What follows is a long introduction to posts to come. It is photo-less, but I promise to illustrate the summer in the follow-up posts.
This was the summer of family love. We had the joy of having Tove's kids, their husbands and children visit us in July before our trip to the States. Then we had a lovely time in Chicago with my son and his samboer (Norwegian expression that describes a member of a committed relationship between two people who live together) and my daughter, her husband and their two children.
After Chicago, it was on to Newport Beach where we spent time with my step-sister Shirley at her beautiful Newport Coast home. We visited our friends in Irvine who have been my "family" for decades; some for over 20 years.
We rented a car and continued the family expedition to Modesto, where we dined and then spent the night at my cousin Jim's home, where he and his spouse Richard have lived since the 80's. Jim's sister, Stephanie joined us and cooked authentic Portuguese cuisine. Jim, Stephanie and I had not seen each other since 1968. It was a magical night of reminiscing and reconnecting and lots and lots of updating.
Next was a visit to our friend, Allison's home, in Napa. We dined together with Alli, her son, Erik, and her samboer David, Diane and her husband Norm, Scott and his wife Jane, and Bruce. Alli, Diane, Scott and Bruce were fellow UC students abroad in Norway in 1973-74. Tove had not seen Scot or Bruce since 1974!
From Napa we took two days to amble up the coast to Oregon. Then we picked up my brother John, who lives in a "group home" in the Willamette Valley, and checked into a hotel in Salem. We took John shopping for books, clothes, and some fun stuff. And, of course, we watched old family movies that I have digitized for posterity and preservation. It was really fun to talk about our childhood-days in Fremont.
After taking John back to his home, we joined Uncle Bob, his wife Pat, Aunt Karen and her husband Roger, and my cousin Stephanie and her two kids for barbecue on the deck of their beautifully situated park-side home in Salem. The next day we visited Karen and Roger at their hilltop home in Silverton, before heading south again.
The next family visit was in Monterey. My brother-in-law (Alice's brother), Ed, his wife Cindy and daughters Autumn and Erin live in Pacific Grove. We spent two nights on Ed's boat in Monterey Harbor. Then it was back to Newport for some shopping and meeting more old friends before taking the long plane-ride home. I think that Tove counted up the number of people we visited while in the states. It think it was over 40.
Enjoy the posts to come. It was a great summer.
-Frank