Some people hug trees; others hug fish, but Michael couldn't keep this one because cutthroat trout keepers are limited to those under 15 inches and over 22 inches, and this one measured 21 and 3/4 inches. This is the largest catch of Saturday the 26th of August, as Michael, Mike Rowbury and Paul out-foxed a 90% storm prediction to pull 40 trout out of Strawberry reservoir, southeast of Heber, Utah, before the wind got too rough with the lake. We were able to bring 6 fish home and the other 34 were catch and release.

Paul took a week off to visit Michael and Jenny and as long as he was there, why not install the garden path that we had planned last time we were up to see them. The path consisted of about 400 pieces of paving stone, laid in sand covering weed cloth, in the same manner as our own garden path, and it took a few hours each morning to complete. The hardest part was loading up the car multiple times with paving stones and sacks of sand and then unloading the materials at the site of the construction. The 60ft path was completed by the end of the week.

The front pond is full after a 2-inch storm that hit us Sunday evening. It's still raining into the week - the morning newspaper featured a picture of a man from Seattle who had moved here to get out of the rainy northwest, sweeping water off of the flat roof of his hotel. 'I didn't imagine rain like this', he said.

We had a new electrical service box installed, and the electrician ran a conduit up through the roof on Friday to the air conditioner. Unfortunately he didn't seal the hole in the roof and we bucket-brigaded a hundred gallons of water that came pouring into the bedroom with Sunday night's rain. I didn't have pleasing things to say to the contractor about it.

The Summer wet season has been good to us this year, turning the countryside from a desolate brown in May to a green aspect now, even out in the more arid parts. Clouds typically tower up in the afternoon and conditions were perfect for some picture taking yesterday on the way home from work. No wonder this is my favorite season, at least when the monsoon is in action. The last two days were less cloudy days, but tonight the sky is crowded with clouds and lightning displays which promise a damp weekend.

Back in Albuquerque the monsoon hasn't let up. 2/3 of an inch while we were gone and another 2/3 inch from the storm just over the rainbow as we arrived back, and Paul in his tired mode after the flight back home from Portland. Albuquerque has passed the 6-inch mark for the monsoon and we're closer to 8 inches at the house. 17 inches of rain have fallen in El Paso since July 27. The doomsayers who forecasted a 100-year drought for New Mexico were all meeting up in Santa Fe this weekend, redefining the term "drought". Well, I guess the sky is falling, but not quite as they forecast.

Our good Oregon friends Jan Oden and Ada Pierce attended the wedding. Jan is probably one of the finer fishermen in Oregon and she handed me this picture of one of her recent Alasken fishing trips, with a sizeable salmon. The fellow with her is the guide.

All of my generation of the Griffin family were present at the wedding; from left to right, Shirley and Bob Griffin, Marian and Steve Shipley, and Paul and Marolynn Griffin.

The gift of a quilt to the newlyweds

Vows have been made and the wedding cake is being shared by the bride and groom

The evening of the wedding (Saturday, August 5) has arrived and our daughter Carrie is splended in her wedding dress.

Flowers for the wedding and feast were hand-cut the day before the wedding. We simply could not from home match the brilliance of the dahlias grown in Oregon . The flowers were quite beautiful even in their buckets before they were placed into vases for the wedding. Carrie and Kurt's mother Janet are shown here as part of the flower-cutting crew.

Carrie (and her friend to the left) and Kurt planned the wedding event and used their computer skills to publish highly professional invitations, cards and other necessary print-work. The organization and comfortable aspect of the wedding and dinner afterward gave evidence to the skills of the bride and groom.

This is the big weekend as Carrie and Kurt Revis were married in Portland. We flew up to join them and many friends and family from all over to celebrate the occasion. This picture is of Kurt and Carrie on the steps of their home.