CATEGORY: MORE PORT TOWNSEND
PHOTOS: 1) ERIC AND BETH
2) ERIC AND BETH AND JENA
3) LARA AND JENA
4) LARA AND JARI

 Eric graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland.  During his last year he spent six months in Afghanistan on an exchange program.  He had intended to go to law school after he graduated, but he needed to get a job and work for a year or two first.  The highest paying job he could find was with the Portland police department which had just gotten an upgrading due to a federal program that also increased officer’s pay.  He liked it so well, by stayed on and never went back to school.  

Eric met Beth, his future wife at Lewis and Clark. Shortly after Eric became a police officer, they were married and then Beth became a police officer also.  After Jena and Lara arrived, Beth retired.  They have been what I consider a model family—a wonderful family.  Beth has been the biggest blessing in Eric’s life, and a blessing to the rest of our family. Their children have been an equal blessing to us all.  Jena is now a medical interpreter at the University of Oregon Medical School, and Lara is a medical doctor with her own office in Salem.   Their plan for the future is for all three families to find a place in the country near Salem that is large enough for a family compound where they can all live near each other.

Now we have two redheads in the family: Lara and Jari.  Both grand daughters and Jari are happily married: Jari to Gary Folker, Jena to Ernesto Gonzales, a commercial artist, and Lara to Chris Jones who takes care of the business end of Lara’s office.  Jena and Ernesto have my only great grand child, Marcelo.