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• On July 23rd at Mt. View Funeral Home in Tacoma, WA, family and friends met to honor Leslie Gordon Griffin who passed away in Arizona on April 20th 2008.  The service began with an honor guard from the Army Nat’l Guard, it included the presentation of the flag and playing tapps.  Deborah Griffin Dorff took charge and handled the celebration like a pro.  Many family members and friends spoke of special happenings in their life that revolved around Les.  He touched so many of us in special ways.  So many funny stories. 
• After the celebration, everyone was invited to Tooky and Doug Harlow’s home in Gig Harbor for food and friendship.  It was a special time and a special place. 

• July 5th I left Arizona with Sheila and Larry Gorman for our drive to Vail Colorado.  They have 3 weeks of time share in Vail and have graciously invited me to spend 5 days with them.  The drive is all day, however, through wonderful areas of Arizona and Utah before passing into Colorado.  We spent the week exploring the area, riding the tram, hiking and biking.  It is just amazing.  At this time of year, it seems strange to find snow still on the trails.  Thank you to the Gormans for a special week!
• From the Denver airport, I was off to Seattle/Tacoma area.  Alan picked me up and I was off to Tacoma to stay with Doug and Candace for a few weeks.  They have a very nice home in an area that is close to everything.  I could walk everywhere for shopping or quilting or exercise.  Troy is 10 years old and an expert on the WII machine.  He tried teaching me the sports package, but I need to practice.  He is too good.  They have two dogs who love to go for a walk.  The weather was typical Northwest summer, very nice. 
• I rode Amtrak to Longview/Kelso to visit Esther Engebretsen for a few days.  She has a lovely home in Rainier, Oregon.  We spent our days working in the yard (it’s huge) and for a treat in the afternoon we picked wild blackberries.  The train system is a great way to travel Seattle to Portland and points in between, very reasonable.  It travels along Puget Sound as far as Olympia, beautiful.

• It’s been a busy summer of travels and special events with the family.  The month of June saw grandson Nathan graduate from Stanford’s MBA program.  A large complement of family members were able to make it to the California event, even Oprah arrived with a special speech!  It was a fun week-end and we gave the train, bus and trolley system a workout.
• Visited Doug’s new home in Tacoma and Alan’s new home in Kent before heading off for a week with Tisha in the panhandle of Idaho.  She transfered there from Oroville and just loves her new job, workmates and the area. 
• Back to Arizona to get some more paper work completed and a paddle on Lake Pleasant with the Park Ranger.  It was a good trip, but very hot.

Les passed away April 20th, after a long illness.  We had an open house on the Sunday afterward.  Bob worked up a very moving Powerpoint presentation of pictures of Les through the years. It played on several laptop computers throughout the afternoon event.  Our neighbors were wonderful and brought in food and took care of all the details.  Deborah, Tisha, Bob, Chinh, Vicki and Tooky were able to be here.  We are planning a graveside service in Tacoma this July 23rd. 

Since that time the kids have visited and helped out with details along the way.  And offered advice for getting everything straightened out that needs to be done.  We’ve managed to do some hiking along the way to get out and keep the mind clear.

At this time, I’m on a three week air trip around to visit the kids and even a 24hour visit to Chicago to see Vicki and Amanda, thanks to Bob’s Alaska airline program.  At this writing I am in Eagle River, AK and leaving tomorrow for Seattle. 

[thumb:74:l][thumb:69:l][newline] Tisha was here for a week’s visit with us the first week of March. She kept us on the move each day with a different activity. Her first full day was a picnic with family and friends at our home, even Steve Benz was here from Atlanta.

She cooked us each our favorite meal; her father’s was meatloaf and mine was lobster. We shared a fresh whole lobster, it was delicious!!

We were able to get in 2 hikes in the local mountain parks. The spring flowers are blooming so was a glorious site. It was a fun week

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Laura made ‘flowers’ for her bowl she got for Christmas.  It is lovely.

I finally received my new software, Kaleidoscope Kreator as a new tool for my quilting projects.  Here you see a Christmas picture of Alan’s dog, Gunny.  Isn’t he cute??  This is going to be too much fun.

[thumb:66:l][thumb:65:l][thumb:64:l]  [newline] A peek at things to come!  We are currently working on the “Griffin” family slides and will let you know when they are done.  It’s pretty exciting for Les to see all of these old family slides and the copies of glass negatives that he took photographs of many years ago.

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Randy Alan and his girlfriend Jen and dog Diggit live in Sarasota, Fl. She is a neonatal nurse. Randy Alan is working at getting his certification so he is able to teach school. He is a member of the local Orchestra, teaches a Drum Corp on Saturdays and works in retail for the time being.

[newline] Douglas and Candace, Jody and Friend, Cathy and Friends, Jennifer and Jeremy
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The wedding was January 19, 2008.

This is the first day of my website. The site will be used to post pictures of family and from quilting projects, primarily. If you find it interesting you may post a response.

Deborah, Kevin, Andy and Sarah visited for a long week end. Had a great visit.

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