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July 6, 2007

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Aahh, the sounds of silence! After having company for a week, it seems strange not to hear at least one little voice! It has been quite busy around here with family, grandchildren, birthday celebrations and the 4th of July all in that one week.

Last Wednesday we picked up Ashtin and Paige and brought them down here, and then their parents joined us after work on Friday night. I don't know who was happier to see them, their kids or us! We did have a lot of fun bonding with girls though, and I hope they had a good time during their short stay here. We really need to do this more often so they are a little more comfortable visiting Grandma and Grandad. On Saturday, my other daughter, Lara arrived with her family, so we had a houseful. It sure was nice to have the spare room with the bunkbeds. That was a big hit with the girls. Unfortunately, we didn't have a single night with all four bunks filled. Jason got a call at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday informing him that there was a murder/suicide to investigate, so they all had to pack up and leave so Jason could get back to his job. He got the call and 10 minutes later they were on the road. That's the life of a policeman!! Other than the pictures I posted last week, I didn't get any new ones because I thought they were going to be here another day. Oh well...

Greg and I celebrated our birthdays on Monday. I still can't believe that I am 65 years old! Where has the time gone? We had a nice dinner and Lara baked us a birthday cake that had only two candles (one for me and one for Greg). Greg had a landmark birthday too, but I promised I wouldn't say which one it is! Let's just say that between the two of us, we would have been able to set the house on fire with all the candles we would have needed.

Dave started getting the boat ready for the parade. It has been stored in the barn since last October, so he had to spend a good part of the day getting stuff moved away from the trailer just so he could move it outside. It's amazing how "stuff" will collect in places where it shouldn't be over a few months. One little glitch showed up after he got the boat outside. He had made a list of all the steps he took to "winterize" the boat last fall, and was working his way back through the list when he discovered a note he had left to himself at the bottom of the sheet. It seems he had broken a fitting in October, and forgot about it. So there was some low-grade panic while he tried to duplicate the fitting at the local hardware store. It's not "Steamboat Parts R Us", but he got it done.

We spent a whole day Tuesday polishing brass and cleaning the boat for the big parade on the 4th of July. We put the boat on the trailer and decorate it with flags and streamers. We had a blast! Greg pulled the steamboat with the Suburban and Dave fired up the boiler and blew the whistle along the parade route. The kids and adults that rode in the steamboat tossed candy to all the kids and waved our little flags. There was quite a turnout for the parade and in some places along the route it was 10 people deep. Considering the 4th fell during the middle of the week I was surprise to see so many people. The boat was a big hit with the crowd again. People just can't get enough of that whistle! Dave would blow the whistle and people would cheer all up and down the street! We carried a banner with the Chamber of Commerce logo, and people later went up to the Chamber director and telling her that they had a "great float" in the parade! When we got home after the parade, we barbecued hamburgers and ate out on the deck. Later on that evening we could see the fireworks from deck, but we were so tired from all the excitement of the day we could hardly keep our eyes open for the show!

Lara and Greg and girls stayed until yesterday (Thursday) so they had a nice vacation and enjoyed the beach very much. Between the beach and our local playground, they had the girls out to one or the other every day - sometimes both! The weather couldn't have been nicer. While it was too hot at their place over in the valley with temps in the mid-90's, here at the coast it was a nice 70 degrees.

Today we are leaving for Tenmile Lakes and will be gone for a few days. Tenmile Lakes is located near Reedsport, which is about 4 hours south of here on the coast. We are taking the Captain Bell and are meeting up with other steamers to have a little mini meet. We went last year and really had a great time even though we had problems with the boat after we got there. The boat ran great on the trailer in the parade on Wednesday, so we'll see how it does in the water this weekend. We have been so busy this spring with work and building the storage room that we have completely neglected the boat. We wanted to have it in the water in May. Here it is July and Tenmile Lakes will be the first time it's seen the water in nearly a year! We really don't want to haul the thing 175 miles just to have it not work again, so we really should have had it out for a practice run first. I'll let you know next week how it worked out!