Friday, September 14th, 2007, and here I am way behind in my post. Daily, as I open my e-mail, read it, either save it, print it or delete it, I also go the the Blogs that are posted periodically to read the latest from my friends. And, when there are no new post posted, I'm disapointed, so with this post, I hope to bring you up to date on what I have been doing.

As you can see in this picture, I've been with a lot of very fine people. This is my family, brothers and sisters, cousins, and friends of my fathers family that I love and enjoy being around. We gathered 40-50 strong on Labor Day, and this picture was taken the next day right after a hearty breakfast, and just before we seperated to go our way back home. I'm that guy with my head almost in the tree branches on the top left. Its an okay picture and captures the faces of my kin.

We spent nearly 10 days away from home, and this time in Iowa had bearable weather, not like we encountered 2 years ago, when temperatures and humidity was high. Only one day this time that was uncomfortable. One day was spent with my kin traveling up towards Dubuque to eat at a family restaurant in Balltown, called Breitbachs Country Dining. To my amazement, over our table was a picture of a famous spot in Rottenburg, Germany with this familys name under it.

After questioning the waitress, who didn't know why this picture was there, a few moments later a very nice gentleman came to answer my questions. I find out he had just returned from Rottenburg that week, and his family has owned land around 10 km from Rottenburg since around 1560. Wow, that blows me away. I shared that it is one of our favorite towns in Germany and hope to see it again next summer. As we left, he reached over and shook my hand warmly. I hope to see him again some day in Balltown.

On the way to Balltown we stopped at a fish hatchery, and there among the thousands of trout were several large fish which I took to be catfish, only to learn a few minutes later from the htchery personnel that these big fish were sturgeon. I thought we had them all here in Oregon and Washington. Another stop at a Botanical garden, where I saw, I thought some baby humming birds. Showed one of my pictures of it to Donna who informed me it was actually a hummingbird moth. Sure enough, a search of Google turned out the same type creature. And, if you think about it, when ever did you ever see antenna on a hummingbird? Moths have them and fly just like a hummingbird.

Well, its now well into the morning, better see if there isn't something outside that needs my attention, hope all is well with my many friends who I hope are reading this. Tonight is a womens soccer game at the Univ of Portland, which I'll attend with my granddaughter Breanna and neighbor Laura. Then another game Sunday afternoon with Breanna, a friend and Sue. Should be fun.

So, till later, I say "Cherrio"

Howard