From the first day of school all students (and teachers) look forward to the last day of school.

That day, for this school year, has arrived.

I officiated my first wedding in college for a friend of mine.

Since that time, I’ve lost count of how many weddings.

Certain ones stand out simply because of the people involved.

I’m always honored when asked to officiate a wedding (except for that one when they asked me to omit “till death do us part”).

It was with great dismay that I learned I would need to wear a suit for my nieces wedding but as they say it’s her day not mine.

Upon spousal advice I waited to locate and purchase the suit in Oregon and save myself 9% of the purchase price.

Let me just say that my mom is the queen of the department store deal.

Not only did she locate a nice suit, she combined enough coupons, affidavits and court transcripts to bring the price down from $500 to $160.

We should have asked her to negotiate our home loan.

The wedding was held outside, which in Portland is a risky thing.

Sure enough, as the lovely Bride began to make her way down the aisle it began to rain.

My first thought?

I’m not going to be able to take this suit back.

So much to say about the road trip with the boy.

We had a great time.

It would have been a better time with the girls so it was just a great time.

Eugene has a special place in our hearts which is odd because of all the bad stuff that happened to us there.

The good stuff in Eugene is still there and it was a delight being able to catch up.

We even talked to the current owner of our old house into a tour of the boy’s birth home at 9PM.

Freaky, freaky, freaky, freaky.

They had not changed a thing!

When I say they had not changed a thing I mean they had not changed a thing!

This was our first house that we began to test and experiment with our remodeling muscles. (Little did we know what we was in store for us).

We walked into the entry way and immediately, as I stood on the tile, I remembered the tile entry being our first official tile job.

The kids rooms were exactly as we had left them (except the new owners stuff was in them and not our stuff).

The girls room was still yellow with the Winnie the Pooh border around the room and her baby footprints on the wall behind the door.

The boys room was still blue with the blue chair rail around the room.

The kitchen was the same, the bathroom we completely remodeled was the same, the rest of the house was the same, green carpet in the family room and all.

It was as if it was frozen in time – or preserved like some freakish graceland.

And then the owner said, the curious thing is we are getting ready to sell the house and move to Tennessee I had to resist asking how much.

We enjoyed our visits with our friends.

As I said, it’s why Eugene has a special place in our hearts.

The only problem with such visits is you never have enough time.