A week for the history books!

Last Friday, I left home and started my journey to Spain with a quick 2-week pit stop in Oregon to visit with my family. And boy has it been a busy, busy week. First, Dad made me get up at 3 am in order to drive down here to Portland to visit my grandparents. We even got here before lunch time, which is way different than any other time we ever come down here.

Saturday was….interesting. I went garage sale-ing around Oregon City with my dad and his little brother, Todd. It was like taking two 3 year olds to a candy shop. I couldn’t even get my seatbelt off before they were already across the street at the sale. Not only that, but they even left me behind at a couple of garage sales that were in walking distance of each other, and next thing I know, they are two blocks away and completely clueless at the fact that I’m not standing right next to them (surprise, right?).

Best part about Sunday? Going to Grandma Reed’s house, where I get to enjoy air conditioning. Its been in the high 90s/low 100s all week, so its really nice to enjoy some cool air at her house. On Monday we went to the reservation and I got my eyes checked out (and yes, I am blind). And now I have to get glasses for reading/driving/working on computers (which pretty much means all day long). While there, we went to the casino and met up with my great aunt for lunch, which was really fun.

Yesterday and today are so relaxing! I am playing babysitter to my great-grandma, who had to get fluid taken out of her knee and a bunch of shots yesterday. I think she likes having someone here to wait on her hand and foot. But, what 87 year old wouldn’t? Today, though, my mom flew down to Portland to spend one last weekend with me before I leave, so Grandma is going to have to take care of herself for a few hours while I go meet up with her at my grandparents house.

Besides all of this, I have spent quite a bit of my time down here in Oregon expanding on my family tree that Grandpa Lockie and I have been working on for a while. I have gotten a TON of stuff, especially on my Grandma Reed's side of the family. I'm excited to get to internet so I can do research beyond whats in the bibles and other books that I have found.

Today’s countdown puts me at 10 more days until I get to Manchester, and 21 days until my study abroad program starts.

My word for the day is actually multiple words: Alemania, Suecia, Suiza. These are just three countries in Europe that I am trying to memorize to try to make sure that I can talk about other countries correctly.