Good Day Sunshine

It's unfortunate that when I have the most going on in my life, I tend to not write about it. Here's a recap of some of the stuff I've been doing lately:

• Wendy, Cinder, and I went down to Southern Oregon to visit my family. We picked up Mom, who flew in from Las Vegas to Portland and we drove her down to Jeff and Debby's house down outside of Medford. Lynnea, Walter, Crystal and Josh were there, too. It was short, but a great time. Josh, who is the son of my neice Crystal, is just four years old but is very smart. It was the first time I got to meet him. He and I had this exchange:

  "You know, at first I didn't like [you and Wendy], but now that I've gotten to know you, I like you guys a lot."
  "Well, we liked you from the start."
  "Yeah, everyone's like that. They're always so excited when I come in the room."
  "Do you think that's because you're so smart or so cute?"
  "Hmmm...because I'm so smart."

• Gave notice to my boss that I was leaving the company. This was big, big, big for me. I've been thinking about it for months and now it's time to take the plunge (just one of the bold bets). I'm giving them plenty of notice, though: My last day will be between the middle of July and the beginning of August.
• We also went down to visit Wendy's family in Santa Barbara. Wendy's parents came down, and we got to spend a lot of time with Andrew and Betsy's girls Abby, Roxy, and Miranda. While there we had a combined birthday party to celebrate Bill's, Wendy's, and Miranda's birthdays. We had a lot of fun just lounging around the pool and going to the beach. The highlight of the trip might have been watching Andrew teach Abby how to jump into the pool.

What's making me happy right now: Just listening to NPR and Daniel Shore talked about how Bush is doing poorly in the polls regarding the war, the economy, and the environment. He said, "Now a majority of Americans think this country is headed in the wrong direction. And that's an electoral fact."