Retirement number Two? by Von

Well, Greg has retired once again. This time he really feels like he is retiring. The first time he really didn’t feel like he retired with the way that things went for us (his acident and surgeries, etc.). Now it feels real for him.

Bentley and I are really happy to have him home with us all day!! For 13 years Greg and I have been almost constantly been with each other 24 hours a day. We worked in the same office, doing basically the same thing, and lived together, of course. We somehow make it work (being together all of the time). The best part of the day when Greg was working at the Union was watching Bentley when Greg came home in the evening. You would think that Greg had been gone for weeks the way Bentley carried on when “Daddy” came home!!! I keep thinking that it would be a better world if all of us carried on the way that dogs do when their loved ones return to us. I try to be that excited but I don’t think I could jump up and down for 20 minutes in a total franic state without having a heart attach or doing some kind of damage to myself, but I try.

We now are making plans to travel over to the east side of Oregon and boondock for awhile. Last year we spent some time camping near Jack Creek with some bow hunters (near Suttle Lake). It is really nice to be out in the woods and nature and all that. Greg and I have had about as much of the city as we can take. The traffic and all is driving us crazy (pardon the pun). We enjoy a slower pace and less people getting in our way when we want to do our thing. I’m looking forward to getting out of the hubbub again.

On April 19th there was a celebration of life for our brother-in-law, Jimmy Like in Reedsport. It was really nice to see all of his friends and family gathered to remember such a wonderful man. I went to Reedsport a few days early to help Kim with cleaning and getting ready for the celebration so that she wouldn’t have to do all the work all by herself. Bentley and I had a pretty good time with her. One of the neat things about visiting Kim in Reedsport is that Bentley gets to go to the beach with Kim’s dogs and run and run. I wish that I could have the beach with me all the time to take Bentley to every day because he enjoys it so much!! I was so proud of little Bentley around all of the people and confusion at the gathering. He was the perfect little gentleman and behaved himself really well. I’m going to miss Jimmy and his wonderful hugs he always had for me when he would first greet me. Every person that knew Jim is a better person for it.

We’re going to hang around Oregon until late August because of a couple of things that we want to do before we start to travel the states again. In July our nephew is getting married and we want to celebrate that with the family. Then in August the Union has their General Council (sort of like the Legislature for the Union) and I have volunteered to be a page and I’m sure there is something that Greg can do to help out.

Now that Greg is retired again I feel more like blogging on this site. While Bentley and I sat around waiting for “Daddy” to get home from work, the only thing I could think about was how lousy the weather is here in Oregon. I know everybody is tired of hearing from me about the weather. Now maybe there will be more interesting happenings going on than the weather and grocery shopping. No maybe, I know there will be.

Von