The primer color is not very inspiring, but I’m trusting the process.

One thing about our house, the Orange Door? It doesn’t have any doors that are orange. The front door is white and the box built around it is orange, so that’s why we call the house the Orange Door.
But that’s about to change. When they repainted the house a few years ago, they didn’t consult us on color, so we ended up with this light mint color. They also didn’t paint the doors, so you can still see the original green. The second of these things always bugged me more than the first, though I do like the original green better.

I have procured a very bright orange paint that will make these doors orange. The goal is to have them done before the Big Party.
We headed to east-of-Vancouver, Washington, so Matt could do a Spartan Race. Here he is on the way to the start.

Here was my first glimpse of Matt after the starting point. As you can see, they get muddy early. He usually wears a blue shirt for races and it was much harder picking him out of the crowd with the black shirt.

And here he is at the finish time. The clock is a general time clock. It didn’t take him three hours to finish.

The victor with all his spoils.
We were at the end of the day—I think the very last race, and you can see the many people who came before Matt grabbed a lot of protein bars.

There were a ton of people. More than I anticipated, and I felt a little uncomfortable. I wore my mask, even though we were outside. Not many people had theirs on.
We parked in a big field and I noted where the American flag they had flying was, so we could find the car after the race was over. But by the time Matt was done, they had taken down the flag.
And this guy was collecting all the tape that corralled people.

I tried on about 20 dresses at Savvy Plus, and this was the winner. I love that it goes with the blue shirt Matt picked out and also that it isn’t blue. It’s not an orange dress, but it has orange in it.
Very quickly after receiving our marriage packet in the mail, this postcard followed.
So very many things delight me about this postcard. This will be the backup plan, if we can’t work out the courthouse wedding.
It’s interesting that our names and addresses were published somewhere. Good thing only J.P. Weddings was paying attention.
My company is having a fitness challenge and I get a virtual badge if I take a hike. So off Matt and I went.
We found a new park called Moulton Falls Park in Washington. It was less of what I think of as a hike and more of a flat walk through the woods. That works, though. It was a nice outing.
My grays are very sparkly in this picture. I’m not sure why.
For our date tonight, we searched out Mike Bennett’s A, B, Sea display, which I read about in the Oregonian. Each day, Bennett puts out another letter in his themed alphabet in his front yard. We were there on the nineteenth day, so could see A through S.

Matt writes postcards to his niece and nephew.
We both posed for this top-notch head-in-the-hole display.


Matt poses next to his initials: jellyfish and manta ray.


I especially liked this elephant seal.

I posed next to my initials: pelican and clownfish. Also, when we visited, there were no other people present. I think maybe families come earlier in the day.


Though no seashells were available when we stopped by, you can see that others have decorated and returned these seashells and they were added to the display.

There were postcards and stickers to take home.

It was a fun find! Thanks, Mike Bennett. After the entire alphabet appears, this will go to live at the Rogue Brewing in Newport.
I’ve driven by this park several times when I take an alternate route to the airport and today we decided to explore it.
You can see the beavers have been busy, and the humans have been busy thwarting the beavers.
Birds on the wing.
The pond!
This was another pond that was separate from the main pond.
The foundation of a house has been turned into a mural.
More pond.
Us and pond.