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To celebrate Independence Day today, we headed downtown to the annual Fourth of July parade.

It wasn’t the most impressive parade I’ve seen, but it was still a good time. After the last classic car and Congressional candidate had passed us, we headed over to our friend George’s office for a barbeque. There were probably thirty people there, none of whom we knew (other than George, of course). Still, they were friendly and energetic and we had fun. Happy Fourth!

During Mom and Dad’s visit, there were a couple of beautiful summer nights where the stars shone in all their brilliance. The moon was new, so once the sun had (finally) set, after a while everything went to black. I snapped a few photos.

Here the Big Dipper almost gets lost in all the other stars. The lights on the horizon are what’s left of daylight (at eight minutes after midnight!) with some of the glow of Kalispell far to the north.

And here’s our house, with the Milky Way spanning the sky overhead.

This sort of view makes me feel very, very small.

Although we couldn’t attend the wedding of our friend Courtney (who I’ve known since she was a little girl), I saw this photo from her wedding. What a great shot of her and her dad. Congratulations, Court!

After an aborted visit last summer (I’m looking at you, covid), we had another chance to hang out with Mom and Dad in Montana. They’d been visiting Thom and Katie for a few days, and the whole troupe drove east to be with us. We had a fabulous time, although I didn’t take as many photos as I probably should have.

On our first evening together we all enjoyed the late sunset. Here’s Julian at a little after 9:30 at night!

Sefton was learning to spell words, and I guess Hadley wanted to get a head start on her education as well.

The next day we hit the water. It was a beautiful sunny day, and as it turned out, the hottest day of their visit. Good timing.

Mom and Dad hadn’t been on jet skis before, so of course they called dibs on the first ride.

Mom sure doesn’t drive like a grandma! (Err, great-grandma) She had a blast zipping over the waves, and was quickly very comfortable with some speed and turns. Katie and Sefton took their first ride as well. Can you tell Sefton was excited?

Meanwhile, I was on shore with Hadley. She was still a little weirded out by an uncle she doesn’t quite remember.

Although Thom claimed to be a little wary of the water, it was only a little while later that he was cruising at 40mph on the lake…

The weather was amazing, but the water temperature was still around 50 degrees (maybe 55 on the surface during the heat of the day?). I seem to remember the water being warmer in late June in past years, but oh well. We just made sure not to fall in too often.

Naturally we had the kayaks and paddleboards out as well, and everyone took turns exploring the bay. Here’s Thom pretending to fall off (?) as Sefton laughs at his strange dad.

We were treated to some gorgeous sunsets, and as tradition dictates, I had to snap a few photos of them.

On their last night here, Sefton declared to everyone that it would probably be a good idea to have a “sunset jet ski ride”. It’s hard to argue with a five-year-old who’s fallen in love with jet skiing, so we loaded up and went out. The sunset and clouds were beautiful.

After dark fell and the bay was closed to visitors, Sefton decided we all needed some ice cream. He even drew a sign declaring the “ice cream shop open”, and helped dish up a few bowls of the good stuff.

Thom and Katie and their kids packed up and went back to Wenatchee, but Dad, Mom, and Julian stayed a few more days. We decided to hike Holland Lake on another picture-perfect day.

The view from the top was amazing, as always.

The days went by too fast, it seemed, and it was time for them to head back home. Another family get-together for the books!

Behind our house we have a huge crop of daisies growing. We didn’t plant them, though, so maybe they’re weeds? Regardless, they look pretty cool.

Summer has finally rolled around, and it’s the season for people to come visit us. Our friend Cindy from Colorado dropped in for a few days with her kids, and we had a grand time.

One thing you can always count on: kids love jet skiing!

We spent hours on the water, and I’m pretty sure these two would’ve stayed for hours more. Rhys was a little unsure at first, but grew bolder and said he liked going fast. And from the start, Brooke loved punching the throttle and hitting all the bumpy waves. She almost threw me and Rhys into the drink when she was driving.

We stopped at Burger Town and enjoyed some decidedly mediocre burgers (although my chicken was actually quite good).

