She's Home!

Dear friends, thank you so much for your prayers and good thoughts for dd Melanie. She called Saturday morning and about 12:30 p.m. I drove down to Pendleton, Oregon, to pick her up. After working for two weeks, she gets a couple of days at home. On Tuesday morning I'll be getting her back to Pendleton for the next round.

She is looking quite well, although brown, scraped and mosquito bitten. Her boots weren't broken in well enough and at the beginning of her time she had double blisters at her heel and was the reason she lagged behind a little. The crew boss said she never complained and kept at her job! Double moleskins and wrapping her foot resulted in a quick healing.

Working in 110^ temperatures, one shift of 29 hours, many nights or days of only four hours sleep, but successfully containing the fires and saving "Granny's" house has given her a great sense of satisfaction in the job. Her crew boss runs a very well organized, safe, "tight" crew, so she couldn't be in better hands. She is hoping that her crew will be sent to northern Idaho or some other place with no sagebrush and juniper trees, having more than her fill of junipers.

The "Merchant of Venice" production is now in the past. The kids did a marvelous job, memorizing so many lines of difficult Shakespearean language. And, of course, the directors are amazing to take on such a job of first teaching the play, then producing it with such raw talent. Many kudos to my friends Mary and Crystal!