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June 29, 2007

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Last Friday, since Dave had to be in Portland for a football broadcast, I decided to tag along and we spent the night with Lara and Greg in West Linn. Dave dropped me off at their place around noon and I spent the afternoon babysitting for the two youngest granddaughters. After lunch we headed up to the park for a little fun in the sun before naptime. When Lara got home from work we went out for Chinese food at our favorite spot. It's right near their place in West Linn. Since we have moved to the coast, I really miss not being able to eat there as often.

Saturday, we got up early, and watched the girls out picking strawberries. Then we stopped for breakfast and headed over to my Mom's place. After doing her laundry and visiting with her for a while, we left for Woodburn where Dave was meeting up with Jason to check the electrical wiring on a house that the Woodburn Police Department had bought for training purposes. Dave had volunteered to do this for them. Meanwhile, I was given specific instructions to drive myself from Woodburn over to their home in Silverton via the "back roads". You have to understand that I don't know East from West when looking at a map. Jason drives them everyday, so he is familiar with them, so he had me write down how to get from point A to point B. I only messed up once and had to make a quick turn on one of the roads. But I made it...yea for me!
After getting to their house, I was bombarded by my two older granddaughters who were very excited and each wanted to show me what she had done lately and to play games with them. They have been going swimming each day at the day care since school has been out and then coming home and using their own swimming pool after that. It sure shows, as they both are as brown as Indians. The guys got back later that day and Jason barbecued a couple of chickens on his new grill, along with corn-on-the-cob. After we ate, we left for home by way of Salem.

I have spent most of the week working out in the yard, since the weather was really nice. You are probably saying to yourselves, "Doesn't this woman to anything else, she needs to get a life"!! But, I do love to work in the yard because it is therapeutic for me. An update on my critters: the birds are coming around and I now have three chipmunks visiting the feeders and one fat squirrel. The squirrel doesn't like the chipmunks invading his territory but they seem to know when he isn't around. I have decided to bring my feeders in at night because of the raccoons who destroy everything during the night. They manage to climb up in the tree and unhook the feeders so they spill all over the ground. What a mess they make! So I had enough of that and take them down completely every night. That's kind of a hassle, but the feeders are getting trashed and they can wait until I put them back up in the morning. They will probably picket the place one of these days!!

We also started back from a two-week break in water aerobics on Monday. The instructor was pretty easy on us the first day back and I don't know if it was because we were all huffing and puffing half way through or because there were some "newbies" in the class. Anyway, by Wednesday we were working up a sweat and she even got some new music to exercise with. It felt good to be back in the swing of things again.

I spent part of the day on Wednesday getting ready for company this weekend. I cleaned up around the place, and had the vacuum out to clean all the stuff that gets tracked in on the carpet. Since the tracked-in crud and the carpet are often the same color, I can't see where something needs to be picked up, so I hold the hose up to my ear and I can hear the big pieces as they go by. Hey, it works for me. Anyway, I guess Dave had never seen me do this before and had to run get the camera and document my "strange behavior"!

On Wednesday evening, we met Jason and Leslie at Spirit Mountain Casino to transfer a couple of granddaughters over to us. Ashtin and Paige are down for a couple of days and their parents will join them on Friday night. In fact, I will have the whole family down over the weekend to celebrate an early 4th of July and both Greg's birthday and my birthday on Monday.

The two granddaughters were excited to come and see their new bunkbeds and enjoyed the extra room very much. While they were with us, we took them up to Seaside to the amusement rides that they have there. If you want to feel young again try going on the Tilt O'Whirl and Bumper Cars with a couple of screaming children. We had a great time and ended the fun with a trip to the Candyman Store where they picked out some chocolate to eat.

While we were in the area, we made a stop at Costco to load up on some supplies and over to Fred Meyer for more groceries for this weekend. I don't think we could have crammed another thing in the back of the Jeep. It was full! I was pretty tired by the end of the day and deserved "combat pay" as Dave put it. All in all, it was a fun day with the girls, but it was raining pretty steady all day and we were tired and wet by the time we got back to the car.

Today we are going to go down to the Tillamook Cheese Factory to watch them make cheese and get ice cream. Depending on the tides and the weather, we may also head for the beach to look for sea critters in tide pools. That's always interesting as long as it's not too cold and wet. Their parents will be here tonight and our watch will be over. It is always fun to have them visit with us.

Paige, our five-year old granddaughter lost her first tooth while she was visiting. She was concerned that the tooth fairy wouldn't be able to find her so we assured her that she would be able to find her down at Granddad's and Grandma's. The tooth fairy is very clever!!