| 08-06-06
Hello All, Well it has been an eventful summer so far. The boys have been busy, busy. Adam played a very short summer basketball season. It only lasted a few weeks and they played several games around the county. He worked in the cherry orchard this year for our neighbor up the hill. First were the cherries they use to make maraschino cherries. He had to be to work before 6:00 a.m. and worked until around 3:00 p.m. He would come home and take a nap and then work on his music in the evenings. A few weeks after the maraschino�s were finished they started on the sour cherries. Adam�s job was to shovel ice in on top of the cherries to chill them for their trip to the processing plant. Adam earned enough money to buy more musical instruments (what a surprise!). He bought a very nice acoustic electric guitar and also a bass guitar. I think he can now outfit an entire band if needed. Cody has been reading and just being his cute self. At the music store yesterday he bought himself a book on learning to play the harmonica. A few weeks ago we took him to a track meet. This is a family fun oriented meet held every year in McMinnville. Cody did great! I think he is going to be a good runner like his big brothers. Jon has been doing quite well with his running. If you will remember this year after the school track season, Jon joined the USATF and competed in the Junior Olympics program. At the State meet in June the top 6 finishers in each event went on to the Regional event. There was record breaking heat on the weekend of the meet. Jon and 4 other Amity kids competed in the 104 degree temperatures. Remember these are the best athletes from state of Oregon. Well Jon qualified in 3 out of the 4 events he ran! Two of his teammates also qualified to go on to the next level. Jon chose to run only 2 events at the Regionals. This would focus Jon�s training and help to spread his events over 2 days. The Regional meet was two weeks later and included the best athletes from Alaska, Washington and Oregon. The competition at these meets is AWESOME! The top 3 finishers in each event at the Regionals move on to the National event. The Amity kids trained and ran their hearts out. Aaron, Jon�s training partner narrowly missed a trip to the National event and Jon qualified for Nationals in the 400meter hurdles! A side note here. Jon is very fast at these shorter distances at the local level, but in these upper levels of competition these kids are VERY fast. Now in the middle distances is where Jon shines. His one and only time this year he ran a 2000meter steeplechase, his time would have put him 10th in the Nation this year. Ok back to reality. The cards we were dealt were the 400meter hurdles, so Jon started practicing. Keep in mind he has been running nearly every day since Spring and practicing 2-3 times per week. Nationals this year were in Baltimore Maryland and only 2-1/2 weeks away. We frantically made plans and changed schedules. Aaron agreed to practice with Jon and to go along on the trip. My Dad graciously provided us with lodging and a rental van and drove us around everywhere we needed to go! I went along and of course Ken, Jon�s coach was there. So the five of us were off to Maryland. What a great time we had. We left on Wed. July 26th. My Dad picked us up at the airport in Harrisburg. We stayed overnight in Harrisburg and headed to Baltimore on Wed. We went by the Meet and picked up Jon�s packet with his bib #. The halls of the building were lined with athletes waiting for their events. They were inside, because outside it was HOT and HUMID! We did not stay long, we got to our hotel and took it easy, Jon would be running early the next morning. We arose at 5:00 a.m. Friday morning. The competition was incredible. Jon did his best in an event he had only run 4 times before and finished 27th in the Nation. Jon�s coach is awesome, we had support from our local community and of course my Dad all pulled together to make this trip a reality. What a great experience for these kids. Jon�s sights are already set on next year when the Nationals are at Mt SAC in Walnut California! Hmm it seems I have been there before. After Jon was done competing, we took a couple of days to relax and one day we went in to DC and saw the sights. The boys and coach ran on �The Mall� and Dad and I walked around the Vietnam and Lincoln Memorials. Jon�s coach told him to take a couple of weeks off to get ready for Cross Country season which starts at the end of August. Well Jon is still running every day and in fact he ran in a Meet on Thursday night and took 3rd in his age group. (He is hard headed like his Mother!) News around the place. In June my Dad and my Grandmother came to visit for a weekend! What a wonderful time we had. My Grandmother is 90 something and while her eyesight is not the best, her memory and spunk can rival anyone 40 years her junior. We listened to stories from her childhood and my Dad�s younger years. Thank you Grandma for a very special time, and thank you Dad for bringing her for a visit. The Thursday evening before leaving for Maryland, Jon and I were watering all the fruit trees and the gardens. We were using lots of water, but our 25 gallon a minute well can handle it. Not! Lorelei hollers from the house that the water is yellow and there is no water pressure. Great, so Jon and I go and take a look. After careful scientific and mechanical study we determined either our well was running dry or our pump was going out. Neither of these things was good. Either way we were going to need to pull the pump. So Saturday morning we get up early and fill everything we can with water and shut the system down. Our pump is 150� deep! Yikes. It took us a while to come up with a good system, but at last the pump was coming to the surface at the rate of about 5 feet every 15 minutes. Of course this was taking place on the weekend of another heat wave and temperatures were near 100 degrees. At last we saw the pump and verified the horsepower and size and rushed to town. We met up with Lorelei and had dinner and then Jon and I headed off to find a pump and piping and all the fittings. Now don�t get me started about the big box stores and not having what you need and giving you the wrong information about stuff they should know about. Long story short after a very stressful weekend with no water Jon and I turned the switch to the well back on at around 5:00 p.m. on Sunday and water began flowing to the Pennington homestead! Adam was just getting home from a weekend campout with his Church and he helped us get everything back together and put away. Other stuff around the place, we got the lumber to at least get the roof finished on the outdoor kitchen (sometimes I think it will never be finished). Now we just need time to frame it and get the roof on. The animals are doing well and the chickens are giving us plenty of eggs. The garden is doing ok. We have plenty of cucumbers. The tomatoes are ripening. We had lot�s of strawberries and some blueberries this year. The blackberries are ripe and we are eating our fill. It looks like we will have some pears and apples soon. Lorelei is going to stop watching kids. She told the family that she will watch the kids until October, but it may end sooner if they find someone to take over before then. This will free her up to substitute when she wants and be able to make it to all the basketball games and track meets that her boys are involved in. That�s about it for now. Glynn Jr. |