This month's calendar Archives
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
It's supposed to be spring outside, but you would never know by the weather we are having. The other night the wind and rain were coming so hard you could hardly hear yourself talk. When I got up the next morning I expected to see a lot more damage from the wind but only a few things had been blown over. Now we are having a "double" whammy storm that will not only hit us once but is circling around to get us again. Dave came home from a game broadcast last night and said he never did get the windshield wipers off "fast". Even then, it was raining so hard he could hardly see the road. We'll sure be glad when this "La Nina" weather finally moves on. We've had this for the past two years and we've had more than our share of rain in that time.
As a Red Cross volunteer, I signed up for the for the "Three-Capes" (Mears, Lookout and Kiwanda) tsunami drill on Saturday. I got up early because I had to be in Netarts by 8:00 a.m. for the drill that was taking place at 10:00. I wasn't quite sure how to get to Netarts, as it is such a small town (like Wheeler) that it didn't come up on my GPS. I decided to drive west out of Tillamook and head for Oceanside which I thought was pretty close to Netarts. As it turned out, I found the fire hall with no problems and - along with all the other volunteers and we had our orientation and were assigned various spots along the evacuation route. The drill was to be a mock evacuation exercise aimed at simulating the response to a real tsunami. I ended up in Oceanside along with a couple of other volunteers and after the siren went off we had about 60 locals show up at the site where we handed out information about tsunamis. Afterwards we met back at the fire hall for a debriefing and then came home. All in all, it was a successful drill.
Dave has been going back and forth to Blazer broadcasts all week. On Tuesday night after the game, he brought our two oldest granddaughters Ashtin and Paige back with him for a stay with us during their spring break. Dave had gotten their family tickets for the game and afterwards while they were waiting for granddad to get done with the broadcast, they got to shoot baskets on the court and get their picture taken with Ashtin's favorite Blazer, Nicolas Batum. Ashtin was all excited because she had bought his jersey and he signed it. She also got a basketball autographed by him. This really made her day!
Despite the stormy weather, the granddaughters have been having a good time. On Wednesday we managed to get a break in the weather and took a drive to see Ft. Clatsop near Astoria. Paige is studying Lewis and Clark and this was a good opportunity for her to see where Lewis and Clark had actually lived while they explored our area. We hiked along the trail to explore the fort and then on to the canoe landing on the river. The sun actually came out for a brief moment.
Corn Beef and Cabbage was on the menu for dinner one night this week. I wasn't sure whether the girls were going to like it, and to their surprise, they did. It is a fun meal to fix around St. Patrick's Day and I had gotten some extra corn beef and put it in the freezer a while back. Ashtin even liked the cabbage!
Since the weather is so bad it has been a time for indoor activities and one of the activities the girls like to do is play on the Wii. There are also computers and smart phones, Kindles and other electronic devices available to keep them occupied so they don't get bored. I don't know what they would do without this stuff and I don't know what I would do to keep them entertained.
Saturday night we plan on attending the Comedy Night at the North Coast Recreation District. It's a fundraiser to help pay for the renovation of the auditorium and Dave is one of the emcees. A bunch of the locals are putting on a talent show and so it should be entertaining to see. We will take the girls back to Silverton on Sunday. We plan on staying in town for a couple of days as there are Blazer games and an appointment with the tax man. Ugh!
