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July 16, 2010

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

We have really been enjoying the sunshine. After what seems like months and months of rain, I think summer has finally arrived!

We spent last Friday morning watching our ten-year old granddaughter, Ashtin handle her pig at the Marion County Fair. She was one of the four finalists in her group and she eventually placed third and picked up two blue ribbons, a red and a white. Her pig was auctioned off on Saturday and she ended up with $850 in her pocket. She will add the money to her "Washington, D.C." account. Her class is scheduled to tour the Capitol next year. Only the pig she showed went for auction. Leslie is trying to sell the other two, so if you want your own pork, let me know! We're probably going to share a quarter, but I'm sure there's plenty more where that came from!

After spending the night with Leslie, Jason, and girls, we drove down to Florence on Saturday morning. A bunch of the steamers were getting together for a meet on Siltcoos Lake. Since we were running around over in the valley first, we didn't take the Captain Bell. We didn't really miss it as we had no problem catching rides in other boats and in fact, it was kind of nice not to have to worry about our boat. We had nice weather and a great visit with folks we hadn't seen for a while. On Sunday, after saying goodbye to our friends, we made the 4-hour trip north back up Highway 101 to Wheeler.

I have been busy getting the rest of the yard work caught up. I decided to tackle our property that runs along Gamble Street. Last spring, I had someone come in and remove a huge bush that was threatening to take over the street. I'm talking"chainsaw" removal. This left me with the ability to get some more brush removed and open up that space a little bit more. After I get things under control, I plan on replanting the area that we had cleaned up (if the weeds don't beat me to it). Anyway, it is quite a large area and I only can work about 3-hours a day before I run out of energy, so it has taken me all week to do.

We had a nice outing Tuesday evening. We went to Tillamook for a farewell dinner for the former owners of the local radio station there. Van & Joyce Moe have owned KTIL for nearly 30 years and Dave has known Van for much of that time. The event was a "roast" and poor Van was really raked over the coals as a number of really funny speakers paid tribute. Since the station was a long-time Blazer radio network affiliate, Bill Schonely was there to give the Moe's a bad time too. We hadn't seen Bill since the end of the season. It was good to see him and he was glad to see someone he knew when he got there. Anyway, the whole affair was a nice sendoff for one of the last "Mom & Pop" radio stations in the state.

My sister, Jeanne and her husband Bob arrived from Phoenix on Thursday. They are here for a couple of weeks to see family and to attend a reunion. We met them at the airport and are lending them one of our cars while they are here and we needed to hand them the keys. On the way to West Linn from the airport, we stopped for dinner and then went over to see our sister Judy who lives near the restaurant. We had a nice visit there, and then took them to Lara's for the night. After their reunion in Eugene this coming weekend, they will drive down to our place and stay with us for a few days next week. We were down to Phoenix in February and now it is their turn to visit with us. I am looking forward to their visit and hope we have nice weather while they are here. No matter what we have, at least it won't be the 100+ stuff they get this time of year in Arizona!

Dave will be announcing races this weekend and will spend the two days in town while I stay home and guard the fort. Wheeler is having a big crab feed on Saturday and Sunday and I have volunteered to help out with that.