Three Beautiful Things 08/28/19: Hiking with Jack, Hoop Shoot with Jack, Family Night

1. This morning, I was just about to head out the door and drive to Coal Creek for a hike, when Adrienne texted me that Jack wanted to go on a hike up the mountain. I'd been hoping he'd want to hike with me during his visit; I decided to go for a simpler hike. Jack and I walked over to the the trail that leads to the high school, walked to the head of the Health and Wellness Trail, and started up the hill. As expected, Jack was walked, ran, and skipped effortlessly up the trail, waiting at each of the benches for me to catch up to him. When he was close to me, Jack kept a running commentary going about flying crickets, how the trail must have been constructed, pine cones, and grass growing near the trail. We reached the picnic table, admired the view, looked across the valley at the gondola and Jack could see where he'd been the day before. We wound our way back down the trail. Jack could hardly contain his delight as he galloped ahead of me, calling up to me at different times. We had agreed he would wait for me at the bottom of the trail and Jack kept his end of the bargain. Scroll down for pictures.

2. After our hike, Jack and I rested for a while and then we went over near Teeter's Field and shot baskets. Jack loves dribbling and has a good shot. From about six feet out and closer, he buries a lot of his heaves at the hoop. I don't remember the last time I shot a basketball and I spent a little bit of time reminding myself of a few mechanics and putting them into practice enabled me to at least get the basketball to the rim some of the time, but, truth be told, about 85% of my shots were air balls. Mostly, though, I sent bounce passes Jack's way and he enjoyed hoisting up shot after shot until suddenly he said he'd had enough. We took a short tour of Kellogg so I could show him what road the local mine adit is at the end of and we took a drive by the house on E. Portland that our family lived in before moving, in 1962, to the house I live in now.

3. While everyone else spent much of the afternoon in Wallace, I stayed in Kellogg and napped, cleaned up, and hand watered the lawns that Ethan had fertilized twenty-four hours earlier. I also picked up another order of Charly's medicine. Everyone returned from Wallace and, at 6:30, Christy and Carol came over, then Paul, and we all sat on the back deck and yakked. After this party broke up, Josh, Debbie, and I yakked some more and waited for Patrick and Meagan to arrive. They flew into Spokane around 8:20 and got to Kellogg around 10:00. More yakking ensured and we got everything straight for what would be happening on Thursday, including a steak feed. Patrick volunteered to make a sauce for the steaks so I'm looking forward to teaming up with him and Debbie to cook up a fun meal. I really like the fact that we still have all the rib eye and sirloin cuts that came with our share of the beef we bought last year and that now the perfect time has come to cook them up and that it opens the door for Patrick to let us enjoy his culinary magic.