John 19:30

Thursday was the day. We got up early and tackled the last bit of painting before it got too hot. The day before I had scraped and wire brushed the barge rafters (the rafters at each gable end) and primed the the ones over the garage and at the north end. The ones on the south were in the sun and too hot to paint. So Thursday morning we got an early start and primed the south end. Then we put the final paint on the other two. I was thinking I would have to finish Friday morning but decided to try to paint the south end with the final coat. It was late morning but it worked! We finished. It is done! Finis! Over.

That is what Jesus said. It is finished. Then he died. I felt like dying. Up and down the ladder. Up and down the ladder. Up and down the la.... well, you get the idea. And standing on ladder steps isn't easy. And reaching out behind me at the top of the ladder wasn't fun. So I was tired. The next day we cleaned up and put away all the paint stuff. And decided to play.

Sunday we worshipped at North Valley Assembly of God. I know Pastor Curt and wanted to hear him preach. After church we kept on going... to the coast. We didn't want to stay in Grants Pass anyway because it was supposed to be 97 degrees Sunday and 102 Monday. The coast would definitely be cooler... and more fun. We stayed at the Motel 6 in Coos Bay. Would you believe they have a hot tub at this Motel 6? We didn't do much exciting... it was just good to get away. This morning we were going to go see the final cleanup of the New Carissa but it was too foggy. The New Carissa is a ship wreck just north of the jetty at Coos Bay. It wrecked a few years ago and a company is removing it piece by piece. Anyway, since we couldn't do that we drove to Bandon for brunch and nosed around in the little shops.

Our friend, Liz lives in Bandon. She was on our worship team at Allen Creek, then moved to Bandon to be the principal of the grade school. We decided to surprise her and stopped by the school for a short visit. She is now married to a man who owns a shop that makes beautiful things out of myrtlewood, redwood, and Alaska birch. So on our way out of town we stopped at his shop, got a tour of the factory, and Joyce bought some myrtlewood beads to make ear rings -- or something.

We drove on toward Brookings, stopping at a beach to walk and comb. You know... beach combing. Since it was almost supper time when we got to Brookings, we decided to look up our friend John. He is the manager at a bank branch and was also in our church in Grants Pass. We had dinner with him, enjoyed a nice visit, and headed for home.

Korak and I pressure washing the deck. He is doing the work, I'm giving advise. Isn't that what fathers-in-law are supposed to do?


He had onlookers. If you fed them Popsicles they were easy to get along with. We couldn't get much work out of them but they did offer encouragement.

I don't have a good "before" picture but this is a "during" picture. You can get an idea of the old color from the garage. We changed it a lot. Now it looks clean and fresh.

This is what we have been up to. This week we'll leave for Salem and points north. More about that next week. Stay tuned.