#10-17 Terena Martin graduates from HS

On the afternoon of Graduation day we had a pot luck picnic at the Martin Ranch. Many friends and relatives were there to celebrate with Terena and friends who were graduating today.

Lots of good food filled the table. Even the weather co-operated with us. It was an overcast, but fairly warm day. No rain! Even Tagger wanted to join the food line

Terena’s friend Jason is on the right watching her open her graduations presents. He came over from Coos Bay.

The school principal is at the podium as Terena walks across the stage to receive her diploma. She is all smiles!

Part of her graduating class. There were 79 graduates.

Turning their tassels and throwing their caps, making it official that they are now Alumni!

The proud parents!

Terena with her three grandmas and with Mom and Aunt Joi

Me-Maw and Papa Martin aka Lawrence and Sharon.

As you can see Terena towers above us all. She stands 6’ in her bare feet. She played basketball during high school and still kept her grades up.

Her sister, Marissa is also pushing 6’, but her sport is volleyball.

Marissa and Terena
Marissa was a freshman this year, so in three years we will have another graduate.

After graduation we stayed with son, Jeff Proulx, at his home in Central Point. The Martin’s had a houseful of guests!

Jeff and Kirsten have been doing a lot of work on their yard. Below are a couple of pictures of how it looks.

Great job on the yard guys!

#10-16 Collier State Park in Oregon

We arrived early to the park where we are going to be “Service Hosts” for the month of June. So, of course, we have to get acquainted with our fellow hosts. Frank made a BIG pot of spaghetti sauce and we invited over the other three host couples for a pot luck.

This was our first “work” day! The other hosts are “Interpretive Hosts, Gift Shop Hosts and Campground Hosts.

Even Gidget joined the fun of meeting everyone. We are very lucky to have such good co-hosts for our first venture into hosting. Some of the other hosts have been doing it for years and go from campground to campground in Oregon and Washington all summer. They are a wealth of information.

As service hosts we can work in the shop on projects that need to be done.

We are also in charge of the mowing of the day use area. And it is a big area with lots of grass and trees.

We took turns mowing the first day. While Frank was mowing, Dixie raked pine needles and pine cones away from the bar-b-que area. But, she liked driving the mower best! (I wouldn’t be surprised if she named the mower!) Grass, grass as far as you can see. It takes three days to mow it all. (We are only supposed to work 4 hours each day-but Dixie likes to be on the mower, so we end up working longer!) There are lots and lots of little digger squirrels and chipmunks all around. The ground is covered with their burrows and it makes for a rough ride. They are not afraid of the mower and sit up and watch until I get right over their holes, then they duck down and out of the way! So far I’ve only run over and broke one sprinkler head. We have been marking them with bright orange paint, but I missed marking one and didn’t see it until it was under the mower. Ouch!

We are responsible for cleaning and putting the mower back in its shelter. Frank backs it in for me!

We are volunteers, but for volunteering we get our campsite free and free use of the laundry equipment. I think we have the best campsite! We even have room to put up our screen tent in the “back yard.”

Everything is very green right now. The other hosts tell us this is the third March this year. Lots of rain, cold cloudy days. We have only had 3 days without any rain since we arrived in Oregon!

#10-15 Rogue Valley, OR 5-21 thru 5-28-2010

From Ashland north to Grants Pass is the Rogue Valley. The first pushpin on the left is where son Mark Martin and family live. The second pushpin on left is Valley of the Rogue Park where we parked the RV. The third push pin sorta in the center is where son Jeff and family live. The push pin on the far right is Klamath Falls where the Oregon Institute of Technology is located and where Hunter, Jeff and Kirsten’s son ran in the track meet we went to the first Saturday we were here in the Rogue Valley.

On Hwy 140 headed from Medford to Klamath falls. About a 100 miles!

This is Saturday, the weekend before Memorial Day, and we are driving over the pass into the Klamath Basin from Medford. Brrrrrrr!

The wind was blowing and we waited in the car until it was almost time for Hunter’s race. The quail gave us a show right outside the window.

Hunter is in the middle. He came in second in the 800 meter race (twice around the track) He made it in under two minutes. Go Hunter!!

We attended church with Mark, Teresa, Terena and Marissa on Sunday morning, stopped at Abby’s for pizza and went to their home in Wimer. They are bottle feeding two abandoned kittens. They are about 3 weeks old in these pictures. Terena has the kitten on her head under the hoodie and Marissa has one cured under her chin. The girls do the night time feedings and Mom, Teresa takes care of them during the day while they are at school. After getting up a few time during the night to feed them and then having to go to school, they have decided that having babies is tough to take care of!

Because we will be gone over the Memorial Day weekend the girls got dressed up in their “banquet” dresses so we could see them. They go to a Christian High School and there isn’t any dancing, so instead of proms they have banquets. (Usually someone has a party after the banquet at a private home)

Below are the girls in their dresses.

Terena in a blue/purple halter dress, and Marissa in a strapless green and blue “puffy” dress. Both fit their personalities.

After seeing the dresses we decided they needed accessorizing! Guess what Grandma Dixie has as the RV. Lots of bling! So the girls drove (Terena has an older Porsche that her dad fixed up for her!) back with us to the RV and we proceeded to accessorize.

Terena is wearing rhinestone earrings and neclace, while Marissa has on a necklace that belonged to her great grandma Cape. We made a set of earrings for Marissa to go with the necklace. The matching earrings were clip on and probably dated from the 1950’s. I remember wearing them when I was in high school, and by the end of the evening my ears hurt from those clips pinching them. I know I’m prejudiced, but I think they are beautiful girls!

Monday we met with best friend, Debbie. (We both worked with her at Security Insurance in Medford) We had Mexican lunch together with her and her dad and sister. It has been almost 20 years since we all worked together and we are all beginning to show our age. Here we are together hiding our double chins!

Debbie now is a nail tech, so she did my nails and even fixed up Frank’s a little. So we had time to visit and catch up. As you can see by our clothing it is cold here. No shorts or T shirts!

Thursday, Austin (Jeff and Kirsten’s youngest son) had an award ceremony we were able to attend. He keeps a 3.5 to 3.9 GPA. And he does have some AP classes. Smart boy!

We were in the bleachers behind and above the kids. This is Scenic Middle School. Because we were so far away, I had a hard time holding the camera steady to take the zoom pictures. (Sorry for the blurry pic!)

Austin receiving his award.

The proud kid! (Handsome guy with his shirt and tie!) This is his last year in middle school. On to Crater High next fall!

Proud parents, with our high achiever.

As you can see, while we were in the Rogue Valley we were very busy. It is so nice to see the family and spend time with the kids and see what they are doing.

Now we have to drive the RV back towards Klamath Falls to a state park just east of Chiloquin. It is past the upper part of the Klamath Lake and back in the pine forest. Thank goodness the snow was gone and the weather a little warmer. From Valley of the Rogue State Park to Collier State Park and Logging Museum is 102 miles. We left on May 28, the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.