Later, when the kids learned that we enjoyed Skull King as much as they did, we had to crack out the game. Sure enough, it was a brutal, cutthroat game… just like Skull King should be.

It was so much fun to see them and hang out for a couple of days before they trucked back to Colorado. I suspect we’ll see them again in the next few years…

When it comes to house projects, things that seem to be straightforward have a knack for turning into something more difficult. I’m a smart guy, but sheesh, simple five-minute wiring jobs become hour-long exercises in frustration. Replacement parts don’t fit like they should. There isn’t quite enough paint. I don’t have the right tool. The list goes on. At this point I often start a job with the expectation that it’ll take longer than I’d like, and be harder than I think.

Take the hot tub as the latest example. It’s nineteen years old, and I don’t think the former owners did a lot of maintenance on it. Before using it for the first time, I had to replace some parts and do an overall tune-up. But hey, eventually it worked, and it’s been pretty solid ever since. Well, the paint has been chipping for a while, and I figured a little touch-up would be in order. I picked out a nice grey color and sat down to paint the sides. Of course, painting over chipped paint is a terrible idea– the new paint will just flake off with the old. With a heavy sigh, I started scraping off the old. It was then I realized the old siding– which is a pretty nice redwood– was rotting and falling apart. In all fairness, sixteen years without maintenance will do that.

A bit of online research led me to a hot tub supplier who sells the siding for this ancient model. But the cost is just shy of $600. Per side. No thanks. We headed to Lowe’s and picked out some siding, then cut it to size.

The paint soaked right in, and it was a quick job to get these new sides looking good.

Next step: remove all the old siding. Some of it was so rotten it crumbled. Yikes. Definitely a good call to replace it!

We installed the new pieces, dismayed to find the cuts were off by about an eighth of an inch on every side. Pepper used a hand file (yes, a hand file) to shave off that eighth-inch on each one while I positioned and screwed in the boards.

Back to my introduction: a project that I’d originally expected to take maybe an hour ended up taking five, including a trip to Kalispell for the wood. The good news, however, is that it looks really sharp now.

All’s well that ends well, they say, but wow, just one of these times I’d like a house project to go to plan…

Today’s the longest day of the year, and I still love how late the sun sets here in Montana. I felt like it was cause for celebration, so I organized a “solstice party” (Dirk referred to it jokingly as my “pagan ritual”). I wasn’t quite sure what to do at a solstice party– other than perform pagan rituals, I suppose– so Pepper and I bought a ton of ice cream and toppings, and shared them with about 60 people we’d invited to the party. Yes, we got some looks at Walmart when we pushed our cart out the door carrying twenty half-gallons of Tillamook’s best, along with multiple bottles of Hershey’s syrup, caramel, maraschino cherries, and sprinkles. It was a great party.

As we were driving home from the party, it was about 9:30 and the sun was just setting over Flathead Lake. Obviously we had to stop for a photo.

What an awesome sight! The sun gently slipped below the horizon.

A little while later, as we were sitting around at home, we marveled at the light at 10:00:

There were still hints of light in the sky at 11:00!

Although I’m sad that the days will now be getting shorter, it’s always fun to enjoy this one moment.

The former owners of our house loved the color mint green. All of the walls in the main house– all of them— were painted mint green. The carpeting– again, all of it— was mint green. The concrete in the driveway and stairs is tinted mint green. Their couches were mint green. And so on.

Before we even moved into the house, we replaced all the carpeting. And a few months after moving in, we had the main house repainted, which was a huge leap forward in de-mint-greening the place. Today we took a smaller step by repainting the room we call the Great Hall. It’s the entryway all our guests see when they come in from the driveway, and due to some electrical work we’ve had done, portions of the drywall had to be replaced and re-textured. That meant re-painting, since there was no way I was going to take a wall sample to Sherwin-Williams and have them match the mint.

Fortunately it’s not a big space, and we had some paint left over from our original job. We taped everything off and went to work. A couple hours later, the mint green had become a light beige.

The photos don’t really do it justice, due to the lighting, but it brings a little joy to my soul to be a bit less minty.