Dinner With Family

We received a phone message while we were shopping at Costco yesterday morning for a few items that are best purchased there. The message was from Paige Reed, the wife of our nephew David, who lives in the Portland, OR area. She was staying with Brian and Amy while visiting a friend in the area. We were invited to dinner at Brian and Amy's to have chili, and George and Cheryl were also invited. It was an unexpected invitation but a welcomed one. We have been looking forward to visiting with our family since we arrived back in AZ.

It was close to 5 PM when we arrived at Amy and Brian's and George and Cheryl had already arrived. It was nice visiting with Paige whom we haven't seen in probably six or seven years. David was home in Oregon taking care of their daughters, Kendall and Addison. We sat at the table for quite awhile, visiting, and I took this shot of the group before we moved outside to the patio to continue our visit:

It was a wonderful visit and a great way to see George, Cheryl and their family to kick off our winter visit to the area. Brian and Amy have very busy schedules with their kids - Jesse and Jason - who are involved in several sports and outside activities. They were doing their own thing while we old folks visited. We will be visiting again - if not sooner, by Thanksgiving when Brian and Amy will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner for their family, Josie and I, and Cot and Lois who are friends that we haven't seen since last year.

The day was further enhanced with the news of Josie's schedule. She will be working 4 days a week, beginning this Monday. She will work Mon-Tue at the Production center in Sun City where she worked last year, and on Wed-Thu at the store located in northern Phoenix where she worked full time before we left on our journey. It is more time than she expected, but welcome news. We will start out with her driving the truck to work each day and leaving me without wheels for the first time that I can remember. We'll see how that arrangement works.

We were awakened this morning with pretty strong winds and had to raise our awnings to be safe. Hopefully, the day will become calm and we can enjoy the outside for the last two days before Josie begins working...