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IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Not much happening to me this week, but have some other news to share.

First of all, we found out last weekend that Dave's Uncle Nick (his mother's youngest brother) passed away. He was 92 years old and had led a very interesting life as a riverboat man. He was always jovial and full of mischief and we are sad to see him leave but are grateful for all the happy memories that we had with him. He had been in poor health for the last few years, with kidney dialysis and a heart problem. He was tired of being sick and just "wanted to go home". His funeral will be on August 2nd in Vancouver.

We also celebrated Dave's sister's birthday this week. All of her immediate family is back in Michigan so we helped her celebrate by taking her out to dinner on Tuesday.

Besides helping out with the Master Gardener's booth at the Manzanita Farmer's Market, I have been taking it easy this week (for a change). My leg is still swollen from the bruise where I bumped it a couple of weeks ago. Besides, we had some pretty heavy rains - which we needed - and that also helped me to stay indoors. I even had to cancel the Wednesday work party at the park until Thursday because of the downpour but then the sun finally came out.

Since the weather was so wet, I got some much needed housework done - things that I have been putting off. My freezer downstairs was iced up so bad I couldn't close the door so I got that defrosted. I also washed the glass chimneys on the decorative and emergency lamps as well as the hanging fixture in the dining room. They were all in need of a good cleaning.

Last year while we were at Gettysburg, our friends Stan and Laura bought us a couple of books about the Civil War and that battle in particular. Dave had started the big one ("Battle Cry of Freedom", 1000 pages) before he got sick, but only recently picked it up again. He finished it this week and I took advantage of the weather to dive in and start reading it. It's an incredibly detailed book, and there are times when it's tough to stay with it, but I'm already a quarter of the way through it. I may finish it soon if it doesn't quit raining! Meanwhile, Dave is reading the other book they got us ("The Killer Angels" about the Gettysburg battle) for the second time. He says that's the advantage of getting older, you never have to buy new reading material, just keep reading the same stuff over again!

We got this picture of our youngest daughter, Leslie and our oldest granddaughter, Ashtin. They went to the Portland Thorns soccer game where Ashtin's sister Paige was a ball girl during the game. She also was lucky enough to catch an autographed soccer shoe from one of the players. Even though we didn't go to the game, it is a great picture to share.

I also made a quick trip into the valley this week. My hair dresser that I use down here at the coast is taking the summer off and I just couldn't wait two months for a haircut, so I went back to my old hairdresser from West Linn to have my hair cut. She's now in Oregon City and since I hadn't seen her for a couple of years, we got caught up on one another's lives. I also had an appointment in Hillsboro to have my annual mammogram so I was able to combine the two tasks and make the trip worthwhile. I got back home late that afternoon.

Our new city manager has been on the job for six months now and we try to get him over for dinner from time to time. He's single and so he enjoys a home-cooked meal. Geoff just got his ham radio license in order to be part of our Emergency Volunteer Corps communications team, but hadn't had a chance to try out his new radio yet. The local group practices communicating every Thursday, so he and Dave had made plans to help him through his first session. We invited him here to participate in the exercise with Dave and so I decided to fix a salmon for dinner. He didn't refuse the radio help or the dinner!