Thanksgiving in Cove Oregon

We spent Thanksgiving this year at Ascension School Camp and Conference Center in Cove Oregon. The organization is under the auspices of the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon and runs camps during the summer for children including children whose parents are incarcerated.

We had heard how wonderful the facility and staff were and when we heard that they would again be offering Thanksgiving dinner and that the Bishop and her husband would be attending, we decided to go there have dinner and spend the night in the conference center.

Cove is about six hours from Bend and the view from the roads through the mountains and national forests is gorgeous.

There were about 35 people who attended dinner, most of them simply drove in for the dinner but there were four couples, including the Bishop, her husband and their niece who stayed the night. We had an enjoyable evening just sitting around after the meal and talking with those staying the night.

One of the things that the Bishop likes to do is to play games – here are a couple of pictures from the game. The Bishop is on the right in the black and red sweater and her husband is sitting at the far end of the table.



Helen with one of the participants.



And finally the Bishop and her husband “relaxing” – except she is answer email on her IPhone.

And the Winner Is?

Congratulations to Ms Helen for winning the People's Choice Award at the "City Walls at City Hall" art competition at Bend City Hall. This competition is a uniquely-themed quarterly juried art show held at Bend City Hall and built around the overall theme of inspiring community with art. The competition is designed to support artists, advocate for the business development aspect of the arts and develop successful partnerships to promote the arts. This is the first year for the show which will hold a total of four competitions this year and to date Helen won the Judge's Prize in the first competition and the People's Choice award in the second!

The theme of the show she just competed in was “Growing Up – Bend Inspires Its Children: Our Future.” Artists where paired with organizations in the city that support the development of children in need and the goal was to have the artist meet with members of the organization and produce art that represents the mission of the organization.

Helen was paired with Healthy Families of the High Desert. The organizations website describes it as “… a voluntary home visiting program that assists families in giving their newborn children a "healthy start" in life. The program offers weekly intensive home visits for first birth, high-need families and a one-time welcome home visit to all families with newborns.”

Family – look closely you may see someone that you know in the images!