Portland and Paisley

A month or so ago we got a HS graduation announcement from Tess O'Leary.  Can you imagine?  She was just a baby when we left Paisley and here she is graduating.  Well, Dan thought it about time to attend a graduation there so we flew into Portland on June 6.

 

 I was just getting in SL from our Sister's Retreat in LV and had stayed the night in Provo with Gracie. 

 

Dan had taken the 2:20 AM shuttle from home to SL and we met there at the airport. Our flights were good and Tessha picked us up at the airport in Portland. We came a couple of days early so we could spend some time with her and Patrick.
She and I went for walks everyday and I realized how much I had missed her company. We get along so well and can possible walk and talk forever. But, sometimes the men like to eat, too so we went to lunch at a favorite of Dan's and Tessha's.

 

Gustah's is a wonderful little German resturant close by the Washington Square Mall. I guess Tessha and Dan have eaten there before but this was my first time and I think Patrick's as well.
We had an amazing, quiet, enjoyable lunch together before Patrick needed to get back to work.

 

Tessha and I did some Father's Day shopping and later that evening presented Dan with some new clothes for his fun return to Paisley.

On Saturday morning Tessha fixed us a breakfast of "hole in ones" before she loaned us her car to drive to Paisley. 

 Dan and I headed out about 9:00 since the graduation was at 4:00 and it was a good 5 hour drive. We made good time and even got to stop at Bob and Diane Elders for a few minutes.
I didn't get a picture but we sure had a good visit. They're both doing well and we got caught up on lots of the goings on. We've sure missed everyone in Paisley and Lakeview and it was nice to hear how well everyone was doing.

When we got to Paisley we went by some of our favorite spots and stopped at the swimming hole up the canyon. 

 

Dan had me take pictures of the inside of the gym for "old times sake".

I'm sure several of our kids will remember these.

We had such a great visit with everyone before the graduation began. 

It was almost like being "home" again.

 

Tess was the Valvictorian and gave a great speech.

 

Here's a picture of Dan in front of the ball field.

and the school. 

 

Somewhere there is a picture of him similar to this only about 23 years earlier.

 

After the graduation we went to the O'Leary ranch and had a wonderful BBQ with everyone.  And then we headed on down to Lakeview.  Elders had told us the the Voelkels were still in town so we stopped by to see them, too.

They had put in their mission papers and received a call to Brazil but the visas hadn't come through yet and they were still had home.  We had such a great visit with them both.  Aren't we glad that friends are forever, too.

 

It was late when we left them so we went straight to our room in the King's motel in Lakeview.  Bob and Barbara were out of town but arrived home around 11:00.  Barbara called our room and we talked for a few minutes but didn't get to see them since we were leaving around 5:30 the next morning.

 

It had been a very full, fun-filled day and we were both rather tired when we finally got to bed.

 

The drive back to Portland was beautiful.  We had driven down through the Willamette Pass down pass Eugene so we decided to drive back through the Santiam Pass up Bend and into Salem.  Both drives were amazingly beautiful this time of year and we enjoyed every minute of the trip.

We arrived back in Portland just in time for Patrick and Tessha to take us to the airport. We caught our flights and were headed back to SL before we knew it.  It was a long night's drive back to Idaho but we did it and look back on a great visit to Portland and Paisley.

Thanks Tessha and Patrick for all your help!!

As a side note: Dan and I had talked about whether to go to Tess's graduation or Megan's wedding which was to be later in the summer.  I'm glad we went when we did because now Dan has been in the hospital for 2 weeks and they're thinking he'll probably be there another week at least.  If we hadn't of gone then we might have not made it later.

Good thinking, Dan.