28 May 2023

Parker, Halie, Sofi and Nate stopped by Sunday morning before leaving town. Parker, Halie, Sarah, Joe and Zina made sure everything was cleaned up and put away Saturday night, both at the reception venue and back at our house, while Brandan and Becky were at the ER with Helen.  Becky left her phone at the reception and wasn't able to communicate for a couple of hours. We are extraordinarily grateful for family who stepped in and managed everything without being asked. Sarah, Joe and Zina came to the hospital to say goodbye on Saturday night since they had an early flight Sunday morning.

 

Sofi and Nate handled a stressful day with grace and gratitude. Helen spent most of Sunday sleeping off the effects of her allergic reaction. Brandan had already left for Sunday morning meetings when we took this photo. Sofi and Nate left on their honeymoon soon after.

The Hansens came ober Sunday night and picked up most of Sofi's belongings to take to Washington.

Sofi and Nate stayed on the Oregon coast for a few nights.

Gibson had his last symphony concert of the season on Sunday afternoon. It was their best concert yet with an impressive selection of music played very well.

Eddy and Jason came to see the performance.

School continues to wind down with end of the year celebrations. Tuesday night was the DECA dinner. Helen was recognized as one of the graduating seniors and outgoing president of DECA.

One last huddle.

Here's a photo of Helen and Gibson with their advisor, Mr. Rogan. Mr. Rogan is retiring this year after 25 years of teaching. He has cancer and he and his wife would like to travel while he is in relatively good health. Their adventures will begin this summer as they volunteer at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary

Gibson is taking a design class this term in school. His class partnered with a local company for a design challenge. The company, Anthology Woods, specializes in interior and exterior design using reclaimed woods. For the design challenge, Anthology gave the students some of their scraps to make into a prototypes for a marketable design. Gibson and his partner designed and built this bench/planter combo.

On Saturday, we drove out to Bandon for Memorial Day weekend. Our first planned activity was to play disc golf at a local park. We stopped at the community theater next to the park in Bandon to use the restrooms. We were invited to stay for a community talent show which was about to begin. We were entertained for an hour with singing, dancing, a reading about a dragonfly and a lizard and two stand up comedians. The sincerity and good will of the performers was delightful. We call experiences like this trip serendipity: things you couldn't possibly plan for that make your trip memorable.

After the show, we continued on to the park to play disc golf. We think we last played about 10 years ago on a different vacation. All of the trees on this course made it extra challenging to throw a disc. We all hit a tree more than once. We played in teams and Helen and Gibson won.

After disc golf we headed into Old Town Bandon and the harbor.

There was a community art show set up along the railings on the dock. There was a student category with over a hundred entries and an adult category with over 60. Between the art show and the talent show, we saw a good slice of community involvement in Bandon.

One of the paintings depicted the disc golf course we played at earlier.

We stopped for dinner at a pub called The Broken Anchor. Gibson's burger was so big he had to eat it with a fork and knife, a first for him.

Our hotel is across the street from the beach and we walked over to watch the sunset on Saturday night.

We've been to Bandon a few times and are still discovering new things, like this beautiful stretch of beach we had never been on. We're feeling thankful for our little vacation and looking forward to the rest of the weekend.