Mark and I had a wonderful time with family the last few days.  My mother graciously hosted us, we visited my aunt and got a tour of my cousin’s new home in Sherwood, we spent a couple hours visiting my son and daughter-in-law in their home this morning, and we had a big, wonderful family gathering for Thanksgiving this afternoon.

As we were pulling into town at the beginning of our stay, I told Mark, “It feels like we never left.  It was just like driving around when we lived there.  We went to our house and went in and checked to be sure everything was as we left it.  We had meant to get some things we’d left in the garage, but we didn’t have the right key with us.  That was frustrating.  We went across the street and talked with our old neighbors.  They had had some excitement the previous day.  Sandy had a bad cold and decided to leave work early.  On her way home a tree fell over and knocked down a telephone pole so that the wire touched her car.  Then she said it was like watching dominoes…One telephone pole after another began to fall.  She drove fast to get to her house before they came down on her, but it really shook her up.  Parts of Oregon City were still without power when we arrived, but the front entrance to our street was closed and there were a number of power trucks working on the situation.

Mark and I went to our storage unit and exchanged some things we’ve found we don’t need for some things we’ve been wishing we had.  We did a fair amount of shopping while in the land of no sales tax.  Mark has long complained about my Prius because he had such a hard time getting into and out of it, so we traded it in for a Prius V which has more head room and somewhat larger carrying capacity.  The back of the car is loaded with things from our storage unit and things we bought, and we are headed back to California, to our waiting cats.  It feels almost like we’re coming back with supplies from town.  We even rode into the sunset after leaving my family’s Thanksgiving dinner.

Now Christmas can begin!