Today we drove about an hour from Monroe to Auburn where we visited the new residence of John Robert, my nephew and brother’s oldest. We had been through the Seattle area before and JR and Maria, his significant other, had come to see us when we were in both Chehalis and Concrete in 2014. This time we went to visit them at their newly acquired house and it is a beaut. It is situated at the end of a steep and circuitous road overlooking a magnificent valley.
No sooner had we wandered into the back yard when we spotted a bald eagle soaring about 50 feet from his back fence. In the distance is Mount Rainier and the rest of the snow-covered Cascade range. We also got to see JR’s two dogs, Bruno and Bodie, who are Tibetan Mastiffs and both are as big as houses. We had met Bruno two years ago and he has merely gotten a bit bigger and is very calm. Bodie, on the other hand, is only about a year old and although he liked Peggy (a female) he was not very happy about me (a male last time I checked) and it was quite evident that he would have been happy to take off my arm. He got sequestered downstairs while the group all hobnobbed upstairs. They are beautiful creatures but I would not like them to be pissed off at me when not sporting a muzzle.
Maria’s daughters, Dominique and Marianna, both came over to the house to see us. We normally only get to see these two in Mexico some years where our family get together in Cabo San Lucas each November. When we first met these two they were adolescents but both have evolved into attractive, articulate women and we were delighted they took the time to come see us.