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September 26, 2008

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

On our way into town last Friday, Dave got a ticket for speeding on Highway 53! If you know how curvy that road is, you realize how hard it is to go too fast. It usually takes a half hour to go the 19 miles from one end to the other. But there are a couple of straight stretches on the road and a cop was coming the other way on one of them! All the times that we have driven this road and there is never a cop, but wouldn't you know it, the one time we were in a hurry, there was one.

After recovering from the speeding ticket, we arrived in town driving a little more cautiously so Dave could attend a Blazer production meeting and I got my nails done. We ended up having dinner with our good friends, Stan and Terri Boyd. They had discovered a new place in Hillsboro that used to be the old movie theater in town. It has been renovated into a restaurant and entertainment center. After you eat, you can go into the theater part and watch whatever is happening that night, a play or movie or live music. It has really become a popular place and the food was really good. Of course, it brought back many memories for me of my younger days when I would spend every Saturday matinee at this theater.

We spent the night with Greg and Lara and got caught up with them and the girls. Not only is Jordyn crawling all over the place as I reported last week, but she's having a ball bouncing around in her "jump seat". The next day after breakfast we ran a couple of errands before we had to attend a baby shower for Rich and Deb. Rich has worked with us at Blazer games for the last 20 years or so. They just adopted a new baby boy and wanted everyone to meet him. Sammy is so adorable and such a good baby. Rich and Deb have waited a long time for this moment and they are adjusting to parenthood very well.

The party was held at the home of a popular Portland radio personality, Bob Miller. Rich works with Bob from time to time and Dave has known Bob for 30 years. Before we left, Bob had to show off his home theater. Wow! He has a replica of an actual theater upstairs in their home, complete with an 8-foot by 4-foot screen. We watched a few minutes of "Star Wars" and it was just like a real theater! After the party, we headed back home.

Tuesday was an especially full day. The north coast had a tsunami drill and our little town of Wheeler was involved. Those of us on the emergency committee were placed throughout the town to direct people to the evacuation points when the siren went off. We all had walkie-talkies and communicated to Dave on what was happening at our particular spot. Then he used his ham radio to talk to the Emergency Operations Center in Manzanita. Everything went very well and it made us all comfortable as to what to expect in case the "big one" comes along. The drill was over around 11:30 a.m. and then I had to immediately go home and get ready for a Garden Club meeting. I had to be at the meeting early as it was the first one of the season and I am the secretary. All the officers were in charge of bringing treats and setting up and taking down chairs. The meeting started at 1:30 and we had over 40 people come, including 12 new members. It was a great start.

It started raining again on Wednesday and continued through Thursday. It has been kind of cold at nights and we have had to turn up our furnace. When the weather is wet, there isn't much to do around here, so I spent most of Wednesday typing up the minutes from our meeting and organizing some of my notebooks for the various committees that I am on.

Thursday our garden club members met at 9:00 and took a bus tour to Woodburn to Al's Nursery and Monnier's Gardens. The bus driver took us the long way there. Instead of heading south on Highway 101 to Salem and then on to Woodburn, he drove north to the Seaside junction and then headed west on 26 to Portland, then down 217 and the I-5 freeway! That's a great big loop and it took us forever to get there! We only had time to shop at Al's for an hour and then see the Monnier Gardens. We finally convinced the driver to take us back home via Highways 22 and 18. It is a lot shorter to go this way and doesn't take as long. Unless you stop at a rest area for a break (and when you have a bus load of women that is bound to happen) and you can't get the bus going again! We were just south of Tillamook when we stopped for the potty break. After the stop, the driver couldn't get the bus back into gear to resume our trip home! He had to call for a replacement bus. That took an extra hour, so we were really late getting home. I felt like we spent most of the day just riding the bus!

Nothing going on for this weekend except for a couple of follow-up meetings on the tsunami drill and getting ready for our guests from Germany to arrive next week.