An unexpectedly extended stay....

(Today's blogger: Vicky) So, on Wed. May 19th, we pull up to Fr. Stephen and Mona Soot's home in Albany, OR. Elena had requested to visit them because she had made friends with two of their girls last summer at Camp St. Nick's. We originally had planned to stay with them for two nights before continuing north. As we first got there, one of the first things Mona said was that we were welcome to stay as long as we wanted. In fact, she says, "why don't you stay and celebrate Pentecost with us?" We all kind of laughed because we all thought we were going to move on before then. Well, God had other plans for us. Michael took our car into local mechanic because he heard a funny noise in the engine. Thankfully he did at that time because the transmission was in terrible condition and needed to be rebuilt. I say thankfully that he took it in at that time, because if he hadn't the car would be in much worse shape and we could have gotten stranded in some isolated place. Instead we were blessed to be able to stay with the Soots for an extra 5 nights. They were so gracious to open their home so completely to us. The kids all played great together and enjoyed the great selection of books to read at their home. The grownups all enjoyed the talks and lots of laughs that were had with our friends. The kids got to have "sleepover" in their house, which they loved, except the one night Onyx, their adorable black kitten, decided he wanted to pounce on Elena and woke her up in the middle of the night. After that, Onyx was banished from their bedroom at night. The Soots have 7 kids, so I felt right at home with all the "craziness" of so many people around. It was great!! On Sunday we were able to celebrate Pentecost with them. That morning Fr. Stephen was blessed to receive 9 new people into his church through Chrismations and Baptisms.
Fr. Michael was able to catch up on some writing and the kids did a lot of schoolwork. While we were staying with the Soots, we took a couple of day trips. On Friday the 22nd, we drove to Clackamas, which is just outside of Portland to visit with an old school friend, John Wengel and his wife Cindy. John played tour guide and took us around. I had been wanting to go to the museum at the end of the Oregon Trail. So we went there, only to find out that they had closed last summer due to government cutbacks. I was disappointed to find that out. John then took us to Multnomah Falls, which was awesome, but we didn't stay long because it was raining. We then had dinner with the Wengels and we enjoyed catching up and looking back on "the good old days." John was even able to pull out some pictures from high school days. Wow, how we have changed since then...
On Saturday the 23rd, we drove to Salem to visit with Fr. Michael's cousin Linda and her husband Tim. It was great to spend the afternoon with them and their grandkids. On Tuesday, 25th, we drove up to Silver Lake State Park and explored there for the afternoon. We were so lucky, it rained on the way up and when we first got there, and on the way home. But for the actual time we hiked, there was no rain. The waterfalls there were beautiful. But I have to admit the kids complained a lot about it being too far to hike. So Fr. Michael and I told them maybe we shouldn't visit any more amusement parks then, because "it's too far to walk." That same day we got our car back. We spent one last enjoyable night with the Soots and then took off on Wednesday for our next leg of the trip.