This month's calendar                         Archives                            Our Google Calendar                   

October 20, 2006

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

It's been another busy week, in fact, I almost forgot to post anything in my journal. Usually, I get this ready to post on Thursday night, but I woke up this morning and realized I hadn't done that! So for those of you in other parts of the world, sorry this is late! Today is my firstborn's birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LARA! I won't embarrass either one of us with her age, other than to say she still looks like she's 25!

Last weekend, we stayed in town after Wednesday's Blazer game because Dave had to announce the races both Friday and Saturday nights. We drove down to Silverton on Sunday to visit with Leslie and girls and to see their new home. It is a 30-year old ranch home on 2-acres of land. They're about a mile outside of town and it's a completely rural setting. The house is a little smaller than what they moved out of and has been completely remodeled inside. Leslie likes not having to clean the extra space she had in the other place. The 2 acres has a nice swimming pool and tennis court. Their Yellow Lab has already tested the waters and will head for the pool any chance she gets. Luckily, they had a fence put around it too keep her out. Ashtin, who is in the second grade had to change schools and loves her new teacher and gets to ride a school bus, which she didn't get to do before. We are planning to go down there next month and spend a couple of days. The one thing they miss from their house in Salem is that this one doesn't have room for an office. Dave and Jason will build one in one corner of the garage the week before Thanksgiving.

We came home by way of Salem and because it was raining, were delayed by two different car accidents on the road to Tillamook. One was just a fender bender and the other one looked pretty serious. A little truck was over the bank wrapped around a tree. I don't know if anyone survived that one. (Note from later: They didn't.) So many times people will try to speed through this section of narrow, winding road and if it has been raining, the roads can be pretty slick.

I was anxious to get home because the painters had FINALLY showed up last Friday to paint our deck. It was scheduled for last Wednesday, but the people work on "Coast Time" and never show up when they say they will. I was worried that it would start raining and they would have to delay this job until next spring because it would be too damp and it takes about 48 hours to dry. The deck looks great except when I was sweeping off some of the leaves from the storm we had had, some of the paint had started to sluff off! So it looks like next spring after all before they will be able to come back and finish the job. It is only in a couple of spots, so I put all the stuff back on the deck.

We started our SMART (Start Making A Reader Today) program again this year at the school on Mondays. We do a one-on-one reading or have the students read to us one day a week to give them practice reading. Last year, we had mostly 1st and 2nd graders. This year, we have some 3rd graders as well. We both believe that it's important for kids to be able to read well. They tell us that for the first three grades, students learn to read. After that, they read to learn. So there is a sense of accomplishment is helping them. It is a lot of fun.

While we were in West Linn last week, we got Jadyn and Jaysa to stop long enough to get a couple of pictures.

We had to run back into town on Tuesday morning to engineer another Blazer game. We had forgotten about all the delays on highway 26 on the way in. They are trying to finish a lot of road projects before the weather turns bad. I think there was a total of 5 times we had to stop for various projects. Anyway, that put us behind by the time we got to the arena, but we still got set up in time. There wasn't as much stress factor this time and the setup went pretty smooth. However, the game went into overtime plus Dave has to stay an engineer their "Fifth Quarter" program after the game and it was after midnight before we crawled into bed in West Linn. We left the next morning as we had a Chamber volunteer dinner to attend that night in Wheeler. We knew we were going to have to face those construction delays again, so we put the Jeep in 4-wheel-drive and cut off on a gravel road that follows the Nehalem River down to our place. We missed the roadwork and it was a pretty drive down along the river. The Jeep needs a serious washing, but it was a nice detour.

I spent Thursday morning in a Park Committee meeting and that afternoon, puttering out in the yard. I am trying to get plants back in the ground and the yard back in order from our ditch-digging project from a few weeks ago. It doesn't help that the ground is damp from all the rain we have had this week. It was muddy work, but the place is starting to look halfway decent again.

We are finally getting the steamboat out of the water. The weather was so nice a couple of weeks back that we decided to leave it in the water, hoping we could take it out one or two more times. But then it started to rain, and we never did get out again. Besides, we have to go pump all the water out of the boat every time it rains. We can't leave it there and leave town - it would sink if it rained! It looks like we will be able to take advantage of this window of nice weather we are getting - so it is now or never. Then we will scrub the oil residue off the sides of the boat and put it away for the winter.