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IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Since President's Day was Monday and the granddaughters had Monday off from school, Lara and Greg came down for the three-day weekend. The weather wasn't all that great but between showers they managed to take a trip to Seaside to let the girls go on some of the amusement rides up there. They enjoy riding on the Tilt-A-Whirl and Merry-Go-Round the best and of course they have to make a visit to the Candy Man Store. They even managed to spend some time on the beach and played in the ocean while they were down. Burrrrr, not this gal!!

The world is getting so technological now days. You just can't help but get hooked on these new "smart" phones that they have now. All weekend everyone was busy on their smart phones and playing games with all the apps available. It is amazing and although I don't have a smart phone, I am just as guilty with my Kindle Fire and laptop. A friend of Lara's dropped by and spent the night while they were here and she entertained the girls with various apps that she has on her phone. This one took your picture and then made you fat. The girls got a real kick out of it! They are so smart knowing about all this stuff, even the four-year-old.

It is hard to believe that our Master Gardener's classes are about halfway through. I have been attending them as I am helping out as a mentor for the apprentices. We have a large class this year of about 21 people and they seem to be enjoying the courses. I am trying really hard to say "no" to a lot of volunteer work this year because last year when I was committed more, I felt like my whole summer was spent doing volunteer work. Don't get me wrong, I love helping out but am being more selective about it. I will have to work in the extension office for a few hours this summer so that I can get re-certified, but I enjoy that.

I have been busy planting seeds. I potted up some Marigolds and cucumbers and they have really taken off. I planted the cucumbers on Saturday and they sprouted by Tuesday and grew about three inches in one day! I ended up bracing them up because they were kind of spindly. I keep them under the florescent lights during the daytime to give them stronger light and keeping them watered so they don't dry out. I am hoping they will big enough for the plant sale in May. I usually don't have any luck growing seeds but I thought I would give it a try.

Dave was back and forth to Portland a couple of times this week. He had to engineer a Blazer broadcast on Saturday night and then again on Tuesday. The NBA is on a break this weekend for the annual "All-Star" game, so he doesn't have to be back until next Thursday. He needs a break also as the NBA is trying to cram in as many games as they can to make up for the short season. He had an interesting ride home Saturday night after the game. He usually gets home around midnight but because of the game being on national TV, it was closer to 1:00 a.m. Then - as if he wasn't running late enough - there was an accident on Highway 26 and he got trapped in that. He was following an emergency vehicle with the flashing lights on when all of a sudden it pulled off the road where the accident was. He tried to continue on but had to stop because the firemen had blocked the road with flares. Then they threw more flares in behind him! He was sort of caught in the middle. Anyway, they finally decided to let him work his way through the wrecked cars and he was on his way again. Then on Highway 53 - when he was almost home - he gave a deer a headache. It was standing in the middle of the road as he came around the bend but Dave put on his brakes and - according to him - barely tapped the deer. The deer staggered off and there was no damage to his car. However, a couple of days later, while going back on Highway 53, he spotted a dead deer lying next to the road - right where he hit one. Who knows if he killed it or if the deer wandered in front of someone else's car? He took a picture of it, but after five days alongside the road, it wasn't in the best of shape, so we decided to pass on the photo.

There's another story to tell about Saturday's game. While Dave was at the arena, he spotted a vintage video of announcer Bill Schonely that was running in the control room. Since Dave worked alongside the Schonz all those years, he was in the videos as well. Dave asked the TV crew if they could get him a copy of the video and they gave it to him before Tuesday's game. It turns out that there were two videos - one from 1979 and the other from 1982. This shot from the 1979 feature was taken off the computer monitor so it isn't the greatest quality, but it was fun to see. Dave is the dark-haired (dark hair?) guy on the left with Schonz on the right. The funny thing is that the guy in the middle is Dave's "brother" Dan McLean, and he has no hair at all now! Dan used to work "crowd control" for Dave - keeping fans from interrupting Bill during the broadcast.

This weekend we have two plays scheduled. We are going to go into Cannon Beach on Saturday night to the Coaster Theater to watch a friend of ours perform in a play called "Gin Game" and then on Sunday afternoon, we are attending the Riverbend Players performance of a skit called "Acts of Love?" in Nehalem. They both should be enjoyable.