Shoppin' in Jacksonville

It was shop til ya drop time in Jacksonville, Oregon. Katie, Stephanie, Kristina & Jenny were travel buddies to Europe this summer. Today they hit the historic metropolis of Jacksonville. Not quite Florence, Italy or Barcelona, Spain. Jacksonville's motto is "Always a good time" & it was. The girls took us to a great restaurant named Bella Union. A nice, warm day we sat in their amazing patio and had some fabulous food.



Then we hit the town, which is exactly 3 blocks long, to do some serious shopping. As you can see the girls met some nice local characters, not very talkative. We had a great time with the girls. So if you are ever in Southern Oregon, Jacksonville is worth an afternoon.

The Underwear Parade

Every summer Katie and I go to Ashland for the Shakespeare Festival. We plan our trip around the Daedalus project, the annual fundraiser for Aids Charities. The highlight of the night is the Underwear Parade during intermission. Members of the cast and company parade around in their underwear and then take donations from the audience. The group with the biggest take gets crowned the winner. This year the Underwear Parade raised more than $6,800.

It's a great night. Katie likes to support a good cause while enjoying a whole lot of eye candy.



These hunks represented the production of Cyrano De Bergerac. Yummy!



We met Mark Petersen last year. He is from Lakewood, Washington. We were very excited to see him back for a second season. This year he had a great role in Winter's Tale.



David Kelly is one of our favorite actors. His specialty is comedies. He and his dog almost stole the show in Two Gentlemen of Verona. The dog almost stole the show.



James Newcomb and his son were Richard III and Little Richard, both sporting Spiderman boxer shorts in last year's Underwear Parade. This year James played the lead in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, his son was his "inner child". It was so funny that it almost stole the show.

Talent, Oregon Knittin' Social Club

When Jenny visited us after they returned from Europe, she made the mistake of telling us that she wanted to learn to knit. Katie & I will swoop down on anyone who says that they want to learn to knit. We have also forced knitting on a few unsuspecting victims. But Jenny asked, so we taught her. Jenny is a natural & she really enjoyed knitting. She is a crazy perfectionist just like Katie.



Then when we went to Ashland, we had to see how her progress was going. Her roommate Stephanie made the mistake of saying that she wanted to knit to. Now Stephanie is a very, very fast knitter. Just not to interested in counting her stitches. So her first scarf was done in record time and rather free form.



Jenny is very proud of her first scarf. And she is a real knitter, because before she finished project one, she already started on project two. Project two is supposed to be a gift for her sister. That is if she doesn't like it too much to give it to her. BTW, Jenny's sister is the real crafty one in the family, but she doesn't know how to knit. And it just drives her crazy that Jenny knows how to knit and she doesn't.

Portland Preview

Time to start thinking about college in the fall. So Katie and I took a road trip to Portland to attend orientation, sign Katie up for classes, and hopefully secure housing (the tv reception is lousy from her car).

But first I needed to educate Katie myself. Once we hit town we headed straight to Knit Purl for Thursday night Knit & Sip. That's knitting and champange if you haven't been there.



Katie got knitting and met the whole gang. Now I feel confident to send her off to the metropolis of Portland, knowing that she knows knitters, she will be ok.



And of course we had to stop in at Mother's for dinner. This trip we corrupted David and Levi, Katie's friends from Ashland. As always, dinner was great and the company quite entertaining.



Now will you look at this fabulous dessert. So beautiful it was worth a picture. And thank you to Levi our wonderful dessert model.