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August 24, 2007

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Our week has been great! Good news!!

We got a big surprise from our oldest daughter, Lara. She telephoned us to say that she is pregnant and will deliver the middle of February! This was not only a surprise to us, but to her as well. She didn't even know she was pg and here she is almost four months along! She said she hasn't been feeling well and kind of run down so she went to the doctor who thought she might have an inactive thyroid. They even gave her a pregnancy test and it came out negative! She finally pursued this a little further and went to her ob-gyn and he confirmed that she was pregnant and even took a scan and heard the heartbeat!! How exciting. She had just had a huge garage sale in June and sold most of her baby things. I told her at the time that that could put a "curse" on her! So this is really going to cause a bump in the road for them but I am sure everything will turn out the way it is suppose to and will work out just fine.

Dave went out salmon fishing on Tuesday with a friend. They didn't catch anything, but the guy in the kayak next to them in the river hooked their 21-pound salmon. I wish I could have been there to watch him land it in a kayak. It is hard enough to stay right side up in those darn things let alone try to fish from one and then land one single-handed. They said the guy had a grin on his face you could see all over the river! We had the friend up for dinner that evening as a thank you for taking Dave out in his boat. He brought us some smoked salmon that he had caught earlier this month, yum, yum.

Speaking of boats, a friend of ours built an outrigger canoe and he wanted Dave to take pictures of him testing it out. A couple of weeks ago, he and Dave put it in a small lake near here and it worked out fine, a few adjustments but other than that, it floated. Well, he decided to give it another test run and this time they put it into Nehalem Bay and it didn't turn out as well as the first time. Fortunately for Dave, Ray had another guy in the boat with him and Dave was the photographer on shore. Anyway, they ended up in the water, so it is back to the drawing board to work on keeping the thing right side up!

Dave has also come down with a terrible cold so I have been trying to keep my distance. He has been miserable with a runny nose and cough all week. I finally made him a "hot toddy" last night and gave him an allergy pill hoping that it would knock him out and he could get a pretty good night sleep. It seems to be working...a little.

I have been gathering green beans all week from my four bushes that I planted in my garden in hopes to have enough to make six pints of dilly beans. I have been joyfully listening to the pinging sound coming from the kitchen of the jars that are sealing. That is music to my ears. I also picked a bunch of wild blackberries and made a pie this week. The berries are getting pretty ripe and I would like to pick a bunch more to freeze. Needless to say, I've been holding off on my "weeding" until I get all the blackberries I need. Then those pesky vines are history - at least for this year!

We had the local elk herd grazing over on the island all week. We counted about 50 head and it looks like about four bulls are in the herd. But come this fall, there will be a few separations and the bulls will start claiming their cows. I think we've had a real close-up of the herd more this summer than in the past. It's just about getting to be a routine event, looking out the window and seeing them. Nearly half of this heard is made up of youngsters, and it's so much fun to see them frolicking in the grass, running around and kicking up their heels. It is truly a wonder to watch Mother Nature to see how everything seems to even out.

We are having company this weekend and then Sunday night or Monday morning we are going to take the motorhome and meet Jason and Leslie and the girls up in the Columbia Gorge for a few days of camping. We plan on driving up to Mt. Adams and maybe pick a few huckleberries and visit some of our old stomping grounds that we used to go when we were younger. Leslie wants to show her girls where she camped when she was their age. We will also stop and visit with Dave's cousins who live up in that area. I hope the weather is good.