Checking In

When I woke up early I wasn't happy about it until I remembered that Jill and Irene were probably back down off that mountain and could be sending me a message! 

I grabbed my phone, docked on my bedside table, and YES!, there were these photos,

The first one is on the summit of Kilimanjaro, which they reached July 18th, and the second one is the same day 9000 ft lower, at base camp. 

Jill reports that they had a great time and that Irene was a "rock star". Now they are hopefully sleeping, having been driven some miles through scenery that is "very African", reached their hotel, and had a much needed shower. Next they set off on their safari. 

Jill has posted lots of photos on Facebook and I have spent a good chunk of my morning looking over them again and again, and enjoying the comments left by friends and family.

Jake also checked in this morning with a brief text reporting that he is in Kettle Falls, WA, having spent yesterday hiking up the Kettle Crest Trail, and "having fun".

These are all good things for a mother to hear. 

I completed another trip around the sun on Monday and had a quiet birthday. I missed my kids. I did the laundry but refused to do any housework, so Tom did what got done. We went to Red Robin for dinner so I could claim my free birthday burger, and then we stopped at a nearby Starbucks to get my free coffee drink. The nice young man at the counter gave us both drinks free, mine and Tom's, and two little Vanilla scones too. We enjoyed our "mocha frap iced coffee with whip and caramel drizzle", dessert in a cup, back home on the patio before going for our evening walk in the park. 

Yesterday I spent a lot of time peeling crumby little apples from our early apple tree so I could make the best apple pie there is, with early green transparent apples. Our espaliered apple trees are struggling to produce now that they are so shaded by large trees, but the pie? Delicious!

While I was baking, the crew we hired to prune the holly hedge finally was able to fit us in after several failed attempts, and we are very pleaded with the results.

The top of the hedge has never been so straight! This kind of work is expensive, but so worth it not to have to do it ourselves. 

I have declared that I need another dinner out today so I have invited grandson Isaac to join us if he can. We'll see. He has a girlfriend that seems to be getting most of his attention. He's the one "kid" that still needs to check in.