Enjoying the End of Summer with Family

I find that when it's my week to work at Ron's office, I have less time for blogging and fall a little behind.... I'm a little sad that summer is coming to an end. I'll miss Portland in the summer. It's the best. Even though I love Autumn color, I'm not looking forward to cleaning up leaves :-(

I have a week of warm weather to look forward to in Kauai! Six more days!! After Kauai, I go back to school on September 26th and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm getting a masters degree in public administration. This is my final year of school. I hope to do policy research or program evaluation when I'm out. There was an article a few days back about an agency in India that researches governmental services for poor people. I found it very inspiring and hope to do something similar.

My classes fall term:

• NGOs and international development
• Governance of nonprofit organizations
• Program evaluation and management
• Financial management in the public sector

We have had a great week visiting with the family. Last Sunday night Ron, Aaron and I drove out to the beach to celebrate my sister Kari's birthday.

Ron and Aaron grabbed an icecream on the way to the beach:

Looking out at beach:


Yum, Bob's bbq is the best:


The sunset from Kari and Bob's deck:

Then Ron's mom and dad came into town Tuesday just in time to see Lin and Steve off to England. We had a very nice dinner party over at Rick and May's. The highlight for me was seeing Rick and May's new garden. While Steve was away to Alaska fishing, Lin and May spent a whole week beautifying it.

Here are some pics of the new garden:



Rick's going to have a lot of watering to do!


Then, Grammie flew in Thursday night. She's here to celebrate her birthday with all of us. She will be staying at our place until Tuesday. We had a little birthday party for her Thursday night.




We had a bbq last night and played Apples to Apples (my dad's favorite). My mom, dad and brother came over to see everyone. It's been so fun to have Grammie here. I'm glad she could see our house and spend some time with us in our territory.