. We then walked through Sellwood along shady streets where we saw an American Chestnut Tree (no picture) and an Orthodox Church spire:

At the Johnson Creek Park I was excited to see the Oregon State Flower only the flowers were long gone and the blue berries were evident amongst the Holly like leaves. The flower is yellow and it is called the Oregon Grape. The berries are edible and tart. It seems like a rather mundane state flower considering all the beautiful things that bloom here:

One of the best area we saw was  a little neighborhood area called the Share It Square. There was a funky sitting area, a spot for a hot cup of tea or a candy cane, a children’s play house and an artsy fence around a garden:

And then we came upon this front yard constructed of cairns with a whimsical front porch:

As we returned to the car we saw the Pioneer Church which started life in Milwaukie as an Episcopal church, built in1851. It was brought to it’s current home by barge and is a popular spot for weddings. We saw one ending as the next participants were arriving.

We took Maggie with us and she is quite worn out tonight. I walked a record 15,764 steps today. Mr C and I went out and bought a lot of groceries as we are entertaining the troops again tomorrow, including Lili’s friends.

As I have been writing this post, I have been watching the Prairie Home Companion July 4th special from Tanglewood. Meryl Streep is a guest. I usually listen to the show and it has been a hoot to watch it on our new HDTV. Just thought I would mention that.

I have been beading in between the family madness. The latest fish quilt is wanted in Los Altos to grace a pool house. I’ll try to post some beading photos soon. I’m having fun with it.