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IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Welcome Spring!

Since it was spring break for the granddaughters, Lara and Greg decided to come down to the coast for a visit for a few days. The weather started out pretty good with some clouds but for a couple of the days, it was raining most of the time. But by the time they left, it was sunny again. It gave them time to unwind from their usual routines and enjoy themselves. They did manage to play on the beach between showers and the girls always love to go up to the park here in Wheeler. It was fun and entertaining to be with the girls, as they never cease to amaze us as to what will happen next.

The (almost) five-year-old Jaysa has decided to change her name and so from now on she won't answer to anything but "Unicorn". Not only her first name but also her middle and last name too. So it's Unicorn, Unicorn, Unicorn. She is possessed with the unicorn now. We are already planning a "Unicorn" theme for her birthday in May.

The youngest one loves Mickey Mouse and so we record all the shows for her to watch on television when she comes down. Jordyn just turned two in February and is being potty trained. She is getting pretty good at it. A couple of misses during the night, but otherwise she has it down. It can be a nuisance at times when every few minutes it's "I have to go potty" and you race to the bathroom - but that is all a part of it. I guess they had to stop twice on the way home from here so she could "go potty".

As a treat, Granddad took the two older girls over to Hal's Emporium - the "dollar-ish" bargain store in Nehalem - so they could pick out something. This is a local store where most of the stuff comes from China and is guaranteed not to last for long. Anyway, the girls picked out some little stuffed kittens that meowed as what they wanted Granddad to buy. Then Jaysa (I mean Unicorn) spied a toy unicorn and it was a hard decision as to what she wanted the most, the stuffed kitten, or the unicorn. Wouldn't you know it; she talked Granddad into buying both of them for her! What a pushover he is!

We took everyone out for breakfast on Sunday at our usual place as a break from me having to cook. Then afterwards they made a trip up to Seaside to ride on all of the amusement things, the merry-go-around and bumper cars. Of course there is always the trip to Candyland for some goodies and they came back with salt-water taffy, a necklace made of candy and all sorts of sugary stuff. That raised the energy levels a few degrees!

We spotted the local herd of elk on the island the other day. You can always tell it is spring because they are busy feasting on the lush grasses that grow over there. I counted about 40 elk in the herd this year. It amazes me how they keep track of the tide change and know when it is safe to leave the island. I guess they do get caught once in awhile. This picture was on the front page of the Tillamook Headlight Herald this week and shows another herd south of here at Tillamook Bay.

Dave has a Blazer broadcast on Thursday and will be leaving for Portland early so I have to write this journal early this week. He will be spending the night in town and won't be back until Friday afternoon. I am not going with him, as I am needed to help with our garden sale preparations. Our sale isn't until Mother's Day weekend in May, but I will be working on it two days a week until that time. This sale is a really big deal around here and it takes a lot of work to get ready.

As mentioned last week, we have decided to do some major stabilization to the old church that is on our property. It is in really bad shape, lots of wood rot and sagging floors. One whole corner is ready to collapse. Dave started tearing out the flooring the other day and it came out by the handfuls. A friend of ours, Ray Hakala is going to help with the project. After getting a fairly negative project assessment from Ray this week, we had to stop and ask ourselves whether the building was worth saving or not. Dave couldn't come up with a good answer other than to say it was his Dad's and he felt obligated to try to save it...even if it puts us in debt for the rest of our lives. It will take a lot of hard work and even more money but we decided to start the project anyway and see what happens. Dave & Ray went to the lumber store on Wednesday to start buying material and Dave will be running the aisles at Builder's City, Home Depot and Harbor Freight for more stuff while he's in town.

We're still not on the new host site with this webpage yet. At this time next week, this site will be gone if Dave doesn't get it done, so there's a bit of urgency to finishing that project. As if he hasn't had enough to do! Anyway, a final reminder: please make sure that the address you are using to get to this page is "www.captainbell.com" because anything else won't work after March 31st.